Just like the song about Kansas City, everything’s up to date in Erie. Home to Pennsylvania’s most visited state park, Erie is also home to a lot of green energy companies, and one of the new green economy’s biggest boosters, State Representative John Hornaman (D-Erie).

This podcast features some of the speakers at the Erie Clean Energy Breakfast, held on January 21. PennFuture’s President and CEO, Jan Jarrett, who drove more than 1300 miles in the PennFuture hybrid car to lead discussion at the six clean energy breakfasts we organized in January, once more set the stage for the other speakers. Jan is then followed by Representative Hornaman, one of the members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s Green Dog Caucus. We then hear from some Erie area green business leaders – Brian Gerrits, senior product manager for General Electric, Drivetrain Technologies; Tim Ryan, senior executive vice president of Apex Wind Energy Inc. and Axio Power Inc. and president, Apex Offshore Wind LLC; and Joe Simko, president and general manager for Hodge Foundry.

Passing the Clean Energy and Green Jobs legislation (HB 80) will help these and other green businesses grow here in Pennsylvania. You can do your part to help pass the bill by contacting your own representatives. Just go to PennFuture’s Action Center to urge your rep to vote for clean energy and green jobs now.

PennFuture works every day to make a difference for Pennsylvania’s environment and economy. Isn’t it time to join us and make a difference yourself? Go to our secure website to join PennFuture, and make sure you sign up for our publications. And remember, you can make sure you don't miss any podcasts by subscribing to them through iTunes.

by Christine Knapp, Director of Outreach

We arrived in Hamburg, our third and last destination on Thursday. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany with 1.8 million people and 4.5 million in the region. Hamburg is unique in that it is a city and one of the 16 German states. This allows the city to assume a larger role in state issues like policing and schools. Hamburg is a shockingly big city, especially in comparison to quaint Leipzig, and for the first time in our trip, we used public transportation to go everywhere.

After having lunch with local experts who gave us a general overview of the city, we traveled to visit the Plus Energie Haus- a winner in the Solar Decathlon competition. The model home is open to the public and features passive design features such as high insulation, solar gains, and intelligent sun protection as well as active features like energy efficient appliances, solar thermal collectors and photovoltaic arrays. With an estimated cost of 1.5 million euros, the house is not cheap, but for a long-term owner the energy savings as well as the ability to sell electricity to the grid would make it more attractive.

The delegation next visited the Hamburg Stadtmodell (a building housing a full city model) and learned that Hamburg has been named the European Green Capital of 2011 by the European Union. The aim of the award is to recognize city with high environmental standards, encourage other cities to adopt ambitious goals and to highlight best practices. (On a side note, Pittsburgh has been named the latest North American Green Capital).

Cities are rated using many indicator areas, including transportation, ambient air, waste water, land use, noise pollution and open areas. Hamburg rated well in all areas, and out of 35 cities that applied, they were included in the top eight and ultimately won the 2011 title.

But, Hamburg is not an eco-topia. They still struggle with several major challenges. As their need for residential and industrial space increases, land is becoming scarce. To address this, Hamburg is finding innovative ways to reuse industrial areas, such as the HafenCity development (which we will tour on Friday).

Hamburg is also a major port city, which can lead to many air pollution and other environmental problems. They are addressing this by increasing use of container taxis (one taxi replaces 66 trucks) and creating a land electricity supply for ships.

Another challenge is increasing traffic, so Hamburg officials are building new train lines to the airport, to the new HafenCity development, as well as doubling their network of bicycle paths and creating low emission zones.

And lastly, Hamburg recognizes its vulnerability to climate change, especially the risk of rising sea levels as Hamburg is intersected by waterways. To address this problem, they have created a comprehensive climate policy.

The Hamburg Climate Action Strategy was presented to us by Peter Lindlahr, from the Coordination Center for Climate Issues. This ambitious plan includes 350 projects and initiatives to reorganize the energy supply in a sustainable way, to provide economic stimulus and to be proactive in climate protection.

Peter shared with us 5 "Drivers of Change” within the Action plan:

1) Retrofitting public buildings, exemplified by installing photovoltaic arrays on a cultural center and working with fire and police stations to be more energy efficient.

2) Public Transport projects, such as pursuing a fuel cell hydrogen powered bus (to be toured on Friday), providing automatic driving recommendations for energy efficient train operation, returning of braking energy into electricity network and building new train lines.

3) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) including innovation through smart grid, smart homes and smart meters

4) Potential energy savings for historic buildings is being studied in a report, and thermopictures of buildings are demonstrating the leakage of old buildings

5) Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in which Hamburg is pursuing the implementation of up to 100 gas-driven power generation units with CHP technology

With just two days left, the delegation is starting to compile our takeaway ideas and thinking about how to apply what we have learned back in our home cities. And of course we're all eager to shop for souvenirs and to sample the local beer and chocolates!