With the right reforms and investments, Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados could substitute at least ten per cent of their current gasoline consumption with domestic ethanol fuel, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Luis Moreno has said.

Quoting from a study the IDB financed in collaboration with Caricom at the opening of the three-day Conference of the Caribbean at the World Bank on Tuesday, he said that if they adopt the latest technology these three countries could also co-generate a total of 100 megawatts of electricity by burning sugarcane bagasse. The study, on expanding bio-fuel opportunities in the three Caribbean countries and which was conducted earlier this year, showed the potential that exists. (more…)

With emails continuing to overwhelm our mailbox on a daily basis, we feel compelled to let you know that we are not the company that was awarded this contract. In fact, it is being executed by CMS Traffic Systems Ltd. of Mumbai India.

We therefore wish to thank you all for the sentiments expressed especially those from you who recognized the need for a local solution to the problem of unserviceable traffic lights.Â

Guyana Electrical Consultants & Associates -June 2007

GINA May 17, 2006

Residents of Georgetown are scheduled to benefit from government’s energy saving initiative within a week, following its successful completion in several other areas around the country.

The project which began in March, facilitates the free exchange of high-energy consuming incandescent bulbs for low-energy compact-fluorescent lamps and is currently being executed by a team of Cuban technicians in collaboration with the local executing agency Guyana Power & Light (GPL).

It has been successfully completed in Linden, Ituni, Kwakwani, and Mapletown, Region Ten; Bartica, Region Seven and several coastal areas and islands in Region Three.

The project is being rapidly advanced in Regions Five and Six and more than 100,000 bulbs have since been distributed.

Residents and organisations in Kingston, South Georgetown, will be the first in the city to benefit from the programme, after which it will be extended to homes and small business throughout other parts of the capital.

Government is currently awaiting the arrival of some 300,000 240-volt lamps in order to service a number of remaining communities.

Residents are being urged to make full use of this initiative which aims at reducing the national and individual energy bills.

The energy-saving programme is being implemented by other Caribbean States including Jamaica.

A plastic driver’s licence and a test for provisional drivers were among the measures mentioned yesterday to improve road safety, as the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) was re-established.

Chief Executive (CE) of GUYSUCO, Nick Jackson told Stabroek News in an interview on Tuesday that the company will seek assistance from the European Union (EU) for the possible establishment of the ethanol plant at a cost of some US$20M, as part of its diversification programme to deal with the EU’s staggered 36% sugar price cuts.

“GUYSUCO views the potential of this market with much interest as an opportunity for increasing the diversity of products from sugarcane. The corporation has conducted a number of in- house studies that indicate that ethanol production from cane would satisfy requirements for 10% substitution of gasoline in the domestic market and would be technically feasible,” a brief review of the company’s ethanol plan said.

The 10% substitution referred to is also known as E10, a fuel of 90% conventional gasoline and 10% ethanol. Many cars old and new can run on this fuel. With spiralling oil prices many developing countries have been contemplating ethanol production as a means of cutting their fuel bill. Jamaica announced last week that it was embarking on an ethanol pilot programme and the World Bank has said that it is getting numerous requests to finance ethanol production projects. The Bank cautioned that if these projects were not likely to produce ethanol at less than the cost it is produced in Brazil, seen as the global bellwether for ethanol, the projects were unlikely to be funded.

Jackson pointed out that Guyana as a beneficiary of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) agreements would be allowed to export any ethanol produced in Guyana in excess of the 10% domestic substitution market to the USA and the EU duty free.

May 10th 2006  MATAWAN, N.J. iVoice, Inc. (OTCBB: IVOI), announced today it has filed a patent application for a new patent for traffic signal system with countdown signaling and with advertising and/or news message.

The invention relates generally to traffic signal systems for motor vehicle traffic controls at road intersections and other crossings that include at least one stop/go light signal, minimally having a red light and a green light, but typically having a red, a yellow (or amber or orange), and a green light. The system further includes a countdown signaling feature so that a driver may see a signal that illustrates actual or relative time left before a light changes. This countdown is preferably to indicate to an oncoming vehicle with a green light how much relative or actual time is left before the light turns red, but it could signal time left on a yellow or red light or any combination of any of the foregoing. The system further includes a message presentation area for a driver to read, at least while at a red light. The message presentation is preferably news and or advertising, but could be jokes, streaming of a media broadcast or any other message. Thus, the system provides a message that is different from countdown information and presents opportunities for public and private sector entertainment and information.

The system would be an information (including news and/or advertising) and entertainment provider for any intersection requiring traffic signals, and would be outstanding additions to railroad crossings, draw bridges and any other traffic stop areas where waits are protracted and otherwise annoying to the driver.

iVoice CEO Jerry Mahoney said, “Intellectual property is important to a company optimizing opportunities to provide shareholder value. This latest invention further broadens our portfolio.”

iVoice’s commitment to innovative technology continues to help customers meet their client requirements. We believe that our intellectual property and our technology provide iVoice with a superior suite of application offerings designed for a mixture of industries.

About iVoice, Inc.

iVoice has determined that the best way to create shareholder value, separate and apart from the operating performance of iVoice, is to implement new business opportunities by distributing shares of spin-offs to the Company’s shareholders. The common stock distributions are part of a broader strategy relating to the transition of iVoice into a company focused on the development and licensing of proprietary technologies. We also continue to search for potential merger candidates with or without compatible technology and products, which management feels may make financing more appealing to potential investors.

“Whoever did that has a special dislike for commuters,” said Leitzell, who drives from her home near Ogden and Chicago Avenue to her job at a medical center in Lawndale.

Chicago Transit Authority rider Betsy Roth complains that poorly coordinated traffic signals are at least partly responsible for CTA buses bunching up on Michigan Avenue in the downtown.

“If I miss my bus I can look up Michigan and see a caravan of buses going a block, stopping at red lights, going another block and stopping again,” said Roth, a marketing executive who lives in Lincoln Park. “Ten or 15 minutes later, three buses in a row show up.”

Who hasn’t been tempted to stomp off a bus that falls further behind schedule with every red light because it would be quicker to walk?

Or who hasn’t sat behind the steering wheel waiting at a red light late at night when no other moving vehicle is in sight?

Badly timed traffic signals rank among the chief traffic complaints of commuters and lead to frustration, gridlock, wasted fuel, worsening pollution, lost productivity and road rage.

The good news is that Chicago transportation officials at the Traffic Management Authority are focusing on solutions and new technology–as if timing were everything.

By the end of 2006, about 60 more intersections will have signals that are interconnected and synchronized with other nearby signals, according to Yadollah Montazery, assistant director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which oversees the Traffic Management Authority. The upgrade will bring the total to about 460 intersections.

Synchronization involves sequencing the traffic lights to maximize traffic flow through a series of green lights. About 2,000 of Chicago’s 2,800 signalized intersections have synchronized traffic lights.

Signal interconnects often include synchronization. But interconnects allow inclusion of cameras and sophisticated technology to monitor and improve in real time how well an intersection is working because the traffic signals are physically linked by fiber optic cables.

“Typically we have seen a 15 percent improvement in travel times on corridors where signals are interconnected,” Montazery said.

The federal government knows the tremendous benefit of interconnecting traffic signals, which is why it provides cities with 80 percent of the funding for design and construction, he said.

Getting Around drove southbound on Michigan Avenue between Ohio Street and 16th Street during Wednesday’s evening-rush period. My speed in fairly heavy traffic ranged from about 10 miles an hour to 25 m.p.h., but the results were pretty good. I was able to hit as many as five green lights in a row.

The experience wasn’t as good driving northbound on State Street–against traffic lights favoring the southbound evening traffic flow out of the downtown. The travel time was longer than on Michigan due to a string of red lights a block apart encountered on the trip from 16th to Superior Street.

To balance out such situations, Chicago’s traffic management goal includes having the ability by the end of the year to remotely adjust the red-and-green cycles on about 200 of the existing 400 interconnected signals by using cameras positioned above the streets and computers inside the traffic authority’s headquarters in the West Loop.

More changeable message boards are also being installed alongside some of the interconnected signals so motorists will be alerted before they get to the problem areas–and take alternate routes.

Montazery said being able to adjust traffic signals in response to situations, rather than changing signal timings only at predetermined hours each day, will improve traffic flow around accidents, crime scenes and special events.

The CTA, meanwhile, is working to expand an experiment that started several years ago on a Pace bus route on Cermak Road in Berwyn and Cicero. Devices placed aboard buses extend the green-light time to permit buses approaching the intersection to make it through. The system has been particularly helpful in getting late buses back on schedule, officials said.

The CTA is studying several corridors for its pilot project. Officials have tentative plans to test the bus-priority signal system on portions of Western Avenue, said CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney.
The bus-priority system would help further shorten commuting times on Western, where buses on the CTA’s No. X49 Western Express route make limited stops, mainly at streets with connecting bus and rail lines on the West Side.

Pace has generated improvements in running times of 17 percent to 20 percent since it began using the bus-priority system, which sends an optical signal to traffic lights, said Michael Bolton, deputy executive director of strategic services.

The improvement has contributed to rider increases on the route, he said.

Pace is adding the bus-priority signal system on the Halsted Street corridor in the south suburbs near Harvey. The project might also be extended to Harlem Avenue in suburban and city areas, officials said.

“You get much better results when you have transit signal priority working in conjunction with coordinated traffic signals,” Bolton said.

In the suburbs, Lake County is leading the way in using intelligent transportation systems to relieve congestion and get the most capacity out of roads. The county launched a $7 million system in February to interconnect traffic signals along state, county and municipal roads.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is working with Cook, DuPage, Will and Kane Counties to develop similar systems that could one day form a regionwide network.

Approximately 100 of Chicago’s 2,800 signalized intersections are equipped with actuated signals, said Brian Steele, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation. Actuated signals use sensors buried in the pavement to determine how much red, green and green-arrow time to give based on where the traffic flow is heaviest.

Other types of “smart” traffic technology, however, still need some tutoring. In 2001, Chicago tested self-setting traffic signals at about a dozen River North intersections. The signals were designed to gauge congestion and automatically adjust based on the traffic flow.

But the experiment was stopped after several months because the system could not process the high volume of traffic data quickly enough to relay instructions back to the traffic lights in a timely manner, Montazery said.

“The concept is very promising, but there are still technology issues to be resolved,” he said.

The Chicago area, ranked No. 3 for traffic congestion in the U.S., is not alone in the struggle, although it appears to be ahead of many other metropolitan areas.

A recent survey gave poor grades to the efficiency of the nation’s traffic signal operations. More than two-thirds of the traffic agencies surveyed in 49 states said they either had no management plan for their traffic signal operation, or their plan was to simply respond to problems as they occur.

Fifty-seven percent said they don’t routinely review traffic signal operations to determine whether changes are needed based on residential or commercial development patterns, according to the survey, conducted by the Federal Highway Administration and other transportation groups.

USA Today-April 13th 2006

File Photo Wind turbines stand over a farm in this July 24, 2001 file photo

The wind whips up in Dale Doucette’s expansive backyard, furiously spinning the blades on his 80-foot-tall silver wind turbine and leaving a broad smile on his square-jawed face.

The gusts nudge the voltage on his battery bank and help power Doucette’s wood-carving saw, as well as the PC, printer and recessed lights in his wife Michele’s home-based chiropractic office.

But overcast skies mean the Doucettes’ 10 solar panels won’t be as productive as usual. So his two teenage sons can use the computer but not the TV or GameCube.

“I’m the power Nazi,” Doucette, 47, says as the turbine blades emit a shrill hum on a late March afternoon.

The Doucettes live off the power grid, but they’re far from granola-crunching hippies eking out a bare-bones existence in the hinterlands. They live in a sleek $500,000 plaster-and-tile house a quarter mile from electric lines and could have hooked in for $10,000. Instead, they opted to pay about $41,000 for their own solar and wind energy systems.

“We want to be as self-sustaining as possible and get out from under Big Brother,” Doucette says. “I enjoy not getting an electric bill.”

Amid soaring electricity prices, the renewable energy industry is increasingly being driven by families such as the Doucettes who choose to be off the grid for environmental or political reasons and by a much faster-rising number of Americans adding solar and wind systems to grid-connected houses. Such equipment used to be bought almost exclusively by off-the-gridders in remote rural reaches who couldn’t afford fees of $30,000 or more to tie in to electric lines.

Now, in 29 states, homeowners on the grid can get state rebates or tax breaks that subsidize up to 50% or more of the cost of clean energy systems. They then sell the electricity they generate, but don’t use themselves, to utilities, offsetting the cost of the power they draw from the grid as they spin their meters backward and drive their electric bills toward zero.

Seventeen states, and some power companies themselves, now offer utility customers rebates on the purchase and installation of solar or wind systems, up from three in 2000. Florida and Pennsylvania are among those considering rebates. Meanwhile, the number of states with “net metering” laws - which permit customers to sell the power they produce to the electric company at retail rates - has doubled to 40 in the past six years.

Despite a hodgepodge of state laws, the trend points up a budding grass-roots movement to displace at least some of the nation’s power generation from pollution-belching plants to small, clean neighborhood nodes. That eases strains on transmission lines. Some 180,000 families live off-grid, a figure that has jumped 33% a year for a decade, says Richard Perez, publisher of Home Power magazine.

Yet, thanks to the incentives, another 27,000 grid-connected houses supplement the utility’s power with their own energy systems, most of which are solar, says the Interstate Renewable Energy Council and the American Wind Energy Association. Perez expects the number of utility customers using clean energy to overtake off-the-grid households in a decade.

“It’s accelerating very quickly,” says Michael Eckhart, of the American Council on Renewable Energy.

The movement got an added jolt in January when utility customers could start taking advantage of a new $2,000 federal tax credit for solar power system purchases as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

After soaring 30% a year the past five years, sales of solar, or photovoltaic, systems could ratchet even higher this year. Bob-O Schultze, owner of Electron Connection in Northern California, says solar sales have risen 50% annually since 2002. About 75% of his business is from on-grid customers, vs. just 1% four years ago.

Off the grid

For decades, dealers in small solar and wind systems depended on the small band of mavericks who moved off the grid to live in the countryside, where land is plentiful and inexpensive. California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Vermont and Maine have long been havens, though people live off the grid in almost every state.

“These are people who want a big garden, have no close neighbors and the only land they can afford is beyond the reaches of the grid,” Perez, an off-gridder himself, says. Property without utility hook-ups, he adds, can cost about a third less than a standard lot. These days, a growing number of off-gridders could link up fairly cheaply but prefer to be untethered for myriad reasons, including rising electricity rates, a desire to cut power plant pollution and concerns about blackouts or terrorism.

The Wilmington area, in rural southern Vermont, nestled at the foothills of the Green Mountains is speckled with off-grid homes on back roads where the area’s criss-crossing power lines don’t reach.

Doucette, a wood carver, and some friends built his 3,200-square-foot house four years ago on a 22-acre, tree-rimmed property, moving from a smaller grid-tied house a few miles away. Considering his old electric bill ran to $1,700 a year and was certain to go higher, Doucette figures his green energy system will pay for itself in 20 years. But money was not at the heart of their decision.

“We made a conscious choice not to get on the grid,” Doucette says, noting he has long been rankled by the electricity price increases of the local resort town during ski season and by periodic winter blackouts.

Like other off-gridders, Doucette uses his gleaming blue solar panels on the roof of a small shed about 150 feet from his house, as his main energy source. The turbine, another 300 feet away, provides added juice on cloudy days when the wind is swirling.

The power generated by both solar and wind systems is stored in 24 batteries in a bin in the shed. An inverter converts the DC current produced by the systems to the AC current used in homes. The batteries could last several days in the unlikely event there is neither sun nor wind. A backup propane generator kicks in if the batteries get low.

Like other clean-energy homes, Doucette’s two-story, earth-toned house is built for conservation, with energy-efficient refrigerator and dishwasher, low-voltage light bulbs and straw-bale insulation.

In nearby Marlboro, Sunny and Nat Tappan live in an older-style off-grid home, about 2 1/2 miles up a hill off a dirt road on an isolated 90-acre tract. The rustic, timber-frame house, which sits next to a pasture with sheep and chickens, has a composting toilet and no running water (they have a well). Sunny and her former husband bought the property 18 years ago and spent a few thousand dollars on a solar power system. Connecting to the power grid would have cost $80,000, but Sunny, 53, had no interest anyway.

“I love living off the grid and being independent,” she says. “I wanted to live on a large piece of property out in the country.”

Four small solar panels angled on brackets in a garden few feet from the back door supply 680 watts of power. But noting she has no TV, dishwasher or washing machine, Sunny says that’s more than enough, “We use very little electricity.” And if it’s persistently cloudy? “So I don’t vacuum one week,” she says.

For others, living off the grid is a matter of principle. Maynard Kaufman, 77, who lives in a saltbox house on a farm near Bangor, Mich., could have connected to the grid for $10,000. Instead, he spent $30,000 on a solar power system and $12,700 on two wind turbines. Noting he had demonstrated in front of the local nuclear plant, he said, “It was totally a matter of conscience.”

On the grid

For many utility customers, installing an alternative energy system largely boils down to the dollars and cents that state incentives help them save.

California was the first state to offer a generous package of renewable-energy incentives for homes and businesses in the late 1990s as power companies were deregulated. It’s blessed with abundant sunshine and plagued by high electric rates and an overtaxed grid that led to rolling blackouts.

By 2002, California was offering households 60% rebates on solar power systems, as well as tax credits, letting homeowners pay less than 30% of retail cost. Residents send much of their solar energy into the grid during the day when they’re not home, easing peak demands, and draw from it at night when the sun isn’t shining.

Demand for solar power has surged, with about 15,000 utility customers installing systems, and last year the state cut the rebate to 35%. The goal is to use rebates to drive so much demand that solar prices plunge, and the rebates can be phased out. But a worldwide shortage of solar panels, spurred by even-more-generous incentives in Japan and Germany, is keeping prices high until more factories are built in 18 months.

New Jersey is the only other state with a solar incentive program to match California’s. Rebates cover more than 50% of a solar power system’s cost. Plus, households can sell credits for the energy they produce to utilities to meet state clean energy quotas. The program “helps reduce peak demands, and that helps dramatically,” says Jeanne Fox, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. “Our goal is to drive energy generation and a lot of that is to be distributed” in neighborhoods to improve power-plant reliability and security.

Other states with rebate programs include New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Rhode Island, where electricity prices are high.

Clark Beebe, 57, of Springfield, N.J., bought a $50,000 solar power system two years ago for $15,000 after rebates, installing it on the roof of his four-bedroom house. Because he offsets what he uses with what he pumps into the grid, his annual power bill has dropped from $1,270 to $170, though he also installed energy-saving appliances. His $1,100 yearly savings is supplemented by $500 in clean energy credits, cutting the payback period for his system to nine years. After that, he’ll effectively net at least a $200-a-year profit. “I am now an electricity company,” says Beebe 57. “Plus, I’m generating electricity without any pollutants.”

Carrie Buczeke, 42, of Livermore, Calif., rolled the cost of her $54,000 solar panels - $25,000 after rebates and tax credits - into a home-equity loan. She has wiped out her $400 monthly electric bill and pays $300 a month for the loan. After seven years, the loan will be paid off. “It was such a no-brainer,” she says.