With all the focus on electric and biofuel-powered cars, it's easy to forget that we can power vehicles with other forms of alternative energy--including solar power. That's what the biannual Global Green Challenge has been proving over and over for the past 22 years. This time around, the challengers are more robust than ever. The winning vehicle, Japan's Tokai Challenger, finished the 1,864-mile race in 29 hours and 49 minutes with a top speed of 93 mph. Most impressively, the Tokai used just 1.8 KW of energy for the whole thing--half the power used by a standard kettle.
All that would make the Tokai an excellent candidate as a mainstream vehicle, if not for one small detail: The car is plastered in 2,176 solar cells. The cells, manufactured by Sharp, consist of rare metals that are usually used in satellites. So we probably won't see ultra-efficient solar-powered vehicles hit the streets any time soon. We could, however, see more plug-in vehicles equipped with small-time solar systems that power peripheral functions (much like the Prius rooftop solar panel).
This year, the World Solar Challenge also started up a second, more practical competition dubbed the "Eco Challenge." The fuel efficiency competition, which is expected to finish on Saturday, includes vehicles from companies like Ford, Honda, Kia, and BMW.
Check out a video of the Tokai Challenger in action below.
Google's PowerMeter energy-saving software, which made a splash when it was announced earlier this year, is finally making its way to consumers. Earlier this month, Google designated The Ted 5000, a $200 energy-monitoring contraption, as its first device partner. But the Ted 5000 is only available in North America, so Google's now partnering in the U.K. with AlertMe, a piece of hardware that plugs into a traditional power meter with a broadband connection to provide stats on energy use.
The AlertMe device is comparable in price to the Ted 5000--it costs $162 for the hardware plus a year of service--and the company claims that it pays for itself within a year. Google's PowerMeter software is free.
Before teaming up with Google, AlertMe provided data through a proprietary Web-based dashboard, but now the hardware will use an iGoogle portal to give you access to the data from any Internet-connected computer or cell phone. The partnership will also let AlertMe customers use Smart Plugs to remotely control appliances and monitor energy use.
If you don't want to shell out cash for AlertMe or Ted 5000, be patient. Google has partnerships with nine utilities in the U.S. and Europe, including Yello Strom, JEA, and San Diego Gas and Electric. Smart meter-equipped customers of these utilities have built-in access to PowerMeter--no installation required. And thanks to the tens of millions of smart meters soon to be rolled out in the U.S., we can rest assured that even more utility partners are in the works.
Geoengineering is a controversial topic, and for good reason. It's risky to toy with our planet when so much damage has already been done, but that hasn't stopped researchers from investigating everything from forests of synthetic trees to cloud-spraying ships. While most of these efforts focus on shielding the planet from climate change, one Indian engineer is focusing on a more specific problem: glacier melt in the Himalayas.
Chewang Norphel, an enterprising 76 year old dubbed the "Ice Man", has built 12 artificial glaciers by moving meltwater into artificial lakes located on the side of mountain valleys. Hillside retaining walls keep the frozen water in place until the summer, when the "glaciers" melt and water is released into the rivers below. Each retaining wall is built at a different altitude so that it melts when water is needed the most.
Norphel's efforts have by and large been successful--his glaciers each store up one million cubic feet of ice, or enough to irrigate 494 acres of Indian farmland. The glaciers are relatively cheap, too, with a cost of a few thousand dollars a pop. That's not bad considering that the frozen water can make the difference between a successful and failed farming season.
The Indian government has latched on to the idea, offering Norphel over $26,000 to construct five new glaciers. Even that will not be enough to ensure food for the 400 million people living in the Ganges river basin--and it's certainly not enough to stop the U.N's prediction that the Himalayan glaciers will melt completely by 2030. Norphel's effort is a band-aid at best, but it's one that the Indian government should not take lightly. It might just save the lives of millions of people.
The Toyota Prius is both praised by environmentalists for its leadership in the hybrid vehicle space and criticized for its wanton use of rare earth metals. Now Toyota is upping the green stakes with a strange, yet ingenious initiative--the company has developed two new flower species that offset CO2 emissions from its Prius manufacturing plant in Toyota City, Japan.
Toyota's flowers are derivatives of cherry sage and gardenia that effectively absorb nitrogen oxides and remove heat from the atmosphere. This lowers the surface temperature surrounding the factory, which in turn cuts down on energy requirements for cooling. But is it enough to silence the Prius' critics?
The Prius production process reportedly generates more CO2 than standard petroleum-powered vehicles, meaning that the flower planting initiative is little more than greenwashing. For its part, Toyota claims that the increase in CO2 during production is quickly offset by the vehicle's reduced emissions once it hits the streets. Regardless, Toyota should be applauded for thinking outside the CO2 emissions reduction box.
We are bombarded by images of rising seas and admonitions to be green, yet a recent study showed that only 57% of Americans believe in climate change. Without any context, it's impossible to figure out why. The Green Confidence Index, launched this week by Greenbiz, aims to fill in the blanks with a monthly report on consumers' green attitudes and purchasing habits.
The survey, which polls over 2,500 adults in the U.S., tracks responses about purchasing (past and future green purchases), information (whether respondents feel they know enough about green issues and solutions to make responsible choices), and responsibility (how the government, corporations, employers, and friends address environmental issues).
According to the Green Confidence inaugural issue, green purchasing is holding steady, with half of all U.S. adults claiming to have purchased a green product in the past year. At the same time, poll respondents believe more information is available about green vehicles and household appliances than any other categories--not surprising since news about plug-in vehicles and smart grid-aware appliances has dominated the headlines. Half of respondents believe they are personally doing enough for the environment, but only 22.7% of Americans think major companies are doing their share. That means corporate greenwashing is backfiring, and maybe even overshadowing real efforts.
Still, companies shouldn't stop trying--three in five consumers who haven't purchased anything green are considering doing so in the coming year. Will they follow through? We'll find out soon enough in future issues of the Green Confidence Index.
Leave it to the Dutch, denizens of a low-lying, flood-prone region, to concoct a scheme for floating cities that adapt to the rising sea levels caused by climate change. The floating city idea, proposed by Delft-based DeltaSync, consists of buildings that rise with the water.
Buildings float with help from polystyrene foam blocks connected by a strong concrete frame. Each building is connected with a floating pedestrian bridge, and indoor heating comes from surface water stored in the ground under the city or onshore.
The floating city is more than just a pipe dream--water parcels in Delft are already for sale, and DeltaSync is in the process of building six prototype sustainable waterhomes in the area. A floating pavilion based on the DeltaSync design is also being built in Rotterdam's Stadshavensgebied area. But is this a good idea?
One hundred houses already float on a lake in Amsterdam's Ijburg neighborhood, with 70 more scheduled to be built. The lake could potentially hold thousands more homes, if not for one small problem: too many houses crowd out the sunlight, making it impossible for fish and other water life to get the nutrients they need. This is a problem that extends to all floating house developments, and one that makes a vision of massive floating cities all but impossible if we don't want to kill off everything in the water. By solving one issue, we create another.
It's never a bad idea to prepare for the worst case scenario--and let's be honest, if it came down to it our governments would probably choose floating cities over sea life--but perhaps we should focus more of our energies on stopping climate change before it gets worse.
Just as pocket-sized solar gadget chargers are becoming popular, SunCore, a five-year-old startup, wants to take things to the next level with its Novacell light charger--a gadget charger that can use room light, sunlight, or even a flashlight to juice up electronics.
The charger, which connects to cell phones via a USB connection, gets light from the entire light spectrum--indigo to violet. SunCore is also working on light-powered batteries that can be used on almost any existing phone (sorry, iPhone users, you don't have a removable battery).
China is getting the Novacell charger first, with an $800,000 test order going to China Mobile followed by a $21 million order if all goes well. But the rest of us might not have to wait much longer for light-powered batteries. Cell-phone manufacturer HTC has ordered 100,000 batteries for a test run, and Research in Motion (manufacturer of the Blackberry) is also testing out the product. No word on how much a light-powered battery could add to the overall cost of a cell phone, however.
If test runs of SunCore's technology are successful, it may signal the end of purely solar-powered electronics chargers. It just doesn't make sense to stick a pricey piece of equipment out in the sun for eight hours where it can be stolen, lost, or forgotten about.
What's the quickest way to a full-fledged, nationwide smart grid? A quick injection of cash, if Barack Obama has anything to say about it. The President recently announced that $3.4 million in federal stimulus funds will go to 100 utility projects, all of which are designed to upgrade our ailing power grid and cut down on energy use.
Among the big winners: Baltimore Gas and Electric received $200 million for a program that will see 2 million residential smart meters installed; Central Maine Power got $96 million to upgrade its grid and activate in-home displays and digitally controlled appliances of customers on its 650,000 meters; San Diego Gas and Electric got $28.1 for its wireless smart grid program; Oklahoma Gas and Electric received $120 million to deploy smart meters to 100% of its customers; and Texas-based CenterPoint Energy took $200 million for a program that will install 2.2 million smart meters along with sensors and switches that protect against power outages. Funds will be delivered within 60 days.
Overall, Obama's smart grid stimulus package will send out more than 40 million smart meters, 170,000 smart thermostats, 200,000 smart transformers, and 700 automated substations--not to mention the numerous jobs that will be created. The program will effectively bring the smart grid out of the experimental stages and into mainstream life, making it all the more worthwhile for companies like Whirlpool and GE to develop smart grid-compatible appliances.
Check out the complete list of winners here (PDF). And read more of Fast Company's coverage of the Smart Grid here.
Parking lots are the antithesis of sustainability--cold, hard seas of concrete and (mostly) petroleum-fueled cars. But they don't have to be that way, as Dell and Envision Solar recently showed us. Envision completed a renewable energy installation in the parking lot of Dell's Round Rock, Texas headquarters that uses 512 solar panels to give shelter to 56 cars and provide over 130 kW of power to Dell facilities. The Solar Grove installation also juices up two Envision Solar CleanCharge solar charging stations for EVs and PHEVs. Below, we take a look at three more examples of parking structures turned into centers of sustainability.
People-Powered Check-Out Lines
A Sainsbury supermarket in Gloucester, England recently started using kinetic road plates in its parking lot to power its checkout lines. Sainsbury's plates are pushed down by the weight of vehicles, creating
a rocking motion that turns generators. The generators produce energy
that is captured and used inside the supermarket. The plates produce 30 kWh of energy each hour from cars passing over them--more than enough power for the supermarket's lines.
LEED-Certified Parking Structure
The Santa Monica Civic Center boasts the first LEED-certified parking garage in the U.S. The ultra high-tech garage features a rooftop solar array, low-VOC paints and finishes, free bike storage, and a gray-water harvesting system that uses storm runoff for landscaping and Civic Center facilities.
Solar Parking Lot
Dell isn't the only company to experience the benefits of a solar parking lot. Google led the charge in 2006 with a 1.6 MW solar system featuring 9,000 panels, a third of which are overhanging parking shades at the company's Mountain View headquarters. The panels provide enough energy for 1,000 homes, or 30% of Google HQ's needs.
It's easy enough to make fancy new homes energy-efficient, but what about the millions of poorly-insulated American houses that are already standing? And what about future homeowners and renters who can't afford the upgrades to expensive insulation and rooftop solar panels? Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing developer, plans to raise $4 billion to make a dent in the problem by building and retrofitting 75,000 residential, commercial, and community buildings over the next five years.
It's an ambitious fundraising effort, but Enterprise has already been given a $1.5 million kickstart from the Home Depot Foundation and $1 million in grants from the Kresge Foundation and the Kendeda Fund. Other companies that plan to help out include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Living Cities.
Enterprise's plan is part of the organization's larger vision to make everything it touches green by 2013. But there's more to it than saving energy. The state of the economy combined with rising energy costs means that residents of affordable housing developments are having an increasingly difficult time paying the bills--and Enterprise's green developments can deliver savings of 20 to 30%, according to the organization's new Incremental Cost, Measurable Savings: Enterprise Green Community Criteria report. Those savings also justify the increased upfront cost of building green developments.
Enterprise's green retrofit plan will be at least partially helped by Joe Biden's "Recovery Through Retrofit" initiative, which aims to create a home energy efficiency retrofit industry.
