With 2012 coming to a close, it’s time to let your philanthropy shine through! ASES is proud to announce that we are part of Colorado Gives day, which takes place on December 4th. Colorado Gives Day is a 24-hour event, presented by Community First Foundation and FirstBank, dedicated to supporting Colorado nonprofits. Now is the time to support ASES’ important work with a generous donation. 100% of your donation goes to ASES.

You can donate wherever you live! FirstBank provides a $300,000 incentive fund that will be split proportionally among the participating organizations. The more donations ASES receives, the larger our share of the incentive fund. Last year almost $13 million was donated in 24 hours to Colorado nonprofit organizations. Help put ASES at the top of the list!

You can pre-schedule your donation to be applied on December 4^th through Colorado Gives Day. Click the donate button which will take you to the ASES page. Enter an amount, click “Schedule a Donation for Colorado Gives Day 12/4/2012,” fill in the other donation details, press “Add to Cart” button, and purchase!

 Donate today to support ASES’ programs:

• ASES National Solar Tour: showcasing thousands of solar homes and buildings while educating people throughout the country.
• SOLAR 2013: ASES’ annual conference, April 16-20 in Baltimore, this year with an added focus on young professionals.
• Solar@Work: providing business-related information about our global energy crisis and real-time news about the solar industry.
• SOLAR TODAY Magazine: now in paper and digital formats!

We know that ASES’ supporters are among the most generous people in the country. That’s why we’re sure that you’ll dig deep to support ASES’ programs that educate and advocate for clean energy. This is YOUR chance to be a philanthropist; even a little can go a long way.

GivingFirst.org is made possible by Community First Foundation, a Denver-based nonprofit. As part of their mission to encourage philanthropy in our communities, the Foundation covers all credit card processing fees on donations made through GivingFirst.org

Community First Foundation helps donors and nonprofits come together to improve quality of life in the Denver metro area. We use our resources to fund community programs, support the services of nonprofit organizations, and assist individuals with charitable giving. By monitoring the pulse of the community, we create new and innovative programs such as GivingFirst.org, an online giving resource, and Colorado Gives Day, an initiative that inspired Coloradans to donate more than $8.4 million in one day last year. We’ve been serving the region since 1975.

GivingFirst.org is an online resource featuring hundreds of Colorado charities. Made possible by Community First Foundation, it encourages charitable giving by providing comprehensive, objective and up-to-date information about local charities–and an easy way to support them online.

When I walked into the Denver Convention Center, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had been to a few other week long conferences unrelated to renewable energy and they were usually 90% yawns with the occasional gem of a speaker. But this conference was different. Oh yes, of course I’m a renewable energy junkie always looking for news on increases in solar cell efficiency or the gradual improvement of renewable portfolio standards in states across the nation, so I probably can’t be trusted to provide an unbiased opinion. However, you have to believe me when I tell you that being in the midst of people representing nations on every continent except Antarctica was intoxicating. During the week, my eyes were slowly opened to possibility once again.

Scientists, policy makers, advocates, radicals, environmentalists, community organizers, academics,geeks, and nobodies like me were gathered together for a week exchanging ideas, asking questions, sharing success and failures, and perpetuating possibilities of a future planet that practices, as the Brundlandt Commission stated, “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” I realized during a dizzying week of Ignite presentations, panel discussions, and plenary sessions that there were indeed kindred spirits working on behalf of a future while focusing on the present. WREF recharged my old fuel cell for what I hope is a long and fruitful life working towards a renewable, efficient, and sustainable world.

And last but not least, a huge thank you to the good folks at ASES who worked countless hours to organize a global conference nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. You’ve contributed fond memories to this blogger that I trust will last a lifetime. Now, I must get back to work…

Photo Credit: Denver Zoo

Denver lays claim to the greenest zoo in the world. We were lucky to have George Pond, Vice President for Planning & Capital Projects at the Denver Zoo outline how they achieved this status at WREF 2012. As Pond reminded us, It’s a zoo story–but it’s not a “zoo thing.” It’s really a story about how large facilities can transform from drains on the system to neutral or net positive in their energy consumption.

As the most popular cultural attraction in Colorado with 1.9 million guests this year, 3,500 different animals and 80 acres in Denver’s city park, the Denver Zoo has traditionally consumed a great deal of resources. The path to becoming the greenest zoo in the world started with simple activities like recycling, saving trees and the Green Team, a group of true believers. When they decided to get serious about sustainability they began by auditing themselves to have facts and figures to establish a basis for understanding and action steps. This means they don’t guess–they have hard numbers to guide them.  At one time, the Denver Zoo was one of the Top 5 largest water consumers with 383 million gallons a year. This was one Top 5 list where they didn’t want to see themselves included. So, they decided to change things starting with low hanging fruit in water conservation, which is critical–especially in a state like Colorado.

When Pond and his team looked at the details of the zoo’s water consumption they were surprised to learn that suspect areas like irrigation and the aquarium only contributed to 3% of the water consumption. The biggest culprit for water use were the bird exhibits which contributed to 54% of the water usage each year. The team scored a big hit by changing the schedule for the flamingo pond by reducing in half the usage taking it from 40 million to 20 million gallons a year. Although it was a very successful project it didn’t come easily. As Pond points out, the biggest impediment to becoming more sustainable isn’t technology, it’s interpersonal. It took a great deal of trust building with the bird staff to reduce consumption while still serving the birds and guests well.

Photo Credit: Denver Zoo

Once they tackled water conservation they decided to find more ways to become sustainable and meet their mission to secure a better world for animals through human understanding. The team originally looked to the elephants for energy generation through  gasification of waste.  If you don’t know what gasification is it’s a high temp/low oxygen process to convert solid fuel into combustible gas.  However, they were quickly told that their elephants just didn’t generate enough waste. Tell that to the zoo keepers! The team then looked to other alternatives to take the waste stream at the zoo and convert it into energy. The challenge the team faced was how to take a diverse waste stream and package it into something that resembled fuel.

To make the zoo the greenest in the world, they had to do a lot of the work themselves, even creating their own Biomass Experimental Energy Development Lab. The zoo currently has patents pending on their fuel creation innovations. To wit, they created what is believed to be the first hybrid gasified tuk tuk. Yep, they’ve got a truck powered by poop. The zoo even had an event where the margarita’s were made in a blender powered by yes–waste.

The team has already reduced their contributions  by an astonishing 1.5 million pounds a year. The Denver Zoo is currently net positive on energy and aims to be a zero waste facility by 2025. Here are a few of the other benchmarks they hope to hit in coming years: save as much as $200k/year, generate up to 1M kWh/year, produce 600k BTU/hr. Renewable energy is so endemic to the way they work now that even though becoming LEED certified at zoo is not very easy they are now in process to become LEED platinum. They’re proud to be leading the way to creating standards for zoos around LEED certification.

The Denver Zoo is actually leading the way around sustainability in general in their industry. Although zoos around the country are implementing solar power, the Denver Zoo challenges others in their industry to take a systems approach around sustainability and renewable energy. Becoming a truly sustainable facility hasn’t always been easy but it has been gratifying for the Denver Zoo. Pond’s advice for others?

Start where you are. 

Photo Credit: Dave Parsons, Denver Zoo

One of the biggest events of the year in the renewable energy field is just a week away.

WREF 2012 will begin on May 13th at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. We have an amazing lineup of speakers on a variety of renewable energy topics from innovations in solar technology to the greenest zoo in the world and much more. This year WREF will also have presentations given in the  fun, fast-paced Ignite style.  This comprehensive conference will also feature renewable energy thought leaders like U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu,  Governor  John Hickenlooper, Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030 and many more in the plenary sessions.

If you don’t have you ticket yet you still have a chance to see  these speakers as a volunteer. We hope you’ll join us!

At National Geographic, Dennis Dimick leads coverage of energy, climate, and sustainability issues. Dennis is the person responsible for National Geographic Magazine’s outstanding coverage of energy, environmental and climate change issues. His presentation, The Era of Man: Stewardship in the Anthropocene is built on dozens of award-winning photographs from NG’s photographers. There is no place else where you can see these photographs together in one presentation.

Photo compliments of CRES

Former Governor Bill Ritter, who now heads CSU’s Center for the New Energy Economy, will share his roadmap for policy makers, governors, planners, and other decision makers to guide the country along the road to a more secure, stable, sustainable, and affordable energy future.

These dynamic speakers, from the worlds of press and politics,  share a vision of an energy future that collaborates with the earth. Their important stories will take you from the natural world to the man-made world—worlds full of wonder, change, and promise.

These two inspiring speakers will probably never appear on the same program again. Order tickets today as part of your WREF registration. You may also add to your existing conference registration or purchase banquet only tickets here.

Photo compliments of CRES

At the World Renewable Energy Forum, Governor Ritter will host a panel of state experts to talk about trends in clean energy policies to drive a new energy economy.  Topics to be discussed include innovations in energy efficiency policy, solar, wind and other renewables, financing models and conversions to natural gas from a coal base load.

In Colorado, Governor Ritter demonstrated policy can drive investment and market expansion.  In the four years Ritter served as Governor, he signed 57 different clean energy bills and saw record investment in the state from the clean energy sector.  Vestas established their North American manufacturing headquarters along with other industry leaders like SMA, Siemens, RES Americas, Primestar, Abound and Ascent Solar to name a few.  During his term as Governor, he raised the state’s RPS from 10% to a nation leading 30% and renewable installations went from 225MW to over 1,800MW.

Come join Governor Ritter and all of us at the World Renewable Energy Forum. Click Register Now!