A New Slate of Innovative Series from Around the World Premier on Planet Green

Image credit: C.P.Storm/Flickr

by David DeFranza

Planet Green is starting the new year with an entirely new line-up of programming. In addition to bring you new episodes of old favorites like Living With Ed and Emeril Green, the network will also be launching premiers of several innovative series from England and Canada.

Blood, Sweat, & Takeaways follows a group of fast-food addicted teens as they venture through the production chain of their favorite meals. The food seems less appetizing when they have to work alongside poorly-paid workers in terrible conditions.

In Big Chef Takes on Little Chef Heston Blumenthal, a Michelin-starred chef, fights to revive a dying roadside diner franchise called Little Chef. Can he create a menu the reinvigorates traditional English fare and help this dusty chain become a success again?

What do you get when you ask a star-chef to open a restaurant staffed by inmates? Conviction Kitchen, that’s what. Watch as one executive chef fights to organize his rag-tag crew in time for opening night.

Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts takes a group of high-street fashion victims and puts them to work on a clothing assembly line in India. The shopaholics learn the hard way about the true cost of their fashion habits.

Nobody likes traffic but there are few people who actually try to do anything about it. The Woman Who Stopped Traffic shows us what happens when one person tries. Kris Murrin takes on the traffic problems of England’s three most congested towns and attempts to stop the madness for one day. The obstacles are tremendous, but if she can succeed, she shows us all that anything is possible with motivation and innovation.

From the kitchen to the farm, the prison to the factory, Planet Green is offering exciting new programming that will change the way you look at the world.

Don’t miss a minute this January on Planet Green.

Read more about Planet Green:
Planet Green Looks at the World Through a Wider Lens this Winter
Watch the U.S. Premier of Burn Up on Planet Green
Ed Begley’s Back with a New Season of Living With Ed

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/a-new-slate-of-innovative-series-from-around-the-world-premiere-on-planet-green.php

Homemade Green Cleaning Products That Work

From Associated Content, by Ester November

If you want to clean green but don’t trust plain baking soda to do all the heavy lifting, here are some simple recipes for homemade green cleaning products that work.

Many folks have jumped on the homemade green cleaning product wagon, only to discover that nothing cleans a bathtub like an old-fashioned can of Comet. If you want to clean green, but don’t trust plain baking soda to do all the heavy lifting, here are some simple recipes for homemade green cleaning products that work.

Disinfectant All-Purpose Spray

There are tons of recipes floating around for all-purpose sprays that claim to clean everything from your shower tile to your coffeemaker. What you should know is that unless the recipe for an all-purpose spray contains either lavender or tea tree oil, it’s not antibacterial. This may not bother you in the slightest, but if you’re especially prone to colds, you might want to put the extra oomph in your homemade cleaning products.

Lavender and tea tree oil probably won’t kill every germ that comes into your house, but they are known for their antibacterial properties. To whip up the closest thing you can get to a homemade disinfectant, squeeze a couple drops of liquid castile soap into two cups of hot water. Stir, don’t shake. Then add 30 drops of either lavender or tea tree oil, or a combination of both. Pour it into a spray bottle and use on everything but glass.

Air Freshener

Commercial air fresheners don’t really clean the air; they just cover the existing odor with a stronger smell. Use lemons combined with other household ingredients to draw odors from the air instead.

To make a general air freshener, squeeze the juice from a fresh lemon into a dish with baking soda. Leave the dish uncovered. If you want to get fancy (or miss the decorative look of a plug-in), stick a dried flower sprig in it, or mix some pretty pebbles into the powder.

You can squeeze lemon juice into vinegar for a similar deodorizing effect. Use vinegar with a squeeze of lemon to clean kitchen utensils and pans after cooking fish or garlic.

Lemons are also great for killing mold. When you’re done squeezing the juice into homemade cleaning products, grind up lemon leftovers in the garbage disposal to clean it out and get rid of lingering food smells in your kitchen.

Degreaser

Degreasing is one of the toughest sells for homemade green cleaning products. If your grease is too tough for an all-purpose spray, get your kitchen shining again with white vinegar. Mix a pinch of washing soda, a couple drops of castile soap, and two tablespoons of vinegar into two cups of boiling water for a general degreaser. Or use plain white vinegar diluted with water in proportion to the toughness of the spot.

The inside of your oven can get pretty gross if you’re not paying attention. For a good deep clean, mix baking soda and water to form a thick paste. Coat the inside of your oven with the goop before you go to bed and scrape it off in the morning. Then clean as you normally would with some water and castile soap, or with your all-purpose spray.

For a greasy kitchen spill, dump salt directly on top of the oil or grease. Let it sit for a few minutes to absorb. Then wipe up the mess and clean as normal.

Plant Cleaner

If you’re like most people who are concerned with air quality in the home, you’ve probably got some foliage that needs occasional dusting. Put a little bit of mayonnaise on a rag and use it to polish your plants’ leaves. For some mysterious reason, mayonnaise makes houseplants look wonderful and leaves no smell behind.

Sources:

“Non-Toxic Home Cleaning”: Eartheasy

“25 Safe, Non-Toxic, Homemade Cleaning Supplies”: Tree Hugging Family

“Antibacterial activity of essential oils and their major constituents against respiratory tract pathogens by gaseous contact”: The Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

“Homemade Green Cleaning Products”: Go Green & Save the World

“Alternative Cleaning Recipes”: Ecology Center

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/09/homemade-green-cleaning-p_n_343878.html

GM Receives $2.7M ARPA-E Award to Explore Thermomechanical Waste Heat Recovery Using SMA Heat Engine

To me, this seems like an idea that should of been explored a long time. but better late than never.

Concept diagram of an SMA heat engine for power generation from waste engine heat. Source: GM.

As one of 37 projects selected by the US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E (earlier post), General Motors R&D will receive $2.7 million (subject to final negotiation with DOE) to support building a prototype thermomechanical waste heat recovery system using a Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) heat engine to generate electricity from the heat in automotive exhaust. GM was the only automaker to receive an ARPA-E award in the first round of funding.

According to Jan Aase, Director of the Vehicle Development Research Laboratory at GM R&D in Warren, Michigan, the team calculates that they might be able to deliver up to a 15% improvement in fuel economy using as little as a 15-20 °C differential between hot and cold in the system. (Prior to joining GM R&D, Aase was at GE Global Research.)

<!––>GM will work with HRL Laboratories (co-owned by GM and Boeing); Dynalloy, Inc., a Tustin, CA manufacturer of shape memory alloys (Flexinol) specially made to be used as actuators; and the GM/University of Michigan Smart Materials Collaborative Research Lab to develop new low-hysteresis SMA materials and the prototype system.

When a stretched SMA wire is heated, it shrinks back to its pre-stretched length, and when it cools back down, it becomes less stiff and can revert to the original shape. This behavior can theoretically be used to enable a heat engine: a mechanism that is capable of converting heat energy to mechanical or electrical energy.

There was a surge of interest in the potential for SMA heat engines beginning in the 1970s, but the few devices that have been built were too large and too inefficient to make them worthwhile, Aase said.

SMA materials instead have been used as actuators (Dynalloy’s specialty). GM researchers have published a series of papers on using SMA in applications such as latches. The SMA heat engine for waste heat recovery is something the researchers have been talking about for less than a year, Aase said.

We have not written a paper on this particular idea. It had been sort of talked about, but when the ARPA-E solicitation came out [in February], it crystallized our thinking. We should go after this. It’s the kind of thing that is a little bit far out, and since we have so many short term actuator-type projects available to us where we would have a quick return on investment for the company, it’s harder to divert resources to a project that is much higher risk and longer term.

We did some calculations to estimate what we could get out of it. Whether it was theoretically viable, whether we can heat and cool it in an effective manner to cause this two-way action is yet to be proven. This is the kind of high-risk, high-reward activity we thought fit very well with the ARPA-E kind of missions.

—Jan Aase

Key to the success of the project will be developing a material for the particular temperature range of the application, and also to develop a low hysteresis material. SMAs tend to exhibit hysteresis, which would not be good in this application, Aase noted. “It is tolerable as an actuator, but not as a heat engine application.”

From a strictly thermodynamic point of view the SMA thermomechanical waste heat recovery system would not be as efficient as a thermoelectric generator such as the one GM is also developing, Aase said. However, he noted:

Per unit mass, we believe it will be very effective. And in a transportation application, the mass efficiency is very important.

The project at this point is fairly wide open. The team has not yet determined the cooling mechanism. While the simplest thing to do would be to tunnel air past the device, the researchers may also consider taking part of the engine coolant, because liquid has better heat transfer characteristics than air does. “The cooling is the tricky part of the heat cycle,” Aase says.

The material trick is to get the low hysteresis material, and the packaging and design is what we [the collaborative team] will work on together. We assume there will be durability and other issues that come up. We have to go over rollers [in our concept]..bending stresses tend to be rather high. Up to now, all the applications I know of have been with straight pieces of wire. And of course there is also the designing of the heat exchanger portion of it and the mechanical packaging.

—Jan Aase

The pay-off for a successful development could be significant. In a hybrid system, the electrical energy could be used to charge the battery. In a conventional engine, this could perhaps even replace the alternator without any load on the engine, Aase said.

This award is significant for the gains in energy efficiency it could bring, and because it signifies how GM is doing business though collaboration and partnership.

The days are gone when we would do this kind of ground breaking work on our own. We need to continue to find ways to combine our deep technical knowledge with others who can help take our ideas from concept to commercialization.

—Alan Taub, GM vice president of global R&D

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/10/gm-sma-20091028.html

Savior Bud Sucks Moisture From Trees for Drinking Water

Image via Yanko

For dry areas, every drop of drinking water is important. Moisture collectors are a big help, and this concept design, modestly called the Savior Bud, is one idea to help gather up moisture from a tree’s respiratory process and create drinking water.

Shown off at Yanko Design, the Savior Bud – designed specifically for African landscapes – is hung from a tree branch with the tree’s leaves inside. It collects the moisture expelled from the leaves.

The process goes like this:1. Find a broadleaf tree with lots of leaves.

2. Opening the Savior Bud like a giant clamp, surround a few leaves, and release. The Savior Bud should now be containing the leaves like you see in the picture below, sort of like a greenhouse.

3. In about four hours, the leaves will have produced about one cup of water. Turning the bottom of the bud like a faucet will release the water to be put into a separate container for drinking.

An obvious issue is hanging the device from a tree that won’t also expel any toxins along with moisture.

More on Gathering Water
Fog & Dew Collectors: Design For A Thirsty World
The Low Down on Home Water Makers and 7 to Choose From
Out of Water? How We Might Make More

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/savior-bud-sucks-moisture-from-trees-for-drinking-water.php

Autodesk crunches numbers for greener buildings

A screen shot from Ecotect, an application acquired by Autodesk that allows architects to measure and plan the environmental impact of design decisions. Based on an information model, the application here shows the heat gain inside a building from different sources, such as ventilation and the sun, during different times of the year.  (Credit: Autodesk)

by Martin LaMonica

WALTHAM, Mass.–Green buildings aren’t only for well heeled individuals and corporate headquarters. There’s an ocean of existing buildings ripe for an efficiency makeover.

Autodesk, a company best known for its AutoCAD three-dimensional design software, has spent the past year developing extensions to its existing products focused on green renovations of existing commercial buildings, company executives said here on Monday.

Last year, Autodesk acquired two companies that had developed analytical tools intended to bring more hard numbers to sustainable design efforts. When used with Autodesk’s existing applications, professionals such as architects, designers, and contractors can get a snapshot of how existing buildings perform in terms of energy and water use and can simulate the impact of architectural changes.

The focus on renovation is partly driven by the downturn in the building industry but also a raft of building efficiency mandates coming from national or state governments, said Catherine Palmer, the marketing manager for Architecture, Engineering & Construction solutions at Autodesk.

For example, the federal government earlier this month issued an executive order (click for PDF) that mandates that all new federal buildings built by 2030 need to be net zero energy, or generate as much as they consume. Many of these regulations also apply to renovating existing buildings, Palmer said.

About 40 percent of energy use and greenhouse emissions come from buildings in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. And about 85 percent of the buildings that existing today will be around in 2050, Palmer said.

Green building retrofits are 5 percent to 9 percent of the commercial building marketplace now but are projected to grow to more than 20 percent in five years, according to a recent report from SmartMarket.

Wanted: good building data
There are a number of examples of commercial buildings that have been retrofit to be more efficient. The Empire State Building, for example, did a $20 million conversion which is expected to lower energy consumption by 38 percent. Autodesk’s office here is a LEED-certified Platinum level building. Rather than tear down an existing structure, the company used the shell of existing building and remade the interior with a number of green-building features, such as light sensors, more sustainably produced materials, and the use natural daylight to cut down on artificial lighting.

The challenge with these efficiency retrofit projects is that the tools to analyze the potential savings in energy, water, or materials are slow or inaccurate, according to Autodesk executives. A building owner may compile current energy use in a spreadsheet, for example, which is not connected to the building-management system or design software.

Autodesk now offers two add-on products to its Revit Architecture building-information modeling application to capture existing building data in a 3-D model and then simulate possible changes.

During a demonstration on Monday, Autodesk technical marketing manager Chico Membreno showed how designers and architects can quickly convert photos of an existing building into a 3-D model in Revit.

From there, an application called Ecotect Analysis allows an architect to input various data, such as weather patterns and available daylight, and to see the environmental impact of different design choices. That building model can then be imported into a hosted application, called Green Building Studio, which will tell the user how the building will perform in terms of energy use, carbon emissions, and water.

“A lot of people use rules of thumb,” Membreno said. “This empowers the architect and gives them data to back up their design decisions.”

For example, a company could use Ecotect analysis to simulate how much electricity could be generated by solar panels or how much daylight is available for internal lighting. Green Building Studio can then analyze how those choice will impact the environmental performance with data such as projected energy costs and water use.

The company has designed its sustainable analysis products for architects and building professionals and contractors working on new construction or renovations. But the tools could also be used to monitor whether green building investments measure up to expectations, which is often not the case. Energy-service companies, for example, need to quantify efficiency improvements to secure financing, said Palmer.

Autodesk executives declined to give a price for the software but a third-party review indicated that Revit Architecture’s suggested retail price was about $5,500.

That price and the training required means that individual homeowners are unlikely to use the software. But the commercial market is very large: Autodesk estimates that $400 billion a year will be spend on commercial renovations.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10383255-54.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

Complete Streets Are Great Streets With Room for All

By Jason Kambitsis

The conventional paradigm for streets revolves around quickly moving cars from Point A to Point B. This has been the dominant thinking for at least 60 years. But it is beginning to change.

Such car-centric use of roads recently has been viewed as a problem. Rising carbon dioxide emissions, climbing gas prices and other problems have many cities seeking a more holistic approach. To that end, one city in the Midwest is looking to a new kind of street to deal with these problems.

The Architects Newspaper reports that St. Louis has brought the so-called “complete streets” concept to a six-block section of South Grand Boulevard for its Great Streets Initiative. The idea behind a complete street is as simple as it is revolutionary: All modes of transportation, from walking to driving to riding the bus, are given equal access and the same priority.

The National Complete Streets Coalition defines a complete street as a “policy to ensure that transportation planners and engineers consistently design and operate the entire roadway with all users in mind – including bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and riders and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.”

St. Louis is adopting complete streets with great fanfare. The proposal for South Grand Boulevard — shown here in renderings by Design Workshop, the principal architect — changes the width of the street by building corner bulb outs at intersections and widening the sidewalks. It also changes from four to two (with a center turn lane) the number of traffic lanes, closes two alleys to vehicular traffic and changes the timing of traffic lights.

The goal of the project is to increase pedestrian safety while maintaining traffic flow, enhance the appearance of the street, and provide more opportunities for economic development. Local officials were so pleased with the outcome of the 30-day trial that they decided to make the temporary changes permanent (.pdf). The city has seen the number of accidents decline with no loss in the efficiency of traffic flow.

“I was concerned about getting 25,000 cars a day through at Grand and Arsenal,” Alderman Steve Conway told the Architect, referring to two streets that cross South Grand Boulevard. “And now, we’re getting the cars through, and we’ve slowed the traffic.”

The community supports it by a 10-to-1 margin, Conway said. After driving the street one day last month, one blogger called it, “my smoothest and most carefree tool down this stretch that I have ever experienced.” Before the changes, the blogger wrote, the street often was “congested and sluggish.”

About $2.7 million in federal stimulus funds have been earmarked for the project, which calls for permeable street pavement to help with storm water runoff issues. Trees and rain gardens also will be constructed to handle runoff and ease the load on the storm water and sewage system. In addition to making it safer and easier for pedestrians to get around, the revamped street welcomes cyclists.

The “complete street” approach levels the playing field by slowing down automobiles and making room for all modes of travel. Such streets also can include transit-specific lanes for buses and trolleys. This not only allows different modes of transport to use the road but provides everyone with a true choice in how they travel. Other cities are looking beyond complete streets and turning streets over to pedestrians entirely. New York City, long known for gridlock, has for example given up portions of Broadway from 47^th Street to 42^nd Street (through Times Square) for a pedestrian mall.

This slow shift in how we use our roads provides a chance to consider redefining them entirely and shift the paradigm. Should streets be designed to move cars, or should they be designed to move people?

Renderings of a redesigned South Grand Boulevard in St. Louis: Design Workshop.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/10/complete-streets

Barriers loom on road to plug-in cars

by Martin LaMonica

After many years of buildup, plug-in vehicles aimed at mainstream buyers are set to come to the market starting next year. But even with the momentum around plug-ins, many questions remain unanswered over how this technology transition will impact the ailing auto industry and how the cars will received by consumers.

“You have the feeling that we’re at the beginning of something that could be very special,” said David Cole, the chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, which is funded by government and corporate sources, during the opening of the Business of Plugging In conference here on Tuesday. “There are a great many uncertainties, but we have to recognize that the key invention is here with the lithium ion battery.”

The sold-out conference, which attracted about 600 people, represented the varied groups needed to deliver these vehicles: automakers and supply chain suppliers, electricity utilities, policy makers, tech entrepreneurs, and investors.

Regardless of the initial volumes of electric-vehicle sales, the stakes in this shift are high. Electric vehicles promise to reduce pollution from transportation, decrease oil imports, and provide economic opportunity for a broad number of businesses.

Compared to biofuels or hydrogen fuel cell technologies, the large automakers and several start-ups have coalesced around electrification, to a greater extent. But there still remains the question of how much money consumers are willing to pay and how easily they can adjust strong habits.

“We’ve placed big bets in this area…(but) the question is: will consumers want these vehicles?” Bill Ford, the chairman of Ford Motor, said during a Wednesday talk. “The short answer is, it depends on how many trade-offs they need to make…and I think customers aren’t prepared to make many trade-offs at all.”

Hybrid premium
Plug-in cars come in various forms, but the larger battery means a higher purchase price than today’s hybrids or equivalent gasoline models. If consumers are going to accept that up-front cost, automakers need to convince them that owning an electric car is cheaper in the long run. One idea that automakers are seriously considering is leasing batteries, which could make the monthly payments for a new electric car comparable to a gasoline version.

The actual prices for many cars aren’t yet known, since companies have not yet decided. Nissan’s all-electric Leaf sedan, set for its U.S. debut next month and availability next year, is said to be in the $25,000 to $30,000 range. Industry executives estimate that the electric Chevy Volt, due late next year, will be in the $40,000 range.

Fueling up an electric car is less expensive than running the equivalent gasoline-only vehicle, and auto industry executives say the maintenance is simpler on electric drives (no more oil changes, for example). Jonathan Lauckner, General Motors’ vice president of global program management, on Tuesday said the cost per mile of the Volt could be a sixth of a gasoline car’s, offering as much as $1,500 a year in savings. Those savings get better, if gas prices go up and if drivers can charge up more than once a day.

And consumers want this information. Surveys show that consumers are drawn to plug-ins for environmental reasons, but fuel savings are actually more important, according to a survey of U.S. drivers done by Ernst & Young. Safety, of course, is another high priority.

“We’ve always had a disconnect between the purchase price and the usage cost, where consumers way undervalue the usage costs, which will continue to be a problem here,” Richard Curtain, of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan, said during a panel on Wednesday. “If it got to less than a $5,000 premium, that would allay many of the concerns of the consumer.”

Industry executives say volume production, a goal of the Department of Energy’s $2.4 billion grant program launched in August, will help bring down costs in the coming years, much the way hybrid components fell in price. But that up-front premium is tough to totally erase, given that electrification is competing with a deeply entrenched technology: the internal combustion engine.

Battery improvements will help the cost picture as well. Many companies are working on batteries–a new generation of lithium ion batteries and other chemistries–that can pack more energy. More “energy-dense” batteries means that drivers will get a longer driving range from a battery of a given size. Ultracapacitors, another storage method, have also been proposed as way to work with batteries in vehicles.

Technology horse race
The different routes automakers are taking to electrification affects costs. General Motors’ Chevy Volt has generated plenty of buzz, but company executives say its design will make at least the first generation of the car pricey. GM hopes to wring thousands of dollars from the Volt power train, notably the battery and power electronics in the second generation of the car.

Fisker Automotive, a start-up that received a $528 million loan from the Department of Energy, is using a similar power train for its planned Karma and Nina high-end luxury cars. Called an extended-range electric vehicle or a series hybrid, these cars will run on battery charge only in the beginning–40 miles in the case of the Volt–and then use an internal combustion engine to operate a generator for the electric motor on longer trips.

A handful of automakers–Ford, Nissan, Think, and Coda Automotive among them–are making all-electric vehicles, also called battery-electric vehicles. Because of the limited range of about 80 miles to 100 miles, these cars are being sold as second cars in the United States or Europe or for city driving.

By contrast, Toyota, which has already sold millions of Priuses, believes that the way to sell large volumes of plug-in cars is to build on the existing hybrid technology, where batteries and the gasoline engine both propel the car.

“We think that blended (mode) is going to be the only way to reach the cost parity that the consumer is going to want,” said Justin Ward, the advanced power train program manager at the Toyota Technical Center. “There (are) a lot of high-end cars, but how high do you go before it becomes unattainable for the general consumer?”

Infrastructure
Electric and hybrid cars aren’t going to take over the market any time soon, because of cost and because they face competition from more efficient gasoline engines and diesels. Market researcher IHS Global Insight projects that pure-electric and range-extended electric vehicles will account for just more than 1 percent of the total market by 2014, with hybrids and plug-in hybrids being nearly 21 percent.

But even though plug-ins of various types will be a niche in the early years, utilities need to start preparing now. On a local level, utility executives are concerned that just a few plug-in cars, which can pull as much juice as a whole house when charging, will strain local power grids. That’s particularly true, if consumers install faster 220-volt charging ports, which will cut charge time to about two or three hours, from six or eight.

The way to avoid stressing the grid is to charge cars at off-peak times, utility executives say. Pacific Gas & Electric, considered one of the most aggressive utilities in embracing new technologies, plans to offer customers a 220-volt charger that has a timer so consumers can take advantage of lower rates at off-peak times. Using a smart-grid technology, a car charger could pick its charge time and rate by communicating through a smart meter.

But what if someone can’t charge at home? Like others, utility industry group the Edison Electric Institute advocates new building codes demanding that all new buildings are wired so that charging stations can be added in places such as underground parking garages in apartment buildings or retail areas, according to Anthony Earley, the chairman of the institute and CEO of utility DTE Energy.

A few charging stations will go a long way, according to people who spoke at the conference. “We act like this is a chicken-and-an-egg problem, but it’s really not,” said Mark Duvall, the director of electric transportation at the Electric Power Research Institute. “They are not enabling technologies, in my opinion, but they can help.”

If plug-in electric vehicles are wildly popular with consumers and fleet owners, the industry will then face the challenge of having sufficient capital to scale up. During a discussion on battery technologies, academics said that even now, there isn’t a sufficient workforce to do the engineering required for electric vehicles, with the most glaring hole in materials science.

Although higher manufacturing should significantly cut battery prices, there were regular questions about the supply of lithium at the conference. Overall, auto and battery company executives said lithium supply is not a pressing concern. Lithium could be extracted from different sources and can be recycled, said Yet Ming Chiang, the chief scientist of battery upstart A123 Systems and professor of ceramics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The U.S. auto industry has an opportunity to be reinvigorated with electric auto technologies, as its seeks to transition from the “rust belt to the green belt,” Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday. China, meanwhile, is investing heavily in electric transportation, which national leaders see as a way to “leapfrog” to the latest technologies, said Yibing Wu, the managing director of Legend Holding, the company that makes Lenovo laptops and is moving into clean energy.

On an environmental level, plug-in hybrid cars have 30 percent lower carbon emissions, even if a car is fueled by coal-fired power plants, Earley said. That’s particularly important on a global level, since hundreds of millions of cars are expected to be sold in the coming years in developing countries, said Ann Marie Sastry, a University of Michigan professor and a co-founder of a Khosla Ventures-backed battery company Sakti3.

“The small car is absolutely going to be essential for electrification and to all of us because it doesn’t matter where the carbon comes from–whether we generate it or it comes from the emerging economies,” Sastry said. “It’s imperative (that) the United States play a role in this technology development because of our own interest in climate change.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10381092-54.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

More Pictures – http://news.cnet.com/2300-11128_3-10001739-1.html?tag=mncol

Global warming scepticism rising faster than temperatures

As scientists question the greenness of biofuels, the number of Americans who believe the planet is warming due to man-made pollution is at its lowest point in three years, according to a survey.

A poll of the US public by the <a href=”http://www.people-press.org” target=”_blank”>Pew Research Center</a> <a style=”border-bottom: 0.075em solid darkgreen ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; font-size: 100% ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; padding-bottom: 1px ! important; color: darkgreen ! important; background-color: transparent ! important; background-image: none; padding-top: 0pt; padding-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt;” href=”http://www.tgdaily.com/#” target=”_blank”>reports</a> that only 57 percent – down from 77 percent three years ago – believe there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has become warmer over recent decades and, as a result, are viewing the problem as less serious.

And to add <a style=”border-bottom: 0.075em solid darkgreen ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; font-size: 100% ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; padding-bottom: 1px ! important; color: darkgreen ! important; background-color: transparent ! important; background-image: none; padding-top: 0pt; padding-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt;” href=”http://www.tgdaily.com/#” target=”_blank”>fuel</a> to global warming critics’ arguments, an ‘accounting error’ in the way greenhouse gas emissions are calculated has emerged because fuel derived from plants and other organic sources, including ethanol, is considered to have no effect on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, despite producing the same emissions as regular fuels.

The study, published this week in <a href=”http://www.sciencemag.org/” target=”_blank”><em>Science</em></a>, says that biofuels, marketed as a low-carbon alternative, will actually emit <em>more</em> carbon dioxide than burning gasoline over the coming decades.

sites are carbon neutral because they absorb Co2 from the atmosphere while they are being cultivated, in most cases, existing forests are cleared to make room for the crops which absorb less Co2 than the trees they replace.

The problem stems from a basic error in the Kyoto Protocol – and subsequently copied into European and US environmental legislation – which calculates emissions without taking the source of the fuel into account.

“We made an honest mistake within the scientific framing of the debate, and we’ve got to correct it to make it right,” said the <a style=”border-bottom: 0.075em solid darkgreen ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; font-size: 100% ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; padding-bottom: 1px ! important; color: darkgreen ! important; background-color: transparent ! important; background-image: none; padding-top: 0pt; padding-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt;” href=”http://www.tgdaily.com/#” target=”_blank”>paper’s</a> author, Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.

“It literally means you can chip up the world’s forests and burn them for fuel without noting the effect on the world’s greenhouse gases,” adds Timothy Searchinger, a research fellow at Princeton University.

Meanwhile, the Pew report claims that the public is becoming less concerned about environmental issues as the recession continues to bite.

“The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things,” says Pew’s Andrew Kohut.  “When the focus is on other things, people forget and see these issues as less grave.”

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/44406/178/

Nudging Grocers and Consumers Toward More Healthy — and Sustainable — Seafood

A new study finds that major grocers are moving toward more sustainable seafood.

By Sindya N. Bhanoo

A list published Tuesday by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California recommends seafood that it says is both healthy for consumers — and for the ocean.

The so-called Super Green list is a compilation of fish species that are environmentally sustainable, high in heart-healthy omega-3-fatty acids, and low in contaminants like mercury.

The aquarium has published seafood watch lists for the last ten years, taking into account factors such as overfishing and habitat damage.

But the new list also considers the public’s interest in healthful foods, said Dr. Geoff Shester, a science manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was compiled in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund and Harvard University’s School of Public Health.

“There are a lot of fish that are sustainable or low in contaminants or heart healthy,” Shester said. “But there are not that many that are all three.”

Worldwide, seafood consumption is on the rise.

The total world seafood supply was 110 million tons in 2006, eight times what it was in 1950, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

By 2030, the F.A.O. predicts the world will need an additional 37 million tons of farmed fish to meet global demand.

Notably absent from the Super Green list are most varieties of shrimp — the most popular seafood item in America.

“It’s interesting to consider the ‘cost’ of a shrimp dinner,” Dr. Shester said. “The ecological consequences are dramatic.”

Conservation groups note that fishermen often drag nets across the ocean floor, uprooting and killing aquatic plants, corals and other seafloor life while trawling for wild shrimp.

Farmed shrimp can also be problematic, because shrimp farmers often use chemicals and antibiotics to treat water that subsequently flows into the surrounding environment. In addition, farmed shrimp consume large amounts of wild fish.

For every 1 ton of farmed shrimp produced, 1.4 tons of wild fish are consumed.

The aquarium also released a report on the state of seafood in North America on Tuesday.

Major grocery stores, including Giant Eagle, Wal-Mart and Ahold USA, are moving toward more sustainable seafood, the report said.

Wal-Mart has pledged to switch within the next three to five years to 100 percent fresh and frozen wild-caught seafood that is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Compass Food Group, a large food service company, has also been working with Monterey Bay Aquarium to embrace its seafood guidelines since 2006.

“Already, 77 percent of the seafood we purchase is sustainable,” said Marc Zammit, the vice president of sustainability at Compass. “We’re still struggling with the shrimp, but we’re making progress.”

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nudging-grocers-and-consumers-toward-more-healthy-and-sustainable-seafood/

New York Subway Boss Wants Fares To Be Like Cell Phone Calls

Flickr/Moriza

by Alex Pasternack, New York, NY

How Congestion Pricing Makes Cents
There’s a state budget crisis that could bring big service cuts or more fare hikes, but Jay Walder is making big plans. The new chairman of New York City’s MTA, formerly of the London Underground, wants to introduce smart cards, arrival-time clocks at subway stations and GPS devices that would allow passengers to keep track of buses. But his real breakthrough would be a lower off-peak fare that could nudge more New Yorkers onto the subway on nights and weekends, and lessen the crush at rush hour.

“We have an infrastructure that is set for the capacity of the peak,” Walder tells The Times. “What we really want to do is use that infrastructure all the time.”

And now, amidst a broken budget and a downturn, could be just the time to do it.

You Already Built It; Will They Come?
Walder’s point about infrastructure is precisely why off peak fares are a good idea. The costs of running a built-out, 24-hour subway system like New York’s are largely based on peak usage: as long as the subway has to be prepared to handle a million people during the day, the costs of operating the system at night are roughly the same, no matter how many people are riding. Even there’s one lonesome straphanger or passed-out reveler riding home at 3 in the morning, the subway’s capacity expenses are basically unchanged; a discount on the current standard $2.25 fare only makes the subway more competitive with taxis and cars. (See “Subway Fares Around the World”.)

Consider cell phones. Cell phone users (will they soon be able to make calls on New York’s subway platforms, like riders in DC?) know that calling is cheaper on nights and weekends. AT&T isn’t being nice — it’s simply making use of a system it’s already paying for and attracting more customers to sign contracts in the process.

A Fare System Fifty Years in the Making
This isn’t the first time the idea has been proposed. William Vickrey, a Columbia University economist and 1996 Nobel laureate, suggested it back in 1952. It’s come up again a number of times, most recently in 2007. But the technology to do it — namely, a computerized fare card system — hasn’t really been ready until now.

Walder says he’s focused on timing, and isn’t thinking of a distance-based fare like the kind used on the London and Washington, DC subways. Those systems have also implemented time-of-day pricing.

One concern, voiced by a member of the New York City Transit Riders Council, is that the subway can already get crowded in off-peak times (which anyway have yet to be specified). Stations like Times Square can be especially packed at weekends, thanks in part to tourists. Second Ave. Sagas wonders if the MTA could charge less not just based on time but on what stations riders use.

Economic Downturn Makes This More Attractive Now
Some might argue an off-peak plan could “penalize” riders who have no choice but to ride at peak hours, like those with a fixed work schedule. And a scheme like this would seem to favor out-of-towners, who are less likely to be using the city’s monthly unlimited-ride Metrocards.

But if done right, an off-peak pricing scheme could pay dividends for peak riders by alleviating crowdedness. That could in turn encourage more business people to opt for subways over taxis during rush hour.

And the economic downturn makes another case for off peak fares. Amidst higher unemployment, more residents are likely a) to be paying per ride, as opposed to using the unlimited ride Metrocards they used when they worked full-time, b) to be more attracted by discounts, and c) to have flexible schedules.

Though in the past Walder has called off-peak fares a “revenue neutral” scheme (it’s been proposed before) doing it in the middle of a downturn could bring in even more revenue than at other times, which is just what the transit system desperately needs.

More on TreeHugger
Subway Fares Around the World
Can New Bosses Put New York’s Subways Back on Track?
5 U.S. State and Local Officials Putting the Environment First
Could 42nd Street Get a Light Rail and Go Car-Free?
Congestion Charge Cuts Waiting Time 50% and CO2 by 18% in Stockholm

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/congestion-pricing-new-york-subway-off-peak-fares.php