Green Design
Ford Focus Global Drive
In an effort to promote the Ford Focus, the Ford Motor Company is promoting a competition called Global Drive. While I am optimistic of future electric cars such as the Chevy Volt, I myself am a fan of this small, fuel efficient car until we reach that place.
Ford is interested in making contact with individuals passionate about environmental causes, with the intention of making several $10k donations to non-profits looking to “Start Something More.”
Ford is inviting people to create a simple video and submit it via the Ford Focus Facebook page. Selected participants, along with a friend, will get a free trip to Madrid, Spain on February 18-20th to test drive the all-new Ford Focus. Additionally, Ford will make a $10,000 contribution to your chosen charity in the categories of environment, education or hunger.
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Government Vehicles Going Green
As some of you know, I work for a lab run by the Department of Energy. I get the opportunity to not only witness exciting research that furthers tomorrow’s sustainable lifestyles, but also to see the changes the federal government is making to make their sites as ‘green’ as possible. Current government regulations stipulate that “each agency shall reduce annual petroleum consumption by two percent each year from a FY 2005 baseline through FY 2020″. That might not sound like much, but that adds up to an over 20% decrease in petroleum over the next ten years! That’s a fantastic step in the right direction.
Federal institutions with more than 20 vehicles have also been told to “acquire Electric Vehicles (EVs) to replace gasoline vehicles in locations near facilities and parking structures with electric outlets, and High Efficiency Vehicles (HEVs) in areas with limited alternative refueling, or as appropriate”. In my lab, this translates to replacing all retired vehicles with electric, hybrid or alternately fueled vehicles, and phasing some vehicles out earlier than planned. We were even able to trade in some of our new Ford and Chevy trucks for brand new hybrids for a moderate fee. More electric outlets for vehicles have been added throughout the site as well. My favorite part of the recent changes: the bike trend. More and
more the federal institutions are making bicycles a part of their Federal Fleet. Around my lab, we’ve been acquiring bicycles for employees making trips to other buildings or job sites across our 426 acre campus. At first, a few employees complained when the vehicles weren’t available and we handed them a bicycle helmet and a key to the bike rack, but it’s catching on. People not only enjoy doing good for the environment, but enjoy getting off their butts and exercising during their workday.
The Driving Significance of Hybrid-Electric Vehicles
I am currently undergoing the search for a beautiful new (or used) car for myself. As daunting as the search can be, there are a lot of great facts about hybrid-electric vehicles that I’ve found during the process. Luckily, as the importance of protecting our environment becomes apparent, the amount of research and production of green technologies increase. Rising energy consumption is what drives the worlds ecological footprint, and income and population growth are the forces increasing greenhouse gas production. A large industry for green technology exists within hybrid and electric vehicles, just as the growing industry for Bio Fuel, Bio Diesel, FlexFuel and alternative fuels exists. “Green technologies are the master key to the future of the automobile,” says Thomas Weber, head of research and development for Mercedes-Benz. Now, the federal government has created a 2.4 billion dollar Recovery Act in order to provide subsidies for electric battery factories and continued research. These subsidies will help car manufacturers meet the new emission standards enacted last year by the Obama administration. By 2016 automakers must achieve 35.5 mpg. This is an increase from the current standard of 27.5 mpg. “Hybrids are less than 3% of the market and they’ve been less than 3% for years,” says Rebecca Lindland, and analyst with the research firm HIS Global Insight. This means that about 97% of the vehicles sold in the United States in recent years were powered by gasoline, not electricity.
Chevy Volt’s Battery Backed by Extensive Warranty
President Barrack Obama surveys the Volt (White House Photo)
With the reduction of fuel consumption, car manufacturers focusing on the green consumer market have a new worry. Not surprisingly, car batteries simply don’t last quite as long in electric cars as car batteries did in the typical internal combustion engine cars. This fact, though incomparable to many other features of an electric car, is daunting for many an average consumer. In turn, it’s served as an obstacle to increase in sales in what may well be the future of cars.
For every market problem, there is generally a solution though. Either in clever marketing, research and development, or a combination of the two. And GM will be making use of both as it attempts to assuage consumer fears through a generous 8 year / 100,000 mile warranty. Only a short while back, GM became the first US automaker to run a battery pack plant, which is still building prototypes. And now, they’re already offering a warranty which applies to the popular Chevy Volt‘s battery. A warranty that the relevant GM press release accurately highlights as “the automotive industry’s longest, most comprehensive battery warranty for an electric vehicle.” › Continue reading
New US Map for Wildlife Conservation
A great new technological step for wildlife conservation efforts comes in the form of a map. The Gap Analysis Program (GAP), which is itself a program under the umbrella of the US Geological Survey, makes it’s mission to “keep common species common.” Essentially, the objective of the program is to maintain that species not (yet) threatened by extinction don’t end up reaching an endangered species list, an issue often deprived of much-needed attention in light of it’s preventative nature. It takes a different track to keep policy makers (and anyone for that matter) informed than traditional conservation efforts which generally maintain species-by-species data, by instead maintaining information about regions and landscapes (which in turn allow those who will want to manipulate them a better idea of what they’d be doing).
A Level 3 Image of Washington State using the GAP Viewer
These efforts recently culminated in a national land cover viewer (and accompanying data set) that combines several important relevant data-sets into one easily accessible package. To be more particular, it combines the following:
- The Southwest Regional Gap Analysis project (2004)
- The Southeast Regional Gap Analysis Project (2007)
- The Northwest Regional Gap project
- The updated California Gap project (2009)
- The Landfire Project (for all remaining regions)
Release, React, Recycle
This is awesome! 
There are many ways to alleviate anger and frustration and many ways to recycle. Combine them and you get Glassphemy! I a new project in New York by the creative David Belt to encourage fun recycling. Glassphemy! Is a 20ft by 30ft clear box with high walls of bulletproof glass in Brooklyn. At one end of the box, people stand and throw glass bottles at people on the other side. Guests can aim at their friends for a little extra fun, and even a way to get rid of aggression! This is a great example of repurposing!
“Recycling’s so boring,” said Belt “We tried to make it a little bit more exciting.” Last summer David Belt created another fun recycling project – the dumpster pool! Belt transformed an industrial lot into a lo-fi country club with cabanas, barbecues, photo shoots, and dumpster swimming for under $1000. › Continue reading
Fun At The Eco-Chic Expo
I hope many of you had a chance to visit the Eco-Chic Expo yesterday at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center that Rachel posted about last week. Featuring many different local sustainable living companies, the expo was definitely a great and interactive way to spend a few hours. The expo featured a lot of companies all excited to share their products and websites with the public at this free event. Here are some businesses and events that really caught my eye!
Full Circle Farm is an organic farm that grows and sources organic fruits and vegetables and deliver right to your door! Located just outside of Carnation, the 400 acre farm grows over 200 varieties of produce and 50 crops in order to provide a large variety for their customers. They also partner with other local farms in order to provide more options for delivery baskets. The baskets of food are fully customizable, with flexible order size and frequency and as an added bonus, you know exactly where your food is coming from. To sign up for a delivery subscription or learn more about Full Circle Farm visit their website or call 866-EAT-WELL.
Platinum For Fuel Cells Gets Cheaper
The D
OE laboratory I work for recently published some promising results of one of our fuel cell experiments. Researchers with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston recently found a way to get platinum to be more conductive. It doesn’t sound like much, but this is big for fuel cell technology. Anders Nilsson, one of the scientists involved explained that although fuel cell technology has been around for the past 100 years or so, it hasn’t been able to make any strides in the technology.
First, a little background on fuel cells. Fuel cells are the way we create energy from hydrogen. A fuel cell creates electricity from a chemical reaction involving oxygen and hydrogen. One of the most exciting things about fuel cell technology is that the only byproducts are two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, also known as water! Platinum is currently the best catalyst we have to use with fuel cells. However if you’ve looked at the price of platinum recently, you know that the costs can be astounding for even just a plain platinum ring.
Many researchers have looked for ways around using a commodity as high priced as platinum for fuel cells. In 2008, researchers at Wuhan University in China found a way to bypass the platinum catalyst used in most fuel cells. They used a nickel anode and a silver cathode, and a powerful polymer membrane that can withstand the harshly acidic environment of the fuel cell. This acidic environment is the main reason that the high-cost precious metals are necessary in the first place. This polymer membrane has not yet proved to be even close in performance to platinum, but has proven that the idea itself has potential.
