Better Place unveils battery swap station

Better Place, the company started by Shai Agassi to revolutionize the car industry with clean, cheap 'fuel' for electric cars, recently unveiled it's battery swap system:

Most of the major automakers are racing to develop electric vehicles, and the first of them are slated to arrive next year. The question many people have is just where we’re supposed to charge those cars when they aren’t in our driveways.

Better Place is but one company trying to solve that riddle, and it’s approaching it from two sides. First, it wants to blanket cities with charging stations that would be installed in public parking lots and other locations. That’s relatively straightforward; far more challenging - some would say ludicous - is its plan to establish networks of battery swap stations. That was the focus of today’s demonstration in Japan, where the Ministry of Environment has signed on with Better Place to spur the adoption of EVs.

A German suburb goes car-free and loves it

The New York Times profiles a suburb in Germany that is largely car-free:

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. "When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way," said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called "smart planning."

U.S. government drops fuel cell research for cars

As I noted in an earlier post, battery-driven electric vehicles are jumping to the forefront with fuel cell based cars suffering from a number of technological obstacles. From today's New York Times:

Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development.

Ocean thermal energy generation

This article provides an excellent example of how creative and ingenious people can be at finding clean ways to produce energy when they put their minds to it.

Lockheed and a few other companies are pursuing ocean thermal energy conversion, which uses the difference in temperature between the ocean’s warm surface and its chilly depths to generate electricity.

Experts say that the balmy waters off Hawaii and Puerto Rico, as well as near United States military bases on islands like Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or Guam in the Pacific, would be good sites for developing this type of energy.

Hawaii and many other islands rely on imported oil to generate most of their electricity, which is expensive, and last year’s spikes in oil prices have reinvigorated their search for homegrown alternatives.

The turning of the screw

An interesting and thoughtful post by Lauren on ThinHouse on how easy it is to forget the mundane and everyday--yet very important--measures we can take to save energy:

Ten minutes ago I did something that cost no money, took 45 seconds, involved a single screwdriver and immediately reduced our home energy consumption in one major category by 10 percent. That we hadn’t done this months and months ago shows how caught up we have been in the big, sexy projects, how easy it is to be swept away by high-tech gizmos, how seductive – even for those of us on the look-out – this whole greenwashing thing is.

Going VERTical

Going VERTical is a great new blog on the design and construction of a green home to be built to LEED platinum standards in Ottawa. They're just getting started, and I'm looking forward to following along on this journey:

Our number one consideration in a home? Health - for us as individuals and for the planet that we live on. For me, simply put, health means less toxic and sustainable - a better living environment and a smaller carbon footprint.

Some of you might be thinking - sounds like more work than building a standard home. Others may be thinking - what do you mean in tangible terms by less toxic and sustainable? To respond to the first - yes, this will be somewhat more work than building a standard home, and we welcome that.

I especially liked this line from Lessons from Portland:

The best lesson yet - it says 'love where you live'. Will do.

(Via Kate & Rob.)

Resource intelligence

David Roberts on Grist suggests that energy efficiency = resource intelligence:

I’ll have to think about it more, but at first blush I like it—at least it has a spark of humanity. “Intelligence” carries connotations not only of adeptness but of sophistication and even elegance. After all, there’s something marvelous about how a mind like, say, Einstein’s took what seemed like a jumble of parts and derived compact, holistic explanations out of them. Intelligence doesn’t imply less, like efficiency, but better. And that’s what people want—not less, but better.

Restoring a rainforest in Indonesia

In an excellent talk on TED, Willie Smits presents a model of rainforest ecology restoration which created jobs for three thousand people, revitalized the local economy, led to an explosion in biodiversity, and restored a healthy environment for people and orangutans both.

Smits believes that to rebuild orangutan populations, we must first rebuild their forest habitat -- which means helping local people find options other than the short-term fix of harvesting forests to survive. His Masarang Foundation raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world -- and to empower local people. In 2007, Masarang opened a palm-sugar factory that uses thermal energy to turn sugar palms (fast-growing trees that thrive in degraded soils) into sugar and even ethanol, returning cash and power to the community and, with luck, starting the cycle toward a better future for people, trees and orangs.

Fifth Town

I was in Prince Edward County--a beautiful island just off the shore of the eastern end of Lake Ontario--over Easter weekend and I caught wind of an artisan cheese company based in a LEED platinum building. That piqued two interests of mine--cheese and sustainability--and I decided to make a side trip to check it out. I'm not a big fan of write-ups of green buildings that read like a laundry list of features (solar panels, wind power, ...) because I think it's the system as a whole, encompassing the building's relationships with the local landscape and community that is most important. It is in the building of these relationships that Fifth Town excels. Fifth Town has designed their operations and facilities to be sustainable from the ground up. Their cheese is aged in underground 'caves' which can be kept at a cool temperature of 7-10 ºC without the aid of mechanical cooling. A cave 'look-in' can be seen in the foreground of the above picture, where passers-by can gaze longingly at shelves full of beautiful rounds of goat cheese. The cheese is made from goat's milk delivered fresh from a network of local family farms within 100 miles of the factory. In order to supply milk to Fifth Town the farms must be [Local Food Plus][] certified, meaning that the farms must be operated under an environmental farm management program, and their goats must be given non-genetically modified feed and treated humanely. The constructed bio-wetlands are nourished by the waste from the cheese-making process, and digest the light whey left over after the milk has been made into cheese and ricotta. To top it off, Fifth Town goes out of its way to educate visitors on their green features, with a number of detailed signs and a lovely 'self guided tour' printed on FSC certified recycled paper. The [Fifth Town artisan cheese company][fifth town] just received LEED platinum certification in March. Fifth Town has a friendly retail shop for visitors, and I must have sampled a dozen varieties of cheese before leaving with a few favourites to take home to family and friends. Their aged cheese was amazing and the bagel chèvre was soft, creamy and delicious. [Fifth town]: http://www.fifthtown.ca/ "Fifth Town Artisan Cheese" [Local Food Plus]: http://www.localfoodplus.ca/ "Local Food Plus"

The inverted pyramid of environmental interest

FiveThirtyEight has published a wonderful chart and write-up that illustrates the problems environmentalists are having gaining traction with the American public:

This chart, adopted from a very interesting new survey of 2,164 American adults on climate policy, reveals part of the problem that advocates of more aggressive measures to curb climate change may be encountering as they seek to push forward initiatives like cap-and-trade.

Shai Agassi aims to revolutionize car industry

As a follow-up to my earlier post on Shai Agassi's vision for 'refueling' electric cars, TED talks has an excellent video of the man himself presenting his ideas on how to completely transform our automobile industry in less than ten years. More details can be found on the web page of Shai's company, Better Place.

Wind energy at altitude from kites

In a brief, excellent video on TED talks Saul Griffith demonstrates the harvesting of wind power from high altitude winds with kites. Kites offer two key advantages over ground-based wind turbines: they can access much faster wind speeds at higher altitudes, and they can sweep out much larger areas in the sky, thus capturing a lot more wind power (the power generated by a wind turbine is proportional to the area swept out by its blades).

Improved indoor air quality with better paint

SAB Magazine has a nice overview of paints and coatings and the meaning behind various eco-friendly certification labels, such as EcoLogo and Green Seal.

When it comes to decorating, aesthetics has not completely given way to environmental concerns. However, there is a rising conscientiousness toward creating healthy conditions for paint factory workers, painters and occupants. This, and the genuine concern regarding the human impact on the natural environment, is leading us to ask ourselves, “Is there a better way?” This simple question is driving the paint and coatings industry to make its products more environmentally friendly.

Soot from cookstoves targeted in climate fight

An article in the New York Times discusses innovation in simple cookstoves, which aims to dramatically increase their efficiency and decrease their output of carbon dioxide and black heat-absorbing soot.

“It’s hard to believe that this is what’s melting the glaciers,” said Dr. Veerabhadran Ramanathan, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, as he weaved through a warren of mud brick huts, each containing a mud cookstove pouring soot into the atmosphere.

Soot is also known to have a dramatic effect on health:

Doctors have long railed against black carbon for its devastating health effects in poor countries. The combination of health and environmental benefits means that reducing soot provides a “very big bang for your buck,” said Erika Rosenthal, a senior lawyer at Earth Justice, a Washington organization.

Obama's vision for high-speed rail in America

It's about time we got moving on high-speed rail here in North America:

President Obama laid out a sweeping vision for high-speed rail in this country yesterday. Obama has already secured $8 billion in funding in the stimulus bill and plans to pursue another $5 billion over the next 5 years.

Worldchanging has a detailed discussion of the announcement, and highlighted this quote attributed to Daniel Hudson Burnham

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized.

Greening the back alleyways of Chicago

Worldchanging examines a city-wide program to green the alleyways of Chicago:

In 2006, the City of Chicago’s Department of Transportation instituted a program to reduce damage wreaked by alleyways. Conventional concrete and asphalt are gradually being replaced by a variety of permeable pavers, some made from recycled industrial wastes like slag and tire rubber. The new porous paving allows up to 80 percent of rainwater to infiltrate the subsoil, filtering out pollutants as water returns to the aquifer and, ultimately, the lake.

A better way to recharge electric cars?

Shai Agassi, profiled in yesterday's New York Times, hopes to eliminate the need for slow recharging of electric cars and jump-start the electric car industry:

Unlike most electric-car technologies, which generally require you to plug your car into a power source and recharge an onboard battery for hours, the Better Place robot is designed to reach under the chassis of an electric car, pluck its battery out and replace it with a new one, much the same way you’d put new batteries in a child’s toy.

Agassi told me previously that his goal was five minutes or less for the whole process. “If we can’t do this in less time than it takes to fill your gasoline tank,” he said, “we don’t have a company.”

Top ten green projects

The [American Institute of Architects][] has released its list of the [top ten green projects][] for 2009, including [Synergy at Dockside Green][Synergy], a large mixed-use development in Victoria on a remediated brownfield site which achieved Canada's LEED Platinum rating. I highly recommend checking out the [AIA site][top ten green projects] with its detailed descriptions and gorgeous photos of the green features (including the shot of Dockside Green's 'water treatment system' shown here) for all ten of the projects. (Via [Dwell][]. Photo credit: Vince Klassen.) [American Institute of Architects]: www.aia.org "The American Institute of Architects" [Top Ten Green Projects]: http://www.aiatopten.org/hpb/ "Top Ten Green Projects | AIA" [Synergy]: http://www.aiatopten.org/hpb/overview.cfm?ProjectID=1371 "Synergy at Dockside Green | AIA" [Dwell]: http://www.dwell.com/articles/Slideshow-Top-Ten-Green-Projects.html "Slideshow: Top Ten Green Projects | Dwell"

Building livable, walkable communities

Dan Burden, founder of Walkable Communities in an excellent talk on the importance of walking, and of walkability to our quality of life:

As long as we build our cities for people they will be packed with people. As long as we build our cities for cars they will be packed with cars ... and indeed it turns out that cars will move better if we design cities for people.

(Via Social Innovations Conversations.)

Too big to exist?

Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, on the current financial crisis:

I have yet to hear a single responsible official in any industrial country state what is obvious to most technocrats who are not currently officials: anything too big to fail is too big to exist. 

If the bankers were just stupid, as suggested by David Brooks, then regulatory fixes might make some sense.  But we know that bankers are smart, so it is their organizations that became stupid.  What is the economic and political power structure that made it possible for such stupid organizations to become so large relative to the economy?  Answer this and you address what we need to do going forward.

Paul Hawken, author of "The Ecology of Commerce", on the environmental crisis:

Either way, the sheer size of the largest corporations tends to grant them the political and economic power to externalize costs that should properly be absorbed by the company and therefore be factored into the price it sets for its product. [p. 95]

Have we created organizations whose size, vast reach, and political clout have outstripped our ability to regulate them? William McDonough has said that "regulations are signals of design failure". How do we design our society--our neighbourhoods and cities, our small and large businesses, our financial system--so that sustainable design is at its core and not something which needs to be enforced?