Environmental

Greener cars for 2010: Here are 11 to watch

Chevy Volt. Photo: Green Right Now

The electric car is almost here. Hybrids abound. Diesel has cleaned up its act. Even conventional internal combustion engines can be tweaked to do a bit less harm to the environment.

A brighter, cleaner future is a mantra at the auto shows this year. Scratch beneath the surface, however, and a different sort of impression emerges: Change may be coming to the automobile industry, but progress is slow — even grudging — and the message can be murky.

Chevy has been hyping the much-discussed Volt, for example. The manufacturer’s new electric car – due later this year – can go up to 40 miles on a single charge before a gasoline engine kicks in to keep passengers from becoming stranded.

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Google Maps adds bike routes

From Green Right Now Reports

If you’re one of the 57 million Americans who ride a bike, mapping your daily commute, exploring new trails, and planning recreational rides should be easier with a new online tool from Google, which has added biking directions in the U.S. to Google Maps.

Google says the feature, announced at this week’s National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C.,  has been the most requested addition for Google Maps. The service includes step-by-step bicycling directions, bike trails outlined directly on the map and a new “bicycling” layer that indicates bike trails, bike lanes, and bike-friendly roads.

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Zipcar gets certified for San Francisco

From Green Right Now Reports

Looking to rent an apartment? Make sure it has all the amenities you’ll need: laundry facilities, exercise room — and a car for occasional long-range errands.

In San Francisco, they are not leaving that last one to chance. The Planning Department mandates that for every 50 to 200 units in a new residential building, at least one space must be made available for a car sharing vehicle.

The idea is that parking for an apartment complex shouldn’t shut out, but should encourage, those who use car sharing. And if the space has got a car at the ready — all the better.

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First appliance recycling center opens in Hatfield, Penn.

From Green Right Now Reports

PECO, FirstEnergy and PPL Utilities are working together on an environmental project that will help Pennsylvania residents lower their energy usage — and get rid of clunker appliances.

The energy and utility companies announced today that they have set up an appliance recycling center at JACO Environmental Inc. in Hatfield where they will turn in old, energy-gobbling refrigerators or freezers or inefficient, but working window air conditioning units.

The companies will collect the outdated appliances from customers, who will get paid — $35 for a junker refrigerator, and $25 for an old AC unit — and haul it away for free. About 80 percent of Pennsylvania’s residents are served by these utilities and will qualify to participate.

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A North Carolina McDonald’s goes McGreen

LED lighting at Cary McDonalds

When Ric Richards recently acquired an aging McDonalds in Cary, N.C., he knew the place needed an overhaul.  The 25-year-old store was fraying at the edges.

Richards decided to give these particular golden arches a green touch.

Once he’d decided that the building needed replacing, the decision to go eco-friendly was not difficult. Richards knew it made sense from a business standpoint – it would cut energy costs dramatically – and he figured it would resonate with the educated customers living in the Research Triangle region, especially those interested in lower-carbon living.

“I felt it was the right thing to do,’’ said the owner-operator whose green restaurant celebrated its grand opening this winter. “We all need to be more geared for sustainability as we move into the future. We need to build buildings or live at home using fewer resources.”

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Yes, that’s a ‘green’ Ferrari

The HY-KERS vettura laboratorio (experimental vehicle). (Photo: PRNewsFoto/Ferrari North America, Inc.)

By Tom Kessler

At the Geneva Auto Show this week Ferrari, a company whose products are normally associated with red, flashed a bit of green. And we’re not just talking about the paint job.

Ferrari’s HY-KERS vettura laboratorio (experimental vehicle) is a hybrid version of the 599 GTB Fiorano that slips in a high-voltage electric motor capable of producing 100 horsepower.  The test car reduces CO2 emissions by 35 per cent.

The iconic company says the hybrid project is aimed at ensuring that Ferrari will be in a position to comply with future CO2 emissions standards, particularly in urban environments. City driving is traditionally where sports cars typically become major fuel hogs because their engines are designed for maximum efficiency and performance at high RPMs rather than the low revs and low engine loads of city driving.

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Olympic Games medal in energy efficiency

The Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Center uses heat from ice-cooling operations to warm the building.

Vancouver scored highly as an Olympic venue despite weather concerns. Equally impressive, the Winter Games also scored well in terms of their energy efficiency.

According to Pulse Energy’s Venue Energy Tracker, the software technology that measured the 17 days of athletic contests, the games were the most energy efficient Olympics ever.

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Empire State Building lauded for energy-saving retrofit

Empire State Building (Photo: Empire State Building Co.)

Retrofitting doesn’t always get the attention that new green building generates, with its “net zero” and passive solar designs.

But the impact of retrofitting can be great, and it comes with the bonus of preserving historic and treasured structures — like the Empire State Building.

The iconic New York high rise, built in the 1930s, has received an award for its 2009 retrofit, which is expected to save 38 percent of the building’s energy and $4.4 million annually.

The Sustainable Buildings Industry Council gave it the “Beyond Green High Performance Building Award”, which recognizes the energy efficiency and air quality improvements made during the retrofit, designed by a collaboration of real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle, the Clinton Climate Initiative, energy efficiency experts Johnson Controls and the Rocky Mountain Institute.

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RFK Jr. explains why nuclear power isn’t green and coal isn’t cheap

Robert Kennedy Jr.

As passionate as his father was about civil rights, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is equally so about the environment.

In a lecture in Fort Worth last week, the 56-year-old son of the late Senator, advocated for moving the nation to green energy, which he doesn’t see as encompassing nuclear power.

Coal is not the only power-producing industry that needs scrubbing, said the longtime environmentalist, and nuclear energy is simply not safe. “Nuclear energy is the most catastrophic form of energy. No bank will finance it…[and] no insurance company will insure it,” he said.

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Walmart plans to lower carbon emissions across its vendor network

Walmart CEO Mike Duke annoucing carbon reduction goals

By Barbara Kessler

Walmart announced a plan to reduce carbon emissions across its global supply chain today, saying it intends to shave 20 million metric tons off its greenhouse gas emissions   through 2015.

The reductions will come from Walmart’s own operations and  from “the life cycle of the products we sell,” said Walmart CEO Mike Duke, adding that the savings would be the equivalent of taking 3.8 million greenhouse gas-emitting cars off the road for a year.

“It’s a very sizable goal, as we often do here at Walmart,” he said.

Calculated another way, the reductions represent 150 percent of Walmart’s anticipated carbon growth over the next five years.

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