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.

The school expects to save $500,000 a year in lower electricity bills thanks to newly installed software that maximizes energy efficiency of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system at its Austin, TX, campus.

That’s a lot of green credit thanks to the significant emission reductions that come with the upgrade, which the school says is well worth the one-year return on investment to install the software from Optimum Energy, LLC.

The design cuts power demand by six million kilowatts, which in turn reduces the university’s indirect greenhouse gas and conventional air pollutants generated by its electrical suppliers.

The energy-optimization software can be used in a variety of building applications, including:

• office towers
• schools and universities
• government facilities
• data centers
• laboratories
• medical facilities
• airports
• hotels
• casinos, and
• shopping centers.

The OptimumHVAC software runs controllers provided by Johnson Controls to operate the university’s first, 100% variable-speed drive HVAC system.

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.

That’s the message President Obama floated this week.

When it comes to a choice between jobs and cap-and-trade, jobs are clearly the president’s top priority this year, even though just last week Obama voiced support for cap-and-trade during his State of the Union address.

Obama told a town hall meeting in Nashua, NH, it was time to put plans to create green jobs — by promoting renewable energy projects — on a separate track from capping U.S. GHG emissions. “We may be able to separate these things out. And, it’s conceivable that’s where the Senate ends up,” he told the New Hampshire crowd.

Oddly enough, it was Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) who was the fastest and loudest to denounce Obama’s apparent willingness to give up on a cap-and-trade bill, according to a report in The New York Times. The White House quickly insisted that cap-and-trade is still a Presidential priority.

However, Graham dismissed Obama’s plan to separate cap-and-trade from an energy policy as “half-assed.” The South Carolina Senator fears an energy-only bill won’t promote nuclear power and expanding off-shore drilling for oil.

Graham doesn’t think environmentalists will support his nuclear power and drilling goals without a cap-and-trade program. That’s why he’s seeking a compromise position.

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.)

It just takes a bit of planning to create a green office.

That’s how State Farm real estate agent Christine Moscantolo obtained a silver level, green business certification. She worked with Green Impact Solutions, Inc., to identify green products to use when she renovated her office in Allentown, PA.

Once the plan was in place, the transformation into a green office proved to be something that any office in any business setting can adopt. Moscantolo:

• used paints that don’t contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the renovation of her office
• purchased only computers and appliances that are certified by EPA’s Energy Star program
• selected office plants that eat VOC vapors to help ensure good indoor air quality for employees and customers
• processes half of their insurance policies online, reducing need for paper-based products
• gets customers to file electronic signatures, and
• sends all faxes through email.

Moscantolo’s office is the first State Farm office to win a Green Business Certification from the Green Business League.

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.

Most start with a good idea then keep adapting and changing with the times. One of the big changes today: energy efficiency.

That’s the lesson to learn from fast-food king, McDonald’s, which tackles change gradually, not overnight.

The company’s latest green push: a corporate goal to reduce energy consumption at every outlet by 3%. The reductions will not only trim operating expenses, they’ll end up crediting the chain with huge greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions.

That’s a 3% GHG reduction times 32,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries.

This new goal was added to a growing list of ways the company reduces its environmental footprint. They’re detailed in McDonald’s 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report. For example, McDonald’s is also:

• limiting white fish suppliers to fisheries that have favorable sustainability ratings
• developing a toaster that uses 28% less electricity that current models
• introducing a food storage unit that uses 30% less power
• reducing the amount of packaging for its meals
• encouraging its customers to help each store recycling paper and containers, and
• recycling cooking oil and turning it into bio-diesel fuel.

The push to create environmentally friendly programs may not please the most vociferous critics like Greenpeace, but these actions do create good karma for the chain as it deals with increasingly tough GHG reduction demands around the world.

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.

Some highlights gleaned from the musings of Web bloggers since the green thing really exploded in the last couple of years.

Bad idea #1: Reusable grocery bags. Sure the idea sounds like a great way to get away from the plastic bag. But as one blogger pointed out: Where else can you get a free source of trash-can liners and plastic bags to carry home a wet bathing suit or to pick up after your dog? She also discovered that reusable bags totally outperform paper and plastic. They’re so strong and durable that she ended up buying way more groceries than she planned and needed help getting them out to her car.

Bad idea #2: The computer-powered flower pot. Relying on the basics, like sun, soil and water is too much bother. What busy exec has time to remember to water the thing? Why bother when your computer can do all the work and just tell you about it? That’s the thinking behind the plastic flower pot that hooks into your computer’s USB port to supply light and monitor growth. Computer gets to run 24/7 on your dime, to do what the sun did in only half a day for free.

Bad idea #3: Green anti-virus spyware. Oh, think you can save the planet by somehow cutting power usage of your computer while you’re working away? Don’t bet on it. There’s a new computer bug linked to the “Eco Anti Virus” software that claims to hunt down evil software while improving the efficiency of your computer. Don’t touch this one. It is a virus and will deluge you with fake security alerts and force you to go to the Eco Anti Virus Web site to buy its product.

Bad idea #4: Solar powered necktie and jacket. Haven’t seen one yet in church, at the diner or while waiting in a Wal-Mart checkout line? What’s the power for? To hold the tie flat in a breeze? Maybe it really does repower your cell phone, but it didn’t win any kudos from the green movement. Maybe if they had made a solar-powered fork and spoon to go with the electric knife it might have caught on.

Bad idea #5: The Energy Curtain. What a great idea, this solar powered window shade collects enough juice during the day to provide free light at night. Unfortunately, the shade must be drawn all day to soak in the sunlight, so anyone in the house has to turn on a light to get this electric glow at night. Hmmmm.

Seen any other oddball green ideas? Share them in the comments section for everyone to enjoy.