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 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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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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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.
]]>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.
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.
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
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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.
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.