Industry Watch: Hybrid Cars

Hybrid Scorecard 2011

Hybrid Scorecard for 2011 Shows Automakers Not Delivering Enough 'High Value' Models
Stronger Vehicle Efficiency Standards Needed to Make the Most of Hybrid Technology

WASHINGTON (July 6, 2011) – The current crop of hybrid vehicles demonstrate automakers know how to provide dramatic fuel savings and pollution reductions, but have yet to fully deliver those benefits, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) announced today.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) released its 2011 Hybrid Scorecard that rates 34 Non-Luxury and Luxury cars for their fuel efficiency, environmental improvement, consumer value, and the “forced features” automakers install that artificially inflate the cost of some models.

Industry Watch: Electric Vehicles

Coulomb Technologies to install 4,600 electric vehicle charging stations
LA Times: June 7, 2010 by Tiffany Hsu

California will receive about a third of the 4,600 electric vehicle charging stations that Coulomb Technologies plans to install for free around the country.

The company, based in Campbell, Calif., will immediately start setting up public and private stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose and San Francisco Bay Area. The stations will also go up in Austin, Texas; Detroit; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Redmond, Wash.; and Washington, D.C.

Once installation launches in the coming weeks, more than 1,000 stations are scheduled to be put in by December, with the rest to be in place by September 2011.

6 6 6 6 6 6 6

The installations are part of a $37-million project called ChargePoint America, funded partly by a $15-million stimulus grant administered by the Department of Energy through the Transportation Electrification Initiative. Once the stations are in place, Purdue University and Idaho National Labs will analyze data about vehicle use and charging patterns.

Coulomb already has 700 stations operating around the country, with 130 customers. READ MORE !

Utility Watch: Geothermal

Power plan fizzles out
Burbank won’t be getting energy from underground project after Los Angeles shelves its plans.
Burbank Leader: April 14, 2010 by Zain Shauk

Burbank and Glendale utilities are looking for new renewable-energy sources after a decision last month by a Los Angeles utility to cancel plans for shared transmission lines for a geothermal project.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power abandoned its plans for a Green Path transmission line to the Salton Sea. The line could have carried up to 500,000 volts of power from an area that utility officials say has great potential for geothermal power generation.

Power generated from heat, captured underground near the edges of tectonic plates, is also considered more reliable than solar rays or wind, utility managers said.

Opposition from environmental groups and community organizations along the proposed transmission line, which would have run through multiple wildlife preserves and the San Bernardino National Forest, ultimately derailed the plans, local utility managers said.

6 6 6 6 6 6 6

Burbank Water and Power had anticipated receiving about 5.5% of its peak load of electricity from geothermal projects through the Green Path line.

Glendale Water & Power had expected a similar amount.

Both utilities have committed to getting roughly a third of their power from renewable sources by 2020. Burbank is at about 10%, Glendale at 23%. READ MORE !

Geothermal Power – Neil Morris
Smart Apple Media, 2007
J 621.4 MORRI

Industry Watch: eBooks

How Green Is My iPad?
NYTimes: April 4, 2010 by Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris

With e-readers like Apple’s new iPad and Amazon’s Kindle touting their vast libraries of digital titles, some bookworms are bound to wonder if tomes-on-paper will one day become quaint relics. But the question also arises, which is more environmentally friendly: an e-reader or an old-fashioned book?

To find the answer, we turned to life-cycle assessment, which evaluates the ecological impact of any product, at every stage of its existence, from the first tree cut down for paper to the day that hardcover decomposes in the dump. With this method, we can determine the greenest way to read.

(A note about e-readers: some technical details — for instance, how those special screens are manufactured — are not publicly available and these products vary in their exact composition. We’ve based our estimates on a composite derived from available information. It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re focusing on the e-reader aspect of these devices, not any other functions they may offer.)

Step One: Materials

One e-reader requires the extraction of 33 pounds of minerals. That includes trace amounts of exotic metals like columbite-tantalite, often mined in war-torn regions of Africa. But it’s mostly sand and gravel to build landfills; they hold all the waste from manufacturing wafer boards for the integrated circuits. An e-reader also requires 79 gallons of water to produce its batteries and printed wiring boards, and in refining metals like the gold used in trace quantities in the circuits.

A book made with recycled paper consumes about two-thirds of a pound of minerals. (Here again, the greatest mineral use is actually gravel, mainly for the roads used to transport materials throughout the supply chain.) And it requires just 2 gallons of water to make the pulp slurry that is then pressed and heat-dried to make paper.

6 6 6 6 6 6 6

Step Two: Manufacture
Step Three: Transportation
Step Four: Reading
Step Five: Disposal

6 6 6 6 6 6 6

So, how many volumes do you need to read on your e-reader to break even?

With respect to fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption, the impact of one e-reader payback equals roughly 40 to 50 books. When it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books; with human health consequences, it’s somewhere in between.

All in all, the most ecologically virtuous way to read a book starts by walking to your local library. READ MORE !

Industry Watch: Wind

Wind Energy Job Growth Isn’t Blowing Anyone Away
Despite record growth in generating capacity, the industry is creating few employment opportunities overall.
LA Times: February 2, 2010 by Jim Tankersley

Reporting from Washington - America's wind energy industry enjoyed a banner year in 2009, thanks largely to tax credits and other incentives packed into the $787-billion economic stimulus bill.

But even though a record 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity came on line, few jobs were created overall and wind power manufacturing employment, in particular, fell -- a setback for President Obama's pledge to create millions of green jobs.

Obama has long pitched green jobs, especially in the energy, transportation and manufacturing fields, as a prescription for long-term, stable employment and a prosperous middle class.

But those jobs have been slow to materialize, especially skilled, good-paying, blue-collar jobs such as assembling wind turbines, retrofitting homes to use less energy and working on solar panels in the desert.

. . . . .

Industry analysts and energy company executives said job growth is also hampered by lingering uncertainties in federal energy policy. Those include questions about when or whether existing tax breaks will expire and whether the Senate will pass a climate bill that would make fossil fuels more expensive -- and renewable energy more competitive.

The federal stimulus bill spared the wind and solar industries steep job losses last year, executives said.

In the wind industry, the bill saved about 40,000 factory, installation and maintenance jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Assn. The industry had gained as many as 2,000 installation and maintenance jobs in producing the record megawatts of new capacity, but wind power manufacturing lost just as many jobs, the trade group said.

Clean-energy leaders and many outside analysts added that green companies won't begin hiring in large numbers until the federal government mandates renewable power consumption nationwide and dramatically upgrades the nation's electric grid. READ MORE !

Industry Watch: Refuse

Solar Powered Trash Cans
smart2begreen: January 13, 2010

Garbage is all around,
Full trash cans abound.
Want to help your town?
Solar cans will astound!

Sunny Days Keep Trash Trucks Away

Every day, millions of trash cans around the U.S. are filled, collected, and emptied. Garbage trucks running on fossil fuels make countless daily pick-ups of our refuse and transport it to overfilled dumpsites

• The Big Belly Solar Compactor is a revolutionary trash receptacle that uses solar power for 100% of its energy needs. It is safe, easy to use, keeps out pests, and is designed to withstand all weather conditions.
• The capacity of the Big Belly is 5 times greater than standard trash bins. This reduces the number of required collection trips and can cut fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.
• Depending on collection frequency, a standard trash bin costs between $7,300 and $30,000 over its lifetime. The lifetime operational costs of the Big Belly are between $6,000 and $12,000.

• Over 2,000 Big Belly systems have been sold across the U.S. and in 17 countries around the world. For example, the city of Philadelphia has reduced its trash collection trips by 75% by replaced 700 trashcans downtown with 500 Big Bellies.

Big Belly in California:
La Jolla, CA - KFMB TV News - May 2009
Using The Sun To Get Rid of Trash In La Jolla
Los Angeles, CA - LACCD BuildsGreen - Aug 2009
New Campaign Asks Students to Waste Not
Mission Viejo, CA - EnergyBoom.com - Dec 2009
Shedding New Light on Trash: BigBelly Solar Trash Compactors
Oceanside, CA - North County Times - Dec 2009
Oceanside: Here comes the sun. There goes the trash
Orange County, CA - The Orange County Register - Dec 2009
Solar trash-masher debuts in O.C.
Palm Springs, CA - The Desert Sun - Aug 2008
BigBelly Compactors Approved By Council
Pasadena, CA - Government Technology - Oct 2009
Solar-Powered Self-Compacting Trash Bins Save City Labor, Fuel
San Diego, CA - NBC San Diego - Nov 2007
Cardiff by the Sea brings in the BigBelly...
Santa Cruz, CA - Santa Cruz Sentinel - Jun 2007
Capitola tackles beach trash with solar bins...
Ventura, CA - KNBC (NBC) - Sep 2007
Ventura Brings in the BigBelly
Visalia, CA - The Fresno Bee - Oct 2007
Visalia will muscle up on sunshine

Industry Watch: Building

Top Ten Green Building Trends to Watch in 2010
earthadvantage.org by Sean Penrith

While we know the building industry had a rough year in 2009, green building has been a bright spot. So what can we expect to see in the coming year in green building? Here are our picks for emerging trends of 2010, in no particular order. READ MORE !

1. The smart grid and connected home.
2. Energy labeling for homes and office buildings.
3. Building information modeling (BIM) software.
4. Buy-in to green building by the financial community.
5. “Rightsizing” of homes.
6. Eco-districts.
7. Water conservation.
8. Carbon Calculation.
9. Net Zero Buildings.
10. Sustainable building education.

Industry Watch: Entertainment

Reel Green Workshop: July 11, 2009 from post @ The Glass Girl Blog: July 14, 2009

Reel Green Movement:
Eco-Solutions for the Entertainment Industry

I spent late Saturday afternoon on a very hot stage in Burbank for the REEL GREEN Workshop hosted by the Burbank Green Alliance which does a great job of consistently hosting free workshops to get businesses closer to zero waste. This workshop aimed to bridged the eco-production conversation between both the above the line and below the line players. What are the concerns and solutions that each department has that we can resolve or act on now that will continue to green shoots?

I got the most insight from the break out sessions where everyone in the workshop broke into a smaller group based on their area of interest or expertise: Production, Catering/Craft Service, Electrical/Grip, Costume Design, Set Construction/Design and Special Effects.

Highlights and comments about the featured speakers & break out sessions (with links):

~ Lauren Selman, Reel Green Media

~ Josh Mark, FOX Network’s Director of Sustainability
~ Shannon Shaefer, EcoSet Consulting

2 sites of general interest:

CalMAX: "One business's trash is another business's treasure." Businesses, schools, and nonprofits can utilize CalMAX to search for available and wanted materials. Conserves energy, resources, and landfill space by helping businesses and organizations find alternatives to the disposal of valuable materials or wastes through waste exchange.

Give A Glass: The simplest solution is to serve clean, filtered water direct from your office tap in glass pitchers and glasses.

READ MORE !