Hybrid Living

While not exactly the first person you think of when you contemplate green driving, Gov. Schwarzenegger is doing quite a bit to help out, even buying green muscle cars. The latest event is that he’s actually giving you tips on how to drive more greenly.

Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Schwarzenegger are backing EcoDriving, a website that provides tips and tricks on how to save gas and money when driving.

In a Jurassic Park-ish welcome video, the Governator tells visitors that “only you” can lower the impact gas prices have on your wallet right now. While somewhat distracted by his enormous right hand ring, I enjoyed the little motivational video and agreed with him.

The site provides an EcoCalculator to figure out how much we can reduce emissions, tips and tricks on driving, how to get your whole community to drive better, news and events and so forth…pretty typical stuff. Though to be fair, it is supposed to be the website of a “movement” for hypermiling and not super functional as a tool. It’s a bit slow to load, but interesting and worth a look-see. However, there are quite a few other EcoGeeky options, online and not, (and that are better) if you want to improve gas mileage through driving.

Via AutoblogGreen

Silver Spring Smart Meters is hoppin! Keeping a brisk pace, they’ve just signed on with Modesto Irrigation District in central California for $17 million to sell smart-metering equipment to the district.

Anyone from California might cock their head and say “Modesto?” But anywhere smart meters land is somewhere good. The equipment is linking up 108,000 residential and commercial users to the utility (on top of the 3,000 previously installed smart meters for a smaller portion of the district), and the equipment includes circuit boards, wireless gateways and software along with Landis meters.

The district is hoping to have everything set up by early 2009. It’ll be exciting to see how this works out for the relatively small area, because (at the risk of sounding redundant) it will lead, hopefully quickly, to bigger installments in more populated areas.

Via GreenTechMedia

Yesterday the plug-in version of the new Prius hit the UK for testing performance and how the electrical infrastructure measures up for larger scale plugging in.

They’re also looking to find out driver behavior and expectations so they can make improvements where needed and desired.

The model can be charged from any domestic socket (I envision a rush on extension cords…) which makes it a more versatile vehicle. It isn’t full electric, and still uses gas like the current Prius model, but it does have a higher battery capacity. So for shorter, slower paced trips, it could be considered an all-electric.

Pretty exciting stuff! We’ll of course be following how testing goes.

Via DailyMail

Allowing employees to telecommute is definitely one option companies have to help green themselves up, and employees love it. However, setting up your employees at home can be a logistical pain. Cisco has launched its Virtual Office to help out with this issue.

The package is like a work-at-home kit – it includes Cisco’s 881w Series Internet Services Router, an IP phone for each employee, and back-end equipment for headquarters. Cisco is wise to jump on this issue since employees right and left are asking to switch to telecommuting, at least part time, in order to cut down on gas expenses. There was a 12% increase since last year in the number of US companies offering a telecommuting program. With a package like Cisco’s, companies can feel more comfortable with allowing employees to work from home since security measures are in place with the set-up.

The package is about $700 per employee (an amount averaged out over 200-300 users), an investment amount that is recouped through decreasing the amount of leased office space, saved energy, plus the check mark companies gain for “green” programs.

Via Earth2Tech; photo via frosworld

With the switch to digital broadcasting on the near horizon, ASL Recycling is adding 28 more e-waste drop-off locations to its GREENetwork in an effort to help keep more TVs and other waste out of landfills.

Expectations are that loads of people are running of to get a new TV in prep for the switch to digital, and so will be tossing old TVs. While the whole situation is a bit of a forehead slapper since you don’t need to ditch your whole TV – just add a converter box – this is a great idea to help out with e-waste that is sure to appear since TV watchers will find this a great excuse to get the latest and greatest, something that is also prompting a wave of reactions by concerned citizens.

The addition of drop-off spots down the southern coast will make the GREENetwork about 160 locations strong throughout California. Additionally, I think this kind of effort to minimize the impact of the conversion, and others that make e-cycling easy, brings even more focus to the broadening awareness of the importance of proper e-waste management.

Via GoodCleanTech

Norway is poking around Troll, it’s biggest North Sea oil and gas field, to see if it is a good spot to store CO2. The country is interested in curbing emissions, and are weighing locations for a CCS program. Under the seabed at Sleipner gas field, StatioilHydro has been storing CO2 stripped from their natural gas stream for 12 years. But this new endeavor would lock away emissions from on-shore power plants, which is a horse of a different color. There are plenty of processes in the works for capturing the CO2 from power plants, and several projects that sequester what is captured. But news like this highlights the interest people have on doing this as a regular part of business.

Via Reuters; Photo via froskeland

One of the interesting things about e-readers is figuring out a way to put books on a portable, light weight, easy to read device, without taking away too much of the experience of holding a book. Hence the reason why the Kindle has a giant button on the side that is kinda sorta like turning a page. Well, what about with newspapers, where your news is printed on these giant sheets of paper?

Plastic Logic has come up with a concept that would be a light weight screen that displays your news paper. It flexes, and when you “turn the page” it refreshes the screen to the next page of the paper. Something like this, if made durably enough, could go a long way to finally eliminating printed newspapers. And people who like the idea of reading a paper on something other than their computer screen or phone could have something more substantial to hold.

The device would be the size of a standard piece of (electronic) paper (lighter than the iLiad) and would keep updated content via a wireless link. It would also be able to store and display hundreds of pages, so users could store several full newspapers (depending on what news organizations participate in formatting articles) from the week all at once. Plastic Logic is hoping to have the reader out for consumers in the first half of 2009, and the price will be revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas in January.

Electronic newspapers could possibly be the rebirth of the newspaper as something useful, since, for now, there’s no reason to subscribe to a paper unless you like the sound of a snapping page, the feel of ink on your fingers, and the handiness of scrap paper laying around the house. Via NYTimes

Swiss energy supplier BKW FMB Energie AG has unveiled and interesting project to investors – the GOLDFISH Project, which would launch floating mobile solar power plants to help reduce CO2. This isn’t as relatively bland a project as floatovoltaics or as futuristic as solar lily pads or floating solar islands. These plants would be able to operate in inland waterways such as lakes where sunlight is abundant, and they’re basically taking the form of submarines. Yep, submarines. The project wants to be the first solar powered sub on the Thunersee Lake, which could turn profits both by energy generation and as a tourist attraction. Details are still a bit scarce, but we are soooo following up on this one…

Photo via terry_wha

Austin is building a biomass plant, and in traditional Texas fashion, it’s huge. The city of Austin approved a $2.3 billion purchasing agreement to buy all the energy produced by a 100 MW facility that will be up and running sometime around 2012 in Sacul, Texas. 100 MW is pretty dang big, beating out Hawaii’s biomass plant by 76 MW.

The plant will utilize wood waste from logging and mill operations, urban tree trimming and shipping pallets. But there’s a bit of a catch that may throw a wrench in the works before the 20-year purchase agreement is up. The plant is going to require about a million tons of fuel per year, which is fine since there are about 2 million tons available within a 75 mile radius of the plant. However, there are other folks who want to start similar plants, and so there may not be enough local wood waste to go around. This plant might end up putting a cap on the number of similar plants that can be built, or there might be some issues coming up regarding access to wood waste.

As far as the burning of wood waste goes, the plant plans to be carbon neutral since the amount of carbon released is balanced by the carbon sequestered by trees that are growing…so they say. There are some logistical details about that fact I’m curious to find out about.

The cost of Austin Energy’s purchase is going to be off-set by the projection that natural gas will be more expensive by the time the plant is online, so customers may ultimately save a little money. We’ll see how all this works out, but Texas is definitely an interesting place to keep an eye on as far as renewable power is concerned.

Via Ecolocalizer; photo via tfarrell

UCSD is a sunny campus, and they’re taking advantage of it. As a way to capture more renewable energy, they’ve planted Solar Trees on the roofs of two parking garages. The trees shade vehicles and soak up sun.

I am starting to get frustrated that most parking lots and structures don’t already have these – how absolutely perfect are they? Everyone wants to park in the shade or in a sheltered spot, and businesses can always use the extra energy.

Anyway, the trees also provide outlets so that students and faculty with plug-in hybrids and EVs can utilize the energy collected, which is a serious incentive for people who are considering buying hybrids…free energy? Yes, please.

The best part for UCSD is that the trees were covered by three local companies, so the university is billed monthly for the electricity received, but didn’t have to provide any initial investment.

The solar trees are intended to be functional as well as look cool, with "trunks" and "branches." This kind of biomimicry is beginning to grow, with designers working to blend solar panels into environments in a more natural-ish way.

Each tree can generate more than 17,000 hours of energy annually. This kind of green initiative could be great for a whole lot of other universities. Hopefully they get the green bug and start “planting.”

Via The Earth Times