1/9/09 Supporting Renewable Change

Supporting Renewable Change. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. Renewable energy. We all know it is important and necessary for building into the future. But it requires changes and not always easy change, especially to existing infrastructure. The McKinstry Company is taking the lead on the front according to David Naccarato, Business Development Manager for McKinstry's Idaho Branch. NACCARATO: McKinstry is approximately a 50 year old company headquartered in Seattle. We're a firm that is focused on integrated design build energy services which we really define as two things: projects that are about conserving energy and then also projects that generate energy via renewable energy. That can be biomass, biofuel, wind, solar, geothermal. They incorporate an approach that looks at the life of a building. NACCARATO: We focus not on these large scale what we call utility grade projects, it's not what we tend to focus on but rather these smaller 1 to 10 megawatt type community based projects. Really the focus of the company has always been around total facility delivery. Our approach is not on what we call  what is traditionally a bid/spec or lowest first cost but rather what we call lowest total cost. We want to look at the life of a project and say, what is the best performance over time. A good portion of the existing buildings were constructed before there was any thought to energy efficiency. NACCARATO: In the last several years there's been such a demand for our energy services work which can go into retrofitting schools and hospitals and higher education facilities making them more efficient. Improving the indoor environment at the same time reducing the cost of energy. But then as we look at our work with many forest based communities particularly out of Boise or Montana, much of those states are traditionally forest based communities so we look a lot at putting a biomass solution into our deliverables. As for getting the job done Naccarato says the are very open to new and different ideas. NACCARATO: We focus on being design, fuel, equipment neutral. In other words were not vested in any one technology, any one brand of equipment but rather what is the best solution. For additional information on clean energy and the upcoming Harvesting Clean Energy conference, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org