Archive for the ‘Energy + Environment’ Category
Stewart Brand at TED
Sunday, August 16th, 2009San Francisco’s Recycling Rate at an Incredible 72%
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009Via cleantechnica.com -
Recycling Our Way to a More Sustainable Future
Published on May 12th, 2009
San Francisco is a city that knows how to recycle. We work hard to give new life to our paper, bottles, cans and other waste.
New statistics released today show we are keeping 72 percent of all discards from going to the landfill – up from 70 percent the year before.
That’s a big leap for one year. The most significant gains came from the recycling of material from building sites – due in large part to our 2006 mandatory Construction and Demolition Debris Recovery Ordinance.
By requiring builders to recycle debris from construction projects, we were able to divert tens of thousands of new tons of material away from the landfill. This ordinance is unique in that it doesn’t require deposits or bonds, making it small business-friendly and limiting the amount of bureaucracy needed to implement the program.
When it comes to our recycling programs, we’re always in the development phase. In order to meet our ambitious goal of 75 percent recycling by 2010 and zero waste by 2020, we are constantly looking for additional materials to recycle, and for emerging markets to make use of our recyclables.
A few years back we developed—along with the company Recology, our partner in recycling — an innovative program to collect food scraps and turn them into organic soil. Local farms and vineyards now use this soil to grow crops, which are then sold back to consumers in San Francisco. We close the loop locally.
We’ve also recently started recycling almost all types of plastic. We take everything except plastic bags and Styrofoam. Most of it gets made into plastic molding and bender board.
A seventy-two percent diversion rate from the landfill is something to be proud of, and I congratulate every San Francisco resident, business, and visitor who helped us along the way. But we can’t rest on our laurels, not when there are so many valuable resources still going to the dump.
We recently conducted a waste stream analysis and discovered that about two thirds of the stuff people throw away—half a million tons each year—could have been recycled or turned to compost. If were able to capture everything, we would have a recycling rate of 90 percent.
That’s why I’ve introduced an ordinance that will make it mandatory for everyone —homeowners, businesses, or renters — to use our recycling and composting programs. If we can get food scrap collection service into large apartment buildings that currently don’t have it, we’re going to see another great year for recycling.
On a final note, the flip side to how much you recycle is how little you send to the landfill. Our disposal tonnage is the lowest it’s been in over 30 years. Our recycling programs can and have been implemented in cities around the world. For more info on our recycling programs please visit - http://www.sfenvironment.org/.
Charity: Water’s promo featuring “Time Bomb” by Beck
Friday, February 6th, 2009Learn more at charitywater.org.
Via Vimeo -
charity: water promo featuring “Time Bomb” by Beck from charity: water on Vimeo.
The First 100% Sustainable Island in the Caribbean
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
My bags are packed. Who’s with me?
Via Inhabitat -
by Kristie Wilson, Feb 3rd
We eco-enthusiasts will soon have a new eco-paradise island to escape to! Bonaire, a part of the Netherlands Antilles, will be the first island in the Caribbean with a 100% sustainable energy supply. In 2007 the local government of Bonaire, who prides on its island’s beauty and natural preservation, agreed to this ambitious project of trashing its fossil fuel energy dependence and developing an energy system comprised of an 11MW wind farm, 14MW biodiesel plant, and a 3.5MW backup battery. Ecopower Bonaire BV, a consortium of Dutch-German companies, Evelop, Enercon, and local Bonaire Water and Energy Company, is spearheading this project that is expected to finish at the end of 2009.
The project developers first installed a pilot 330kW wind turbine, whose current energy production exceeds any of their initial expectations. As a result, 12 more 0.9MW wind turbines will be installed on the north coast of the island, where wind and surf conditions are most ideal. This wind farm alone can meet the energy demands of the island’s 15,000 permanent residents! Still, five bio-diesel generators are under construction for added stability, and developers expect the switchover from conventional fuels to bio-fuels within 3 years of operation.
Like its neighboring islands such as Aruba and Curacao, Bonaire’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. Bonaire has strategically developed its land span of 111 sq. miles and the surrounding coral reed for tourism and eco-tourism, making it a top ranked Caribbean destination for scuba diving and witnessing wildlife. The island’s north side is also home to an array of flamingos, a donkey sanctuary and an ecological preserve. With beautiful beaches, great snorkelling, and 100% sustainable energy supply, what more could an eco-enthusiast ask for on her eco-holiday?
NATION’S ENGINEERS: WE NEED A $2.2 TRILLION STIMULUS
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Infrastructure. Shminfrastructure. Who gives a shit? I’m with the GOP on this one - bridges and roads can only be built through massive tax cuts for the rich. Just because it hasn’t worked yet, doesn’t mean it can’t, or wont. Hell, if you want your infrastructure repaired, I say you fire everyone making under $50,000 a year and force them to rebuild our nation’s bridges and roads… for a few dollars a day. That way everybody wins. Right!?!?!? I mean look at China, they are doing it and they seem pretty cool. Who’s with me?!?!?!
The solution to this financial problemo is easy. All we have to do is follow these fun, easy, and painless steps -
- Give the banks and financial institutions that got us into this mess an elephantine bailout from the pockets of the freshly bent over tax payers, making sure to mortgage the future of our nation’s children as well… Big Check for this one. I think we should do it again!
- Another round of massive Tax cuts for the rich, wealthy, and fucking loaded… We can almost check that one off.
- Demolish the middle class… Half check for that one
- Finally, and officially, enslave the poor… fingers crossed on this one, looks promising though.
I have no doubt that if we follow the above steps we should find ourselves (by ourselves I mean rich white people and Oprah) dancing on sunshine and swimming in a sea of greenbacks in no time at all. Ya dig?
Whew, that went a little off point, why was I writing this again????… Oh yes, $2,200,000,000,000, a broken infrastructure, and a good article from the Huff Post. So without -
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Via The Huffington Post -
US Aviation, Public Transit, Roads, Water Earn ‘D’ Grade: Engineering Report
By SETH BORENSTEIN | January 28, 2009 12:18 AM EST | 
WASHINGTON — America’s roads, public transit and aviation have gotten worse in the past four years. Water and sewage systems are dreadful. The basic physical backbone of American society is barely above failing, a report by top engineers says.
It’ll cost $2.2 trillion to fix America’s ailing infrastructure, according to highlights of a report being released early, just as the House of Representatives readies its first vote on President Barack Obama’s call for a massive economic stimulus spending package.
The country’s roads, dumps, dams, bridges, schools and rail systems need lots of that money, say the engineers, who would get a piece of the pie in working on the repairs. Government officials are already aiming billions of dollars at those physical needs as part of what at the moment is a $825 billion economic stimulus package. But the engineers say that’s not enough.
Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S. physical backbone for everything from schools and parks to dams and levees a D. That’s the same overall grade as the last time the group gave a report, in 2005, but it really is slipping from a “high D” to a “low D,” said report chairman Andrew Herrmann.
Herrmann, an engineer with the New York firm Hardesty & Hanover, said his group is issuing the highlights of the report _ the full document won’t be out until late March _ “to be relevant … investing in our infrastructure will create jobs.”
Of the 15 areas the engineers looked at, three got worse and only one got better. The three that worsened were all transportation oriented: aviation dropped from a D+ to a D; so did public transit; and America’s intricate roadway system potholed from a D to a D-. Only the energy system improved, from a D to a D+.
In 2005, the engineers said it would cost what would be $1.7 trillion in current dollars to fix what’s broken. Now the pricetag is up to $2.2 trillion.
“That just goes to show that waiting has cost money,” Herrmann told The Associated Press on Tuesday evening. “We haven’t made any progress in four years. If my kid came home with 11 Ds and 4 Cs, I know I wouldn’t be happy.”
Story continues below 
America’s solid waste system was the only C+ on the report card. Bridges got a C; parks and rail systems managed C-. The only D+ plus was for energy. Solid Ds went to aviation, dams, hazardous waste, schools and public transit. The worst grades, D-, went to drinking water, inland waterways, roads and sewage systems.
“That absolutely makes sense,” said Granger Morgan, head of Carnegie Mellon University’s engineering and public policy program and an expert who wasn’t part of the 28-engineer panel that handed out the grades. Morgan said just traveling the world shows that American infrastructure, especially in transportation, “is certainly not in the same league as parts of the developing world and parts of Europe.”
But just because the federal government is handing out lots of money and society’s physical backbone needs plenty of repairs, that doesn’t automatically mean the government should spend most of its dollars on things such as new roads and power plants, Morgan said. Often, building newer roads doesn’t fix congestion, yet building better public transit would pay off more, he said. And spending on energy efficiency more than physical power plants makes sense, he added.
“One really needs to make these choices on a bit of solid engineering economics as opposed to emotion and rhetoric,” Morgan said. “We’ve got an enormous pent-up need. The only message is: `Let’s be careful to the extent that we can in the manner we spend the money.’”
And even though the pricetag to fix America’s physical needs is $2.2 trillion over five years, it’s really only half that bad because $1.1 trillion of that is already being spent or planned, Herrmann said. The biggest “gap” between what’s being spent or planned and what’s needed is an additional $548.5 billion in roads and bridges, the report said. Second is $189.5 billion for public transit.
“Do you realize we’re driving on a lot of roads that were built during the Eisenhower Administration,” Herrmann said.
The report, the first one issued since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, added America’s 100,000 miles of levees as a new area of failing infrastructure. Levees, which hold back floodwaters, get a D minus grade, with the report saying, “The risk to the public health and safety from failure has increased.”
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On the Net
The American Society of Civil Engineers: http://www.asce.org
Obama to Give Order to Close Guantanamo Within First Week of Administration
Monday, January 12th, 2009Via The Huffington Post -
By LARA JAKES | January 12, 2009 02:59 PM EST |
WASHINGTON — Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama say one of his first duties in office will be to order the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. That executive order is expected during Obama’s first week on the job _ and possibly on his first day, according to two transition team advisers. Both spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Obama’s order will direct his administration to figure out what to do with the estimated 250 al-Qaida and Taliban suspects and potential witnesses who are being held at Guantanamo.
It’s still unlikely the prison would be closed any time soon. Obama last weekend said it would be “a challenge” to close it even within the first 100 days of his administration.
The Global Oneness Project
Friday, January 9th, 2009The following mission statement, trailer, and video come from The Global Oneness Project website. If you find the trailer interesting I recommend exploring their site further. It is full of interesting, important, and thought provoking content.
If you dig what you see please share.
ABOUT THE PROJECT -
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“The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. Since 2006, we’ve been traveling the globe gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world.
Our living library of films is available for free from our website, through select broadcast outlets, and on DVD. Through events and educational materials we offer opportunities for people to deepen their experience with the different facets of oneness we are exploring.
We hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.
The Global Oneness Project is a special project of Kalliopeia Foundation, a private grant-making foundation in northern California committed to honoring the unity at the heart of life’s rich diversity.”
Nation’s First ‘Underwater Wind Turbine’ Installed in Old Man River
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008Via Wired.com -
By Alexis Madriga
The nation’s first commercial hydrokinetic turbine, which harnesses the power from moving water without the construction of a dam, has splashed into the waters of the Mississippi River near Hastings, Minnesota.
The 35-kilowatt turbine is positioned downstream from an existing hydroelectric-plant dam and — together with another turbine to be installed soon — will increase the capacity of the plant by more than 5 percent. The numbers aren’t big, but the rig’s installation could be the start of an important trend in green energy.
And that could mean more of these “wind turbines for the water” will be generating clean energy soon.
“We don’t require that massive dam construction, we’re just using the natural flow of the stream,” said Mark Stover, a vice president at Hydro Green Energy, the Houston-based company leading the project. “It’s underwater windpower if you will, but we have 840 or 850 times the energy density of wind.”
Hydrokinetic turbines like those produced by Hydro Green and Verdant capture the mechanical energy of the water’s flow and turn it into energy, without need for a dam. The problem for companies like Hydro Green is that their relatively low-impact turbines are forced into the same regulatory bucket as huge hydroelectric dams. The regulatory hurdles have made it difficult to actually get water flowing through projects.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has oversight of all projects that involve making power from water, and the agency has recently shown signs of easing up on this new industry. In the meantime, the first places where hydrokinetic power makes in impact could be at existing dam sites where the regulatory red tape has already been cut.
“I am thrilled to support today’s historic order that allows for harnessing more power from the Mississippi River,” FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller said in a release. “I hope this is the first of thousands of similar projects that produce clean and renewable power from in-stream flows at existing dams.”
Moeller’s enthusiasm could encourage other companies that are trying similar strategies to tap tidal or current power.
Verdant has been testing its own turbine design to capture tidal flow in New York’s East River, but it hasn’t been easy.
“Verdant has spent more money on permitting their East River project that than they did on hardware,” said Roger Bedard, a researcher at the Electric Power Research Institute, who has studied water-current–based energy generation.
Hydro Green’s Stover hopes that his company’s new unit will help shorten that regulatory process by generating environmental impact data that could ease concerns the turbines will disrupt river ecosystems and habitats.
And in the meantime, investors will continue to scour the planet for companies and technologies that could benefit from Barack Obama’s plans to create green jobs. Congress already passed a bill this year to extend tax incentives for hydrokinetic projects through 2016.
“After the wind and solar craze, people said, ‘What else is out there?’” Stover said. “The investment community is quite interested.”
Image: Mark Stover/Hydro Green Energy, LLC
Thomas Friedman: While Detroit Slept
Thursday, December 11th, 2008Published: December 9, 2008
As I think about our bailing out Detroit, I can’t help but reflect on what, in my view, is the most important rule of business in today’s integrated and digitized global market, where knowledge and innovation tools are so widely distributed. It’s this: Whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you. Just don’t think it won’t be done. If you have an idea in Detroit or Tennessee, promise me that you’ll pursue it, because someone in Denmark or Tel Aviv will do so a second later.
Why do I bring this up? Because someone in the mobility business in Denmark and Tel Aviv is already developing a real-world alternative to Detroit’s business model. I don’t know if this alternative to gasoline-powered cars will work, but I do know that it can be done — and Detroit isn’t doing it. And therefore it will be done, and eventually, I bet, it will be done profitably.
And when it is, our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet.
What business model am I talking about? It is Shai Agassi’s electric car network company, called Better Place. Just last week, the company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., announced a partnership with the state of Hawaii to road test its business plan there after already inking similar deals with Israel, Australia, the San Francisco Bay area and, yes, Denmark.
The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy — such as wind and solar — as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.
Under the Better Place model, consumers can either buy or lease an electric car from the French automaker Renault or Japanese companies like Nissan (General Motors snubbed Agassi) and then buy miles on their electric car batteries from Better Place the way you now buy an Apple cellphone and the minutes from AT&T. That way Better Place, or any car company that partners with it, benefits from each mile you drive. G.M. sells cars. Better Place is selling mobility miles.
The first Renault and Nissan electric cars are scheduled to hit Denmark and Israel in 2011, when the whole system should be up and running. On Tuesday, Japan’s Ministry of Environment invited Better Place to join the first government-led electric car project along with Honda, Mitsubishi and Subaru. Better Place was the only foreign company invited to participate, working with Japan’s leading auto companies, to build a battery swap station for electric cars in Yokohama, the Detroit of Japan.
What I find exciting about Better Place is that it is building a car company off the new industrial platform of the 21st century, not the one from the 20th — the exact same way that Steve Jobs did to overturn the music business. What did Apple understand first? One, that today’s technology platform would allow anyone with a computer to record music. Two, that the Internet and MP3 players would allow anyone to transfer music in digital form to anyone else. You wouldn’t need CDs or record companies anymore. Apple simply took all those innovations and integrated them into a single music-generating, purchasing and listening system that completely disrupted the music business.
What Agassi, the founder of Better Place, is saying is that there is a new way to generate mobility, not just music, using the same platform. It just takes the right kind of auto battery — the iPod in this story — and the right kind of national plug-in network — the iTunes store — to make the business model work for electric cars at six cents a mile. The average American is paying today around 12 cents a mile for gasoline transportation, which also adds to global warming and strengthens petro-dictators.
Do not expect this innovation to come out of Detroit. Remember, in 1908, the Ford Model-T got better mileage — 25 miles per gallon — than many Ford, G.M. and Chrysler models made in 2008. But don’t be surprised when it comes out of somewhere else. It can be done. It will be done. If we miss the chance to win the race for Car 2.0 because we keep mindlessly bailing out Car 1.0, there will be no one to blame more than Detroit’s new shareholders: we the taxpayers.
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Make sure to check out Shai Aggassi’s company Better Place here.
Also, Wired wrote an excellent article on Mr. Aggassi and his ambitious plan. Read the full article at Wired.com here.