Western communities find innovative water solutions

Ten cutting-edge ways to deal with drought

By Kimery Wiltshire, Carpe Diem West

Around the West, water is scarce, and getting scarcer as climate change hits home. In response, communities are innovating, with impressive results. From Santa Fe to San Antonio to Salt Lake City , Clark Fork, Mont. to Eugene, Ore. -- cities small and large have developed cutting-edge water solutions that will ensure safe, clean supplies for generations to come.

A report

Colorado cleantech 2013

Here are some of the best and brightest

RavenBrick

Denver

www.ravenbrick.com

Dynamic window replacements

“The beauty of our technology is that it has about a four-year return on investment,” touts Chris Ketchum, VP of sales for RavenBrick.

Ketchum explains that RavenBrick’s patent-pending technology can manipulate the electron structure of semiconductor materials, altering their properties in real time. What this means is that windows

One Texas energy industry gets massive tailwind

Companies investing $3.3 billiion over two years

By Kevin Welch, Amarillo Globe News

An international mix of companies has committed to more than doubling the Texas Panhandle region’s production capacity by spending more than an estimated $3.3 billion on construction of wind farms in the next two years.

The area currently has the capability of producing about 1,500 megawatts, but that will go up by another 1,644 megawatts if projects now under contract go

Salazar’s legacy: Saving open lands

Holistic Colorado River operation another piece

Reviews of Ken Salazar's tenure as secretary of Interior have focused on energy, and rightly so. By any measure, what is sometimes called the federal government's "Department of Everything Else" is a major player in oil, natural gas and coal, plus wind and other emerging renewables. It administers one-fifth of all land in the United States.

Yet if you listen to the fossil-fuel folks, Salazar won't be named