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Becoming an Energy-Independent City

Posted by: Nate Berg

5 August 2009 - 9:00am

The City of San Jose, California is on its way to becoming the nation's first energy-independent city, deriving all of its energy from renewable sources.

Biogas is a major element of the city's "Green Vision". The gas is derived from landfills and converted into electrical energy.

"Renewable biogas, which contains methane, will help power the nation's 10th-largest city, which hopes to reduce its per capita energy use by 50% and get the remaining 50% from renewable sources, says Jennifer Garnett, spokeswoman for San Jose Environmental Services Department."

Full Story: Is biogas the way to San Jose's energy independence?
Source: USA Today, August 4, 2009
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San Jose is energy independent?

Submitted by jdavidstein on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 10:17.

J. David Stein
This is a perfect example of the kind of simplistic and shortsighted thinking that passes for good news. How many cars are off petroleum dependence? Lst time I looked, San Jose was one of the more auto large dependent cities in the US. While it may be able to light its streets with bio gas, total energy demands still put the majority of its needs squarely back on petroleum. This sort of self-congratulatory article can only remove the sense of urgency and we need to get a lot more serious, very, very soon. Peak oil is upon us, and coal is no substitute, yet we remain blithely wed to them both here and internationally.

All Its Energy???

Submitted by Charles Siegel on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 08:26.

Actually, the article says:
"getting all its electrical power from clean, renewable sources, as well as diverting 100% of its waste from landfills and converting it into energy"

No need to mention what is their biggest use of non-electrical energy.
Charles Siegel

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