Green Blog - green technology Archives

Canadian Newspaper Has It Right: To Go Green Cut Down On Packaging

2010-08-30T21:32:50Z

Canada is a big source of American packaging material, and that includes newsprint.

So applause should be offered to a recent editorial in the Peace Arch News, a newspaper which is distributed in the Metro Vancouver communities of South Surrey and the city of White Rock, British Columbia, Canada that face the U.S. border which called for manufacturers and retailers to cut down on the waste.

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.

A Practical Way To Use Electric Vehicles: Commute/Reverse Commute Station Cars

2010-07-21T15:47:04Z

Electric vehicles (EV) presently and will continue to suffer one crippling flaw for most applications: the lack of range. Note the words 'most applications' for there is an imaginative and practical means of using them that is discussed later on.

A recent National Post 'Motor Mouth' article by David Booth points out that the batteries required to move EVs generate electrical energy far less efficiently than do gasoline or other fuels. Gasoline produces about 6,000 watt-hours/pound whereas the "most optimistic numbers" he has seen for advanced lithium-ion batteries is 110 watt-hours/pound.

"That means good old- fashioned gasoline punches 54 times harder for the same amount of weight, the fundamental reason electric cars' ranges are so pitiful compared with those fossil fuelled," writes Booth.

Simply put: there is no way you can pack that much battery power to match what gasoline, or even less efficient fuels like compressed natural gas (used in fleet vehicles, like taxis) can produce for your typical trips.

What about the vaunted greater efficiency of electric motors?

"In the electric vehicles' defence, electric motors transmit that energy more efficiently to the road," says Booth. "Some electric motors boast 90% efficiency, while internal-combustion engines can transmit as little as 15% of their energy into vehicular motivation. However, even being generous, that means EVs face a nine- times deficit versus traditional cars."

And that doesn't take into account driving on hilly terrain. My city is noted for just that. I sit on the city council's transportation advisory committee and had my vote recorded against the majority that supported endorsing allowing small EV maintenance vehicles on local streets as they would have to crawl up the grades, blocking traffic; they are not fitted with the cumbersome flywheels or heavy gasoline engines that would have given them the needed oomph.

Moreover, re-energizing EVs are just as inefficient compared with filling up the tank even with the latest technology. GE has come out with GE WattStation that it says on average decreases electric vehicle charging time from 12-18 hours to as little as four to eight hours compared to standard charging "level 1", assuming a full-cycle charge for a 24 kWh battery.

In contrast it takes me about 5 to 7 minutes including payment time to fill up my-recreational/occasional-trip-only (I work from home) Subaru Forester.

For that reason EVs are limited to about 80 miles-90 miles per day. This may seem a lot but not when the typical urban or more accurately sprawl-to-sprawl commutes run in the range of 20 miles or 30 miles or more: less in stop-and-go traffic as well on grades. The real crippler though is the personal trips e.g. picking up/dropping off kids, food shopping, stopping by the hardware store, going out for lunch, meeting the gang after work, or having to take Aunt Millie to the airport.

So does that relegate EVs to the realm of jetpacks and other cool if ultimately impractical means of getting around?

No, because there is a way to use them that minimizes their downsides i.e. range and charging time and maximizes their benefits: zero-direct-emission mobility and that is as a bidirectional "station cars".

In this app EVs would bring commuters from their suburban homes to bus, ferry or train park-and-ride lots in the AM, take those coming off these modes that are going to suburban workplaces or other destinations e.g. conference centers, institutions, back to the transit terminals in the PM, and finally transport commuters on their last legs back to their domiciles. Next-(ahem)-gen chargers like GE's WattStation would be installed at residences, offices, institutions, which would permit morning, evening and work-time errand journeys. EVs can be deployed single-occupancy or better yet in shared-ride configurations.

As with vanpools, those who drive get to use EVs on weekends. This for all practical purposes would favor the suburban residents but there are many instances where both can benefit i.e. trip to the city on the train for a ball game, ride out to the country to a resort or beach or see some friends, depending on the frequency of transit service.

This use of EVs will help to not only reduce emissions in general but it affordably manages the air-killing matter of reaching suburban destinations that are at present impractical i.e. very costly to reach by mass transit because they are laid out to exclusively favor auto access. It also maximizes the use of this investment. Recharging at home and work gives the range needed for both sets of users' personal trips, which makes EVs practical for them.

So how do you employ EVs in this fashion? In much the same fashion as vanpools, with the use of computerized booking, plus with new-gen password vehicle access and starting. Transit agencies either independently or preferably (as they are cash-strapped) in partnership with the power companies would buy them and the chargers at fleet rates and in turn charge drivers, much like car renting or leasing. The renters/lessors and their employers would pay for the power to juice up their vehicles.

This is a multi-win application of this technology. Commuters will not have to own (and gas up) a second vehicle, thereby saving them thousands of dollars a year. Transit agencies will not have to extend routes to office parks or can conserve resources by pulling back poor performing ones if EVs are used instead while the ridership and revenue on bus, ferry or train reverse commute runs will grow because there will now be a viable option for such commuters. There will be fewer vehicles-miles travelled and resulting less pollution and congestion and accidents.

Yes, the markets that EVs can be used in this fashion are limited, but they are the ones with the biggest pollution and sprawl problems and with long transit spines e.g. Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, L-A basin, New York /Tri-State, Philly, San Francisco Bay area (including Silicon Valley), Seattle/Bellevue, Washington, D.C and in Canada: Montreal and Toronto.

How about it? Who wants to climb aboard?

Wealthy Biggest Driving Polluters? No, Really?

2010-05-18T16:44:00Z

The wealthy have the means to become the earliest adopters of the latest and greatest home and office green tech devices, methods and solutions. Yet it appears that too many of them are acting otherwise when it comes to mobility, if Canada's elite are any indication.

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...

Steel Rails are Green

2010-05-07T02:44:51Z

A new report from the BlueGreen Alliance and the Economic Policy Institute, Full Speed Ahead: Creating Green Jobs Through Freight Rail Expansion, confirms what rail and many environment advocates and industry sources have been pointing out for years: rails are green and in more ways than one. So instead of ripping out railroad tracks in favor of highways: the dominant government policy for the past 90 years, governments should instead enable investing money into freight rail.

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.

Green Power Costs

2010-04-12T22:24:38Z

I love contrarians because they make think. One great example comes by way of Margaret Wente's recent column in the Globe and Mail on the Province of Ontario's announcement of $8 billion worth of green energy initiatives (i.e. subsidies) on top of $7 billion already promised. Among her points:

*      The province will pay solar producers "around 80 cents a kilowatt hour for the power they sell back to the grid. That's about 15 times more than the current spot price that consumers now pay for power. The difference will eventually show up on their electricity bills. In solar terms, Toronto is not exactly Southern California. Even there, nobody has figured out how to make solar power cheap."

*     "Green-energy advocates say the extra cost is worth it. Renewable energy will reduce our use of fossil fuels, cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions, and bolster the economy by kicking off a new era of green jobs.

"Don't bet your solar panel on it. Renewables simply can't produce the large volumes of reliable energy that our economy needs.

"These energy sources are so intermittent and unreliable that you have to have backup power at all times," says Prof. Trebilcock (Michael Trebilcock, a professor of law and economics at the University of Toronto). "For every wind farm we build, we'll have to have a coal or gas-fired power station waiting in the wings to take over when it's 20 below. I think we'll get next to nothing on carbon dioxide abatement."

*     "George Monbiot, the environmental firebrand in Britain, which has just introduced its own subsidy scheme" says that "Germany has spent €1.2-billion on solar roofs. Their total contribution to the country's electricity supply was 0.4 per cent. Their total contribution to carbon savings is zero. "

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.

Green Campus Project

2010-04-08T20:02:16Z

Here is something worth voting for, the Green Campus Project. It is a candidate in Pepsi's Pepsi Refresh project where the firm is giving away $1.3 million each month to projects that gain viewers' votes.

The Green Campus Project "seeks to equip student-led electric transportation projects on two university campuses in Minnesota", explains Marty Leenhouts, Green Campus Project Administrator, with $50,000 it hopes to win from Pepsi.The goal he says is to expose some 60,000 university students to electric transportation.

"Each project will be equipped with a variety of electric bikes, scooters and motorcycles to use for their own personal transportation, demonstrations, and presentations to university students," says the Green Campus Project page. "Additional funding will be budgeted for advertising and marketing. Exposing the entire student body to electric transportation will emphasize the personal, societal, and environmental benefits with this green technology. Each university will benefit from this project as students embrace electric transportation. Parking demands will ease, traffic noise will decrease, and student mobility will improve on campus and in the surrounding university area."

Of the $50,000 the Green Campus Project is seeking $20,000 will go to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis-St. Paul for e-bikes, e-scooter and e-cycles and $10,000 to the same school for advertising and marketing, then $10,000 for the University of Minnesota, Mankato campus for the vehicles plus $10,000 for advertising and marketing.

Interested? Vote now, daily, until April 30, 2010.

For more information and voting go to : http://www.refresheverything.com/greencampus

The "Green Cloud"?

2010-04-06T07:08:12Z

In my family the expression "green cloud" means the release and lingering of foul-smelling flatulence. Greenpeace appears to have a similar opinion of cloud computing as it is being applied by some companies.

Last week, TMCnet editor Kelly McGuire wrote a great story on a report by Greenpeace on saying that cloud-computing-driving data centers could be dirtying up the air by relying on electricity from coal-fired plants.

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.

The Marketplace Is The Answer For A Green Planet...And Tech

2010-04-01T05:13:17Z

Forget save-the-planet sentiments and actions like last Saturday's Earth Hour, and laws, and regulations.

The only way people and organizations will truly go green, and saving the earth and in turn boosting the market for green products and practices is by making them i.e. us pay the full costs i.e. environmental and related healthcare and other expenses for the damage we incur both directly and indirectly and add that to the prices of what we buy.

And then let the marketplace works its magic to efficiently allocate resources...

In other words if you want to telecommute from an insulated-up-the tailfeathers townhouse that relies on solar energy for cooling and heating, supplemented by fans and hot-water bottles respectively...and if you want to drive a tank to your office park from a mansion whose A/C is at 60 and the heat at 75...both of which is your right...then you pay accordingly for the Earth you use. What can be fairer, and more effective?

In a letter I recently wrote to a top Metro Vancouver, B.C. planning official I explored 'full cost analysis' (FCA) to enable such a pricing system for transportation, land use and municipal services. I cited evidence such as:

(a) The Canadian Medical Association report, No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution which reports that the economic costs of air pollution in 2008 will top $8 billion. By 2031, they will have accumulated to over $250 billion. Vehicle emissions account for 1/3 that

(b) A Smartrisk report that says almost 3,000 people die and another 200,000 are injured every year in road crashes in Canada. Transportation injuries (chiefly motor vehicle accidents) cost $3.7 billion directly and indirectly in 2004

(c) The David Suzuki Foundation estimates that the impacts in erosion, loss of wildlife habitat, and degraded water quality when such land is paved over range per hectare/year from $12,000 for farmland to $30,000 for wetland

(d) The C.D. Howe Institute calculation that development costs over the next 25 years in the Greater Toronto Area (road, sewer, water networks) under sprawl would reach $55 billion, plus $14 billion in operating expenditures whereas with compact development the same pricetag is: $42.8 billion (or 22 percent less)

(e) Fiscal Cost of Sprawl: How Sprawl Contributes to Local Governments' Budget Woes, by Environment Colorado Research and Policy Center, research by Colorado State University, published 2003 calculated that for $1 in revenues from sprawl, $1.65 is spent in service expenditures

These costs are not assigned, I said, which distorts commercial and residential real estate markets and municipal finances. If they were, builders and buyers would develop and locate smarter and municipalities would not have to 'outsprawl' each other in trying to attract commercial development especially.

I suggested that Metro Vancouver undertake a study into applying FCA. Here are some suggestions that I had presented:

(a) Employer and college/post-secondary institution user-taxes based on the size of footprint i.e. land and transportation mode choice of employees and students, with allowance for brownfield i.e. existing serviced excluding just-built [past 15 years, to reflect commercial payback periods] /build-to-suit properties on formerly open space.

In this transportation mode costs would be assigned on the basis of the average capital, upkeep and impact cost of each mode used by employees/students either actual (X per km [miles] multiplied by number of kms [miles] commuted) or the average distance commuted by each mode in the municipalities the businesses or schools located in.

In exchange for this shift to a user-pay system commercial taxes would be reduced. Employers and schools would be incentivized to locate on high-transit-frequency routes, employ telework, densify and stay in and make better use of present buildings. The dividend is cleaner air, less traffic, fewer accidents, more open space and lower total costs to businesses and schools, enabling them to be more competitive and to offer more.

(b) 'Service fees' imposed on new build/just-built commercial and residential property based on their initial and ongoing direct and indirect environmental and services costs and gradually extended to existing properties. In other words treat land user like other service: sewer/water and garbage. Garbage fees should rise to reflect the total environmental (including transportation and their related costs) of handling it.

In exchange residential property taxes would be lowered and business taxes cut. The net effect would be increased densification and brownfield redevelopment. More retail businesses would be attracted to downtowns and town centres while existing retail space and industrial lands would be redeveloped. There would be a shift to apartments and townhouses both owner-and tenant-occupied. Going to a user-pay system will result in keeping more money in the pockets of owners.

Yes, businesses, and influential groups and citizens will squawk with a marketplace-based full cost approach, citing all matter of damage to their livelihoods. Tough. Why should the rest of us subsidize your enterprise and your practices and your lifestyle on our dime? If you can't afford to do it, change, live without or go kaput. No one forced you to go into business or use those methods or select the housing, appliances and transportation methods that you've used.

Yet the absence of the full-cost approach has forced others to follow suit, such as by making publicly-subsidized sprawl and car use the dominant housing and mobility means, and landfilling and dumping rather than recycling the chief means of handling waste.

It will take courage to go full-cost. Yet in view of increasing environmental costs, healthcare expenses and climate change we don't have an alternative if we are to survive as a species.

Full Cost Analysis Needed on Green Power

2010-02-18T20:56:41Z

Full-cost analysis (FCA) examines both complete direct i.e. capital and operating costs and indirect i.e. environmental, health and social costs of private and public investments.

FCA, many of whose methodologies are still being refined, is a much needed tool to enable companies and policymakers to accurately determine the true ROI of projects. It will hopefully end the free ride 'enjoyed' especially by highways, airports and sprawl. And it should be used to carefully evaluate the power generation choices available.

It would be instructive to see the pricing at the end of the day between coal and where and how the coal is produced, tar sands and natural gas for electrical power. The environmental costs of blowing up mountains, creating huge tailing ponds and extraction and refining costs, and transportation and distribution expenses and their impacts i.e. trains, trucks, pipelines need to be put into the equations.

The same goes between fossil fuels, hydroelectricity and nuclear, all of which have their tradeoffs. For example, what are the true disposal costs of fly ash versus that of nuclear waste, per unit generated? FCA would allow power buyers to make effective decisions on where they get the bulk of their electricity.

There are also many nagging questions over green power especially as to whether it is truly environmentally sound. For example, small scale hydroelectric projects have been touted as alternatives to large ones.

Yet is this actually the case when FCA methodologies are applied, such as on construction of the dams and building new transmission lines? It is one thing to reuse an existing dam or dammed river near in-place distribution systems, such as on the Moira River in Belleville, Ontario; it is another to 'greenfield' a run-of-river plant in coastal British Columbia.

The same goes for wind and solar power. Do they cost-effectively produce the power for the investment and operating i.e. maintenance expenses required, for the land consumed?

Questions have been raised about ethanol thanks to FCA, and it is falling out of fashion as a result what with the trucks and trains to haul and the plants to process the material. It follows wood fuel that was also touted as an alternative energy source.

I got a perspective of wood fuel some 20 years ago when I worked as a reporter in a small British Columbia town. A power plant at the local sawmill that burned waste fuel often belched out soot. The particulate matter and other emissions from wood stoves and furnaces created harmful smog in local valleys in winter.

FCA also needs to be applied to smart grid strategies. I've heard the argument that smart grid investments makes sense where electricity costs are high i.e. Ontario and grid partners i.e. in Ohio are unstable as witnessed by the 2003 blackout, but the ROI may not be there in British Columbia or Manitoba where the rates are low and the infrastructure is stable.

FCA should also be applied when comparing how that energy is used i.e. power plants to create electricity for use in rail and urban transit or in internal combustion engines. That will help policymaker decide more accurately whether to go with clean diesel, CNG/LNG, hybrid, hydrogen and electrification.

Finally FCA should be applied to conservation versus added building or buying additional generation capacity. If conservation via changes in methods and processes, or investments in more efficient technologies proves to be comparatively cheaper then more people, and commercial and institutions will conserve. And that's win-win all around.

Desiring Streetcars

2010-01-27T02:32:00Z

One of the greenest ways of getting around is electric streetcars. These elegant, comfortable rail vehicles use far less energy than cars, can draw their power from sources other than fossil fuels, are much more attractive than buses and can shape development.

Once the primary means of getting around, streetcars were targeted for elimination by a combination of an apathetic public sold on the vision of unlimited mobility, not realizing that the dark side of congestion and environmental destruction lay just around the corner and by the beneficiary car and tire makers and petroleum companies. Now streetcars have been making a comeback in cities throughout North America. People and communities are once again finding them desirable.

The latest city to witness their return, if only for a short time, is Vancouver, B.C., Canada. The City of Vancouver and Bombardier have launched the Olympic Line, a 1.2 mile demonstration route from the Canada Line rapid transit near the Olympic Village to Granville Island, a popular shopping and entertainment hub long notorious for terrible parking. A pair of state-of-the-art 100 percent low-floor Bombardier streetcars, borrowed from Brussels, Belgium began operating last Thursday and will continue to do so until March 21, with the close of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympic Games. The service, which will be provided every six to 10 minutes from 6:30am to 12:30am, is free.

The tracks the streetcars use a rebuilt freight spur operated on by restored heritage streetcars in summer months. Vancouver lost its local streetcar system in 1955; its longer-distance electric interurbans in 1958. Rail transit, in the form of automated rapid transit, first returned in 1986 and has been expanded since.

Vancouver hopes to keep the streetcars going after March 21; it is planning a network that will connect offices, retail, transportation hubs, sports venues and parks in the downtown. City officials are keeping their fingers crossed that strong public demand and support will enable them to convince provincial and federal governments especially, for operating and capital financing.

Vancouuver is eyeing The City of Seattle, some 2-1/2 hours to the south, which has greenlighted a second new streetcar line that will connect its King Street/International District Amtrak/commuter rail/LINK light rail hub with First Hill and Capitol Hill. The first streetcar line, connecting Lake Union with the Westlake Center, a retail/transportation center that joins LINK with the Seattle Center monorail, opened in 2007. They will be part of a network that Vancouver hopes to replicate.

The Seattle system could be receiving added funding thanks to Obama Administration transit financing rule changes. The Wall Street Journal reported it was revamping them "to funnel more of the money to streetcars, bus routes and other projects that promote 'livability.'

"Transit-industry officials said many projects had been stymied by a Bush administration policy requiring the government to evaluate projects based largely on reducing commuting times at the lowest possible expense," said the paper.

Green Box: Green tech survey and patents

2010-01-19T04:07:05Z

A couple of items have landed in my inbox that are of interest:

Symantec via its PR firm forwarded the green facets of its recently released findings from the firm's 2010 State of the Data Center report. Among them:

* 70 percent of enterprises mentioned energy savings as a somewhat/absolutely important initiative, which was one of the top ten

* 94 percent of enterprise said that reducing energy consumption was important, 89 percent said Green IT was important

* Green IT/energy savings came up in every cloud computing topic

36 percent are considering private cloud computing, 33 percent are looking at public cloud computing, 30 percent are considering infrastructure as a service, and 33 percent are considering platform as a service to become green.

Also 32 percent of firms are using storage as a service and 34 percent are deploying storage virtualization while 32 percent of enterprises are using storage virtualization--all as ways to go green.

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Also Tom Ciesielka has kindly passed on this release to me on green tech patemts:

January 15, 2010 - Five weeks after the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began a test program to fast track certain "green" technology patent applications, most of the 3,000 positions are still available. Only about one third have been applied for.

Businesses wishing to patent their proprietary green technologies are being given special "front-of-the-line" status in having their application reviewed. Unexamined pending applications that are accepted could have the processing time reduced by as much as one year.

"This may be used in conjunction with other governmental programs to speed the prosecution of foreign applications as well" said Paul Craane, attorney with the intellectual property law firm Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP. "Assuming your application falls within the proper class, this program is tailored for an application focused on a single invention," Craane said. Craane recommended that applicants contact their patent attorney and get their petition in as soon as possible.

The USPTO has indicated that if this program is deemed successful it could very likely be continued and expanded. For more information about the USPTO pilot program to accelerate the examination of certain green technology patent applications visit the website:
http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2009/09_33.jsp

To Go Green (In More Ways than One) Go Virtual...and Bus and Rail

2009-12-31T17:24:43Z

Want more proof that going green by virtualizing offices i.e. teleworking and locating those functions that need people to interact with each other and with equipment inside energy-efficient buildings at high-transit-accessible locations is the smart way to go? Why it will save green in more ways than one.

A new report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010 covered on TMCnet illustrates why staying or locating in traditional suburban sprawl office buildings is a bad financial idea. It paints a bleak outlook for investors, owners, and landlords for office space.

"[D]on't expect any spikes in this recovery given the dearth of employment generators and rising vacancies. New demand could stall well into 2011 or even 2012. Employers continue to seek outsourcing and productivity gains, especially in the financial industry.

"Big companies pursue various options to reduce costs, use space more efficiently, and increase "people-per-seat metrics. They count on young employees to adapt to paperless environments as well as more work-at-home and open space hoteling strategies." These secular trends could "mitigate any office rebound."

Suburban office markets are in a much worse position than those in downtowns and accessible on transit. The central cities have and will outperform suburban sprawl, which it has done since 2007, as an investment prospects, with vacancy rates tracking approximately five percent less downtown than on the fringes.

"Avoid suburban markets," recommends the report. "Urban and infill areas should benefit from demographics changes and economic shifts working against many suburbs. The "move back in" by echo boomers and empty nester baby boomers continues, and office tenants migrate toward suburban nodes with more urban amenities. Rising car-related costs (gas, insurance, user fees, loans) and increased congestion don't help the suburban office story, either. In particular, obsolescence threatens older office parks."

Yes, there are deals to be had, and landlords are willing to bend over backwards. But Diety forbid you have to pull up stakes--a key consideration because how quickly things change--the chances of finding someone to take over your lease or if you decide to own a building, you'll have your finances dragged into the mud by this white elephant.

Here's another green-in-many-ways-tip: if you have to have your staff travel, for short trips put them on buses and trains instead having them fly (or drive) to ensure that they can work productively enroute.

A new report from DePaul University also reported on TMCnet found that the ability and ease of bus and train customers to use portable electronic devices as compared to those who fly is prompting their greater use. So much so that it is offsetting the longer travel times resulting it says growing market share for bus and rail.

The study: Is Portable Technology Changing How Americans Travel? A Survey of the Use of Electronic Devises on Intercity Buses, Train, and Planes reported in the transit trade magazine Metro, says curbside bus and high-speed Boston-New York-Washington, D.C. Amtrak Acela Express trains travelers are the heaviest users of portable technology. At randomly selected points during trips, it said that 39.6 percent of passengers on curbside buses are using some form of portable device. This is two percentage points more than on conventional Amtrak trains and more than twice that on commercial flights and traditional Greyhound buses.

In contrast to rail and bus users, on the average commercial flight, only 17.6 percent of passengers are using technology at any given point. The report points to the requirements that devices must be deactivated after leaving the gate and remain off for an extended period. Also the aircraft design makes power outlets and centralized computer-equipped work stations impractical to install. While airlines make special allowances for passengers to travel with laptop and notebook computers but when flights are full, keeping such equipment at seats can be awkward. Even the seemingly simple act of retrieving a laptop from an overhead compartment can be difficult, as many are filled to capacity.

"Due to gradual reductions in seat pitch, escalating load factors, and the "hassle factor" of airport security in the post-9/11 environment (requiring travelers to complete a series of tasks before boarding the plane and taking their seat), many travelers opt to bring only the smallest devices, such as cell phones and iPods, with them," says the report.

The trends identified by the DePaul report will accelerate. It came out just before the attempting bombing of Flight 253 and the resulting added security measures that has added to the total air travel time, and the resulting hassle. Both Amtrak and Greyhound are accelerating their Wi-Fi deployments notes the report. Wi-Fi provisioning came up at a meeting last month in Vancouver, B.C. Canada on improving cross-border intercity rail. Washington, Oregon, the province of British Columbia and Amtrak have been working together to drive more customers into the spiffy Amtrak Cascades Talgo trains that operate between Eugene, Oregon and the Canadian city, which is home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, by way of Portland and Seattle.

If one does need to fly, and one's destination is the Seattle area, Sound Transit has just opened its LINK LRT to SeaTac airport. It offers a 36-minute ride to the downtown. Flying to Seattle, then riding LINK and taking Amtrak can be a less expensive as well as a scenic, if longer option to reaching Vancouver, B.C.

UPI, Green Approaches Work in Unison to Achieve Sustainability

2009-12-15T22:42:17Z

With more companies looking to migrate and ensure seamless operability, thoroughly following the development cycle and increasing interoperability testing to maximize efficiency are paramount for today's smart data centers.

Panduit Corp., a leader in unified physical infrastructure-based solutions, announced this month it is partnering with IBM to implement portable modular data center designs that minimize energy use and provide cost-effective and flexible solutions to meet data center capacity. This is a prime example of deploying sustainable technology infrastructures that meet evolving business requirements and managing costs across the data center life cycle.

A recent Gartner report confirms that green IT tops the agendas of data center and IT managers, despite the economic downturn. However, many do not implement measurements and monitoring, which are essential for the adoption of new technologies and government policies.

As Panduit is looking at promoting standards with respect to physical infrastructure, the Tinley Park, Ill.-based company is also striving to "holistically" bring the aspect of data transport, energy conservation, cooling, power and cost into alignment so that all of those factors can work in unison.

A testament to Panduit's UPI approach can be witnessed in the company's relationship with IBM.

"IBM's PMDC is the most complete, robust and highest quality containerized data center available on the market today," said Steve Sams, IBM's vice president of global site and facilities services. "Harnessing the power of data center virtualization and working with Panduit to deliver innovative products has reaped large savings for our clients, most notably reduction in power and cooling costs."

Further, Panduit has built "green" into its overall approach to its data center products and solutions, including working with its partner ecosystem to create the most effective solutions for its customers.

Making Solar More Reliable

2009-12-14T18:25:26Z

Solar power is in theory fairly straightforward: sun to panel. Yet there are many factors affect solar performance including cloudiness, dust and dirt, shade, obstruction shading, and inter-panel-row shading.

Moreover it is often difficult if not impossible to accurately tell which electricity-producing mechanisms i.e. in this case modules are failing without costly added service visits to detect the issues on top of the amounts charged for fixing them. Solar is not like wind, local hydro or wood/biomass-fed generators where there are visual, aural, and in the case of the last one olfactory clues as to problems.

Homeowners and small businesses can ill-afford such added expenses. If solar was going to be this much hassle then why go solar?

Premier Power Renewable Energy has an answer: panels made with microinverter technology that pinpoints which specific modules are failing so they can be identified and replaced on a regular service call. The devices, made by Enphase allows homeowners to maximize their solar energy harvest and reduce their utility bill by selling more solar electricity back to the utility i.e. net metering thus, says the firm, "substantially reducing their utility electricity bill."

Premier Power's new panel microinverter system is a set of small units that connect directly to each solar module to convert DC power into grid-compliant AC power. It transmits valuable performance data on each module to the system owner.

The payoffs? Increased solar output by as much as 25 percent over traditional inverters, not to mention a more reliable system, and the ability to monitor and respond quickly to performance issues. Also the distributed microinverter design readily permits expanded solar power generation. And, if one microinverter fails, the rest continue to operate as usual and can be replaced during routine maintenance or when convenient.

The key to making technology effective and popular is not so much big leaps but rather steady advances like these that make a difference in the ROI achieved by the purchasers. In the case of green solutions that increase in results, leading to more individuals and firms acquiring them, benefits all.

Panduit's PIM Software Calls the Plays in the Data Center

2009-11-06T04:56:23Z

Today's data centers are leveraging the same IP networking solutions most businesses are deploying for converged communications capabilities - and with good reason. Converged networking allows for more effective and simplified resource management, increased security, significant cost savings, and support of environmental initiatives.

But, to win the benefits of a converged data center environment - Panduit's UPI vision - a converged physical infrastructure must be supported by appropriate management software. Why?

Let's look at the offensive unit on a football team. There are eleven players, each with his own unique responsibilities based on position and in-game situations. Those responsibilities are defined by a playbook, which not only accounts for ideal circumstances, but also contingencies based on what the defensive team does.

Without the playbook, the center would snap the ball, and the quarterback and the rest of the players on his team would have to decide on their own what routes to run, how to block, and how to react to defensive schemes - the likelihood of a successful play being minimal.

On the other hand, calling predefined plays from the playbook indentifies the responsibilities for each play for each player, from blocking schemes to pass routes, and even contingency plans for different defensive schemes, including blitzes. Suddenly, with all eleven players acting as a collective unit and knowing what each of the other ten players is doing, the success rate does up exponentially.

Think of the playbook as the management platform in a data center - it allows the infrastructure (team) to operate effectively and adapt to changing circumstances in a manner that is consistent with the other elements of the infrastructure. When a security breach (blitz), for instance, has been identified, it defines how to effectively mitigate that risk so the data canter can continue to operate effectively.

The intelligence that is built into today's data center network requires the visibility and flexibility of an integrated management platform in order to function as a cohesive unit. Panduit's PIM (Physical Infrastructure Manager) solution provides that same capability to identify, isolate, and react to connectivity changes in the data center's physical infrastructure, which is critical to supporting the overall business objectives of the enterprise, because it enables access to the data center resources.

Panduit, in fact, has not only developed the solution to support its partners and customers, but has built its own new LEED certified world headquarters based on its UPI vision, supported by its PIM software.

Read more here about the benefits of Panduit's PIM solution, and how it helps deliver the winning proposition of a unified physical infrastructure.