By upgrading to energy-efficient lighting systems in all of its retail stores, auto parts and tire seller Canadian Tire says the $12 million savings it’ll reap in 2010 are just the beginning.

The more efficient lighting systems saved the company’s stores more than 45 million kilowatt hours (kwhs) of energy in 2009 and will expand this savings to more than 85 million kwhs in 2010 and beyond.

The lighting upgrades are also improving the company’s environmental footprint by cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 11,500 tons in 2009 and 20,500 tons in 2010.

But this is just the opening stage of a campaign to boost the company’s bottom line by chopping energy costs. For example, Canadian Tire is building so-called smart stores that are 30% more energy efficient than standard stores built just three years ago. The mix in a smart store includes:

• florescent lighting
• Energy Star approved products
• daylight harvesting
• motion sensors to turn off lights in unused areas
• high efficiency heating and cooling systems, and
• increased insulation.

Full details are reviewed in the company’s first-ever Community and Business Sustainability Report.

A handful of towns were expecting clean, green renewable power from their new wind turbine installations this winter. However, it ain’t happening because the turbines freeze and can’t spin during the cold blasts that make Minnesota so famous.

Problem: The turbines were made in sunny California. But in a Minnesota winter, the grease, oil and hydraulic fluids that lubricate the turbines freeze up and the turbines can’t spin. They just sit there, still. Result: No power.

The turbines were supposed to be on line before Christmas. But they haven’t been working since frigid weather settled in back in. The Minnesota Municipal Power Agency told the StarTribune that the 115-ft wind towers that were supposed to supply clean power to 11 towns won’t be back in operation for another couple of months, when spring comes around.

Meanwhile, in another setback for wind power, officials in Sangamon County, Illinois, are clamping down on zoning rules to restrict placement of future wind farms. The Illinois Times reports that county officials are considering new rules to require bigger buffers between communities and wind farms.

Wind farms would have to be at least half-a-mile away from communities of 10,000 citizens. Larger communities would get a 1.5-mile buffer between them and the turbine farms.

Say goodbye to hopes of an early springtime. It’s time to invest in fossil fuels.

Mixing the two sciences leads to a surprising conclusion: Wind and solar power have a limited future in a warmer world.

So it might be prudent to invest in coal and petroleum for those who have to survive winter weather, which will routinely last six weeks past Feb. 2. The winter of 2010 will be extended because the great prognosticator of winter, Punxsutawney Phil, indeed saw his shadow yesterday as he was carried outside his hut in Pennsylvania.

The tradition of relying on a groundhog to predict the weather evolved from the Dark Ages in Europe when sunny skies on Candlemas Day (Feb. 2 under the old style calendars) meant an extended winter. The Germans added the hedgehog to the prediction technique. This idea emerged in America in 1887 with the twist that a sunny sky meant Punxsutawney Phil could see his shadow, therefore winter would last longer.

Why is this good for coal and fossil-fuel suppliers?

For a couple of reasons, Phil will be increasingly predicting longer winters.

The thinking: As global warming increases in intensity, a warmer Earth will decrease wind activity, which cools land and sea. Warmer seas would bring on more cloud cover, which would hang around for longer periods, so there would also be less sunlight to power up your cell phone.

Conclusion, at least from blogger Hank Green: Global warming will make it hard to generate green power from solar and wind technologies.

One plus from all the extra cloud cover: Fewer visible full moons, so fewer appearances of the Wolfman and other creatures born of the full strength of moonlight.

(Note: Not to rain on groundhog scientist too much, but officially, the Spring Equinox is March 20, so technically, Phil’s always wrong about a late spring arrival. Phil’s prediction of six more weeks of winter brings us to March 16. That means spring always comes early — by four days — according to Phil’s predictions about winter.)

That’s the goal of a new green energy investment plan unveiled by the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband.

To get there, London’s offering lucrative incentives to get consumers to invest in solar panels, small-scale wind turbines and other low-carbon energy technologies by 2020, according to a story in the UK’s 24 Dash.com blog on housing issues.

To get there, London’s offering a “feed-in tariff” plan to purchase electricity generated by these small clean energy systems. For example, for a photovoltaic solar panel system, the government will pay owners to up about $1,000 for the installation.

The UK expects that small scale renewable energy projects — those less than five megawatts — will meet 2% of Britain’s electricity needs by 2020.

Meanwhile in the U.S., prospects for wind energy are looking good for small business and home owners interested in clean energy. Ron Stimmel with the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) points out that his industry’s eying a 30% increase in demand for wind energy projects for wind systems for homes and small businesses between 2009 and 2014.

There are two reasons for rising demand for wind turbines:

• 1) a 30% federal tax credit for wind energy installations that runs through 2018, and
• 2) prices for wind equipment are falling as manufacturers expand production capacity.

Proof: 2009 was a boom year for AWEA members. The group reports that the wind industry set an all time record by installing 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity, enough to serve 2.4 million homes.

And, just for good measure, try explaining why it’s OK to be blacklisted from Wal-Mart’s shelves because your products aren’t green enough to keep up with the competition’s eco-enhanced products.

Reason to take this seriously: Wal-Mart is already working on a sustainability index that will rate the greeniness of all products it sells.

Now Wal-Mart Canada’s taking things to the next step. It’s pushing all of its corporate retail competitors and product suppliers to get on the sustainability bandwagon.

That’s the point of the Green Business Summit Wal-Mart hosts Feb. 10 in Vancouver, Canada. The company openly says the point of the conference is to “accelerate change towards sustainability,” which means everything Wal-Mart touches will have to have some eco-improvements.

Attendees include American and Canadian retailers and product suppliers.

Wal-Mart hasn’t gone soft, but the company smells change in consumer buying habits. It wants to be ready to offer green products or at least offer shoppers a way to pick which product is greener than the next.

The company’s also very much into activities its supply chain companies can do to reduce their environmental footprints. The conference will feature some initial case studies of how going green makes business sense. For example, it will detail how:

• Wal-Mart Canada saved $8 million a year by adopting energy-reduction programs
• Maple Leaf Foods converts food wastes into sales of bio-diesel fuels, and
• Coca-Cola reduces waste generation with its new PlantBottle that is 100% recyclable.

The conference will also feature sessions on energy efficiency, waste reduction, green products and employee green-engagement.

The complete list of suppliers is listed on Wal-Mart’s Green Business Summit Web site and there’s a video about the summit featuring TV personality David Suzuki and Wal-Mart Canada CEO David Cheesewright.

Wal-Mart will also work with the Carbon Disclosure Project to verify greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction claims made by its 100,000 suppliers.

California just adopted a stringent, statewide building code that creates instant demand for a variety of products that can:

• reduce energy consumption
• conserve water use, and
• cut solvent emissions from paints, carpets, vinyl flooring and particle board.

Business and environmental groups welcomed tough efficiency standards just adopted in California. This “Calgreen” code applies to new building construction, both commercial and residential, to ensure it’s environmentally friendly.

For example, the Calgreen code restricts water flows from a variety of products, wash fountains, urinals, showerheads, to gravity tank water closets. The code also requires that builders recycle 50% of their construction debris instead of sending it to landfills.

The state Chamber of Commerce, the building and real estate industries welcomed the Calgreen codes.

The complainers: the EPA-supported U.S. Green Building Council.

The nonprofit told the San Francisco Chronicle that the Council’s not worried about competition in the standard-setting business, but that the California system will create confusion as to which standards to meet. Calgreen does allow for some standards to be more stringent than the Council sets in its LEED green building program.

Note: The California system is cheaper than obtaining LEED certification. Calgreen standards don’t charge for an occupancy certification. Obtaining this from the U.S. Green Building Council can cost up to $50,000, according to a comparison of the two rating systems.

How do green building standards affect your company? Do you see them as opportunities to cut energy costs? Opportunities to sell new products? Or, do you see them as obstacles to expansion?

Let us know in the comments box below.

We’re talking $2.3 billion dollars in federal tax credits handed out by the Department of Energy (DoE) to create green manufacturing jobs in 43 states.

DoE says the credits will generate 17,000 clean energy jobs and provide a boost to 183 renewable energy projects. The 30% tax credit approved by the energy agency is expected to pull in another $7.7 billion in private investment to help companies make:

1. solar cells, panels and arrays
2. wind turbines and microturbines
3. fuel cells for homes and businesses
4. high-tech batteries
5. electric cars
6. energy efficiency upgrades
7. smart grid technology products, and
8. pollution control equipment that captures carbon dioxide.

Some of the tax credits approved by DoE:

• AAF-McQuay, Inc., won $2.7 million to produce more efficient industrial chillers and filtering equipment in Kentucky and Virginia,
• Abound Solar, Inc., won $12.6 million to expand production in Colorado of solar panels made with cadmium telluride semiconductor technology,
• Brevini Wind USA, Inc., won $12.5 million to build a factory in Indiana that will make the gear boxes for wind turbines,
• CaliSolar, Inc. won $53.6 million to build a California facility that will make silicone used in solar cells,
• DuPont won $50 million to produce film coatings used to make solar cells,
• General Electric received more than $92 million to make Energy Star heat pumps, refrigerators, dishwashers, gas turbines, a heat-pump powered clothes dryer and a more fuel efficient airline engine. GE’s also getting credits to relamp some of its manufacturing facilities with fluorescent lighting systems,
• SolarWorld Industries America, Inc., won $82 million to make solar components and materials in Oregon, and
• United Technologies Corp., won $110 million to produce a more efficient jet engine in Connecticut.

All of the Section 48c Manufacturing Tax Credits approved by DoE must be completed by 2014. Roughly 30% of the projects will be ready in 2010.

Total sales of green building products and services is projected to grow by a whopping 146% over the next four years, from sales of $52.3 billion in 2009 to nearly $126.6 billion by 2014. That’s according to the market research firm Zpryme.

Reason: Recognition that buildings consume more energy than any other sector of the U.S. economy has put a premium on products and services that can increase the energy efficiency of business, residential, commercial, manufacturing, healthcare, government and other office buildings.

The biggest growth ahead will be for those that can help public buildings go green. Zpryme predicts green building activity for the municipal market will expand 30% by 2014. Other markets will expand by:

• 24% for educational buildings
• 20% for commercial buildings
• 11% for healthcare, and
• 5% for institutional and R&D facilities.

That’s why the National Governors Association recently adopted a program to help states invest in green building technologies to improve energy efficiency of existing municipal buildings.

The clean energy industry is off to a hot start this year with a lucrative set of tax credits to create those green jobs that President Obama likes to talk up.

We’re talking $2.3 billion dollars in federal tax credits handed out by the Department of Energy (DoE) to create green manufacturing jobs in 43 states.

DoE says the credits will generate 17,000 clean energy jobs and provide a boost to 183 renewable energy projects. The 30% tax credit approved by the energy agency is expected to pull in another $7.7 billion in private investment to help companies make:

1. solar cells, panels and arrays
2. wind turbines and microturbines
3. fuel cells for homes and businesses
4. high-tech batteries
5. electric cars
6. energy efficiency upgrades
7. smart grid technology products, and
8. pollution control equipment that captures carbon dioxide.

Some of the tax credits approved by DoE:

• AAF-McQuay, Inc., won $2.7 million to produce more efficient industrial chillers and filtering equipment in Kentucky and Virginia,
• Abound Solar, Inc., won $12.6 million to expand production in Colorado of solar panels made with cadmium telluride semiconductor technology,
• Brevini Wind USA, Inc., won $12.5 million to build a factory in Indiana that will make the gear boxes for wind turbines,
• CaliSolar, Inc. won $53.6 million to build a California facility that will make silicone used in solar cells,
• DuPont won $50 million to produce film coatings used to make solar cells,
• General Electric received more than $92 million to make Energy Star heat pumps, refrigerators, dishwashers, gas turbines, a heat-pump powered clothes dryer and a more fuel efficient airline engine. GE’s also getting credits to relamp some of its manufacturing facilities with fluorescent lighting systems,
• SolarWorld Industries America, Inc., won $82 million to make solar components and materials in Oregon, and
• United Technologies Corp., won $110 million to produce a more efficient jet engine in Connecticut.

All of the Section 48c Manufacturing Tax Credits approved by DoE must be completed by 2014. Roughly 30% of the projects will be ready in 2010.

The federal, state and local governments are all investing time, money, energy and regulations to promote green building standards to make new and existing buildings more energy efficient.

Reason: Buildings consume huge amounts of power that take a huge bite out of  municipal budgets, so governments are hungry for ways to cut costs. Interest in green building standards, such as those created by the U.S. Green Building Council, is exploding because buildings consume more energy than any other part of the U.S. economy.

Plus, by cutting electricity bills, governments will reduce their carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. So it’s a win/win for them.

The latest action comes from the National Governors Association, which will develop comprehensive action plans for building managers to become more energy efficient. The six states participating in the NGA program are: Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin.

Plus, this green building effort targets existing buildings, so companies don’t have to just plan new construction to take advantage of the energy conservation techniques that will be developed.

The NGA program will address many standard energy efficiency improvements, such as upgrading:

• insulation
• heating and hot water systems
• lighting
• windows and appliances, and
• energy management systems.

The funding for the project comes from the Department of Energy.