Nuclear crisis a wake-up call

As Japanese authorities struggle to contain leaks of radioactive gas into the atmosphere and contaminated water into the sea, Japan's experience with nuclear energy has proved one thing. It's a great option – until it breaks. Then it's a very bad option.

If any good can come from events in Japan, it's that the wake-up call ringing in the ears of energy providers around the world. In a big, heaving, grunting old city like New York, suppliers are vigorously pushing renewable energy, especially to residents and, especially, businesses.

And in a fractured American political climate where government is often seen as a reckless spender of public money and private enterprise as an economic saviour, it's government that taking the initiative.

“Government has been a leader on energy conservation and efficiency while business has been lagging behind a little bit,” says Michael Perna, Vice President, Business Development, ConEdison Solutions. “Payback for government stretches 10 years. For businesses that's not always good.”

One New York City business that has reinvented its energy consumption is Chelsea Piers, one of the country's largest sports and entertainment complex's located on the West Side of Manhattan.

The pier, on the Hudson River, was the Titanic's intended destination before tragedy cut short that trip. Almost 100 years later, the reinvented 11-hectare site now hosts entertainment venues, soccer pitches, a golf driving range, and a film studio which can claim responsibility for the seemingly millions of episodes of Law & Order that fill our screens.

Chelsea Piers, in some ways a green monster, uses 100 per cent renewable energy – from harvesting wind farms located in upstate New York to installing a compactor that turns waste into water, saving on both landfill and money. Named “Bubba” after a kitchen employee, the compactor saved the money it cost to buy and install in just one year.

“We feel it is well worth it in terms of our environmental leadership,” said Chelsea Pier's David Tewkesbury.

ConEdison Solutions claims its own energy options present an affordable payoff (residential customers in New York typically pay $3.50 per month above standard rates) when the equivalent of over 34,000 cars were removed from the road and an area one-and-a-half the size of New York's giant Central Park was saved from deforestation.

“Our customers are heroes,” said George Lopez, ConEdison Solutions, CEO.

A touch hyperbolic, perhaps, and maybe not quite riding a green tide, but maybe the ship is slowly starting to plot a new course.