Let's face it: even if we developed high-speed rail networks everywhere, air travel is the only practical means to carry people and highly-valued cargo over medium to long distances and to remote locations.
One of the means airlines have been using to gain productivity is seat pitch. The more bodies on thinner, lighter furniture packed tighter together that they can squeeze into the maximum certifiable capacities of today' well-engineered aircraft the less BTUs-per-customer they must expend while achieving more per-passenger revenues.
Yet there are limits to this as anyone taller than 5'5" can testify. Today's seating arrangements make online work next to impossible in economy i.e. hoi-polloi class while making flying close to becoming unbearable.
(Replacing much-maligned but actually very nutritious and overall very good airline food with salt-and-fat-laden fare at most airports adds to the discomfort further because salt makes the joints ache)
Air travel though is about pushing the limits. An Italian company, Aviointeriors is promising to go beyond it when it comes to human endurance with its new 23-inch pitch (compared to typical 28-inch-31-inch pitch) "SkyRider" seat.
Not yet FAA-approved, the "SkyRider", is says Aviointeriors "an ultra-high density seat presently completely engineered and to be finally tested. The SkyRider has been designed and engineered to offer the possibility to even further reduce ticket prices while still maintaining sound profitability, which, even with a dual or three class seating arrangement, will allow maximum certified passenger capacity of the aircraft. With a much reduced seat pitch, the SkyRider preserves a comfortable position for the low fare passengers."
"Furthermore, in the SkyRider arrangement, a partial overlapping of the passengers seating between rows is allowed, thus further increasing the cabin density. The seat structure itself also provides space for personal baggage."
The seat row roughly resembles like those on amusement park rides without the over-the-shoulders harnesses, or the comfort. But don't give the airlines (or the FAA) any ideas. We've all been on flights that would merit such contraptions.
"The SkyRider is intended as a new basic class," says the firm. "The passenger's seating position is similar to that of a touring motor-scooter rider. This posture permits that the overall longitudinal space occupied by the seat."
If the Aviointeriors release had come out April 1 it would have been treated as a joke. Yet with domestic air travel--with the laudable exception of JetBlue--becoming a commodity where cheap-and-timing is what matters; if the FAA approves this cross between a seat and-straphanging don't be surprised if one carrier then another then another follow suit. Lowest common denominator. This is despite condemnation from reporters and users if the site Farecompare is any indication.
After all, the carriers know that if you have to fly, because your company tells you to or that you have to see your family or bury them you will have no choice, or so they think to endure the torture.
The only thing--barring Congress-driven mandates to the FAA--barring such a discomfort-inflicting device from being contemplated is for the individual business customers and for powerful consumers organizations like the AARP--to tell the airlines "don't even think about it or we'll switch/tell or advise our employees and members to switch to video/webconferencing, and Skype."
Given the airlines' better-but-still razor-thin profits, it doesn't take much of a shift in customers to change their ledger colors from black to red. For while the air travel experience has been deteriorating and prices climbing that for online virtual communications has been taking off and declining respectfully.
And one doesn't have to worry about strip-searches, what's in the other's person shoes, weather delays and lost bags, or tolerate the food on a Skype, web or videocall...the greenest "transportation" there is.
]]>Here are some excerpts from the piece:
"The sheer amount of packaging we deal with every day is staggering. According to the U.S.-based Dogwood Alliance, 25 per cent of the 2.4 million hectares of trees cut down every year in the southeastern United States ends up wrapping and boxing consumer goods."
"The computer age, which was supposed to diminish our need for paper, has only made things worse."
"The little plastic cartridges for inkjet printers, for instance, are notoriously over-packaged, contained in complicated boxes, attached to cardboard or plastic trays, wrapped in sticky plastic and accompanied by a series of instruction pamphlets and promotional paperwork."
The problem, says the editorial "is compounded if you happened to order that inkjet cartridge from an online retailer; chances are it was shipped in a cardboard box five or six times larger than the already voluminous box encasing the little plastic cartridge, and then further protected by crumpled paper, bubblewrap or styrofoam peanuts."
"Responsible, environmentally-conscious consumers can only do so much to keep all these boxes, containers, trays and whatnot from filling landfills."
For Metro Vancouver and environs like nearly every city is facing a waste management problem. There is rising in adjacent to an environmentally-sensitive area of Burns Bog a landfill that is beginning to look (and smell) like the first stages of New York City's infamous and now-closed "temporary" Fresh Kills dump on Staten Island. Barges, railcars and trucks leave this scenic part of "Beautiful British Columbia" to be disposed of elsewhere. Incineration is being debated as an option in a region where thanks to traffic from urban sprawl plus the pollutants from ships, trucks and trains along with that from factories air quality is becoming problematic.
The editorial quite correctly recommends "manufacturers and retailers to do their part and reduce the amount of packaging material they use. Most of it we can do without."
What is needed to make that happen is leadership from the largest manufacturers and retailers e.g. BestBuy, Dell, HP, Staples, WalMart, for this bulk and waste costs them money too. Perhaps a LEED for packaging?
The other option is VAT or GST for waste i.e. disposal fees added to the prices. The more it costs to clean, destroy, recycle or transport or to clean up from the processing i.e. air and water pollution, solid waste disposal, the higher the costs. This is fair; why should these expenses, including resulting increased healthcare costs from tending to those who become ill from the effects be foisted onto taxpayers?
Either method--while the former is more preferable the latter will likely be the case knowing human nature--the net results will be developing greener packaging or a switch to virtual alternatives: cloud computing, doing away with printing and online-only reading.
* Through routine measures, such as training employees to shut down equipment when they leave for the day, 52 percent of organizations actively working to reduce energy consumption have reduced IT energy costs by one percent or more
* If the average organization surveyed were to take full advantage of energy-saving measures, IT professionals estimate they could save $1.5 million annually
The message is getting out. CDW says 59 percent of organizations are training employees to shut down equipment when they leave their offices for extended periods, versus just 43 percent in 2008.
The 2009 report identifies where energy efficiency ranks in IT decision-making priorities, improvements in IT energy efficiency and remaining challenges, as well as uncovers strategies that successfully reduce IT energy bills.
More invaluable data and insights are on their way; CDW is readying to release The 2010 Energy Efficient IT Report that will be out in just a few weeks.
So why not take this sensible, proven concept to energy? And in the process slice the U.S. deficit, chop healthcare and other high costs, kickstart the economy and breathe and live easier?
That's the argument made by David Goldstein, who is co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC's) energy program and a MacArthur Genius Award grant winner in 2002 for his work on energy efficiency, in his new book, Invisible Energy: Strategies to Rescue the Economy and Save the Planet in which he challenges the assumption that we are powerless to our addiction to oil and other dirty fuels.
Goldstein's book, says the NRDC argues that by using energy more efficiently, "we can cut our energy demand, improve quality of life, cut global warming pollution, and reduce pressure to drill for oil in sensitive ecosystems like the Gulf. And in the process, we will be taking one of the few steps available to stimulate the economy while cutting the federal deficit."
"Goldstein emphasizes that we don't need the oil in the Gulf (or in other sensitive areas). He says the United States could do everything we are doing today - and in the foreseeable future - using currently available technologies to save more than $10 trillion over the next 40 years, reducing our demand for energy to perhaps 30 percent of what it is today."
"He also cites the failure to pursue strong energy efficiency policies since the 1970s as a primary cause for our global today's economic troubles, which can be remedied with energy efficiency policies that would pay off long-term dividends."
In a recent blog Goldstein writes: "Energy efficiency is one of the strongest tools we have at our disposal to recover from the recession. It can address all of the major problems that led to the Great Recession and that continue to hold back recovery: from the fear of inflation that [Paul] Krugman warns about to the trade deficit, high unemployment, and government deficits. Yet the policies that could work are not seen by policymakers to be of sufficient importance to implement with the needed urgency, and the economy continues to drift."
One of the underlying causes of the downturn that Goldstein correctly identifies is sprawl in that the transportation and energy costs of this development form has not been assessed in the total costs of house prices. If it were then consumers and lenders would have made more sensible and financially sound decisions. Alas in the talk about mortgage changes these factors have been left out.
He points out: "For mortgage lending, we have made almost no progress on incorporating energy and transportation costs into underwriting. When lenders evaluate or not whether borrowers can reliably make payments on a median mortgage of about $150,000 (or 80% of a median house price of about $180,000) they continue to ignore the 30-year commitment to pay some $300,000 in transportation expenses for a house located in suburban sprawl, and another $75,000 in utility costs."
"While these cost obligations are not contractual commitments, they are in practice real issues that affect whether or not the borrower can make their payments. Think about it. If you are in financial distress in Chicago in the winter, and you can't pay both your mortgage and your heating bill, which will you pay first? If you live in sprawl and need your car to drive to work, or look for a job, which bill will you pay first, your auto loan and gas or your mortgage?"
Goldstein if anything is understating the case, for supporting urban sprawl: commercial and residential is one reason why local and state taxes are so high that also adds to homeowners' financial distress, and why cash-strapped governments are cutting back essential services. It costs far more to provide and maintain roads, sewer/water, emergency response, transit, schools (including pupil and employee transportation) to low-density sprawling developments than it does to compact, efficient or smart walkable neighborhoods.
Why do local and state governments, knowing this, still encourage sprawl? Just check out who contributes to election campaigns...one more reason there should be limits on them (full disclosure: I am on the executive of a Canadian political party and have been a candidate in a local government election in which I did not take any money from developers)
This blogger has argued that to get moving greener--in more ways than one--we need to end all subsidies to energy and environmental waste. That also includes slicing mortgage subsidies. If you can afford a dream house, including the full costs, that's great. If you can't, well you can't. There's nothing wrong with settling for a smaller place or for renting.
Home ownership is such a shibboleth that it has blinded society to the hard costs it incurs. Yes it is nice to own your own home--you can within limits do what you want with it--something that provided your kids want it you can pass on to them. As investment it is hoary at best. Owning one limits flexibility in case circumstances change i.e. careers, life events e.g. marriage, kids, divorce, deaths. I've owned homes and I've rented and there are pros and cons to both. The bottom line is why should all of us have to subsidize the choice of living in sprawl?
The hard fact is though that for now there are millions of Americans (and many Canadian) that are stuck in homes, just trying to make ends met, and couldn't move out if they wanted to because what they would get in return would put them underwater.
Here's where teleworking can help: for we have also subsidized office-based employment and the energy it wastes both in buildings and in commuting at taxpayers' and the economy's expense, resulting as this blog has pointed out in huge healthcare costs.
Shifting the work to the worker saves them $4,000 to $5,000 in work-related employment costs than they can use to pay bills. They can also write off some of their house costs namely utilities for their workspaces. And they can sell one of their cars and rent out the garage to generate more cash. Doing so in turn also generates some $20,000 per employee/per year in net benefits to employers in the way of facilities costs and productivity gains. Meanwhile taxes can be lowered through less commuting resulting in minimizing road wear-and-tear, transit costs, and in emergency services.
And we get to breathe easier.
Something to think about as you relax at home, or return home from your 4th of July or extended (for those who are playing hookey) Canada Day holidays.
P.S. Be part of the solution. Walk, bike, take mass transit and carpool with others when you travel this holiday
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"Sponsored by APTA which is partnering with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Sierra Club this year, the National Dump the Pump Day is a public awareness day that highlights the benefits of public transportation, two of which are saving money and promoting energy independence."
"This year offers more than an opportunity for people to save money by using public transit," said APTA President William Millar. "Given the Gulf spill crisis, Americans can also make a statement in support of public transit and its ability to help our country reduce its reliance on oil.
"U.S. public transit ridership saves 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually," Millar said. "America needs to be energy independent and public transportation plays a critical role in our country attaining energy independence."
"Representatives from the NRDC and the Sierra Club agree that public transportation is part of the solution for helping our country reduce its reliance on oil.
"Preventing future national tragedies like the Gulf spill requires moving America beyond oil, and Dump the Pump Day reminds us that public transportation options such as trains and buses are important tools for driving down our dangerous dependence," said Deron Lovaas, NRDC Federal Transportation Policy Director.
"Taking transit this Thursday and every day after is something we all can do in response to the BP oil disaster," said Ann Mesnikoff, the Sierra Club's Green Transportation Campaign Director. "Public transportation is key to ending our dependence on oil and reducing our global warming pollution."
"Besides helping our country reduce its dependence on oil, people can also help improve their bank balances. The average household spends 18 cents of every dollar on transportation and 94 percent of this goes to buying, maintaining, and operating cars - the largest expenditure after housing. In addition, according to the monthly APTA Transit Savings Report, which tracks savings for public transit users, the national average savings per year is more than $9,000 for an individual in a two-person household who downsizes from two cars to one car. "
"More than 120 public transportation systems are participating in National Dump the Pump Day activities this year. Some public transit systems are offering free or reduced rides; holding contests with giveaways such as free transit passes; and spreading the word through social media. Proclamations have been issued, including one from Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson."
The irony is that despite the rhetoric from the President about the need to move away from oil dependency, and in the face of stimulus-driven investments in new bus and rail transit system expansions APTA members are having to cut back transit services because of shrinking state/local government resources to fill the financing gaps. IOW there is and will be fewer trains, buses and ferries to ride.
Almost every day there are announcements of service reductions. Here are just two of many examples:
"Caltrain will cut service in October, raise fares in January"--San Mateo County Times
Time to match the rhetoric with action, folks, on reducing oil dependency and pollution. Provide transit systems with stable operating income sources while putting pressure on the labor unions to get real on wage demands and give a little to so that their members can continue to work by serving the public. Supply incentives to firms and nonprofits alike to shift their work to employees' homes and business travel from in-person to conferencing.
And at the same time end the massive indirect subsidies to auto use and air travel by making the environmental damage, illnesses and emergency services costs incurred user-pay in fair portion by the oil companies, employers who by corporate decisions such as locating away from transit routes, motorists and air travellers and to those who buy and lease on greenfield i.e. urban sprawl lands.
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A once-great experience has been turned into, well, the most appropriately named commercial aircraft is the "Airbus", which speaks volumes for it. Namely cramming as many bodies to a hairline above the pain thresholds of most humans into a huge of hunk of material and transport them via their conveyance from Point A to Point B.
And that's without taking security into account--whose strict and now degrading and often tokenistic measures and procedures are lousy substitutes from lazy and incompetent intelligence. It is easier to force passengers to virtually strip than to gather, analyze, and most importantly act on potential threats. And yes I was there in New York City on 9-11-01 where I witnessed the attacks on the World Trade Center. And I have in my files a New York Times op-ed from July 10, 2001 written by Larry Johnson, a former State Department counterterrorism expert titled "The Declining Terrorist Threat."
On top of that, flying, like driving, wastes an awful lot of energy, eats up Earth-regenerating greenspace for massive runways and facilities and is not surprisingly a significant source of air pollution that leads to serious and deadly, and costly illnesses. Rail, buses (the highway variety), and web and videoconferencing requires fewer resources and spews less in return.
Even so, flying is a necessary evil. So I applaud efforts by the airlines, their suppliers and airports to take steps to minimize their substantial environmental footprints. I recently toured the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington that is rolling out the 787 Dreamliner with my father whom at the beginning of his career worked for Rolls Royce aero engines. He did his U.K. National Service i.e. conscription in the RAF as an aircraft mechanic, working on then-state-of-the-art turbojet engines built into Gloster Meteors and DeHavilland Vampires as well as their piston predecessors that had kept Britain free from Nazi rule in the bravely-piloted airframes of Spitfires, Hurricanes and Typhoons.
The Dreamliner is green technology in more ways than one. It will use 20 percent less fuel for comparable missions than presently similarly sized airplane. Advanced engine technologies -from General Electric and yes, my father's old company (I saw his smile and pride as he checked over a model of one of its turbofans)--will account for eight percent of the savings. Moreover, the Dreamliner's kit-built global manufacturing and assembly--in what is the world's largest building--is amazingly efficient compared to the old-fashioned piece-by-piece construction and is well worth the visit just for the facility.
Less impressed I am with voluntary carbon offset programs like the one between Air Canada and Zerofootprint. Both firms announced an expansion of it that includes a landfill gas recovery project in Ontario that takes the methane from rotting garbage and distributes it to a nearby plant that produces recycled content paper, along with a tire recycling program in Quebec.
While laudable the problem with such programs is that they "do good to atone for doing evil". Which in one cynical sense is better than just doing evil, but the programs they support should have been funded in the first place.
Instead Air Canada should be doing more to shrink the environmental footprint it and the other air carriers create. Re-equipping their fleets with new efficient airliners like the Dreamliner for medium-long haul flights is one step. Lobbying governments for proven-effective European-styled airport-high-speed-rail (HSR) ground spokes to minimize short-haul flights (which are the big polluters and runway eaters) is another.
Canada is pathetically behind even laggard U.S. on that count. Only one airport (YVR, in Vancouver, B.C.) has a rail rapid transit link. Yet there are airports in Edmonton, Alberta, Montreal, Quebec and Toronto, Ontario that lie in a jet-fuel-whiffing range of existing HSR-candidate railroad tracks that have had intercity rail (Edmonton) or presently have higher-speed passenger train services (Montreal and Toronto, including commuter rail). There is a rail spur three rapid transit stops from the YVR terminal building that can bring travelers directly to/from the fast-growing Fraser Valley communities.
(Canada's air carriers should also tell the federal government to dump the long-proposed Pickering airport east of Toronto, a project so controversial in its environmental impacts and long out-of-date that not even Mark Holland, the Member of Parliament representing the area wants it.)
Still another step is to recycle the garbage used by passengers. The airlines are saving fuel and reducing emissions by getting rid of onboard food services. The offset is the take-on food trash. How about joint programs with the airport authorities and the concessions to use lightweight recyclable/reusable cutlery and packaging? There's a win-win (rail operators e.g. Amtrak in the U.S. and VIA in Canada should do likewise).
Here's another source of emissions that the airport authorities can mandate: low-emission/zero-emission airporter shuttle vans such as by buying and leasing them to operators to get rid of the smelly fuel-belching clunkers that prowl the terminals.
The airlines could also take a hint from JetBlue and go virtual i.e. home-based agents with their contact centers. Why waste money and energy and crap up the air in the process by providing facilities and requiring staff to commute to them?
In this fashion travel is only kept to when it is truly needed. Which is really the way to go green.
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The report's data indicates that if organizations truly want to make a difference in their costs, environment and quality of life that they need to get out of the "parks" altogether. For no matter how "green" the buildings in energy efficiency the dirt from the pollution and other even more deadly and expensive impacts on public health from car dependence resulting from their locations far outweigh the benefits.
This comprehensive study, prepared for the APHA by UrbanDesign 4Health examines all impacts and their staggering costs in 2008 dollars from transportation and land use that is shaped by and which shapes transportation choices. These include accidents, air pollution and obesity including administrative expenses (such as billing and contact centers) and where appropriate lost productivity and wages, property damage, travel delays and costs due to pain, suffering and lost quality of life and premature death.
The toll from cars in poor air quality alone range from $50 billion to $80 billion per year. Yet even that high amount is overshadowed by the costs of accidents that reach about $180 billion annually.
(Keep in mind that hybrids and zero emission vehicles also create pollution from extracting, refining and distributing petroleum products, in highway construction and maintenance, and in emergency vehicles responding to accidents. Like the one my paramedic stepson works out of, scraping motorists and truckers out of their vehicles and hauling them to the ER. Then again thanks to car commuters he has a great job and future.)
Then there is obesity. Car dependence: driving and driving others makes us and them fat because we're not exercising, leading to a vast range of horrible ailments including diabetes and heart disease, and ca-chinging up to $142 billion per year.
(This is more good news from my stepson and his young family; more bad news for everyone else and society as a whole.)
The physical toll is head-shaking. Traffic crashes causes over 40,000 deaths annually, say the report. Some 35 million people live within 300 feet of a major roadway, and are at higher risk of respiratory illness due to exposure to traffic-related air pollution. At the same time about one-third of adults are estimated to be obese and another third are overweight "due in part to sedentary lifestyles and the lack of opportunity for everyday physical activity."
Add these factors together and they are responsible for over nine percent of the U.S's fast-rising healthcare bill: from $2.4 trillion in 2008 to $3.1 trillion in 2012, and $4.3 trillion by 2016.
"The consequences of inactivity, obesity, exposure to air pollution, and traffic crashes in the U.S. are staggering when viewed in terms of cost," says the report. "Tragically, these costs are also largely preventable. "
To enable such prevention requires a serious adjustment in transportation financing and decisions. The APHA report says that much more work is needed in the area of health evaluation and cost assessment in transportation policy. There also needs to be investments in healthier transportation. It recommends a few key policy changes to achieve these objectives, among them:
* Encourage federal planning, funding practices, and decisionmaking to include health impacts, costs and benefits
* Support development of healthy communities, active transport and incentives for transportation investments that support health
* Promote measurement and evaluation of health, safety and equity in planning and development processes
* Fund research to evaluate health impacts and costs of transportation and land use actions
That means more bus, rail and ferry transit and sidewalks and bike paths as opposed to arterials and freeways and more traditional pedestrian-friendly compact development and fewer subdivisions. The report outlines several illustrative examples.
"Our country depends on a robust transportation system that facilitates easy, safe commutes and promotes physical activity in order to reduce the burden of death and disease and improve health outcomes of all communities," said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), executive director of the American Public Health Association.
With companies picking up the tab for health insurance there are steps that they can take to do their share i.e. "think globally, act locally", which benefits the bottom line while shrinking those on their employees' physiques:
* Shrink the office by deploying telecommuting and encouraging employees to use the time saved to work out every day
* Move to offices and sites on high-transit-served corridors
* Dump the gym. They cost money, pose liability and potential harassment issues and lower-ranked staff especially (such as contact center agents) want to get the Hades out of there when their shift ends; when they clock out their time is theirs.
Instead if you own/lease employee parking then charge employees for it while level the playing field with alternative modes by paying for bike racks and transit passes
* Support transit investments and urge polluter-pay programs
By solid actions recommended by the APHA report and individual corporate practices and advocacy together we could achieve a greener, cleaner, healthier and safer environment.
A Canwest New Service article printed last Friday in The Province revealed, citing new Statistics Canada figures, that "wealthy Canadians were the worst polluting drivers in 2007. While the rich, defined as having annual incomes of $100,000+ were responsible for spewing out the most air pollution per person, at 5,737 kilograms or 12,621 lbs in 2007.
"'People in this income group were more likely to own vehicles that use more fuel, such as trucks and SUVs,'" the article cites the report.
Along with that StatsCan reported an increase of new 466,472 vehicles on the road in 2007 compared with 2006, with more than half the additional fleet made up of (you guessed it) SUVs, trucks and vans.
Disturbingly if not surprisingly the same report said that individual vehicle pollution was up by one-third in 2007 compared to 15 years or so earlier. So much for fuel effiencies...
And if you add that up to additional driving, road wear-and-tear and resulting maintenance costs which also lead to higher pollution, it appears that any green gains in automotive technology--like the building of roads to alleviate traffic congestion--are eventually wiped out by the users.
One example that I hope doesn't go this way is increased recycling in car construction. The same issue of the paper reports in a story "Working toward the Earth-friendly car" that more manufacturers want to use additional recyclable components, besides the long-recycled aluminum, copper, iron and steel that are the stuff of junkyards, shredders, dirty old railroad gondola cars and melt shops.
"Typically, the plastics being used by manufacturers have been reinforced with materials such as glass, carbon or polyethylene fibres combined with petroleum-based resins," says the story. "Now, however, researchers are finding those materials can be replaced with bioplastics and fibres derived from plants without sacrificing critical requirements such as strength and durability. And, with oil prices continuing to rise, these green alternatives are cost effective, too."
The article pointed to a European study which "predicts that by 2020, bio-based plastics could replace up to 90 per cent of the total amount of petroleum-derived plastics consumed globally in 2007.
"The auto industry consumes an average of about 135 kilograms (297 lbs) of plastic in every car it builds, so it's no surprise automakers are looking down this road with enthusiasm, especially with the current push to make components either recyclable or biodegradable."
The piece cites Deborah Mielewski, technical leader of plastics research in Ford Motor Company's materials research and advanced engineering department, says the dream is to see those 135 kg of petroleum-based plastics "replaced by what we can grow. It just makes sense."
Ford is already using natural fiber-based plastic in its Ford Flex crossover. This reportedly industry-first production-line application uses plastic reinforced with environmentally friendly wheat straw to create the Flex's third-row interior storage bins. Using the wheat straw as a bio-filler, this application alone, says the Province story " is reducing petroleum usage by more than 9,000 kg (19,800 lbs) per year and cutting CO2 emissions by more than 13,600 kg (29,920 lbs.) annually. It also has better dimensional integrity than non-reinforced plastic and weighs up to 10 per cent less than plastic reinforced with talc or glass.
The story adds that applications already under consideration by the Ford team include centre console bins and trays, interior air register and door trim panel components and armrest liners.
One would hope that these materials would make fully electric vehicles more viable with the wealthy being the early and fashion-leading adopters, thereby creating the market for more affordable and practical mass market versions to sell to the hoi polloi.
Then again, if the experience of SUVs and trucks are any indication--and I've written about automotive metals in the 1990s when these vehicles started to become popular people movers in the 'burbs'--the savings will go into bulkier, feature-loaded craft that take up more road space and leaving us in the same choking mess or probably worse than we're now in...
Shipping goods on trains in whole or in part of intermodal (ship/truck-rail) movements uses less energy and land, emits fewer pollutants at greater labor productivity than all-truck for medium to high volumes of freight over likewise distance: short distance heavy movements, such as aggregates are also more efficiently carried on trains. On a per-ton basis, trucking uses on average four times the energy to transport freight versus rail, says the report. That means rail jobs are green jobs.
Moreover, encouraging freight rail through investment in it will also enable green passenger rail. Most of Amtrak's routes and a good chunk of U.S. commuter rail operations are on tracks that are owned by freight railroads. Therefore more freight rail and green jobs means more passenger rail, thereby generating even more green employment.
The BlueGreen Alliance and the Economic Policy Institute's study according to their release says "that the expansion of freight rail in the U.S. can create approximately 7,800 green jobs for every $1 billion of capital invested. If this is expanded to include re-spending by freight rail and supporting industry employees, between 12,300 and 26,600 American jobs would be created or sustained per $1 billion invested."
"Over the past two centuries, rail has helped the United States become the world's leading economic power," said David Foster, Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance. "As we enter the new clean energy economy, now is not the time to abandon such a profitable, clean and promising industry. It's a winning situation for everyone - thousands of green jobs are created and we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
"This report affirms the tremendous public benefits that are generated both by freight rail's inherent fuel efficiency and the industry's commitment to reinvesting in the nation's rail network," said Edward R. Hamberger, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Railroads.
Freight rail jobs are green jobs, states the report, "which are crucial to reducing carbon and saving energy in the transportation sector. Over the past three decades, the industry has nearly doubled the amount of goods it has shipped without increasing fuel consumption, creating a fraction of the pollution of other modes of transportation. It cites for example, TTX Company, which is profiled in the report, has found ways to prevent more than 2.5 billion empty miles per year, and save more than 167 million gallons of fuel annually."
To make an expanded freight rail system happens the report recommends that governments consider investment incentives, such as rail capital and shortline tax credits and public-private partnerships (P3s) between freight railroads and passenger rail with government paying only for public benefits, and railroads paying for the business benefits they gain from improvements to the rail network.
(A P3 was used to finance Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada's very successfully Canada Line rapid transit, which opened last year from Vancouver International Airport a.k.a. YVR and Richmond into downtown Vancouver: in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics)
"Freight rail represents a significant opportunity to create good, green jobs while making our transportation system more efficient and sustainable and also helping passenger rail," said Carl Pope, Executive Chairman of the Sierra Club. "This report shows that expanding freight rail will meet our goals of creating good jobs while helping to reduce our dependence on oil."
What is also needed are incentives to encourage rail electrification, which is virtually nonexistent for freight and only exists in the Northeast with a couple of exceptions in the Chicago area and that is only for passenger. Electric traction has the enormous benefit of being able to return much of the power used through regenerative braking i.e. turning the electric motors under nearly every locomotive into generators as well as relying on cleaner energy sources such as hydro and modern natural-gas fire generating plants.
But hey you have to start slow before you can move fast. If lawmakers adopt the recommendations in this report to expand freight rail first then we can talk about electrification later.
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Yet unlike with religious days of observance there is a real hell, a stiff and ultimate price to pay by ignoring the environment. One example of this chilling fact is the Canadian Medical Association's 2008 report No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution that revealed that many as 21,000 Canadians will have died prematurely that year alone from air pollution, with some 3,000 from acute, short-term exposure. That number will escalate to almost 90,000 by 2031. The financial costs? A staggering $8 billion in 2008, leaping to having accumulated over $250 billion by 2031.
And that's in Canada: a country with 34 million residents or 1/9th the U.S's 309 million population. Do the math from the above statistics and you begin to wonder how come we are killing each other this way and at what cost?
Scarier still, those figures are for airborne pollutants alone. There are then illnesses and deaths, at enormous costs from fouled water and solid waste. Urban sprawl is an insidious contributor to all three. It promotes high auto use and autos are both directly through burning fuels and indirectly via road construction and maintenance and from fuel extraction, refining and transportation big air, water and land pollution sources. Human and pet liquid and solid waste, garbage (like e-waste) and lawn fertilizer and pesticides make for toxic stews. Factor on top of these impacts the climate-changing heat islands, fouling freshwater sources (and requiring dangerous chlorine for purification) added erosion and flooding and the costs of pollution literally shoot into the sky.
The environment, to use the famous quote of economists "ain't a free lunch." Unfortunately right now there are few mechanisms that make polluters pay for the meal. Nothing to prod someone from thinking twice about building and buying sprawling offices and houses on wetlands, served by hulking SUVs, chucking out enormous amounts of trash yet whose acts require the rest of us to pay for the damage--including with our lives and that of our loved ones.
If we truly want to make Earth Day and Earth Week significant--and actionable--then we need to devise polluter (and sprawler)-pay laws and offset that by lower general taxes resulting from less expense-creating waste, i.e. enabling the power of the marketplace to efficiently allocate resources. The more you crap up the air, land and water the bigger the bill. If you want to reduce the costs then find new solutions that enable you to do just that. Can it be any fairer?
Yes, there will be higher costs, such as gas prices and house and lease prices will go up, but roads, office parks and single-family housing has been subsidized for years, at the expense of more efficient rail, city center offices and multifamily homes, thereby distorting the real estate and transportation marketplaces. So why should the rest of us have to fork over our money, directly and indirectly, leading to injuries and premature and painful deaths, for others to "enjoy" these choices?
We can no longer afford to treat Earth Day/Earth Week like an article of faith: if we hope to have a future for ourselves and for future generations.
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Ms Wente and Mr. Monbiot may be right. The "green" costs don't include the vast amount of land needed for solar panels--unless you build one on every existing rooftop--to produce the same energy as a compact natural-gas-fired steam or supplemental combined heat-power gas-turbine generator. Then there's the land and costs for transmission and distribution systems to connect them to grids.
The answer to green power lies with most every other environmental issue: add in all the attributable direct and indirect costs including land consumption, pollution and health costs into the energy bills, and factor in peak-period-pricing and both users and generators and distributors will get smarter, and cleaner.
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Greenpeace has a point: the way coal is extracted and burned in electricity generation is not exactly clean. Yet then again there are few sources that are--yes that includes Canada's infamous tar sands-- if one looks at the options, and at the total amount of environmental damages such as from transportation and distribution that all choices incur.
Then there is the other side of the coin, which is where premise-installed computers get their power from, considering that the electrical systems are on a grid. The real interesting question is which method: cloud or premises computing is more efficient and greener including the making, shipping, and recycling computers.
Kelly's article says the Greenpeace report's analysts said the last thing the environment needs is more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power.
Yet with the growing size of these data centers and the relative affordability and scalability of clean-burning natural gas-fired generators (the heat they produce can also be captured for hot water), would it be more environmentally and financially viable for the large data firms to go into the generating business, selling off excess as clean power to the grid and relying on the grid as backup?
With public resistance to large fossil-fueled plants, dams, and nuclear power stations and their consequences including ugly transmission and distribution systems i.e. NIMBYs, which some say is not exactly helping to maintain the reliability of the electrical grid that they use, such onsite power may be the way to go.
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