Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on March 6, 2008 at 08:46:22 PM

As the green building revolution gains traction on the local level, moving well ahead of any effort on the federal level save what departments and agencies can undertake on their own, one of the unsurprising leaders in the movement are America's colleges and universities.  Even community and technical colleges appear to be getting into the act at a much higher rate than other portions of the public sphere.

A photoblog by Guy Kawasaki at How To Change The World showcases some of the green building features of a new structure on Stanford's campus which he boasts to be just as smart as the people who it houses.  Features include south-facing windows with "light shelves" that push natural light deeper into the building, wide open atriums, rooftop photovoltaic solar panels, and a rather novel flushing routine that helps to conserve water.  Stanford is one among many universities building green, not as demonstrators for cleaner techniques and technologies, but as a sincere effort to reduce emissions and provide a more sustainable environment.

On the other side of the country, the New England Institute of Technology unveiled plans to create an entire green campus in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.  Combining existing, vacant building and new construction on a 200 acre campus, the college hopes to provide a campus where the structure mesh with expanding instruction and certification in cleantech and green building processes.  The dovetailing of the physical plant and the curriculum gives NEIT a unique opportunity to provide a more robust educational experience, while also reaching for sustainability goals.
Doug Moss over at emagizine.com, online home of E/The Environmental Magazine, seems to think the university atmosphere is turning into a hothouse for environmental action and activism, prompting significant student involvement in the questions of the day.  The upside is significant, of course, but one of the immediate benefits to such enthusiasm is continued support for initiatives such as Stanford's and NEIT's to bring green building and general sustainability to campus.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on March 2, 2008 at 10:18:38 PM

This is a selection of recent popular blog articles aggregated on Greenedia.com, where you will find the best blogs from the world of green media, as well as video uploads, podcasts, and blog authoring.

EU Releases Environment Scorecard

Treehugger blogged this week on the self-scoring the EU released on their progress toward Kyoto emissions and energy goals.  The outlook was not that great, altogether, though progress has been made in the appropriate direction, unlike the US and Japan, which also received scores, and seem to be heading in the wrong direction.  Unfortunately, according to the scorecard, the EU is still not on track to meet those goals.

They reproduced a chart from the report in the post, giving a clear indication of how the various initiatives are doing, as percentage changes from a baseline calculation.  In fact, the chart shows the only current hope for success in the EU of meeting their goals, in greenhouse gas emission reduction. Other areas, such as electricity from renewables and biodiversity, do not appear to be on track and are a significant concern for the EU.

Record Oil Prices and President Bush's Uninformed State

Over at Clean Energy, Jesse Jenkins points out that oil has recently set a record, beating the inflation-adjusted previous high of 1980.  At $103.05 last week, oil beat the previous record by about fifty cents, and ushered in a new wave of speculation that gas at the pump could top $4 per gallon this spring when reformulated gasoline starts flowing from the refineries.

Of more concern to Jenkins in the post itself, is that US President Bush seems to be unaware that such a dramatic spike in gas prices could be coming so soon, according to industry analysts.  Jenkins advocates, among other things, a re-investment of the subsidies currently going to oil companies in solutions for the growing fossil fuel crisis. 

Ultracapacitors Could Spell The End of Batteries

With everyone looking for better ways to store electricity, EcoGeek points out news that ultracapacitors (or "ultracaps") may have been the subject of a breakthrough that would move them past batteries in preference.  The auto industry has long considered them unsuitable for electric vehicle implementations on account of their relatively low energy density when compared to batteries--just able to store 5% of what a same-sized Lithium-Ion battery could store.

The breakthrough, as EcoGeek goes on to say, comes from an MIT research project into nanoscale ultracapacitors which could store up to half of what a Lithium-Ion battery does.  While the technology is not ready to fly out of the lab into a car just yet, the promise of continued research indicates that just such a development may be just around the corner.

No Savings in Falling Back and Springing Forward

With the "spring forward" of daylight savings time just around the corner, GristMill unearths a report that suggests that the supposed energy savings ofthe annual springing forward and falling back don't actually amount to much.  The theory goes that with an extra hour of daylight in the evenings, we'll use less electricity in lighting our homes, and thus save some energy.  But recently, with the state of Indiana electing to adopt Daylight Savings statewide, where only a few counties had been on-board with it before, an opportunity was realized to study the theory in the real world.

Delving deeper, GristMill discovers that not only aren't there any savings in the process, but it's actually a waste of money and energy over maintaining standard time year round.  Researchers at University of California-Santa Barbara discovered that spending on energy increased by $8.6 million for the state of Indiana alone while on Daylight Savings--not a savings at all but, as GristMill says, a "wastings."

About Greenedia

Greenedia is your guide to the best Green social media available on the Internet. SoMedia Networks Inc, which also operates Inveslogic.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com, is building the first network of social media websites dedicated to finding, organizing and presenting content based
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Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 25, 2008 at 11:16:21 AM

North America, and the United States and Mexico particularly, have long been seen as laggards in the renewables game; Canada has done much better, though with a strong domestic oil industry and a small internal population, they have not felt quite the same pressures as other nations to switch off of a fossil fuel-based economy.  Still, Europe and Japan have long been well ahead of the US in terms of policy and technology adoption, and the US has often resisted being brought along until countries like China and India are held to the same standard.

The irony could well be that China and India are helping drive their growing economies with cleantech and a focus on energy efficient procedures.

For example, officials in China recognize that accelerating growth in urbanization--millions moving from rural areas to already packed cities--will require dramatic sustainability efforts to provide for the population.  A driver for Chinese efforts seem to be the upcoming Beijing Olympics this summer, with dramatic changes underway to clear up the smog in Beijing and the environs and pose a green face to the international community when it comes visiting in force.  But beyond that is economic necessity; the growth of the Chinese economy could drive dramatically higher prices in coal and oil, which could conceivably cripple economic growth.

The Chinese auto industry, then, has also become a target for change, and everyone from Toyota to GM to the native industry has been rushing to bring alternative fuels vehicles to the Chinese market.  In both respects, building and cars, the Chinese could easily drive up their competitiveness with the West by minimizing their reliance on foreign and unstable fuel sources.  In many ways, the Chinese seem to be shooting toward a "leapfrogging" effect, bypassing the messy, dirty, and expensive phases the Western economy has gone through and skipping straight to clean and cheap.
Which is not to say that the US and Western countries are not making efforts.  Green building is certainly gaining traction in the US, and it's likely that with a new President sworn in next January, national policy may face a dramatic shift toward the clean.  But it seems clear that other nations, surprising players, are outpacing the US and significant parts of the West in developing and executing plans to go clean and green.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 24, 2008 at 06:21:00 PM

This is a selection of recent popular blog artciles aggregated on Greenedia.com, where you will find the best blogs from the world of green media, as well as video uploads, podcasts, and blog authoring.

Germany Gets Creative With Renewables

This past week Treehugger wondered if Germany was on the road to a 100% renewable, sustainable economy.  They point to a potentially groundbreaking experiment in weaning an energy grid off of nuclear and fossil fuel energy sources in a short time frame.  The University of Kassel cooperated with three German energy companies in the experiment.

Treehugger goes into a bit more detail (while also providing an in-line YouTube video), and suggests that the approach used, of building a power plant that combined a number of different sources of energy--from solar, to wind, to biogas--could provide steady and uninterrupted power for the grid around the clock and in any conditions.  Such a distributed means of providing power, in the small scale, was able to replicate the always-on nature of a coal or natural gas plant with the sustainability of renewable sources.

Greenwasher of the Decade

Climate Progress recalls the seedier side of the cleantech movement by highlighting the decade's biggest greenwasher--that is, the company that provided the thinnest veneer of sustainability while continuing in their carbon-emitting, fossil-fuel capitalizing ways.  Their winner was British Petroleum, which seems to be satisfied with their renewable efforts as just a veneer following the purchase of tar sands in an effort to prolong the dominance of oil.

They quote from a Guardian article and use the information to disparage the new CEO of British Petroleum, Tony Hayward and his efforts to stop the company's once promising forward momentum and return them to reliance on petroleum.  Lord John Browne, the former CEO who laid out BP's renewable path, has been quiet since he stepped down and Climate Progress feels that the departure of his vision for the company has been the biggest blow to their green fortunes.

Emissions from Photovoltaic Life Cycles

Over at Energy Blog, they're looking at a report that delves into the "long tail" of emissions from the life cycle of photovoltaic solar panels.  The report breaks down which of the four major types of photovoltaic solar panels consume the least amount of energy in their manufacturing and life cycle, versus their potential energy output over the life of the panel.

In the post, they point to thin-film cadmium-telluride solar cells as the clear winner in terms of minimal energy usage.  Energy Blog goes on to point out that all of them have extremely low energy profiles when compared to fossil fuels, despite the intensive nature of their manufacture, probably due to the 20+ year life cycle of a typical photovoltaic solar panel, which has paid for its own energy usage many, many times over by the time it needs to be replaced.
UK Goverment Seeks Grasp of Biofuels' Indirect Impacts

AutoBlog Green takes notice of the fact that the British government is seeking answers on the deep green and other, non-obvious impacts of the use of biofuels.  Some obvious effects have already been noted--such as the increase in food prices in response to the drive for corn-based ethanol as a fuel soltuion--but the government is also trying to look deeper at ethanol and other biofuels before creating the kind of policy that US President George W. Bush has been pushing.

The Department for Transport has commissioned a report from the UK's Renewable Fuels Agency for delivery by summer, according to the post.  The call comes immediately following reports in Science that biofuels may not be all they're cracked up to be, and with the UK signatory to the Kyoto Protocols, as well as beholden to courses charted by the EU, they are looking for definitive answers to better chart the progress of these policies.
About Greenedia

Greenedia is your guide to the best Green social media available on the Internet. SoMedia Networks Inc, which also operates Inveslogic.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com, is building the first network of social media websites dedicated to finding, organizing and presenting content based
on expertise and authority. For more information or to register an account, visit Greenedia.com.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 22, 2008 at 09:33:01 AM

For years, decades the common wisdom has been that an environmental lifestyle is difficult, even painful--minimalistic at best and bereft of things we might consider necessities today.  Not a very inspiring picture.  And yet some people seemed to thrive on the idea, and for them environmentalism was often at a confluence of other interests--anti-corporatism, for instance, or socialism, or a Malthusian belief that the Earth cannot handle the population it has, much less continued growth.  They have created a sort of unattractive sheen to the notion of being environmentally responsible, where it can be equated to living a subsistence lifestyle in primitive conditions.

Bruce Sullivan of non-profit Earth Advantage challenges that notion in an interview with David Fisher of The Bulletin this week.  '“You don’t have to live in a yurt or a tepee,”' Fisher quotes Sullivan as saying.  The article and interview goes on to discuss Sullivan's work with Earth Advantage, advising builders and certifying homes in Oregon.

Using a homegrown system of certification, rather than the currently available US Green Building Council LEED ratings or the new National Association of Home Builders Green Building Program, Sullivan helps builders pick sustainable materials, more energy efficient systems, and cleaner designs and techniques.  They then inspect for use of the different suggestions and offer a rating to the home depending on what is demonstrably used in the construction.

And in reality, none of this requires any special technology.  While smart homes and smart grids and microgeneration systems can provide many of these advantages as well, right now contractors could be building green just by recognizing what is available out there and adjusting their practices and techniques.  The difference possible is that between staring down a crisis and providing significant breathing room for the high-tech end to catch up and provide solid alternative energy solutions.

We don't have to live in the woods off what we can forage in order to be sensible and sustainable; the time is well past to get that word out.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 20, 2008 at 08:32:07 PM

There's a temptation to see green building as just about conserving energy; it is the big, sexy problem area after all.  We use too much of it, and most of that use is optional, and wasteful on top of that.  So building infrastructure, where so much of it is wasted, is the likely place to look for savings.  And so we get hung up on insulation and lighting and alternative energy sources.

Not that all that isn't crucial, of course, but with all the energy going into finding alternatives, it's sometimes easy to forget about the other big part of green building standards: water.

Built into the USGBC's LEED standards, for example, are a number of criteria regarding water usage.  Typical solutions are low-flow toilets, rainwater/greywater collection for use in irrigation, and so on.  And these areas of focus--runoff management, wastewater management, and curbing usage--are not just environmental window dressing, but a major component to any comprehensive green building solution.  As much as energy is an issue, water is becoming one as well, as auqefers and reservoirs run low and the potential for drastic climate change threatens many freshwater supplies.

Journalist Daniel Simpson goes into greater detail on the question of water and its importance in the ecological agenda on his blog Untitled.  One of his core points is that the Earth insures that water is a renewable resource, and it should provide enough for us, so long as we use proper management techniques.

And unlike fossil fuel energy and carbon emissions, popular imagination hasn't seized on  a big, easy target like motor vehicles to point at and try to improve to curb our usage.  In fact, our building infrastructure is that fat target, though so far many efforts to curtail water usage have fallen flat.

But LEED standards, and other green building initiatives can certainly change that. 

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 17, 2008 at 11:34:34 PM

This is a selection of recent popular blog artciles aggregated on Greenedia.com, where you will find the best blogs from the world of green media, as well as video uploads, podcasts, and blog authoring.

Coal Prices Open The Door To Biomass

Looking toward the possible rise of biomass as an energy source, BioPact Blog points out that coal prices could conceivably double in the next two years.  A variety of pressures on the supply of coal, including limits on production in Indonesia and Australia, and spiraling demand in China and India, are consiring to drive prices up, perhaps much more rapidly than the market is ready to absorb.  The market already received a shock, in fact, when rumors circulated that an Asian steel company paid well above market value for coal.

BioPact goes on to suggest possible high volume alternatives to coal, such as massive brush overgrowth in northern Namibia that could provide up to 500TWh of energy in lieu of coal.  This concept, as well as BioPact's outline for medium and long-term implementation of a biomass fuel economy provides a continuum of energy provision should the price of coal continue to expand in such a dramatic fashion.

Chrysler Exploring Every Available Green Car Tech

Reporting on a video clip of Carlist's Lou Ann Hammon, AutoBlogGreen says that Chrysler seems to be approaching green car technology on every front, looking for the best possible solutions out of what has become a host of alternatives.  The video clip features Hammond speaking with Chairman and Vice President of Chrysler Jim Press, who discusses the company's plans down for the future.

Focusing on the fate of the dual mode hybrid that had been developed with GM and BMW while Chrysler was actually Daimler-Chrysler, AutoBlogGreen looks at the direction of the Big Three company now that Daimler has departed the partnership again.  Daimler seems to have left the dual mode hybrid to Chrysler which they are seeking to develop aggressively, in addition to all the other options.  Their philosophy is that it's not wise to focus too narrowly in this time of transition.

Genome Sequenced For Hydrogen Producing Anaerobe

Green Car Congress points out that a team of German researchers have decoded the genome for a variety of bacteria that produces hydrogen as a waste process.  Growing on sole energy sources ethanol and acetate, the well-studied bacterium provides intriguing options for producing hydrogen from complex sources without slow and expensvie electrolysis.
The post identifies the Max Planck Institute as the source of the research and provides a link to the official publication of the group's findings.

French Insist Hybrids Only For The Short Term

Treehugger takes exception to French research that suggests that hybrids are only a short term solution to looming shortages--and price increases--in oil.  In fact, Treehugger can't seem to believe that research needs to be done into the question of whether or not hybrids are the final solution, since it almost seems to go without saying that they're not.  Hybrids, at best, only extend the mileage of existing internal combustion engines not provide a true alternative.

In the post they suggest a number of measures to thumb one's nose at the findings, including driving a hybrid.  The vehicles may not be a final solution, but they're a better alternative to the lower mileage non-hybrid vehicles, and help to push off the probem a little to give more time for more permanent solutions to be worked out.  They also suggest commenting on the research (and providing appropriate links) and helping support the research into long term solutions.

About Greenedia

Greenedia is your guide to the best Green social media available on the Internet. SoMedia Networks Inc, which also operates Inveslogic.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com, is building the first network of social media websites dedicated to finding, organizing and presenting content based
on expertise and authority. For more information or to register an account, visit Greenedia.com.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 16, 2008 at 10:36:59 PM

Green building seems to be getting a lot of attention lately.  Maybe not the way alternative fuels and hybrid powertrains are, in front of the general public, but green building seems to be generating all the right interest in all the right venues to make a genuine difference going forward.

The latest example comes from the International Builders' Show in Orlando, Florida this weekend.  With this past Thursday marked as "green" day at the expo, organizers hoped to bring dramatic focus to the realities and potential of alternative energy, energy efficiency, and "deep" green in the construction industry.

Florida Today mentions that the National Association of Home Builders took advantage of the occasion to announce the "National Green Building Program, which promotes 'green' building techniques and materials."  The NAHB has no doubt found, as many of its members have, that promoting the green aspects of their business is a good way to boost sales in these uncertain economic times, especially among those worried about the upward spiral of energy prices.

The reality of green building today is that more buyers are going to be interested in terms of what green building can do for them in terms of energy savings and the like, with the ecological soundness of the techniques and materials running second.  While there should be some consumer concern over the "deep" green, for instance, that might be more a question for contractors and builders as growing energy prices and material costs drive them to consider greener alternatives that also happen to be cheaper.  The more expensive transportation gets, for instance, the more attractive on-site recycling and local products are going to look.  Not a bad thing, certainly, and perhaps a reality that contractors and builders can become attuned to through efforts like these.

In a simliar effort, the Florida Solar Energy Center and Washington State University are separately developing their own awareness efforts to promote energy efficiency and "beyond code" building techniques.  Funding for the centers comes from Department of Energy grants, a promotion effort the federal government should surely be doing more to encourage.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 13, 2008 at 09:48:24 PM

One of the exciting things about watching the green building revolution is seeing the various ways in which those seeking to save energy and reduce emissions are going about their business.  Not every wish list technology is ripe yet--I could take my home off the grid right now if there were such a thing as 50% efficient photovoltaic solar panels.  Sadly, those are in the infancy of research, as are other technologies to make less efficient solar solutions work.

But still, people are building green and getting their projects LEED-certified.  How are they doing it?

NW Arkansas News goes into fascinating detail on one such project, a mutli-building office development in Bentonville, the home of Wal-Mart, that will likely serve vendors coming into town to display their wares for the big buyers in the Walton family empire.  One of the big focuses of the project was that of materials--bamboo flooring, for instance, using a material that grows dramatically faster than wood and thus is much more easily renewable.

Also:

The rooms have giant windows, and an alpine-white metal roof reflects 70 percent of the sunlight that hits its surface. Bathrooms have low-flow toilets and other plumbing fixtures that dramatically reduce water consumption. In the courtyard at the center of the four buildings, pervious concrete and green-minded landscaping have been used to limit stormwater runoff. More than 50 percent of the wood used in the construction of the project is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

And unusued materials were carted off for recycling, or reused on site, giving the project the sort of "deep" green that goes well beyond day-to-day energy efficiency and heads aggressively into the territory of total green building
Taking another step in that direction is Genesis Worldwide subsidiary KML Engineered Homes which is working with a turnkey, minimal waste steel framing system.  The lightweight steel framing pieces are meant to link together in predetermined, manufactured means, dramatically reducing the waste of a traditional wood-framed building of the same type.  Splitting the difference between the completely modular manufactured building and projects assembled on site from undifferentiated bulk loads of materials, KML hopes to offer another option in the green building revolution.

As has been pointed out here a number of times, there are innumerable ways in which to promote green building and energy savings, and not all of them require sexy technological solutions.

Posted by Dave Klecha - Greenedia Editor on February 10, 2008 at 04:55:18 PM

This is a selection of recent popular blog artciles aggregated on Greenedia.com, where you will find the best blogs from the world of green media, as well as video uploads, podcasts, and blog authoring.

How Biofuels Increase Carbon Emissions

Science Blog offers interesting criticism of the use of biofuels by way of a report from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy that says use of biofuels can actually speed up global warming where natural ecosystems are converted to biofuel farmland.  The existing flora, it turns out, is better at processing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than the stock used for ethanol and biodiesel, worsening the climate change balance.

The article cites a classic example in the Amazon rain forest, where farmers are being encouraged to clear cut existing rain forest and plant soybeans, the current system rewarding them for quantity of crop as opposed to carbon balance.  Science Blog does go on to say, however, that there are a number of different locales and environments in which biofuel crops are an improvement or a "push" in terms of carbon emission offset over existing vegetation.

President Bush's Energy Budget Doesn't Go Far Enough

Joe Romm at Climate Progress takes President Bush to task for offering stirring and positive energy rhetoric while attempting to slash Department of Energy funding for critical projects.  Focusing on his recent State of the Union Address statements, Romm suggests that the President's calls for action on energy and climate questions was a rhetorical smokescreen, hiding a broad deemphasizing of the question and the defunding of a number of programs.

Providing a breakdown of the budget request in the post, he endeavors to show that Bush is not at all serious about the energy issues facing the United States and is trying to sweep it under the rug in his last year in office.  Programs such as water energy research (that is, hydroelectric, wave, and steam power) appear to face significant cuts, along with completely defunding the Renewable Energy Production Incentive.  Several programs do get boosts, including more research money for carbon sequestration in coal-fired plants and $7.5 million for the Asia-Pacific Partnership.

Paris Looks to Make Sustainability Stylish

Last week EcoGeek took a look at Parisian construction project that aims to blend the kind of art and style that the city is known for with a 21st century energy ethic.  Brainchild of Vincent Callebaut, noted architect and designer, the building would sit astride a disused canal in the city's 19th district.  Actually a pair of buildings, the structures would aim to provide their own energy while simultaneously, actively reducing smog in the city.

According to the post, Callebaut hopes to achieve this with an external mix of photovoltaic solar cells and a structure faced with titanium dioxide that "reacts with organics and reduces airborne pollutants and contaminants when exposed to the UV radiation present in sunlight."  Both structures would also feature copious greenery on their exterior surfaces, and the second of the pair, a helical tower, would have built-in turbines to harness the wind that sweeps down the canal.

Real Goods Seeks Wall Street Splash With IPO

Treehugger points out that solar installer Real Goods has completed paperwork to make an initial public offering (IPO) on NASDAQ.  The company, now oned by Gaiam, recently acquired two other installation companies as part of a move to market consolidation, and now seeks investment funding to expand further.

Real Goods' revenues, according to Treehugger, were estimated at $32.7 million for 2007, with profits of nearly half a million, with the acquired companies' revenues and profits taken into account.  Going public could vastly improve Real Goods' standing and better position them in what is sure to be a highly competitive solar energy market.

About Greenedia

Greenedia is your guide to the best Green social media available on the Internet. SoMedia Networks Inc, which also operates Inveslogic.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com, is building the first network of social media websites dedicated to finding, organizing and presenting content based
on expertise and authority. For more information or to register an account, visit Greenedia.com.