Largest U.S. Solar Utility Goes Online as Obama Awards 100 New Smart Energy Grants

With a lot of backing from the Obama Administration, renewable industries and their infrastructures are growing at an exponential rate, making them increasingly available to consumers.

President Barack Obama was most recently on-hand at the Florida Power and Lights DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center as it was powered up for the first time.

With more than 90,500 solar panels, the plant is now the largest solar photovoltaic facility in the country, with the capacity to annually generate an estimated 42,000 megawatt-hours or enough power to serve about 3,000 homes.

Click to read more ...

EPA Set to Spend Millions for Projects and Job Training in Environmental Clean Up

Redevelopment image courtesy of Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, R.I.

In its continuing efforts to clean up America’s brownfields, the Environmental Protection Agency has just announced that it will award $55 million in supplemental funding to qualified loan/grant applicants, in addition to currently operating projects.

The agency also announced that it will provide about $6.8 million in funding to be invested to train workers to clean up brownfields sites, which may be contaminated by hazardous chemicals or pollutants. The goal is to turn these sites into revitalized and productive properties.

Click to read more ...

Grants For Training the Green Workforce of the Future

Stock graphic.

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The United States Department of Labor has just announced the availability of several new grants totaling about $500 million to fund projects that prepare workers for green jobs in the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.

The grant programs being offered are primarily for organizations, companies, and government agencies that would like to the opportunity to train groups of people for the jobs in green industries.

Click to read more ...

EPA Launches Grants Initiative to Clean Up Brownfields Across the Country

A Lawrence, Mass. Brownfield transformed into the Dr. Nina Scarito Park.

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is announcing the availability of an estimated $111.9 million in grants to help communities clean up polluted sites known as Brownfields.

The grants include $74.6 million from the EPA Brownfields general funding program, and $37.3 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Communities in 46 states, four tribes, and two U.S. Territories will share in these grants to help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites.

Click to read more ...

$750 Million to the National Parks Creating Jobs in a Variety of Fields

At the Dinosaur National Monument and Quarry, visitors can watch paleontologists remove fossils in a three-story glass building attached to a mountain, according to Dinosaurland KAO, Vernal, UT. Photo courtesy of Dinosaurland KAO.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congress has directed $750 million toward national park infrastructures projects through the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C..

“Investments in national park infrastructure will help to improve safety and public access; restore our national heritage; and bring immediate economic benefits—including thousands of new jobs in rural and urban communities nationwide,” said Karen Hevel-Mingo, Southwest regional program manager of the National Parks Conservation Association, Washington, D.C.

Nearly 800 projects are planned, which the National Parks Service, Washington, D.C., plans to use to create jobs in areas including: construction, deferred maintenance, energy efficiency equipment replacement, trails maintenance, abandoned mine lands safety projects, and road maintenance.

Click to read more ...