Blogs

Carectomy week in review

Joshua Liberles — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:09:35 PDT

Completing the circle: Gas at the pump, war in Iraq, and global warming

The war in Iraq, originally known as O.I.L. (Operation Iraqi Liberation, that is) recently passed its fifth anniversary. Oil Change International recently published a study that quantifies the greenhouse gas emissions from the Iraq War as well as some of the environmental opportunity costs.

Bicing takes Barcelona by storm

In its first two months, Bicing, a bike-sharing program in Barcelona, Spain, garnered over 30,000 subscribers. The programâs popularity has only grown, which is good news for new bike-sharing programs in Washington D.C. and San Francisco.

All aboard for National Train Day

May 10th marks the first edition of National Train Day, a celebration of trains, tracks, mass transit, and efficient travel. The date is significant as the anniversary of the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways in Utah 1869 -- which created the U.S.' first transcontinental railroad.

Valley Girl decries car culture

The Los Angeles' Times "Emerald City" blog recently ran a great post illustrating how Southern California turned from sunny citrus paradise to car-choked hell. Cassandra Davis mixes an historical account of the evolution of car culture in SoCal with her own firsthand experiences growing up as a Valley Girl.

The race to create the first solar airplane

Peg Fong — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:25:41 PDT

The last barrier to greener transportation is up in the air, and if these newly designed planes can get up there, the future of air travel may look decidedly different.

While cars have been going green for decades, airplanes have remained behemoth fuel-gulping modes of transportation. EcoGeek put together a list of ways in which air travel is getting greener ... but there's a long ways to go.

That's bad news for anyone who has to travel for business reasons or can't resist that getaway to an exotic locale. But while nowhere close to being ready for commercial use, there is some green in the distant horizon. A French and a Swiss company are both trying to complete the first viable solar-powered plane.

The Solar Impulse Project, which we've discussed previously is backed by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, aims to use only solar energy to keep its aircraft up both day and night. Â The Solar Impulse plane hopes to be about 1,500 kilograms of "take-off weight" and is constructed around a skeleton of carbon fiber-honeycomb composite.

French company Lisa Airplanes is putting its efforts into the Hy-Bird project which plans to fly around the world with a 100 percent clean electric airplane powered only by solar energy and hydrogen. For take-off, the Hy-Bird will use solar photovoltaic cells affixed on the wings and on the horizontal tail and for on-board power supply. A fuel cell will then power the aircraft for cruise flight and an electric engine will propel the plane.

Booking a seat on-board won't happen any time soon. Both Hy-Bird and the Solar Impulse Project hope to take trial flights next year, but only one person will be on each of these planes. Meanwhile, unmanned solar airplanes are already in the air, with one that will be able to fly almost indefinitely is planned for the near future.

Via Inhabitat

Paris' Orly airport goes geothermal

Andrew Williams — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:13:13 PDT

In an exciting new departure, the owners of one of Parisâ big airports have announced plans to meet a third of its heating needs from geothermal energy.

Agence France Presse reports that two 1,700-metre deep shafts will be drilled deep under the perimeter of the cityâs Orly airport, where water heated by the Earthâs core will be drawn upwards by natural pressure. When it reaches the surface, the water, at a temperature of 74oC (165oF), will be injected into the airport's heating system.

Unveiling the plans, Pierre Graff, Chairman and MD of Aeroports de Paris (ADP) said, âWe have the unprecedented luck of having hot water below our feet that can heat a large part of Orly without CO₂ emissions. We are the first airport in Europe to do this.â

Pending the results of a feasibility study, ADP hopes that, starting from 2011, the $17 million scheme will reduce the airportâs annual CO₂ emissions by 7,000 tonnes from the current level of 20,000 tonnes.

Source - AFP

Watch the future of shipping

Hank Green — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:38:55 PDT

I've been wanting to see the SkySails system in operation, and finally, it's here for me to drool over.

Per square foot of sail, this system is three times more effective than traditional sails. It does not require extensive training to deal with, and there's no need for maintenance during travel.

The sail literally unfolds and folds itself at the touch of a button. While deployment isn't particularly fast, it is extremely simple and entirely automated.

Seeing this thing in action is really fantastic, and I can imagine that, within the next five years, these will be installed on thousands of ships of all shapes and sizes. And, of course, this will reduce emissions from the shipping industry as much as 20% per ton shipped.

Solar paddle boat built for four

Hank Green — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:55:08 PDT

Wouldn't it be nice to have a boat that your family could take out to nearby pristine sandy beaches with crystal clear blue water and billions of tropical fishes?

And wouldn't it be nice if, somehow, that boat didn't disrupt the fishes, or the environment, in any way?

And while we're dreaming, let's throw in some solar panels as well.

Well, that's the dream that Jonathan Mahieddine is offering us. He's created a pedal-powered boat for four. And if you get tired (or step on a stingray), there's always the solar-powered electric motor to get you home again.

A cute design that I couldn't help but feature.

Via Gizmodo

Cleaner, but at what price?

Trystan L. Bass — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:17:02 PDT

The Olympic torch has begun its around-the-world relay to Beijing for the start of the 2008 Summer Games. Likewise, the Chinese government is racing to improve the environment in Beijing. The organizing committee is even promoting this as a "green Olympics."

But if China's record on human rights -- including the recent problems in Tibet -- are any indication, the Communist country's environmental claims merit a closer look.

The biggest issue is air quality. China's capital is notorious for brown, smoggy skies caused by coal-fired power plants, coal-burning stoves, and tons of exahust-belching traffic. This is aggravated in spring and early summer by sandstorms that shroud the city for days.

According to the latest U.N. report, Beijing's air is improving, but slowly. Most pollutants in the atmosphere have finally dropped below the World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines, but small particulate matter is still very high, as much as 200% over the safe levels.

Time magazine notes that reporters have found Beijing's Environmental Protection Bureau less than forthcoming about statistics. Is the government misreporting the current air quality?

Blogger Tim Johnson offers photographic evidence of not-so 'blue sky days' in Beijing this month. Judge for yourself if you'd want to run a marathon in that.

Water is another crucial issue in northern China -- Beijing already has to import water from the south and will need a lot more to support the estimated 2.5 million Olympic visitors. This is not without problems.

Neighboring Hebei province is being sucked dry by Beijing and is suffering from saline contamination. Groundwater in the coastal Qinhuangdao area has become unpotable.

Chinese news sources claim that water conservation efforts are being made. And "water from Hebei will be used as emergency supplies" during the Olympics.

But not everyone is satisfied. Another area nearby is also being drained for the Olympics, and one official is complaining. A leader in the Shaanxi province, An Qiyuan, wants compensation. He said: "In order to preserve the quality of Beijing's water we have to close all our factories." So the environmental impact is compounded by the economic impact.

The Beijing Games has personally affected the lives of people in the city. Somewhere between 14,000 to 1.25 million people have been displaced from their homes to build Olympic buildings, shopping malls, parks, etc. Beijing's Municipal Construction Committee reports the smaller number, and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates the larger one. Either way, it's a serious disruption, and not everyone has been moved by choice.

Animals have been relocated as well as people. In one of the more gruesome stories to come out of China, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reports on thousands of cats being rounded up for extermination. Beijing wants people to believe that cats carry disease, and pet owners are forced into abandoning the animals. The goal seems to be cleaning the streets in advance of the Summer Games.

So what good may be coming out China's Olympic ambitions?

To clear pollution by getting cars of the road, Beijing has expanded its public transportation. First to open was Line 5 (check out the great photos on TreeHugger), which connects multiple lines in the once-underused system. Beijing also got a new airport with additional subway lines that connect to it.

Even better, the government lowered fares on the subway to encourage ridership.

Other infrastructure upgrades in the city should be beneficial to residents long after the Games are gone. The World Watch Institute reports that Beijing now treats 90% of its wastewater (up from 42% in 2001), and solid waste treatment is at 97%.

Little things have changed for the better too. For example, as we noted earlier this year, China has banned plastic bags to cut back on litter.

Will these improvements balance out the harsh steps taken to get there? Will the Olympics open China up to a greener future after the last medal is awarded?

Hard to say. We'll just have to wait and watch this summer and beyond.

SkySails test results in -- 20% fuel savings

Hank Green — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:49:36 PDT

Once upon a time, every ship that travelled from the old world to the new was 100% renewably powered. It was slow and dangerous, but it was green power.

Then, when fossil fuels took over, sea travel got a lot faster and a lot safer. But it also became a huge source of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Wind power was considered slow and out-dated.

Recently, someone decided that a boat could, in fact, be powered by both sails and gas. The result would be a boat that was just as fast, but burned far less fuel.

Well, that boat just arrived in Venezuela, and it was a success. Using a parachute-shaped kite sail, the boat travelled across the Atlantic from Germany. The sail was deployed when it was windy (between eight hours and five minutes per day) and was retracted when there wasn't enough wind.

The result: a 20% fuel savings on the round-trip journey from Europe to South America and back again.

Once the sales are installed and a is crew trained on their use, they are free. In contrast, diesel has to be continually purchased. So, if the cost of the sails isn't too outrageous, shipping companies could be saving money and the environment in very short order.

The next steps are to make bigger sails suitable for larger ships. And to get shipping companies to buy the things...

Via CNET Clean Tech

Sneaky CFL replacement

Hank Green — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:09:52 PST

I just don't know quite how to feel about this! After a few years of seemingly logical replacement of hotel and office lighting with compact fluorescent light bulbs, a problem has arisen.

It seems that demand for the bulbs, while slacking in store sales, goes way up when the bulbs are just a few twists away.

Office and hotel mangers have begun to complain about CFL theft in a big way.

While the bulbs save a ton of money over their lifetime in energy costs, they don't save money when they disappear after a few months and need to be replaced.

The alternative, it seems, is to either stop using CFLs or use theft-proof fixtures that need a special key to be replaced. We assume the key is only held by the maintenence staff.

It's good that we've got these solutions now, since LED bulbs, just around the corner, promise to be even more expensive, while saving more energy in the long run.

The good news is, the more CFLs offices and hotels buy, the more CFLs there are in the world.

However, it seems odd that hotel-goers and office workers, not known for their levels of extreme poverty, are the ones stealing the bulbs. It seems to me that they could afford to save money the old-fashioned way: by making a modest investment in slightly more-expensive bulbs at WalMart.

Via MT.GOV

Powering boats with waves

Hank Green — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:13:43 PST

Harnessing the power of waves to create electricity seems to be on the verge of viability. But there's one application of wave power that makes more sense than any others, yet I've never seen even a design, let alone a prototype, of a wave-powered boat.

Well, those days are over! And here it is: the Suntory Mermaid with captain Kenichi Horie.

The boat will go from Hawaii to Japan in two or three months using nothing but the power of the waves to propel it. Those solar panels on the top, if you're wondering, are just for powering the interior electronics.

As waves pass underneath the boat, two fins at the rear rise and fall, converting the wave's energy into "dolphin-like kicks." The waves will propel the boat at a maximum speed of five knots -- not something to really be all that proud of, but we are talking about the first of its kind here.

A diesel-powered boat would complete the same journey twice to three times as fast, but, really, being able to harness the power of waves so effectively on a moving object is something I wouldn't have thought possible.

The real question is whether there's any advantage to wave power over wind power. Wind-powered boats, after all, are a pretty well-developed technology and similarly renewable.

Via Inhabitat

Virgin Atlantic's first biofuel flight

Hank Green — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:45:49 PST

In a 747 containing a stunning 5% biofuel, Virgin Atlantic proved that you can indeed fly a plane on biodiesel.

There was actually some question as to whether it would be possible, because jet fuel has to stay liquid and non-viscous at extremely low temperatures. Most biodiesel at those temperatures would become too thick to feed into the engines.

However, a new biofuel start-up in Seattle, Imperium, created a mixture that stayed usable when mixed in ratios up to 40:60 with jet fuel.

The Virgin flight ran one of the four engines on a 20:80 mix of the Imperium fuel, for an overall replacement of 1/20th of the fuel used on the flight.

Of course, with recent fears over the sustainability of biofuels due to replacement of food crops and deforestation, it's unclear whether biodiesel is going to escape from this battle intact. Only if large-scale production of biodiesel from algae hits the mainstream will we see this technology taking off.

Ethanol has more of a future, as it's easier to produce it in mass quantities from waste products. However, ethanol contains less energy than biodiesel per gram, which is a trade-off the airline industry is unlikely to make, even if they can get it to run in jet engines.

Via the Wall Street Journal

Carectomy week in review

Joshua Liberles — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:41:17 PST

Aquaduct improves bicycleâs brilliance

Itâs no secret that we at Carectomy have a bit of a bike fetish. The smog-free human-powered machine offers the world a 100-year-old solution to its transportation needs.

Thanks to the Innovate or Die â Pedal Powered Machine Contest, weâve seen bike technology tweaked and put to some interesting new uses. But the winner, the Aquaduct Mobile Filtration Device, could very well change the world.

Mass transit trims the fat

Instead of going to the gym, downing diet pills, or resorting to gastric bypass surgery to get thin and beautiful, why not just take mass transit? According to a recent report by USA Today, taking public transportation instead of driving is a proven way to lose weight and improve your overall health.

U.S. train travel on the rise

U.S. travelers -- frustrated by gas prices, traffic congestion, and the hassle and delays of air travel -- are increasingly rediscovering the train. One in four domestic flights arrived late in 2007. Add in the maddening yellow-orange-mauve alert security checks, and itâs understandable why passengers are fed up.

Ethanol not an eco-darling after all

The future for gas-guzzling, inefficient cars doesnât look promising. As gas prices rise and oil grows scarce, Western nations are scrambling to become self-sufficient in producing their own fuel. In the search for alternative energy sources, ethanol has emerged as a favorite. A recent study by scientists at Stanford University, however, has knocked ethanol from its eco-pedestal.

Going home green

Kastle Waserman — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:27:00 PST

Folks are reconnecting with relatives or taking vacations during the holiday seasonâbut, oh, what all that flying does to our carbon footprints!

We found a few ways to offset our upcoming travels plans just by making smarter travel choices.

Many ground-transportation companies have gotten the message that people want to drive green, even for short trips. Businesses such as Eco Limo in California and Washington DC and Green Cab in San Francisco, CA, offer alternative-fuel rides to and from the airport.

If you're staying within a small area, try renting a bike, or better yet, bring your own: Bike Friday makes portable bicycles that fold into a suitcase.

If your relatives aren't hosting you for the holidays, consider booking a green hotel in the area. Environmentally-minded accommodations are popping up in hot spots such as Santa Monica, California, which is home to the Ambrose, whose operations include non-toxic housekeeping methods and wind-powered guest rooms.

Look on Orbitz for more eco-friendly hotels in the state you'll be visiting.

And of course, while you may go as green as possible, there's no getting around that airplane ride when your family lives across the country. This is where the idea of carbon offsets âpayback timeâcomes in.

CabonFund provides a way to relieve your guilt by calculating your carbon offset in a dollar amount and allowing you to donate to your choice of carbon-reducing projects such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, and reforestation projects.

Cruising the green seas

Trystan L. Bass — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:12:32 PST

Winter doldrums making you crave an escape to sunny ports of call? G Living takes a look at ocean cruises.

The bigger ships often have spotty histories of environmental problems, but some are cleaning up their acts (and we don't mean what's playing in the Lido Lounge either).

Alternative engine technology and lower smokestack emissions are among the steps cruise lines are taking to reduce their carbon footprints. One even offers earth-friendly dry cleaning, so your tux for the formal dinner will look spiffy. Full steam ahead.