Power Walking

News from the people who brought you Monty Python and Victoria (Posh) Beckham that the key to solving the world’s energy woes might be your own two feet. According to Wired, British researchers are testing a system that would turn street vibrations into power using generators embedded in the ground or floor.

This is not to be confused with the pedestrian shocking stray voltage coming from the streets of New York courtesy of Con Edison.

Green Giant?

Think about Wal-Mart. Think about a huge multi-national corporation with an enormous amount of power and influence over people’s daily lives, over industry prices and practices and even over governments. Now think about all that power and influence being used to promote energy saving products in stores and environmentally sustainable business practices by manufacturers.

Think I’m kidding? Well according to Fortune, if Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott has is way, Wal-Mart may be doing just that. Certainly Wal-Mart has a very long road to walk to get in our good graces, but it’s hard not to be a little bit excited when you read what they have already done.

Here’s hoping it’s more than a PR stunt…fingers crossed

Tesla Price Revealed

This week’s Economist brought us the price point for the Silicon Valley electric roadster the Tesla with the two seat version debuting at $89,000 and a cheaper four seat version to follow. Not bad considering it beats a Ferrari out of the gate but certainly not for people who expect to make their money back saving on gas.

Back From the Dead

Whoever killed the electric car better watch their back. While history is littered with the corpses of electric vehicles, none of the ones we know of could do 0-60 MPH in 4 seconds like the new electric Tesla Roadster.

With high profile investors that include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, here’s hoping the Tesla has enough of interest under the hood to make a real run at the luxury sports market.

You Want Fries With That?

With gas prices reaching all time highs you may find yourself tempted to find an alternative to your gas station (and we don't mean a siphon). To that end, the New York Times is the latest to report on a growing number of Americans running their converted cars on vegetable oil using commercial conversion kits.

Perks include free fuel at your local fast food place and smelling like a McDonalds wherever you go.

Spin or Substance?

Honda is attempting to seize the lucrative (and so far pretty vacant) marketing high ground by positioning themselves as the most environmentally friendly car company. The campaign, called Environmentology, is web only so far and backed up by a very informative web site complete in Earth tones.

Would we be happier if they backed it up with a plug-in hybrid? Well…yeah, but having companies fight over who gets the green bragging rights (not to mention the consumer dollars) isn’t a bad first step.

Built to Last…Again

Anyone who has ever surfed through the voyeuristic home renovation of Brownstoner knows that building materials can be reused, but according to NPR, what was once the bastion of shady contractors is becoming fashionable.

Some salvage operations are taking things a step further by salvaging construction materials (in this case Ontario White Pine trees) that never quite made it to the job.

Maybe someone should clue in the guys at Extreme Home Makeover….at the rate they’re going the whole country will have a Mc Mansion by the end of season 4.

Bad News and Good in China

It is no secret that China’s booming manufacturing economy is causing massive degradation in China’s environment but according to Scientific American the damage may be worse than has been reported.

The Chinese government has so far been slow to respond to the growing crisis of filthy air and water, but that may be about to change. The BBC is reporting that China is preparing to spend almost 200 billion dollars to cut air and water pollution and companies are lining up to get a piece of the action.

Chinese companies are also taking part in the energy boom with news that a Chinese firm has developed the world’s first magnetic levitation wind power generator. Able to operate even at very low wind speeds, the new designs promise to produce up to 20% more energy than similarly sized traditional turbines.

LEED-ing The Way

With all the current attention on energy costs thanks to the recent heat wave and accompanying black outs, we thought it was worth pointing out that at least some development in the US is attempting to address the issue.

The National Building Museum is running an exhibit (with accompanying web site) called The Green House about new directions in energy efficient development. Many of the trends discussed will be familiar to residents of Chicago where city government has aggressively greened public buildings and gone so far as to speed approval of building permits for LEED certified projects.

Finally, in related news, Business 2.0 magazine predicts that the next real estate boom will focus on dense, walk-able developments, lessening our dependence on the car and weaning us away from the sprawling exurbs.

Lets hope so.

It’ll Keep Going and Going….

A raft of news organizations are reporting that Toyota in planning a plug-in hybrid to follow up their iconic Prius. Plug In Hybrids differ from the standard version by running entirely on electricity whenever possible, using the gas engine only when necessary to keep the battery from drawing down. In theory, this could mean most drivers use no gas at all unless they are driving on long trips.

So far examples of plug in hybrids have been limited to niche concepts and the Environmentalist-meets-Conservatives lobbying efforts of the Calcars group, but you don’t have to think very hard to imagine a potential market.

Not wanting to be left in the dust again, GM has announced a similar effort. The implications of being first to market with a 100 MPG car could be a staggering achievement for a company not exactly known for innovation.

On the Margins No More

“The point isn't the disagreements, however. The point is how much activity is coalescing around the need to do something to ensure the planet's future.”

This might sound like a Green Peace recruitment poster but it comes from none other than Fortune Magazine where yet another article on the main streaming of environmentalism was just published. These articles seem to be everywhere lately (as the posts below can attest) with news outlets, politicians and most importantly major corporations falling all over themselves trying to out green one another.

So much for Greens living on the margins.

Less Energy = More Money

Somehow we missed this article about the growing popularity of energy saving building techniques from CNN Money (maybe we stopped reading when they became Fox News ugly stepchild….hard to say).

In any case, it’s worth reading if only for the first line, “In most of America, "greens" live on the margins.”…which left us guessing the authors have never visited the east or west coasts (and that’s kind of sad).

Long Green Summer

Didn’t get a beach share in time for this summer? No need to worry, Google and the Earth Day Network are teaming up to make it easier to find travel options this summer providing maps and video tours of top US vacation spots. The service is baked into the Google search engine so finding a green travel option is as easy as typing “Environmentally Friendly Hotel”.

Green is the New Black

Last week’s Newsweek magazine cover and featured articles are devoted to Green Everything and as the issue attests, even G W Bush is coming around to the trend here (sort of).

As for our thoughts on this…if being socially responsible can be half as popular as Pokemon was, the world could end up in pretty good shape.

Bio-Town USA

Besides the obligatory trips to WallDrug and the worlds largest ball of twine, those of us planning road trips this summer have the option of visiting Reynolds Indiana, which is known to locals as Bio-Town USA.

Fed up with high energy costs, the town has agreed to a state proposed program to serve as a test bed for agriculturally friendly independent power projects. Current plans call for the all of the town’s electricity to be generated by decaying biomass used to produce natural gas. If the project succeeds, Reynolds will be the first US community to generate its own energy entirely from community waste products.

Carbon is Getting Funnier

Mocking the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s pro-carbon ads has gone main stream with the Jimmy Kimmel show producing an especially funny pro-steroids version (it comes on right after the original).

Can someone please do a pro-absinthe one of these….pretty please?

Finding the Green in Green Investments

Over the course of the last couple of decades, those minds among us who routinely follow the stock market have seen the emergence of investors interested in more than just the fuzzy good feeling you get when a soaring stock splits. Whether for religion, politics or ecology, socially conscious investors are increasingly trying to make money, and make the world a better place all at the same time, but in the world of environmentally friendly corporations, is an investment in being green a good way of making green?

Well yes and no according to a recent New York Times article. Over the course of the last year, the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy fund (which invests in a huge array of smallish alternative energy companies) has seen its value soar 80 percent before losing 20 percent in the last two months. This kind of volatility is common in the energy market, and especially so in companies whose focus is wind, solar, hydrogen and other technologies off the beaten path of fossil fuels.

The good news, according to the Times, is that increasingly, major energy companies like Cheveron, BP and DuPont are investing huge amounts in these formerly fringe technologies, bringing green main-stream and adding stability to this kind of investment. With the price of oil not getting any cheaper, forward thinking investors should be able to make some serious green on the future of US energy and maybe even feel good about how they did it.

Waiting for Ford…Again

In a world with so much to be depressed about (the Arab – Israeli conflict, US Soccer, Ashley Simpson…we could go on) it is more than a little depressing to see that the Ford Motor Company has reneged on their pledge to build 250,000 hybrids by the end of the decade less than a year after Chairman William Ford first made it.

Ford cites weak demand for the Escape, and new potential in non-hybrid dependant technologies like ethanol as reasons for having backpedaled on another environmental goal.

Now, these may be valid reasons, but with all the innovating Ford was supposed to be doing as part of their ‘Way Forward’ plan…you know…the one where they make cars people want to buy…we were kind of hoping they would be innovative about something other than lobbying against tighter CAFE standards and their own PR.
Just a thought.

Wind and Waves

News from MSNBC that the island of Maui is planning a wind farm that will provide 20% of the island’s power needs. This seems like a natural fit given the high cost of importing fuel oil to the far out fiftieth state.

Meanwhile in the continental 48, Michigan is struggling with some of the aesthetic trade offs of large wind turbines sitting near the great lakes. The article claims that these have become more of an issue as turbines are proposed closer to Detroit, but having been there, we kind of wonder what aspect of Detroit people are really worried about ruining.


In related power news that should be of interest to Hawaiians, Michiganders and anyone else with a coast, the Economist technology section reports on the development of a new wave power generator that should (in theory) be free from the maintenance and reliability headaches that plague this type of renewable.

Hopefully these things wont make surfing any harder than it already is.

Thank You for Global Warming

In true ‘Thank You for Smoking’ spirit, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (pronounced: patron saint of indefensible industry causes) has released a series of 60-second spots talking about the “alleged global warming crisis.”

While we do pity the ad guys who had to write the copy for this nonsense, lines like,
“The Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker….did you see any big headlines about that?” and the money line, “They call it pollution, we call it life” probably couldn’t be funnier if Steven Colbert had narrated them.

Besides being unintentionally hilarious, the spots don’t really try to make a point other than to introduce the vague idea that maybe carbon has an upside and just maybe all those book nerds at the Union of Concerned Scientists are wrong.

Sorry CEI, but we call it pathetic.

The Rise of the Machines

A report from the Energy Saving Trust rather ominously titled ‘Rise of the Machines’ makes a convincing case that the gains made in energy saving devices are being undermined by the huge number of devices the average western household uses. The good news? More than half (54%) of the consumers surveyed said they are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products.

This all leaves us asking, where’s Eddie Furlong when you need him?

On Deck

Getting ready to build a place to sit outside this summer?
The always earth friendly Green Light magazine brings us an excellent article about the decisions that (should) go into deciding what you build your deck out of.

The most interesting option listed? Plastic lumber made of recycled plastic bags and milk cartons and at $2 a foot it costs the same as more popular wood-composites and never rots.

Green Chips (in a good way)

From the BBC, news that British researchers have figured out a way to replace the extremely energy intensive steps of chip manufacture with low-temperature ultraviolet lamps. The outcome? Lower production costs leading to lower prices for consumers. Who says you can’t make green being green?

Brown Going Hybrid?

From the scrappy reporters at NY1, word that UPS is in the process of trying a new hybrid delivery truck on the NYC streets. Called a Hydraulic Hybrid, it uses pressurized nitrogen to for power instead of batteries when it isn’t using the gasoline engine.

According to UPS, “When they're mass produced they'll be $7,000 more per vehicle. But the beauty of it is because of the savings on fuel, they pay for themselves in two years,” says Steinberg. “Aand over 20 years, the life of a vehicle such as this, you'd be saving $50,000.”

Too bad it will be at least 2 years before they are on the streets.