LED Savings

The LED lighting revolution has been underway for a while now with promises of bulbs that last for decades and use a fifth of the energy of a compact fluorescent bulb. While the technology has been great for stoplights, camping equipment and that blinking light on your computer tower, LED’s have yet to break into one crucial area; home and office lighting.

The problem is that the bulbs are cost prohibitive for simple domestic applications, but according to Cnet that may be about to change. The price of LEDs has been falling by fifty percent a year for some time now and if the trend holds they will be an affordable home lighting alternative within the next two years.

The potential benefit? With 22% of US energy production going to lighting applications, broad adoption of LED’s could literally save billions of dollars in energy costs and millions of metric tons of carbon emissions.

To see what LED lighting means for an individual household, check out this handy spreadsheet made by productdose.com

Record Land Conservation Measures Passed

Among the many environmental gains made in last weekend’s Democratic victory was a record setting commitment to land conservation. In 23 states across the country, voters from both parties passed 99 ballot initiatives dedicated to funding land conservation to the tune of 5.73 Billion dollars.

While fighting sprawl has long been seen as the domain of quixotic Portland residents or the Nature Conservancy, the sudden willingness of communities to pass bond or tax measures on themselves to fund land preservation may mark the beginning of a larger reaction against the unchecked exurban development so common in this country.

Most surprising of all, was the strong support for conservation measures in traditionally Republican areas like Utah, South Carolina and Texas, not exactly known for their environmental voting records. Perhaps this is a reaction to the assault of suburban development on traditionally Republican rural farming and ranching communities where development pressures are increasingly paving over a traditional way of life.

SUV Sales Climb as Gas Prices Fall

Just in case you thought all the news coming from the auto industry was turning green, Newsweek is reporting that SUV sales have begun to climb again as gas prices have fallen. You would think that most people wouldn’t have a hard time imagining four-dollar gas before they go buy a bus that gets 15MPG, and if you believe Newsweek you would be right. Apparently the latest trend is for SUVs and Hybrids to share the same garage with owners using one to commute and presumably the other to off road in the wilderness outside their suburb.

More GM Hybrid News

GM continues its drumbeat of efficiency related news releases with an announcement that its China division will begin hybrid car production by 2008. The GM hybrid platform is a joint venture with DaimlerChrysler and BMW aimed at catching Japanese automakers Toyota and Honda who have established a strong technology lead.

The so-called “Two-Mode” hybrid system being developed by the partnership promises some interesting advancements on the single mode hybrids in use by Toyota and Ford including a more advanced continuously variable transmission and will begin appearing in Fall-2007 models.

GM's Plugin Hybrid

The Detroit News is reporting that GM will unveil a prototype Plug-In hybrid car at this year’s Detroit Auto Show. The move would seem to offer more proof that GM is pursuing a complete 180 from its recent strategy of depending on large, inefficient trucks and SUV’s as the bedrock of its business.

What remains to be seen is whether GM as a company is truly embracing efficiency as a principle core to design rather than one core to marketing. The article correctly notes that GM chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner has cited killing GM’s electric EV1 program as his worst decision because of the negative PR associated with it.

Slate’s Green Challenge

I somehow managed to miss week one of this, but am finally caught up on political news magazine Slate’s collaboration with Treehugger to produce the ‘Green Challenge’, an eight week Atkins carbon diet where participants pledge to reduce their Carbon footprint by following Oprah-easy advice from a series of columns.

Week two highlights the energy costs of heating and cooling your home. With fun facts like, “the gaps around the windows and doors in most houses let out the same amount of air, all told, as a 3-by-3-foot hole.” It is the kind of popcorn reading you can get into.

Organism Inspired Wave Power

Wave power has been in the news a fair amount this year with announcements of test generators being built in Oregon and Scotland, but Australia based Bio Power Systems is offering a unique and intriguing take on the design challenges it involves. Most wave power generators come in the form of tethered buoys or submerged tidal turbines, BioPower has looked for design inspiration from the form factors of aquatic plants and animals. The resulting generator concepts may look like mechanical shark fins but they promise to be much more survivable in extreme conditions while achieving greater energy conversion than traditional designs.

Supreme Court to Decide the Future of Clean Air

NPR is one of many News organizations reporting today on the Supreme Court case that will decide whether or not coal power plants do in fact have to comply with the clean air act. At issue is that always difficult question of whether or not a major industry actually has to follow an inconvenient law, in this case, a law that requires modernization of environmental filtration equipment.

As usual, the “Rule of Law’ Bush administration has decided to selectively ignore the need for enforcement here, going so far as to urge the Supreme Court not to accept the case.