America’s new energy grid gets smart.  What does the new stimulus package mean for your electric bill?

President Obama’s recent stimulus package includes large resources devoted to energy efficiency, renewable energy research, guaranteed loans, and tax credits.  This means big changes on the horizon for the way America produces the energy it needs to run itself.

The challenge is that renewable sources like solar and wind deliver power sporadically which means a new grid will have to be laid out in order to regulate the flow.

According to IBM and the Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition, the so-called “smart grid” dramatically reduce outages and faults, improves responsiveness, handles current and future demand, increases efficiency and manages costs. Consumers benefit with new power options like customized pricing and real-time monitoring of their usage and costs.

The Intelligent Utility Network also helps consumers actively participate in solving critical energy problems by making “smart” homes and energy-conscious choices possible.

For a complete breakdown of how the smart grid works, check out IBM’s awesome podcast presentation:

Photo by Gilfer.

Full BBC News article here.

Green Air Filter:

Genetically modified or GM crops have been one of the most promising solutions to the rapid decline in food production. All they require is a simple spritz of chemicals; the grower never even needs to take a step in soil. But that is exactly why farmers have unwittingly waged a war against the miracle crops.

The few farmers who still grow their crops the traditional way have been under investigation by large GM corporations such as Monsanto for ’seed piracy’. GM pollen can easily travel across acres to local farms and potentially be saved by the farmers to use. It seems to be a classic case of ‘evil corporation’ bullying on the part of Monsanto. But maybe it is the action that needs to be taken in order to protect a technology as vital and important in this day and age.

Photo by MillyNeT.

The natural and digital worlds combine to help decrease the global impact of today’s internet addiction.

Nowadays it’s nearly impossible to imagine a world without the internet when just over a decade ago, the internet itself was scarcely a thing of the imagination.  With it’s billions of users, the earthbound mechanisms that keep this digital universe expanding are showing signs that surfing the web can lead to an environmental wipeout.

The bulk of the information that flows through our computers is stored and powered by a network of high-tech data centers.  The hardware used at these sites needs shocking amounts of electricity that generates lots of heat.

New green data centers like Oregon-based Taproot Hosting, power their boards on 100% wind energy.  They even tell their employees to stay home, opting for tele-commuting over terrestrial commutes.  Other centers bury their gear, taking advantage of natural geothermal cooling instead of conventional air conditioning.

For more on how to reduce your carbon e-print, have a look at some of these sites:

Sun’s take on green data centers in 2009 (GreenTechMedia.com)

Green Data Center Blog

Google: Our green data centers get a lot greener (GreenerComputing.com)

Photo by ibmphoto24.

A breakdown of the numbers from the NRDC:

$6 billion for clean and safe water, creating more than 200,000 jobs

• This insures critical funding for the nation’s pipes and treatment plants.  We don’t often worry too much about where our clean water comes from and this line seeks to keep it that way.

$4.5 billion for greening federal buildings

• The Federal building codes and standards apply to buildings constructed or used by any Federal agency that is not legally subject to state or local building codes.  This means that any building, not just the White House, Pentagon, Capital Building, etc., ANY building paying their energy bills with Federal money will be subject to completely revised energy efficiency performance standards which have been set by the DOE.

State energy grants, issued through the Treasury Department, that will fund renewable energy projects that are eligible for the available tax credits.

• As of October of last year, the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 prolonged tax credits in solar, fuel cells, and microturbines; increased the credit amount for fuel cells; established new credits for small wind-energy systems, geothermal heat pumps, and combined heat and power (CHP) systems; extended eligibility for the credits to utilities; and allowed taxpayers to take the credit against the alternative minimum tax (AMT) subject to certain limitations.  If you’ve got these systems already in place are are planning to build new ones, you should apply here.

Funding for the state energy program, which includes important utility reforms and building code conditions.

• Now the states can get their money for needed infrastructural improvements.  Here’s everything you need to know about it.

$2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy Research and Development.

• In many cases, the technology just isn’t there yet and it takes resources to get there, hence, this line item.

$5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program, creating approximately 90,000 jobs

• The expansion of this service will help the program reach a critical mass and deliver what it was designed to do - help low income families make energy efficiency improvements on their homes and spend less on utilities.  See if you qualify here.

A multi-year extension of the renewable production tax credit.

• Even greater insurance to individuals and corporations interested in these upgrades that their renewable energy improvements will be rewarded for many years to come.  This is the kind of thing that boosts investor confidence in green stocks.

A more effective tax credit for home efficiency upgrades.

• If you’re not eligible for the Wheatherization Assistance Program, now you can receive the big discounts on the home energy improvements you do yourself.

$6 billion in loan guarantees for renewables, transmission and leading edge biofuels

• This is a great boon for companies investing in these industries.  Now there will be real money to back up the loans guaranteed by the government.  This comes as particular significance to the USDA.

$2 billion for advanced batteries

• More than just rechargeable batteries for your TV remote, this category of tech development may be the most important.  Certainly the automotive industry has a lot to gain with hybrid-electric vehicles seeking to replace the current fleet.  Here’s an interesting piece from the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USCAR).  The storage of electricity produced on a massive scale for residential and commercial use is also an integral component to making the new renewable grid happen.

$9.3 billion for intercity rail, including high-speed rail

• With these new high-speed rail systems, the U.S. may actually be up to speed with the rest of the world.  Here’s a little more on that idea.

$27.5  billion for highways (this large pot of money is not exclusively for highways, and states and cities must use this flexibility to invest in fuel-efficient public transportation)

• While this may seem a bit imbalanced up against the public transportation budgets, the ethos behind it suggests the auto fleet will be markedly cleaner by the time the highways are improved.  Like it or not, the U.S. is a car culture which means the industries and infrastructure must change to accommodate it.

$8.4 billion for transit

$1.5 billion in competitive grants for transportation investments (which could be used for public transportation)

• These last two lines combined with the high-speed rail budget is a pretty formidable sum to help the country’s beleaguered public trans condition.  However, it may also prove to be a mere drop in the bucket if the other energy system improvements are not met.

Photo by kali.ma.

The future of trash isn’t too hard to predict - there’s going to be a lot of it.

So what’s in store for the future of trash removal?

According to the EPA, the average American produces about 4.4 pounds of garbage a day. Thats an annual 240 million tons produced nationally. So how can the country that invented the internet and the airplane maintain it’s technological leadership under this hulking mountain of trash?

One very high-tech solution involves the blasting of garbage with lasers. While it may seem too sci-fi to be true, the process is known as plasma gasification and uses high electrical energy and high temperature to obliterate the molecular bonds that hold garbage together. The elements are separated and collected as gas, later to be used to power the facility itself.

Garbage zapping is already being used abroad with Florida on deck to be the first state in the US to bring this futuristic form of trash blasting into the present.

For more on the future of trash tech, check out this video.

Photo by gardinergirl.

Electric cars win big at the Detroit Autoshow and a real plan is emerging to fix the nation’s transportation problems.

Foreign automakers aren’t the only ones rushing electric cars to market, it’s domestic manufacturers including Ford who’ve unveiled prototypes at this year’s auto show.  Unlike the electric golf carts you may be familiar with, the new green fleet of autos are quiet and quick and don’t require the noxious burning of ancient plants.

While this innovation does reduce carbon emissions, what about it’s effect on the power grid?  Experts agree that cars won’t burden the grid if owners charge their batteries at night.

Other solutions to our transportation dilemma include airport improvements, expansions, and creating high-speed rail links. Eliminating the horror of terminal gridlock on our runways may lessen headaches for travelers and increase jobs for contractors.  High-speed rail links between city centers bring the classic form of train travel up to date ushering time-crunched travelers to and from their points of passage.

For more transportation innovations, check out some of these sites:

Green Transportation (Mother Earth News)

League of American Bicyclists

Green Autos

Green Eye

Photo by rmarinello.

In like a lion and out like a lamb.  An unlikely green super-hero emerges to protect the fragile seas.

The Bush administration may not be remembered for it’s ground breaking conservation efforts but just before his departure from office, President Bush effectively protected a whopping 195,000 square miles of the central Pacific’s untouched ocean oasis.  With the stroke of a pen, the President set aside an area the size of his home state of Texas as the largest swath of protected ocean on the planet.

And Bush didn’t skimp on the protection either: these marine monuments are granted the highest level of conservation, prohibiting commercial fishing, mining, and drilling of this newly safeguarded underwater Yellowstone.  While the initial proposed ocean and island plot was over 700,000 square miles, Bush’s declaration went above and beyond expectations and is still a huge and important initiative.

Only recently have we come to discover the finite nature of our ocean as a natural resource and it’s efforts like this we hope will endure through our emerging administration.

For a look at the largest marine monument on earth, check out some of these images:

Photo by Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Slideshow by volcanojw.

Full USA Today article here.

Green Air Filter:

One of the most fantastical gardens can be found in Kew, England where many different flowers and plants make up a varied man-made Eden. But there lies something else in Kew; something that more resembles the lair of an evil genius rather than the nature’s playground that Kew has been famous for.

The Millennium Seed Bank is a series of giant vaults that holds something more precious than any ordinary bank could hopeful in this year of economic bailouts. It holds billions of seeds that have been frozen for future uses that will be crucial to the world’s food supply and medical crises. With the world’s natural resources quickly disappearing, the Millennium Seed Bank is not just a side project for the Green movement but an insurance policy for all of Earth.

Photo by kawkawpa.

Full BBC article here.

Green Air Filter:

One by one, the Earth’s natural resources are disappearing. And by no means is fresh water safe from elimination. And in a world where most living things only thrive on fresh water, the search for an alternative is rising to the top of the science community’s list of priorities.

98% of the water on Earth is from the ocean. So it only makes sense that scientist have been looking to the ocean as the next frontier for survival. Plants such as kale and samphire can be cultivated in salt water, as they have been for several thousand years by our ancestors. Spinach and beetroot are also options for the salt water revolution. At this rate, soylent green is no longer something we have to look forward to.

Photo by Paul Prudence.

Jumbo shrimp, a parkway, pretty ugly, and now clean coal.

Do they think we’re oxymorons?

Talk of clean coal is polluting the air around the climate debate and stifling the discussion of alternative energy solutions.  The fact of the matter is that coal extraction and incineration is a downright dirty process.

Additionally, this buzzword charade is being used by the two Presidential nominees as both a mudslinging tactic and vote generating accelerator.  So what are they really talking about?

It’s basic shorthand for a technology that does not exist.  The idea of carbon dioxide being separated from the exhaust of US coal plants is as likely to succeed as drilling for oil in ANWR will reduce gas prices significantly in 2009.

So while new coal technologies are experimental, the Politically infused notion of clean coal is nothing more than hot air.

For more on clean coal, check out some of the links below.

Clean Coal Technology (Wikipedia)

Presidential Race Runs through the Heart of Coal Country (Market Watch)

Managing Wastes From Coal (World Nuclear Association)

Photo by rtokunaga.

What mutating mass lurks 1000 miles off the coast of Hawaii and is reported to be the size of Texas?

More frightening than Captain Ahab’s worst nightmare, it’s garbage island.

The floating island of garbage, or Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is a freak occurrence caused by tidal flows converging in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.  Buoys, plastic debris, and styrafoam spend years faring the high seas from as far off as the coast of Asia, tens of thousands of miles away.

The island of garbage is a highly concentrated whirlpool of plastic particles easily mistaken as food by fish and other organisms.  For every one piece of sea life in this region, there are 60 pieces of plastic.

The damage done by this mat of floating trash is even more significant as it’s disrupts the base of the ocean food chain, genetically interrupting generations upon generations of life underwater and on land.

For video footage of the floating island of garbage, click here.

Photo by Megan.

Special thanks to the newsmakers and researchers who risked life and limb filming their voyage:

Thomas Morton (VBS)

Joe Goodman (volunteer researcher)

Meredith Danluck (VBS)

Dr. Lorena M. Rios-Mendoza (Dept. of Chemistry at University of the Pacific)

Jake Burghart (VBS)

Captain Charlie Moore (Captain of the ORV Alguita)

Full NY Time article here.

Green Air Filter:

If you have followed the environmental new trend from the very beginning, it is quite obvious what the public enemy number one is: Carbon. But there is something else stinking up our atmosphere; Nitrogen.

Nitrogen has long been ignored in the environmental protection agenda; so much so that it was not even mentioned in the famous Kyoto Protocol. But while it lagged behind Carbon in publicity, it has been festering in the Earth inside fertilizers that are often overused by the agriculture industry. As a result, an even more toxic nitrogen trifluoride has escaped into our atmosphere without warrant. It is not to say that Carbon has become on  non-issue. Instead, more attention should be raised towards the silent beast that is Nitrogen before it reigns supreme with Carbon in an ever smoggy world.

Photo by Kasi Metcalfe.

Full LA Times article here.

Green Air Filter:

Around the world in 80 days or even less than 80 days is no longer the spectacular notion it once was. With technology unwilling to flail at any time soon, priorities have shifted from reaching the destination to how one makes the destination.

Solar panel planes have been in development for quite a while by now but the problem had always been the very fact that they are solar powered and therefore can only fly by day. But unlike Icarus, two Swiss innovators are no longer afraid to fly too close to the sun with the help of special solar powered batteries that can be used to fly at night. As long as the batteries are powerful enough to beat the night, that is.

Photo by Neil Donoghue.

The door has slammed shut and the debate is over.  Climate change by human hands is real.

According to the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, industrial activity has irrefutably elevated global greenhouse gasses, reduced snowfall, increased temperature, and raised ocean levels higher than ever.

While stubborn skeptics, like big oil, are still claiming inefficiencies in the study, many have converted.

Troy Ribaudo, of the University of Massachusetts, has been researching the effects of the newest laser detection devices further supporting these climate conclusions.

At the forefront of science there is little question that these findings are indeed the final nail in the coffin regarding mankind’s impact on the environment.

For the full interview with Physicist, Troy Ribaudo, click here.

For daily updates on the climate crisis, check out the following links:

Climate Progress - An Insider’s View of Climate Science, Politics, and Solutions

Real Climate - Clmate Science from Climate Scientists

Desmog Blog - We’re here to clear the PR pollution that clouds the climate debate.

Photo by the Tyndall National Institute.

Full BBC article here.

Green Air Filter:

No, they are not a product placement for General Motors. GM stands for Genetically Modified and is one of the latest trends in biofuel development. In a world where the preferred eye color of a child can be picked out before birth, it is only natural that the same idea can be applied to other living things.

In the case of these GM trees, the preferred trait that is developed is not a case of vanity, but the tree’s ability to spread pollen and seed. Researchers from the University of Southampton have applied to plant a group of these GM trees but controversy still plagues the project. How will the ecosystem react to forestry meant to surpass and challenge Mother Nature’s status quo? Will it do more harm than good? The GM project is definitely something worth following.

Photo by merav daon.

Full AP article here.

Green Air Filter:

With wacky weather the world over, it seems the Games might have finally caught it’s breath from some recent downpours.  The heavy rains have cleansed the smog and brightened up the skies over Beijing but is this reason to rejoice?

Global precipitation patterns have been changing as a result of rising atmospheric temperatures and many areas have received increased amounts of rain and snow over the course of this past year while some have received less.

Global warming increases the intensity of precipitation in two key ways:

1.) By increasing the temperature of the land and the oceans, global warming causes water to evaporate faster.

2.) By increasing air temperature, global warming enables the atmosphere to hold more water vapor.

These factors combine to make clouds richer with moisture, making heavy downpours or snowstorms more likely.  With periods of heavy rains, it’s believed that these will punctuate longer periods of relative dryness, increasing the risk of drought.

It appears while the Games might have gotten their lucky weather break, the larger climate problem lingers all the more ominously overhead.

Photo by northcapital.

As Americans, we’re confronted with a host of issues surrounding health care but few of us have stopped to think about the environmental impact hospitals create through their treatment of hazardous waste and even daily operations such as food service.

We recently caught up with Dr. Ted Schettler, Physician, Science Advisor for the Health Care Without Harm campaign, and Coordinator for the Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Science Working Group.  He is one of the driving forces behind the new Green garde of hospital operations restructuring and shares with us some of the inner workings of this visionary and vital process.

Read the rest of this entry »

Full Guardian article here.

Green Air Filter:

Outside of science fiction, one rarely encounters a Doomsday clock of any sort.

But it appears that OneHundredMonths.org is exactly just that. It is a website that follows Andrew Simms’s (New Economics Foundation) theory that the Earth has only 100 months or 8 years until the issue of global warming is no longer an annoying harbinger of truth but a world crisis that is beyond reparations.

The science behind this prediction is not as precise and therefore does not hold enough gravity to make such a wild claim. In fact, no one really knows where the line is drawn for a full-on climactic breakdown. And even when the clock strikes midnight on January 2017 and steam doesn’t rise from the ground and cooks through our heels; OneHundredMonths.org brings some much needed immediacy to a world grown complacent of global warming.

Photo by Masaki Tabata.

Full LA Times article here.

Green Air Filter:

A recent information blitzkrieg has stormed the Green arena on companies like Enviance and GreenCore Technology Inc. working to help the army reduce its munitions emissions as they’ve been pegged as one of the world’s largest climate offenders in their role as democracy defenders.

Where is this coming from?  Could it be our President is as concerned about the damage he’s doing to the earth as he is about obliterating its inhabitants?

The whole idea is like a mushroom cloud of contradictions fraught with government contracts for Green defense technology that screams of misguided agendas.  With the amount of time and resources our country spends on soaking up the top graduating physicists from MIT to work on defense initiatives or purchasing solar air conditions to meet the requirements of the Naval Research Laboratory’s 365 days/year of air conditioning, it’s astounding to think how this flow of intellectual energy and finances could be diverted to prevent any of these problems from happening in the first place - climatological or ideological.

Photo by kig1309.

Every year 25 million tons of solid waste is entering our landfills but can it be used to grow healthier crops?

With food prices choking our wallets, you may be surprised how wasteful Americans are with food. Whether it’s fresh food gone bad or throwing good food out, 27 percent of all edible food produced in the US never even makes it to our plates.

One company though sees the food waste stream as a way to benefit the community. Ed Gildea, CEO of Converted Organics.

With forward-thinkers like Ed, our country’s mounting trash may soon be a thing of the past and the promise of a Greener future.

Here’s some more on Converted Organics and information on home composting.

Photo by rotomotor.

Word of the day - permaculture.

What does it mean for the future of farming and the survival of humanity?

It’s best understood through its roots, permanent and agriculture:  Something permanent exists perpetually without significant change and agriculture is the science and art of cultivating land, livestock, and crops.  The combination forms the basis of permaculture, where we give back to the land as much as we take.

Developed in the 1970s by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, this natural systems design model was born in response to the mistreatment of billions of acres of farmland jeopardized by overuse of chemical fertilizers and genetic mutation of crops.

Permaculture provides us with a toolkit for how we can inhabit our world through integration instead of domination.  By careful attention to life’s full spectrum from mammals to microbes, permaculture can sustain huge populations without disrupting nature’s delicate balance.

To find out where you can visit, volunteer, apprentice, and enjoy permaculture sites in your area, the links below should help get you started:

Midwest Permaculture

Northeastern Permaculture

Permaculture Research Institute, USA

Planetary Permaculture Directory

Illustration is the cover of Permaculture: A Designers Manual by Bill Mollison.

Hmm, well… on the one hand, you’ve got your real tree doing it’s thing, living off carbon dioxide and being old.

Right.

And on the other, you’ve got the artificial thing made of the “proprietary material that behaves like sodium hydroxide,” one of the most corrosive, awful, caustic substances you can get your hands on (and if you get it on your hands, you’re in trouble).

Okay, we’re following you.

Now enter kooky investor dudes to the wacky professor’s lab who say, “We’re going to help you, Dr. Wackypants.  We’ll be with you every step of the way in trying to develop more eye sores for the world to feel better about their fossil fuel consumption.”

Starting to lose you here.

Wait, it gets weirder.  Now investor dudes and wacky professor succeeded in mimicking the behavior of real tree leaves by using vertically arranged sheets of proprietary paper (I especially love the bit where they’re using stuff like bunched up wads of yarn and testing the wind resistance… CLASSIC!).  The fake leaves, now caked in carbon dioxide, get rinsed creating some carbon dioxide swill “for storage” and the whole doohicky runs on electricity.

Lost you.

Yeah. I’m lost.  But my only lingering question is why did the wacky professor let his 12-year-old daughter handle lethal sodium hydroxide only to win SECOND PLACE in the elementary school science fair???

No clue.

Nova video here.

Photo by Carol Esther.

Full New York Times article here.

Green Air Filter:

In 1854, the Crystal Palace was built in London in order to house the greatest spectacles the world had to offer while acting as a visual spectacle in itself. General Motor’s plant in Zaragoza, Spain offers the same feat with glistening rooftops of solar panels.

The Spanish have become one of the greatest purveyors of solar power not because they are the most environmentally aware people. It all comes down to the government which allows very generous subsidies of Euro per kilowatts. If our own government follow suit, we will soon be in awe of the future of the solar energy revolution like billions of human magpies.

Photo by Alison Martin.

Ever wonder what your city or town looked like before all the roads, houses, and buildings?

To best sustain our modern lifestyle and reverse the damage done to our natural environment we need to reintegrate the basic elements of our ecosystem back into our cities and towns.  Eric Rothstein, Managing Partner at eDesign Dynamics.

The challenge is how we facilitate the return of wildlife and enable the natural flow of water.

Because of the work of environmental engineers like Eric, despite our modern habits, the natural habitat can endure.

View the full set of pics from the day here.