Partnership for Sustainable Communities

Doesn't it sometimes feel like each part of the federal government is pursuing its own separate agenda, sometimes green sometimes not? Well, it's nice to see some real cooperation between government agencies, especially if it's for an environmental cause, which is the case with the new Partnership for Sustainable Communities. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan have teamed up to help improve access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment through the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

LaHood, Donovan, and Jackson outlined the six guiding "livability principles" they will use to coordinate federal transportation, environmental protection, and housing investments at their agencies. According to Donovan, "These principles mean that we will all be working off the same playbook to formulate and implement policies and programs. For the first time, the federal government will speak with one voice on housing, environmental, and transportation policy."

The six livability principles are:

• Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable and economical transportation choices to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote public health.

• Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location- and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.

• Enhance economic competitiveness. Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services, and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.

• Support existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities—through such strategies as transit-oriented, mixed-use development and land recycling—to increase community revitalization, improve the efficiency of public works investments, and safeguard rural landscapes.

• Coordinate policies and leverage investment. Align federal policies and funding to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage funding, and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy.

• Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods—rural, urban, or suburban.

Creative Energy in the UK

You might think that all supermarkets are born equal; the same
blueprint for design and layout. But a new supermarket being built in
Gloucester, England, is challenging convention by fitting kinetic road
plates in its parking lot. These plates will generate electricty that
can be used in the store’s checkouts, which will help reduce the
store’s carbon footprint.

Although not widely known about, the technology isn’t new; the kinetic
plates are on trial in a number of distribution warehouses, but this
is the first time they have been put to use in a supermarket parking
lot. Developed by Peter Hughes of the British Highway Energy Systems,
the kinetic road plates are designed to transfer energy from the the
tires of cars as they pass over them. The cars create a rocking motion
in the plates that drives a generator to produce the electricity --
electricity generated from energy that would otherwise be lost.

The supermarket chain estimates that this technology will produce 30KW
of electricity every hour, more than enough to power the checkouts in
the store, and would additionally go a long way to powering more
energy-sapping appliances like fridges and freezers.

The kinetic plates are only one eco-friendly aspect of the new store.
It will also feature a rainwater collection system, which will collect
water for use in the store’s toilets, solar thermal panels meeting the
store’s hot water requirements throughout the summer, ’sun pipes’ and
large windows in order to take advantage of natural light and cut
electricity usage, and installing blinds to reduce the amount of
energy lost from freezer areas. The company, Sainsbury’s, is looking
to roll out the kinetic plate technology across a number of other
stores as it strives to lead other supermarkets in the fight for
energy efficiency.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on creative energy in New York City.

Power Out of Africa

A consortium of German firms is planning a massive solar energy
project in the North African desert. The goal is to provide
electricity for German households, said a spokesman for
electro-engineering giant Siemens. The project is expected to cost 400
billion euros (552 billion dollars) and start providing the first
electricity in 10 years.

About 15 firms and institutions have expressed interest in joining the
consortium, among them Siemens, Deutsche Bank, insurer Munich Re, and utilities giants RWE and E.ON. They plan to meet on July 13, 2009, in Munich to formalize the plan, a spokesman for Siemens said.

"The goal is to establish an industrial initiative to press ahead with
idea of providing electricity from the desert for German households,"
the spokesman said.

The project calls for a string of solar plants to be linked together
in what the newspaper called one of the biggest privately financed
ventures of its kind. The plants use mirrors to bundle the energy from the sun's rays, heat special oil and use the heat for steam to power turbines.

According to a spokesman, the plants would be located in countries
that are politically stable, although the countries were not named.

A special power grid would have to be constructed to transport the
energy to Europe. The project could provide for some 15 per cent of
Europe's energy needs, according to a report released by the
consortium.

Uganda Goes REALLY Green

If you don't think the government is doing enough to promote green
shopping habits, you might want to call your representatives and
suggest they take a look at what Uganda's up to!

Any person caught using plastic bags in Uganda, in East Africa, from
early 2010 will be jailed for three years or be fined an equivalent of
1,500 dollars, according to government environment lawyers there. The
penalties fall under the country's revised law on the waste management
act, which will be put into effect in January 2010 by the state-owned
National Environment Management Organization (NEMA).

Uganda's finance minister announced a ban on the sale or use of
plastic bags during the reading of the country's national budget on
Thursday and ordered all factories manufacturing the plastic bags to
start closing up shop.

Discarded plastic bags - too thin to be reused - are a major polluter
in many African cities, where they clog up rivers and pile up in huge
heaps.

The government further said that taxes of up to 120 percent will be
levied on plastic materials imported into the country.

Wow!

English Eco Housing

A new 195-house eco village has been approved for a former hospital site near Bristol in southwest England. The Hanham Hall development, which is being built by Barrett Developments PLC, will include a Sustainable Living and Energy Centre, which will house a permanent exhibition on the sustainable design behind the project and will serve as an educational resource for those interested in green design and development.

The planning proposal also includes 2.5 hectares of agricultural land that will be split into allotments and for community amenities. A combined heat and power (CHP) plant within the eco village, powered by a biomass boiler, will be responsible for providing the village’s hot water and electricity supplies, and will be a key component of the zero-carbon development.

The houses will be built to level 6 of the English Partnerships’ Code for Sustainable Homes and is the of their first Carbon Challenge site. The code imposes challenging restrictions that the developers must adhere to, including zero- or low-carbon emissions and efforts to ensure the eco village is energy efficient and provides low-impact living for its residents, without having a negative impact on their lifestyles. They will incorporate a renewable energy micro generation, as well as pioneering new technologies to make them even more efficient.

It is hoped that this development will become a flagship site to show how level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes can be achieved successfully, especially at a time when reducing the carbon footprint of developments is so crucial, as well as demonstrating the affordability of such projects. Every cause, however, has its champions and its critics. Eco villages such as this are often questioned in terms of the real impact they are having in reducing carbon emissions. After all, houses are still being built where once there was no need for them, and they are not always in the right places or for the right reasons.

Green Game

On April 22, National Geographic and Merscom, a global video and games publisher, launched ‘Plan It Green’, a new computer game that
challenges players to create their own green and sustainable cities.

Kirk Owen, Merscom’s CEO, believes that the game has been launched at the right time, with green issues and sustainable living being so high on the public agenda, saying,

“This is the right product for the times. Not only is it a fantastic
game, but it integrates a theme we all hear hundreds of times a week.”

The game puts the player in the role of mayor of Greenville, a city in
need of green renovation. Players can build eco-homes and businesses, complete with solar panels on their roofs, attract green industries to move into the city, and create green jobs for their inhabitants in order to boost their Greendex. Kirk adds,

“By working with National Geographic, we were able to go beyond pop
green ideas and make a game that truly conveys the possibilities of
the future.”

The game is currently only available as a download for PC users from
sites such as Amazon and Big Fish Games. A Mac version is currently
being developed and is expected to be available within a month and
versions in French, German, Spanish and Japanese available online in
the next three months.

Biofuels: Eco-Advantageous?

Biofuels have been getting a lot of press recently, and many organizations and governments have been promoting the eco-advantages of this fuel source. But not everybody is convinced. Last week, after the British government declared that a small percentage of biofuels would be added to the make-up of gas and diesel in the UK, Friends of the Earth, a British environmental campaigning organization, released a research paper stating the biofuels may be contributing up to twice the amount of CO2 as the fossil fuels they have replaced in the fuel mix.

The extra CO2 emitted by the biofuels has been estimated at roughly 1.3 million tons, or the equivalent of the output of half a million cars. The CO2 calculations were based on the amount of rainforest that is being destroyed to make way for the growth of biofuel crops to supply the UK. The biofuel crops are not as efficient at removing CO2 from the atmosphere as virgin rainforest, resulting in a net increase in CO2.

The British government does not currently account for this in their figures, prompting FOE to call for a temporary halt to the biofuels obligation until the full scale of the situation has been assessed. Friends of the Earth wants the government to look at the statistics to see if the biofuels are worth adding to the fuel mix if the overall CO2 emissions actually end up being higher.

The group also stated that the government should be doing more to support local public transport systems and promoting the increase in overall efficiency of vehicles.