Economy stimulates alternative energy solutions

You have to spend money to make money. That’s what they say.

If there is anything good to say about the bad economy, it is that it has prompted governments in both the United States and Canada to spend on infrastructure.

President Obama recently proposed a US$775-billion economic stimulus package, which included a doubling of U.S. alternative energy production over three years.

In Canada, the green stimulus package wasn’t quite as ambitious, although the federal government did allocate more than $1 billion toward research in green energy technologies.

But this hasn’t stopped some companies from continuing to invest in and pursue green technology.

ExRo in Vancouver, British Columbia, for example, has invented a variable-speed generator that fluctuates with the wind and boosts power output by 20% to 50%, slashing electric rates by saving energy.

Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. has doubled the size of their company in the last year and Raser Technologies recently finished building a 10-megawatt geothermal plant — enough to power about 9,000 homes — in record time.

Typically, it can take 5-10 years to build a plant. Raser built theirs in only six months. This makes geothermal technology more accessible. By year’s end, it plans to start selling electricity from the Thermo, Utah, facility to the city of Anaheim, California.

So with governments on board and companies forging ahead, it may be possible to blow through this economic downturn.