Here at Bright Green, we plant a tree after successfully recruiting new, talented leaders into select, thriving, green businesses. It’s a nice reminder, that while we tend to keep an eye on the bigger picture, an entire forest is comprised of many individual trees.
When we think of renewable energy and the wind industry, we think of the forest, or the large scale wind farms, which are immensely beneficial, yet face criticism due to the minor environmental impact they allegedly cause to the landscape. One ancient town in Italy is actually making money off their turbines and Elizabeth Rosenthal talks about smaller design developments in her NY Times blog article Thinking Smaller, and Still Smaller, on Wind Power.
Smaller projects also exist here in the United States and are having an incredibly positive impact on our people and our planet. Northern Power Systems in Warren, VT has many worthy community projects such as these and the Village of Cascade is one such example:
Faced with rising power costs and a volatile energy future, the Village of Cascade trustees were determined to offer forward thinking solutions to the same dogged question—how to pay for their community’s assets? The answer was apparently blowing in the wind and across a small hill where the village’s wastewater treatment plant is located. Two community friendly Northwind 100 turbines were purchased to generate all the energy required to power the facility’s aeration system, making it the first net-zero energy wastewater plant in the state of Wisconsin. The Village of Cascade will save approximately $30,000 a year with their two Northwind 100 turbines, a significant amount for a community with an annual town budget of $330,000.
With each powerful leader, with each tree or turbine, we are moving the needle towards the solution.