Clayton County Launches Infrastructure Upgrades Expected to Save Nearly $575,000 Annually

/PRNewswire/ -- Clayton County will soon undertake infrastructure upgrades to its buildings anticipated to improve its annual budget by nearly $575,000.

The county expects the renovations to save $361,000 in annual utility costs and to generate $213,000 in annual carbon credit revenues. The energy-saving plan offers the added benefits of improving the comfort and productivity of county employees and reducing the county's environmental impact. The upgrades are scheduled for seven county facilities and the county landfill.

Clayton County will formally launch the infrastructure upgrades with a ceremony and reception on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 4 p.m. in the board room at the Clayton County Board of Commissioners office, located at 112 Smith St., in Jonesboro, Ga. 30236.

The ceremony will feature members of the Clayton County Board of Commissioners, including Eldrin Bell, chairman, and two Trane representatives. Local community leaders will also be invited to the event.

The $5.5 million in renovations will be funded with a performance contract, a model that allows counties and other building owners to use future energy and operational savings to finance infrastructure improvement projects.

A performance contract is an option for funding energy-saving improvements in buildings that provides measurable business results. By managing and optimizing energy use, counties can leverage operational savings to support strategic business objectives.

"We're excited about implementing these new energy efficient upgrades in our county buildings that will also improve the working conditions for county employees," said Eldrin Bell, chairman of the Clayton County Board of Commissioners. "We're especially pleased that we'll be able to pay for the upgrades through energy and operational savings."

Energy-Saving Upgrades Meet County Needs

Prior to selecting specific energy conservation measures, officials completed a formal audit of county buildings to identify installations that would best meet the county's needs. In particular, the county wanted to address inadequate cooling at the Department of Family and Children Services complex, temperature control issues at the County Archives building, urgent piping issues at the Annex III building and collection of methane gas at the landfill.

Renovations to address these pressing needs will include replacing or redesigning heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems to increase temperature control, reduce energy consumption and decrease operating costs at the Department of Family and Children Services complex, Annex III, the County Archives building, the justice complex and the Clayton Center behavioral health buildings.

County officials will also install a methane collection system at the landfill to meet forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency mandates. The collection system will enable the county to capture carbon credits as a revenue stream.

Officials will replace nearly 12,500 light fixtures with high-efficiency lighting technology throughout seven buildings. The new fixtures will enhance lighting and reduce related expenses. Additionally, the county will install motion sensors in critical areas of six buildings. The areas include lobbies, kitchen/dining areas, conference rooms, offices and warehouse areas. The motion sensors switch lights off in unused rooms to extend the life of fixtures and bulbs while lowering energy consumption.

The county will replace plumbing fixtures in the County Archives building with high-efficiency devices to decrease water use. Other upgrades will include installing automation systems in six buildings to centralize control and provide remote access.

Outdated building automation systems will be replaced with high-efficiency systems at the Department of Family and Children Services complex, Annex III, the Headquarters Library on Battle Creek Road, the County Archives building and at the Clayton Center buildings. The control system at the justice complex will be updated to work with the new design of the central chilled water plant.

The county will also retrofit the library's main entry to minimize air infiltration and the loss of conditioned air. To reduce the unit cost for electricity and to leverage the current rate structure, the county will consolidate electricity meters within the justice complex and the Lundquist Aquatics buildings.

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Carbon Motors Corporation Announces Five US States on Short List for 10,000 New American Jobs

(BUSINESS WIRE)--Carbon Motors Corporation announced today that 5 US States have made the short list for the location of the Carbon Campus, which will house the entirety of the company’s operations. Carbon Motors is a bold, new homeland security company that has developed the Carbon E7, the world’s first purpose-built law enforcement patrol vehicle. Independent projections forecast that 10,000 new sustainable direct and indirect American jobs will be created driving a $3 billion positive economic impact over ten years in the selected region. Formal Request for Proposals (RFPs) have been issued to local, state, and federal authorities in:

* Georgia (Braselton and Pooler)
* Indiana (Connersville)
* Michigan (Plymouth)
* North Carolina (Charlotte)
* South Carolina (Greenville and Spartanburg)

“We are keeping our commitment to share transparently with the public our discussions regarding the site location for Carbon Motors as we work to foster the public-private sector collaboration needed to provide our first responders the equipment they so sorely need,” said William Santana Li, chairman and chief executive officer, Carbon Motors Corporation.

“Moreover, as we have traveled across the nation during the Pure Justice Tour, we have become even more attuned to the critical needs of our first responders and the nation as a whole. We must innovate our way out of this national crisis, show courage and leadership despite the challenges, create new American jobs quickly, secure our homeland, re-energize our industrial sector, eliminate wasteful government spending, and address our critical energy issues. The White House has called for the country’s entrepreneurs to help bring America back to its rightful glory – we are here to do exactly just that with the most visible government fleet in the country,” continued Li.

“Beyond all the benefits that the Carbon E7 provides, our country has a moral obligation to provide our nation’s 840,000 law enforcement first responders with the world-class equipment needed to secure our homeland. We look forward to working closely with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice as well as the White House and Auto Task Force to insure that we provide our brave women and men in law enforcement the same capability, protection and support that we provide our U.S. soldiers in a theatre of war. Absolutely nothing less will suffice,” said Li.

KEY FACTS

* American Jobs – the over 450,000 law enforcement patrol vehicles that protect and secure our communities across America are not manufactured in the USA. The Carbon E7 will be produced in one of five U.S. States under consideration.
* Energy – the nation’s law enforcement government fleet burns through an estimated 1.5 billion gallons of fuel annually and emits an estimated 14 million tons of CO2; the Carbon E7 will cut that by up to 40% using clean diesel technology, also capable of running on biodiesel
* Homeland Security – over 7 years after 9-11 our country’s 840,000 law enforcement first responders continue to utilize inconsistently outfitted retail passenger vehicles meant for consumer use which do not provide the safety and performance capabilities appropriate to secure our homeland; over 2,800 law enforcement professionals across all 50 US States at the local, state, and federal level helped design the Carbon E7 to specifically address their needs in the field
* Wasteful Government Spending – unlike the U.S. Department of Defense that oversees our military operations, the country’s over 19,000 law enforcement agencies have very limited economies of scale in purchasing the equipment they need and are forced to utilize an outdated and wildly inefficient process to operate and service these vehicles in the field. Moreover, they experience unnecessarily high operating costs due to unacceptable fuel economy, poor durability, excessive service requirements, and critical safety concerns. The Carbon E7 will reduce the total life cycle costs as well as the overall taxpayer burden required to support our law enforcement operations and provide dramatic improvements in safety and effectiveness at the same time.
* Industrial Investment – Carbon Motors will invest over $350 million into developing and producing the Carbon E7, which is slated for start of production in 2012. This amount is less than 1.5% of the $25 billion administered by the U.S. Department of Energy for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. Carbon Motors looks to work with federal authorities to balance the amount of backing provided to struggling legacy players with support provided to those looking to innovate and leverage best practices to reinvigorate America’s leadership in the industrial sector.

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U.N. Climate Change Conference Considers Ancient Soil Replenishment Technique in Battle against Global Warming

Former inhabitants of the Amazon Basin enriched their fields with charred organic materials-biochar-and transformed one of the earth's most infertile soils into one of the most productive. These early conservationists disappeared 500 years ago, but centuries later, their soil is still rich in organic matter and nutrients. Now, scientists, environmental groups and policymakers forging the next world climate agreement see biochar not only as an important tool for replenishing soils, but as a powerful tool for combating global warming.

Christoph Steiner, a University of Georgia research scientist in the Faculty of Engineering, was a major contributor to the biochar proposal that was submitted by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification last week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference meeting in Poland. The new climate change agreement will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"The potential of biochar lies in its ability to sequester-capture and store-huge amounts of carbon while also displacing fossil fuel energy, effectively doubling its carbon impact," said Steiner, a soil scientist whose research in the Amazon Basin originally focused on the use of biochar as a soil amendment. At UGA's Biorefinery and Carbon Cycling Program, he now investigates the global potential of biochar to sequester carbon. He also serves as a consultant to the UNCCD, a sister program to the climate change convention.

Steiner explained that almost any kind of organic material-peanut shells, pine chips and even poultry litter-can be burned in air-tight conditions, a process called pyrolysis. The byproducts are biochar, a highly porous charcoal that helps soil retain nutrients and water, and gases and heat that can be used as energy.

But because the carbon in biochar so effectively resists degradation, it also can sequester carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years, effectively making it a permanent "sink"-a natural system that soaks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Soils containing biochar made by ancient Amazon people still contain up to 70 times more carbon than surrounding soils and have a higher nutrient content. Steiner said scientists estimate biochar from agriculture and forestry residues can potentially sequester billions of tons of carbon in the world's soils.

Biochar also avoids the disadvantages of other bioenergy technologies that deplete soil organic matter, said Steiner.

"Removing crop residues for bioenergy production reduces the organic matter accumulating on agricultural fields and thus the soil organic carbon pool, which depends on constant input of decomposing plant material. In contrast, pyrolysis with biochar carbon sequestration produces renewable energy, sequesters CO2 and cycles nutrients back into agricultural fields."

"This unique system ideally utilizes waste biomass, and thus does not compete with food production," said Steiner. Currently most waste biomass decomposes or is burned in the field. Both processes release carbon dioxide stored in the plant biomass-for no other use than getting rid of it. Biochar can capture up to 50 percent of the carbon stored in biomass and establishes a significant carbon sink, as long as renewable resources are used and biochar is used as a soil amendment.

To address our world's climate change dilemma, said Steiner, "We need a carbon sink in addition to greater energy efficiency and renewable energy. Acceptance of the UNCCD proposal in Poland is a first step to make carbon trading based on biochar a reality.

"This has not only consequences for mitigating climate change, but also for agricultural sustainability, and could provide a strong incentive to reduce deforestation, especially in the tropics."

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