Ok, so it's a bit more complex than a piece of loose leaf. But 90 percent is comprised of cellulose (plant fibers), the same material used to make paper. Carbon nanotubes and an ionic liquid, a liquid salt that contains no water, make up the other 10 percent. These natural materials and lack of toxins are what make the battery so environmentally friendly.
Since the battery is essentially paper, it can be folded, cut, rolled and molded into whatever shape is necessary. Imagine the possibilities for all the small electronic devices we can't seem to live without these days. Cell phones really could be razor thin. Researchers also envision constructing giant sheets to power cars, planes and boats. The batteries are designed to withstand extreme temperatures, up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and down to -100, so they won't melt or freeze.
Another remarkable feature of the batteries is their ability to use human sweat and blood as a power source instead of the liquid salt. Imagine working out at the gym and charging your iPod while you sweat. Not quite what the researchers had in mind I don't think, but it's a fun thought. They had the slightly more admirable idea to implant the paper batteries in pacemakers. With the battery's ability to double as a super capacitor, it could also work as a defibrillator.
Obviously, the researchers still have a long way to go before the world is powered by paper. They don't yet have the capability to mass produce the batteries, although they foresee someday being able to manufacture giant sheets like newspapers. There is no mention of how long the batteries last or how much power they possess. (Researchers have powered a small red light with the one-inch samples they've made.) Even so, I'm pretty impressed by the huge potential these batteries represent.
Environmental concerns are slowly seeping into all aspects of consumers' lives, and travel is no exception. As with most green awareness campaigns, however, just how concerned travelers are is a gray area.
A recent TripAdvisor survey assessing travelers' levels of commitment to the environment claims a sizeable number keep their green mentalities while on the road. A full two thirds believe environmental measures in the travel industry do make a difference. One third would pay more for green hotels (perhaps like the ones featured in this New York Times article), while almost 40 percent would pay more for a flight that was less harmful to the environment. Moreover, TripAdvisor found most travelers (78 percent) are willing to give up the daily change of sheets and towels once so common in the hotel experience.
Funnily enough, this is the exact opposite of the findings of ELEMENT Hotels. According to their survey, 75 percent would not give up their daily fresh linens. On the other hand, 34 percent of those survey respondents claim they change their sheets and towels every day in their own homes, something that is completely incomprehensible to me. Do they really do laundry every day, or have that many spare sets of sheets?
The overall gist of the ELEMENT survey, which actually does make sense, is that people pay less attention to the environment while traveling because they're not paying for cleaning and utilities and they're just lazy. A majority of travelers are likely to leave a light on when they leave a room, leave the bathroom light on all night, or open a new shampoo bottle every time they shower. This fits in with the general indifference most consumers feel towards the environment when it doesn't affect them directly.
ELEMENT outlines a number of steps their hotels will take to cut back on their environmental impact, including reducing the amount of water used in sinks and toilets. They claim this will save about 4,300 gallons of water per room each year. Apparently the average hotel room uses 200 gallons of water every day. I'm not sure if this is really that much though, considering the average American uses over 100 gallons of water a day.
Do you maintain your green practices when you're away from home? What kinds of things can hotels and other travel-related businesses do to reduce their environmental impact?
Once again, we lurch towards our Jetsons-inspired future, this time, courtesy of NASA. The space agency selected The Cafe Foundation, a group of aircraft engineers, to host its Personal Air Vehicle Challenge, a $250,000 contest to see who can design a flying car for the common man. Their belief is that a nation of flying cars will reduce congestion, air pollution, and the time it takes to get to the in-laws.
In the press release, NASA believes that by 2020, "up to 45 percent of all miles traveled in the future may be in PAVs"--Personal Air Vehicles, i.e. flying cars. Putting aside the fact that $250,000 is a pretty paltry sum for such a contest--considering you can win $10 million creating a car that doesn't have to fly--NASA's statement assumes a whole lot of other things that'll have to happen, chief among them, safety. Considering that that nearly 2.6 million people were injured in traffic accidents last year, imagine what will happen when they start traveling along three axes.
In a CNet News article, the Cafe Foundation asserts that "people would be able to get a license to fly PAVs as easily as a driver's license," which indicates that no one at the Cafe Foundation ever went to the DMV. And is everyone who gets into a PAV going to have to go through a metal detector first, or will we just place TSA agents outside everyone's front door?
An equally specious argument is the one around pollution. Says the director of the Cafe Foundation: "We're burning up into smoke 6.7 billion gallons of gas annually (from being) stuck in traffic jams." True, perhaps, but what about the effect of burning gas at altitude? In 1999, an EPA study estimated that by 2010, aircraft could account for up to 10.4 percent of all emissions in some urban areas. Imagine what will happen when, instead of hundreds of airplanes in the sky everyday, there are thousands? And the pollution won't be concentrated in the cities, either. Because NASA's plan assumes a distributed model of PAV's flying into local airports, pollution, of both the air and noise kind, will be spread over a much larger area. Are your neighbors home? You'll know when their teenage son buzzes your house.
Considering that we need to start cutting pollution immediately, we'd be much better off spending our time and money on ideas and technologies that are more down to earth.
For cities that do it right, citywide Wi-Fi is cooler than just being able to check your e-mail while sipping a latte downtown – it could save money, save time, and maybe even save lives, when used by first responders and other public workers.
But to have a nifty wireless network, you have to build it first. Enter Atlanta-based EarthLink, which has been building and planning networks in some of the country's biggest markets. The company's new President and CEO Rolla Huff announced today that the company would be rethinking and likely rolling back its rollouts of Wi-Fi networks across the country.
In most cities where it's formed partnerships with local governments, EarthLink has signed on to build a Wi-Fi network at its own cost and recoup it by selling network services. But build it and they will come isn't turning out to be as much of a winning strategy as originally hoped, as I discussed in an article this week. And cities in all stages of the process are finding that legal, technical and financial roadblocks truly abound.
In EarthLink's second quarter earnings call this morning, Huff told investors that "The Wi-Fi business, as currently constituted, will not provide an acceptable return," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
EarthLink, which reported a $16.3 million loss for that period, is realizing what competitor MetroFi realized a while back – that if you're going to bear all of the costs upfront for building a Wi-Fi network, you need a good plan for making that investment back. It might not be easy convincing cities that thought they were getting a freebie to instead commit to a bigger buy-in upfront, but that's probably what EarthLink will have to do if it wants to keep unwiring the country.
Which is better for the environment - paper bags or plastic bags? Lawmakers in various parts of the country are betting on paper. In many cities, politicians are considering banning plastic bags in grocery stores because they are not biodegradable and can be harmful to wildlife.
Finally, politicians doing something tangible and immediate to protect the environment! Unlike reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which will take years to take effect and no one is really sure how to accomplish anyway, advocates of the bans say outlawing plastic bags will produce successful results now.
But is this plastic prohibition really the answer? Yes, paper bags are biodegradable and not likely to suffocate a coastal bird. On the other hand, plastic bags require a lot less energy to manufacture and recycle. They're also easier to ship, thus using less gas. Not to mention the fact that 90 percent of stores use plastic bags, not paper.
Of course, the recycling efficiency argument assumes that people are actually going to recycle their plastic bags, which is a huge assumption. Judging from my own personal habits, I imagine many people stash plastic bags in a bottom kitchen cabinet until it's overflowing and then start throwing bags away. (No? Just me?)
So recycle the paper bags instead, and provide bags made out of recycled paper. Again, an idealistic notion that might not translate well in the real world. An article on EnvironmentalChemistry.com outlines the myths and inconsistencies of recycled paper. For instance, the EPA requires anything labeled "recycled paper" to be made up of just 30 percent of products that consumers have actually recycled. While the article is mainly about writing paper, I would think circumstances are similar for paper bags.
Ultimately, I think politicians just want to show that they're doing something, anything, to improve the environment. Although the paper vs. plastic argument probably won't accomplish much, it's something to back up all the green rhetoric. Obviously the real answer is for people to take reusable bags with them to the supermarket, but banning all disposable grocery bags is not going to get any politicians re-elected.
As any presidential candidate will (or should) tell you, the Internet has become a major part of any campaign, and, like everything else on the net, is rapidly evolving not only as strategists become savvier about using the Web, but as the Web’s technology becomes more sophisticated as well.
On the day of the first presidential debate on CNN featuring questions from the YouTube community, it’s interesting to note that the candidate the most fervent online support after Barack Obama is Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who, while not the kind of guy that stands in line overnight for an iPhone, is smart enough to embrace the groundswell of support he's received on the Internet, and, in an extended election cycle which lends itself to experimentation, has been one of the frontrunners in exploring all that the web has to offer.
As this New York Times magazine article notes, he's the most "friended" Republican on MySpace, a video of him on YouTube has been viewed more than 280,000 times, and in the Eventful.com “demand horserace,” where users make requests for candidates to appear in their towns, he’s beating Sen. John Edwards by a good 10,000 votes.
No one's really expecting Paul to win, though, which frees him up to explore a few more unconventional campaign strategies, such as being the first candidate to be interviewed by James Kotecki in his dorm room (see above) and appearing on "Attack of the Show," a program on G4, a cable channel whose coverage usually centers around the latest video games, and whose host referred to Paul as the "lonelygirl of the Republican Party." (Which I don't think Paul quite got.)
Of course, as Matt Debergalis of ActBlue will probably tell you, being really popular on the Web--which many ascribe to Paul's techno-savvy libertarian supporters--doesn't mean much if they can't deliver the dollars and the votes. Just ask Howard Dean. But Paul's willingness to try new things, even if he doesn't completely understand them, is having a trickle-down effect: Two months after Paul talked to Kotecki, the college student had also scored interviews with Mike Huckabee, Sen. Mike Gravel, and Edwards. In the end, Paul's greatest contribution to the election may not be what he adds to the political conversation, but how he adds to it.
In case you hadn't noticed, celebrities have focused a lot of attention on the environment lately. Fans and critics alike are still talking about Live Earth, and the Discovery Channel just announced a new Planet Green network to launch in 2008 with programming produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. Not to mention all the Hollywood A-listers who act as unofficial spokespeople for the Prius. Ostensibly, all this media attention has galvanized all us regular folk to do more to help the environment.
However, it's one thing to say you care about the effect you have on the environment and quite another to actually change what you do in everyday life. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau from 2005, 77 percent of Americans drive to work alone every day. Less than 5 percent take public transportation, a statistic that has changed little since 2000. Of the 10.7 percent who carpool, over three quarters ride with only one other person.
That adds up to a lot of miles, a lot of gas and a lot of excess carbon emissions. I can't say I remember any celebrities talking about driving less or driving to work with their costars instead of alone. I guess carpooling just isn't as trendy as owning a hybrid. (For those who read my post last week, I really don't have anything against hybrids. I just don't think they're the end-all answer to all our environmental problems.)
Some interesting facts from the Census: 13 percent of Boston residents walk to work, compared to 2.5 percent nationally. Then again, who would want to drive in Boston? Also, Portland, Ore. has seven times the number of bicycle commuters as the rest of the country (3.5 percent versus 0.4 percent).
I suppose it's possible Americans may have changed their driving habits slightly since 2005, but a Harris poll conducted last month shows nearly a quarter still do not recycle anything in their homes. Moreover, those aged 18-30, the people one would assume are paying the most attention to celebrities' environmental rants, are the least likely to recycle. Not surprisingly, individuals on the East and West Coasts recycle most, with those in the Midwest and South falling a bit behind the national average.
What surprised me is that almost half of Americans don't recycle glass bottles. How is that more difficult than metal cans or plastic (which fares only slightly better)? Overall, people said the biggest obstacle to recycling is it's not available in their area, especially a problem in the South. Perhaps they just don't know where to go - Earth 911 has a search on their site to find recycling centers in your area for everything from glass bottles to motor oil.
I'm embarrassed to learn that 26 percent of people on the East Coast don't recycle because it takes too much effort. Then again, there are recycling bins right in my building for metal cans, glass, plastic and paper. I've never recycled some of the other items Harris asked about, like electronics and batteries.
How do you get to work? If you drive alone, what prevents you from carpooling or taking public transportation? What kinds of things do you recycle? What is recycling like in your community?
Today marked the New York release of Anya Hindmarch's cultishly popular canvas totes which emphatically state, "I'm NOT A Plastic Bag." Said bags, which are made in limited numbers and sold for $15, have already been released in England (where they sold out by 9am), Hong Kong and Taiwan (where those in line were privy to both fights and stampedes). New York's release promised 20,000 bags to be sold in Whole Foods stores, and bag enthusiasts began lining up last night, wrapping around the blocks and braving near flash floods this morning, only to have all the stores sell out within several hours (with the Columbus Circle location selling out in just 29 minutes).
The endless lines were largely composed of people who plan to sell the bag on eBay, recognizing its fashion-appeal (and its lucrative potential: the bags are going for $300), not people who are concerned about the drastic effects of non-biodegradable plastic bags (those people are most likely already carrying totes or reusing their bags.)
Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags a year (plastic bags that take somewhere around 500 years to decompose), and the first step towards changing this frightening number is to raise awareness, which Hindmarch's bags definitely accomplish. “To create awareness you have to create scarcity by producing a limited edition,” she said in a New York Timesarticle today. “I hate the idea of making the environment trendy, but you need to make it cool and then it becomes a habit.”
But in order to make this issue more than an elite fashion accessory, there must be changes on a much grander scale. San Francisco's ban on nonbiodegradable bags is a start, as is IKEA's move to charge five cents per plastic bag, but other chains must embrace this shift as well - encouraging the public to reuse bags and giving a financial incentive to those who do.
According to the Times, the U.S. (shockingly) lags behind much of the world in plastic bag reform.
"In places like South Africa, Zanzibar, Scandinavia and Uganda, the use of such bags has been reduced or eliminated by banning or taxing them, by charging for them in stores, by giving incentives to customers who provide their own bags and by selling inexpensive reusable bags ... By the end of the year the bags will be banned in Paris, and by 2010 in all of France. In Ireland…they have cost 20 cents each, at the government’s direction, since 2002; the fee has been credited with cutting bag use more than 90 percent. In Uganda plastic bags are banned entirely. Bans, restrictions or incentives to switch to reusable bags are in place in towns and cities in Australia, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Canada and Britain."
The list goes on. Literally. It becomes almost tedious to read the names of the countries who are doing more to encourage reusable bags than the United States. Must we always be the absolute last to adopt progressive, environmentally conscious measures?
As the answer seems to be a resolute, "yes," it falls to individuals to make the first move. Amidst the swirl of a thousand eco-related, global warming-induced concerns, there really is an easy fix here, and one that doesn't require any red tape maneuvering or bureaucratic navigation: Stop using plastic bags. Opt for paper (although still not ideal), reuse the ones you already have, or carry a tote. It doesn't have to be made by a famous designer or splashily renounce its plastic predecessor but it should become a habit. Because waiting for a canvas bag for hours in a torrential downpour is a little ridiculous, but refusing to embrace an easy solution is even worse.
John Mackey, the vegan pulling down $1 a year as head of $5.7 billion company Whole Foods, the organic/natural/crunchy/gourmet chain, is taking a lot of FTC anti-trust-flavored heat for posting anonymously -- for years -- on a Yahoo investing forum about his company's own stock. Besides routing for the home team under screen name Rahodeb (Mrs. Mackey, don't you feel flattered?), Mackey also talked a heck of a lot of smack about competitor Wild Oats, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday in a front page story.
Courtesy Nicon Engineering
It gets a little more complicated: Whole Foods has found itself embroiled in an antitrust case for trying to merge with Wild Oats, that same company Mackey had described as "floundering" and a whole lot of other things in previous months online.
Oh, John. Couldn't you have just deployed a PR peon to sing your praises on the silly message board?
Despite the odd revelation yesterday, Whole Foods' stock picked up a little over 3.5 percent today on NASDAQ.
At first glance, this might look like a woefully regrettable mistake on Mackey's part. At minimum, it's certainly embarrassing, and at worst, it could help kill the deal with Wild Oats.
But on closer look, it's a very nuanced case, and the implications aren't clear. Mackey posted information and opinions about his and other businesses, but all of his posts were anonymous (though some on the boards suspected his identity).
It's certainly a faux pas, but does what Mackey did count as foul play, or was it merely "fun," as he describes it?
The jury on the FTC case will be out for a while, which means we've got some time to render our own judgments. (Whatever happens, Mr. Mackey, I love those free fruit samples at my store in Chelsea - keep 'em coming.)
…but what about green cars? A recent column on Wheels.casuggests hybrid vehicles may be a passing fad. Sales (or lack thereof) of certain models seem to indicate just that, as does a survey published in a New York Times article last week: it found a large portion of Prius owners' number one reason for buying the car was the statement it made about them. (The Times article compares owning a Prius to wearing one of those "issue bracelets" first popularized by Lance Armstrong's cancer fund.)
The Wheels.ca column's biggest complaints about the Prius are its inability to achieve the same fuel consumption rates in real world conditions and the fact that it doesn't drive like a "real" car. If something better were available, the columnist contends, people would ditch the Prius. I've never driven one, so I can't really judge his assessment. However, I can sympathize with the notion that driving should be fun.
If not hybrids, then what? Wheels.ca predicts the next big thing will be diesel. Like most people, I associate diesel with old gas guzzlers that no one would ever describe as environmentally-friendly. But a new diesel version of the Mini Cooper will get the same mileage and carbon dioxide tailpipe emissions as a Prius. Of course, the Mini D initially will only be offered in Europe, where they're already years ahead of us in the car fuel efficiency department.
In related car news, the professional racecar league IndyCar Series announced this season all of its cars would be running on a third alternative fuel, ethanol. Aside from the fact that I don't pretend to understand car racing, it does seem like a huge waste of gas. If people are going to race cars, I suppose it's commendable that they won't be using fossil fuels to do so.
Or is it? Last Sunday's Mallard Fillmore comic made a mockery of ethanol and its purported environmental benefits. I normally don't pay attention to Mallard Fillmore's right-wing propaganda (naturally I prefer left-wing propaganda), but this strip makes sense. It really does take as much energy to create a gallon of ethanol fuel as you would get out of it. Then there are the environmental costs that the commercial farming of corn for ethanol incurs. It goes back to the Prius survey - people use ethanol because it makes a statement. So nice try racecar guys, but you may want to think about this one a little further.
What kind of green car would you buy? Are any of these alternative cars (hybrid, diesel or ethanol) a viable solution to automotive carbon emissions?
