SalvaEco

Filed under: Legislation and Policy

The California Air Resources Board wants to implement new rules to reduce greenhouse gases from motor vehicles but they need a waiver from the EPA to do so. They initially applied for the Waiver back in December 2005 and the EPA is finally going to have some public hearings on the request. The first of the two hearings will take place on Tuesday May 22 at the EPA conference center in Arlington, VA. A week later on May 30 a second hearing will take place in Sacremento at the California EPA headquarters. If you’re interested in checking out the hearings or testifying, all the details on the locations are at the ARB website at the Read link.

[Source: California Air Resources Board]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

When you purchase carbon credits to offset your personal greenhouse gas emissions, do you really know where that money is going or how those credits are counted in the market? The Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) will make sure you do with their upcoming Green-e Certified Greenhouse Gas Reduction Product Certification Program.

CRS has been in the renewable energy certification and verification business for ten years. Their Green-e certification programs provide assurance to consumers that the businesses sporting the Green-e logo meet the program's requirements for renewable energy options. Now Green-e is expanding their certification guidelines to include Greenhouse Gas Reduction (GHG) products.

While most companies assure customers that money spent on GHG reduction products, like personal renewable energy credits, will go towards specific things like planting trees or funding wind farm projects, there are currently no standards or verification processes in place.

CRS hopes to fill this void with the Green-e GHG Product Certification Program, which will set product standards, develop a verification process and release consumer disclosure guidelines.

The details of the Green-e GHG program are still being finalized. CRS is working with a governance board, an advisory group and stakeholders in the development of the standard. While the governance board and the advisory group are made up of industry experts, and environmental organizaitons and businesses, anyone can be a stakeholder and give input on this process. All of the documents involved are downloadable at Green-e.org.

One important factor in this certification process is the issue of additionality, or making sure that GHG reduction products sold to customers are verified, that they aren't counted elsewhere and that money goes towards projects that would not have happened without the carbon market. Strict additionality standards will add credibility to the voluntary carbon market and ensure that your purchase really will make a difference.

Green-e analyst Lars Kvale stresses, however, that regardless of certification, consumers should not buy carbon credits in lieu of reducing their own green house gas emissions.

What we're trying to do with the certification program is to enable consumers to offset their emissions they can't reduce… For example, most environmentally minded folks still take airplane trips and you can't buy a ticket for a renewable powered airplane. That's just not possible right now.

So this is where folks are coming and saying, well if i can't do that, let me do what's the next best, which is to get a reduction somewhere else. Then on balance it will even out with the understanding that yes, it doesn't mean my airplane does not have any impact, it means I'm offsetting that impact. [This program will] enable that to work for consumers. It's not an instead of, but really in addition to energy efficiency and buying renewable energy.

Green-e has invited sellers of GHG reductions to participate, including the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and Gold Standard. The Green-e GHG Product Certification Program is expected to roll out this summer.

Illustration: Ilana Kohn

Editor's note: This week, Ecotality blogger Doug Snodgrass points us to a resource for information on green cars. While the site Doug points to is British, most of the cars listed are widely available. This post was orginally published on May 16, 2007.

VCARS, a website to help Brits find new and used cars, has compiled a listing of "The Greenest Cars on Earth." The list contains real-world info that’s important to not only the green-minded, but also the consumer at large; CO2 emissions, MPG combined, engine type, transmission type, BHP/torque, weight, NCAP rating (European New Car Assessment Programme), top speed, 0-62 MPH, warranty info…

Cars are categorized by hybrid, electric, biofuel, and future green cars. The bonus here is that every auto is accompanied by a photo, tre-cool in the future green cars category.

Winner of the most interesting name? The Venturi Fetish (shown in photo).

Prema of Teddy Exports in India with her Floral TotesThe guarantee of a “fair wage in the local context” is one of the most often publicized of the fair trade criteria. Fair Trade attempts to empower disadvantaged producers in countries that often do not have adequate workers’ rights laws including a minimum wage. Fair trade guarantees at least the minimum wage even in countries that have a minimum wage law but do not enforce it. In countries that do not have a minimum wage the buyer of the product is still bound by the fair trade criteria to pay a fair wage in the local context.

For some products, such as coffee and bananas, a Fair Trade price is set by the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations. These minimum prices are always paid despite fluctuations in the market price and, of course, the market price is paid if it ever rises above the Fair Trade price. These prices also have a social premium included that producer cooperatives use to enhance infrastructure, provide social services and educate and train.

However, there is a large set of Fair Trade products that are not certified at the product level, mostly decorative arts and handcrafts. With these products Fair Trade, for pragmatic reasons, takes the approach of certifying wholesale importers and retail outlets who deal directly with artisan cooperatives. In this scenario the responsibility to pay a fair wage rests with the importer of the goods. So how does an importer know what a fair wage is "in the local context" of the producers? The primary and preferred mode is to simply talk with the producers to find out what they deem is a fair and living wage. There is some additional help in the form of an online fair wage calculator, created by World of Good Development, to help determine what a fair wage might be in any given local context.

I input the required information for Teddy Exports’ Floral Tote that we offer over at the shop (which we buy wholesale from direct importer World Finds, a model Fair Trade organization) into the calculator. I found that the women at Teddy making the Floral Totes are making roughly four times the minimum wage of 2.15 USD per day in India. This wage is in addition to the free health care, daily meal, child care and schooling each artisan is entitled to at Teddy. The wage is also two times the Acumen Fund poverty line for urban India. The tool simply aggregates all the freely available economic information necessary to determine a fair price for goods. But it makes the process of determining a fair price price more streamlined and accessible.

Paying a fair wage is the most basic of the Fair Trade criteria but is perhaps the most important. A mutually respectful trading relationship cannot exist without it.

This is the second in a series of posts discussing the Fair Trade criteria. Also check out Fair Trade: Transparency.

Filed under: Biodiesel, Hybrid

Pepco Holdings, Inc., the D.C. area electricity and natural gas utility company, announced this week that its 2,000-vehicle fleet will be converted to hybrids and other types of alternative power. The standard reasons of saving money and the environment apply.

PHI says it currently has about 80 trucks that run on alternative power, along with a few hybrids, so this changeover will affect a lot of vehicles. Thirty hybrids will be added this year and all of the trucks will soon start running on B20. As the rest of the vehicles in the fleet wear out, they will be replaced with vehicles that use less petroleum, like those mentioned above or ones that have E85-capable engines. PHEVs and other technologies will also be considered.

[Source: Pepco]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Green Culture, MPG

One of the rights of passage for American high school students is getting their driver’s license and getting a car. That’s where the trouble starts. I’m not even going to get into the wisdom or utter lack thereof of letting kids start driving at 14 years and 9 months. When kids get a car they need to put gas into it and at $3.50 a gallon that gets old fast.

Four students from Churchill High School in Livonia, MI created a public service announcement video for a class denouncing big gas-guzzlers like the Cadillac Escalade. The original version only got a C in class but after reworking it, their teacher entered the spot in the 2007 Michigan Student Film & Video Festival where it got one of 32 best in show awards out of the 284 entries. It’s good to see that not every kid wants to run around in a big SUV.

[Source: Livonia Observer]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Etc., EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors

Just kidding! The crew at Tesla Motors includes all kinds of characters including firmware engineer Greg Solberg. In his new post on the Tesla blog Greg emphasizes his fascination with alternative transportation. Over the years he has built a variety of electrically-driven pieces of furniture starting with a sofa that he and a friend tried out at Black Rock Desert. More recently Greg and his SO Lisa collaborated on a pair of slippers. The 7.5 foot long bunny slippers have a top speed of 15 mph and are powered by half a dozen deep cycle lead batteries. Check out Greg’s post to find out more about the world’s fastest slippers.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

A seemingly simple alteration a wind turbine blade’s traditional shape could result in huge improvements in efficiency.

WhalePower Corporation out of Toronto, Canada has designed a turbine blade with rounded, teeth-like bumps along the leading edge. The company’s name is a nod to the humpback whale, whose flipper was the inspiration for the design.

The agility of the humpback whale is astonishing, given that they can be over 50 feet long, weigh nearly 80,000 pounds, yet move quickly and tightly in the water. One of the animal's advantages, according to scientists, is the unique row of bumps or “tubercles” along the leading edge of their flippers that dramatically increase the whale’s aerodynamic efficiency. Specifically, researchers found a 32 percent lower drag and 8 percent improvement in lift from a flipper with a serrated edge compared to a smooth one.

Businessman Stephen Dewar heard about the humpback research and contacted one of the scientists involved, Professor Frank Fish of West Chester University in Pennsylvania. After a few meetings, they enlisted the help of some local engineers and formed WhalePower, taking a cue from Mother Nature and modeling their blade design after the whale’s flipper.

WhalePower claims that their turbine design can capture more wind energy at much lower speeds than traditional designs. The channels created by the teeth at the blade's edge cause separate wind streams to accelerate across the surface of the blade in rotating flows. These “energy-packed” vortexes increase the lift force on the blade. For example, Dewar told the Toronto Star that this design produces the same power at 11 miles per hour that one would expect at 18 miles per hour. Furthermore, he claimed these channels prevent airflow from moving along the span of the blade and past the tip, which can create noise, instability and a loss of energy. By keeping the air flow nicely channeled, more wind is captured and noise is reduced.

Dewar sees this “biomimicry” design – the fusion of biology and engineering – reaching beyond wind power.

“’This changes the game,’ says Dewar, adding that any system using a fan or turbine could also benefit from the new design. This includes everything from better turbines for hydroelectric generation to residential ceiling fans that use less electricity. ‘If we've got what we think we've got, then the range of applications is staggering.’”

The Ontario Centres of Excellence and the Ontario Power Authority have contributed over $60,000 USD for early research and to encourage collaboration with a wind engineering group at the University of Western Ontario. The next and arguably most crucial step to commercial production is independent, third party verification of the blade’s performance.

Toronto Star
Wikipedia

Cross posted at Maria Energia

Posted by Dave (in Ireland)

Yet another pro-whale country has joined the IWC – Greece has appeared as fully signed up to the International Whaling Commission, and will be voting FOR the whales! Greece, like Peru, Cyprus, Slovenia, Croatia, Costa Rica and Ecuador and Nicaragua, is coming to the IWC meeting to ensure that Japan and its vote-bought friends to have a tougher time undermining the ban on commercial whaling at the meeting in Anchorage.

More news as it happens!

List of International Whaling Commission members »

IWC news or additions »