Globe and Mail – Digest this: organic waste to go in a giant stomach

“The agreement involves taking 15,000 tonnes a year of discarded food and other organics from stores around southwestern Ontario, or 75,000 tonnes over five years, for processing at StormFisher’s soon-to-be-built plant near London. The facility will generate 2.8 MW of continuous power once it opens in late 2010.”

Biogas is created when organic waste is placed in a “biodigester”, a machine designed to capture methane gas released by decomposing material.

When properly treated, biogas can be used to generate power or fed into the grid and used as a clean, renewable energy source for homes and businesses in place of some fossil fuels. Currently, biogas can be produced only in limited quantities but hopefully, one day will become a viable renewable energy source for Ontario.

Source: jcwinnie.biz

Come and celebrate the success of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act; discuss the hottest topics from Micro-FIT and Feed-in Tariffs, to financing models, the latest technology and local and international case studies. Community Power – It’s everybody’s business now.

Online registration & Exhibitor info
Schedule
Workshop & tours
Contact

The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association has championed Community Power since its inception. Most recently, OSEA played a major role in the creation of the Green Energy Act, working closely with the government to ensure the legislation was the most progressive in North America.

OSEA will be presenting, in cooperation with the Association of Power Producers of Ontario at the 2009 Power Networking Centre (November 16-18) followed by APPrO2009 (November 17-18), will truly provide sustainable energy players of all kinds the one annual event not to be missed.

Conference topics will include:

• Community Power project models
• Project management
• Community Power policy and programs
• Financing models and opportunities
• Grid infrastructure
• Opportunities for First Nations, municipalities, farmers, LDCs, landowners, educational institutions and local citizens
• Capacity building
• Social friction, effective consultation and partnerships
• Planning and permitting
• Feed-in tariffs
• All community power technologies

Who should attend:

• Homeowners, landowners and building owners
• First Nations
• Farmers
• Land investors and developers
• Existing and future Community Power groups
• Municipalities and local economic development organizations
• Policymakers, regulators and government officials
• Commercial power developers
• Researchers and academics
• Utilities and local distribution companies
• Manufacturers and suppliers
• Environmentally conscious financial institutions
• Planners
• Engineers

Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd. is negotiating a deal that could create up to 300 new energy jobs in Ontario. By re-visiting their original plan to outsource it’s manufacturing to China and move operations to Southern Ontario, Sustainable Energy Technologies “could begin churning out product as early as the first quarter of 2010″

“It’s the latest sign that the province’s strategy of attracting “green-collar” jobs may be starting to work. Beyond high-profile wins, such as Samsung Group’s plan to locate manufacturing in Ontario to support its own wind and solar projects, a number of smaller players are beginning to emerge.”

As one of the policy driving forces behind the successful development of North America’s first Green Energy Act OSEA continues to initiate, facilitate and support the work of local sustainable energy organizations through it’s membership services, province-wide capacity building and non-partisan policy work.

Join ecofox and hundreds of other fans on the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association – OSEA Facebook Page.

Artan Gardens is an arts and horticultural organization in Toronto committed to growing more nutritious food and rejuvenating the environment.  Together, with friends, colleagues, schools, business ambassadors, Government and local food groups they aim to Cultivate Creative Culture within urban centers.

Join and support the nation-wide program to grow and propagate heirloom seeds: Seed Your City to Feed Your City. This unique program blends the Arts with Horticultural education.  Artan Gardens provides heirloom seeds and step-by-step guides on how to grow them with an interactive planting and growing curriculum. Seed Your City gives everyone the opportunity to grow their own produce, feed their city, and create stunning edible landscapes.

People need to grow to eat. There is a huge need for more food banks and soup kitchens; local food security is a pressing issue within our urban centers.

Seed Your City will play a unique role in creating Seed Bank systems to Feed people within the community to ensure a continuous supply of healthy, non-genetically modified produce to feed our fellow Canadians.

Raised funds and seeds gathered from the program are traded within schools and community parks for planting and creating Art & Garden Spaces. There are various methods for growing ecologically sound food, which compared to industrial methods, can be more sustainable, nutritious and tasty. Seed Your City creates vital systems for people who actively grow their community. Everyone can be part of the movement.

Join Artan Gardens on Facebook or follow Seed Your City on Twitter for more information about their programs.

Other groups such as CURB have flawlessly executed a variety of eco-tagging & environmental advertising methods around the world. As a really affordable means of communicating a sustainable message, we offer similar and equally innovative earth friendly marketing/advertising opportunities to our clients and hope to see more and more examples of this approach in the future.

I came across this stunning collection of Paul Villinski’s “beer can butterflies” and wanted to share. This New York born artist transforms what would otherwise be trash into gorgeous and very natural looking flocks of butterflies. Each butterfly is handcrafted (cut & filed) and no two are the same. Paul Villinski elegantly describes his process of collecting and transforming discarded beer cans from the streets of New York & New Orleans;

“A kind of conceptual unity develops between materials, process and imagery: my practice in the studio mimics the act of transformation that butterflies symbolize everywhere, in all cultures.”  - Paul Villinksi