The new flick 500 Days of Summer, which generated much buzz as the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, rolls out in limited release today. Lot’s of people are talking about it as a romantic comedy meets Momento which in film terms means that those with ADD or short attention spans might be confused by this rambunctious romantic romp. But for us, the buzz doesn’t just lie in the zigzagging sex talk but rather in the architecture talk. Even more specifically in the Green architecture talk.

Now Tom Hansen, (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) isn’t exactly Howard Roark but his some of the film’s core revolves around Hansen’s progressive architecture thinking. Even more he talks about density in Los Angeles as he admires Pershing square. Density in Los Angeles of all places. We can hardly stand it.

Even later in the film after the romances goes South, Hansen picks up a Green architecture book and delves into it. Maybe this film won’t be an LA Story or When Harry Met Harry film for the ages but now we have sustainable architecture thinking sneaking into progressively solid romantic comedies. For us, that’s better than a tub of organic popcorn and a soda without high fructose corn syrup.

Reprinted with permission from

Seireeni, a specialist in brand consulting, coined the term Gort Cloud after interviewing dozens of ecopreneurs; he describes it as “the vast, but invisible community that has the power to make or break green brands.”

The book’s insider cover artwork illustrates some of the key “clusters and nodes” Seireeni found during his research, attempting to make concrete the amorphous, formless and often nebulous network of green business alliances, advocacy groups, NGOs, government agencies, bloggers, trend spotters, social networks, certifying groups, and many others who can help, or hinder, a green brand.

Published in December, 2008, the book was released before Twitter became a household word and made the force of the Gort Cloud even more powerful and important to understand. In only minutes, a trendspotter or celebrity with thousands of followers can spread the word about a new green product or out a company’s attempt at greenwashing.

But the Gort Cloud is not just relevant to green brands. It can also impact major national brands.

A case in point, Greenpeace recently launched a campaign Traitor Joes, mocking the Trader Joe’s brand for their lack of a sustainable seafood policy. In addition to the web site (http://www.traitorjoe.com/), Greenpeace also set up a humorous Twitter profile for a misbehaving pirate Traitor Joe, whose bio reads “your one stop shop for ocean destruction.” While Trader Joe’s is not included in the book, they are a textbook case study of what can happen to a company that ignores the Gort Cloud.

Case studies: highlighting winning brand development and marketing strategies
The rest of the book focuses on case studies that profile the brand development and marketing strategies of some leading green brands ranging from Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap to Seventh Generation to Ben & Jerry’s Homemade to Stonyfield Farm.

The profiles detail the companies’ challenges and how they grew their green brands, emphasizing such marketing tools as identifying a target market, creating alliances with key stakeholders, differentiating a product, connecting product to a social mission, engaging consumers and utilizing interactive web sites and blogs. They provide the reader a solid overview of the basic green marketing tools to have in your tool kit.

Newcomers to the green scene will find these profiles informative, while seasoned green professional might find them dated. And environmental advocates might question why Seireeni chose to highlight Time Inc., when the company has not committed to using recycled content in their publications yet.

Ignore it at your peril
I agree with Seireeni’s insistence that “an important arrow in the CSO’s quiver of communications tools is the Gort Cloud. This community thrives on accurate and unflinchingly honest information. CSOs can leverage the power of this communications medium by understanding the complex, interactive and viral qualities of the larger green community.”

Yet, I found myself wanting more depth and details on how to successfully navigate the Gort Cloud and tips on how to use the latest and greatest social marketing tools to reach the Gort Cloud, such as cross-sector dialogues, iPhone applications, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Take a peak at the Seventh Generation web site to see how they are utilizing all of these cutting-edge marketing tools.

The final take home message--the Gort Cloud is important for green brands to understand. Ignore it at your peril.

Deborah Fleischer is the founder and president of Green Impact, providing strategic environmental consulting services to mid-sized companies and NGOs who want to launch a new green initiative or cross-sector collaboration, but lack the in-house capacity to get it up and running. She brings expertise in sustainability strategy, program development, stakeholder partnerships and written communications. And you can follow her occasional tweet at GreenImpact.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice to help scientists study the impact of climate change, within hours of a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences.

In an unusually fast move by a U.S. government agency, the Interior Department made the images public on Wednesday. The academy's report urging this action was released at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Some 700 images show swatches of sea ice from six sites around the Arctic Ocean, with an additional 500 images of 22 sites in the United States. The images can be seen online at gfl.usgs.gov/.

Changes in the Arctic affect global climate, since the Arctic region acts as an "air conditioner" for the planet.

The Arctic images have a resolution of about 1 yard (1 meter), a vast improvement on previously available pictures of sea ice, said Thorsten Markus of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"These are one-meter-resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," Markus said on Thursday. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One meter resolution is the dimension that's missing."

The next-best resolution for images of Arctic sea ice is 15 to 30 meters, Markus said by telephone. This risks missing small features that can have a big impact on warming in the area.

SMALL PUDDLES, BIG IMPACT

For example, during the summer months, pools of melted water form on top of Arctic ice floes, and these puddles can stretch across 30 meters. The water in the puddles is dark and absorbs heat, as opposed to the white ice all around them, which reflects heat.

Knowing about these melt pools is valuable to producing models of what might happen in the Arctic in the future, but with images that have a resolution of 30 meters or so, these pools might well be missed. While individual puddles are small, collectively they cover about 30 percent of the Arctic.

"The (forecasting) models do well at capturing the overall sea ice cover in the Arctic," Markus said. "But there are certain processes that we cannot adequately model yet, mainly ... because we don't have enough data."

Markus said the public release of these images was "a huge surprise -- I expected after the report, months could go by until somebody moved."

"That doesn't happen every day," said a person familiar with the government's decision. "This is a great example of good government cooperation between the intelligence community and academia. In the science community, we call it a no-brainer."

The images were derived from classified images made as part of the Medea program, which lets scientists request spy pictures from environmentally sensitive locations around the globe.

Medea scientists asked for intelligence images of Arctic sea ice during the summer melting season, but these were considered unsuitable for public release. Images suitable for release were made, but were not made public until now.

Reprinted with permission from Reuters

Wal-Mart held a webcast and a conference call with several journalists and bloggers kicking off their new sustainable efforts. The retailer said it was starting new work towards transparency and sustainability, and also announced its new Sustainability Index.

Wal-Mart has begun taking a "lifecycle approach," per CEO Mike Duke, where the company factors in everything from packaging to recycling. Citing the Zero Waste Initiative, executives and shareholders explained how they had not only dramatically altered internal processes in favor of efficiency and sustainability, but were striving towards greater transparency.

Part of transparency involves product traceability, something that was brought up at several points during the webcast. Seeing a larger player like Wal-Mart make the commitment will be judged by its implementation, though the sentiment may be admirable.

Duke added that these are part of a growing effort to meet higher consumer expectations, not only in regards to environmental impacts, but in terms of transparency especially in light of the current speed of information and the increasing consumer shrewdness. He emphasized that consumption itself needs to be revolutionized, by Wal-Mart through sustainability.

The Sustainability Index will be a database of information regarding how environmentally aware the entire production and distribution process is. Thursday saw the release of a questionnaire that will press companies about their emissions targets and certifications, among others.

Wal-Mart will be asking 15 simple questions. The questions can be found here.

An article recently printed in the New York Times quoted Michelle Harvey at the Environmental Defense Fund as saying "Nobody else could pull this off."

In the conference call following the webcast, Senior Vice president for Sustainability Matt Kistler said that he saw certification playing a "very large role in the future with us." He explained that while the Index results will provide more intimate manufacturing connections, "consumer-facing elements are not expected for several years, though we may accelerate that number.

During the webcast, Wal-Mart discussed its flat panel TV energy reduction plan, which will shift to 30% more efficient products within a year. The company has also launched twelve innovation projects that are expected to save $250 million.

Wal-Mart also played a video of a dairy farm that was using methane capture to power the facility.

The company also covered some new efforts through another company under the umbrella, Sam's Club. The Sam's Club store will have a Home Efficiency Aisle, shifting focus towards new efficient products, such as a toilet that promises improvements in water conservation of 60 to 70 percent. New sustainable packaging was developed, which provided three times more durability at minimal cost.

Wal-Mart said sustainability is becoming a way to innovate and compete for an evolving customer base.

Photo courtesy of Rod Dauphin.

The chain's latest green venture borrows a little less from future generations and hopes to earn LEED's platinum rating.

On July 25, their Augusta, Maine store will open the doors of its reused high school building to new produce isles that use less energy, geothermal and solar power systems, passive lighting, and sit under a green roof, among many other green building features. This store is anticipated to save more than 2 million kilowatt hours of electricity, requiring approximately 50 percent less energy than a typical supermarket of comparable size. In what they hope to be the first LEED platinum supermarket in the country, Hannaford decided working to achieve the rating was the next step in their history of reducing their energy and overall environmental footprint at each one of their stores.

Borrowing less from future generations and achieving LEED education credits also means providing consumers information about green living.

Many green buildings offer signage over recycling and disposal bins, others offer orientation sessions. Hannaford's has spiced things up a bit with a unique approach, almost like a museum exhibit, by providing a self-guided tour space about the building's green features. The store will also offer more formal tours for schools and other interested parties.

Greening the food industry achieves one of the greatest stressors humans put on the environment. The process starts with grocers who are intimately connected with customers that want organic products, greener solutions, and to shop in a building that reflects borrowing less from the environment. Grocers have the purchasing power to influence growers and manufacturers that fulfill the green and organic options customers want.

Hannaford's new store, whether officially certified as platinum or not, reminds a family on their weekly grocery trip that they can borrow just a little less from their grandchildren by spending their dollars in a green store with green options.

Since about 2004 companies have been offering conversion kits for (mainly) Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid owners to convert their vehicles to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). This is largely done by replacing the current batteries, management system, and charger in current vehicles. While that’s simple to say, it is actually a fairly complex system, particularly the management system, which helps control the speed and amount of electricity flowing in and out of the battery.

There is essentially a two-tier system to this industry: the first tier includes the companies that actually make the equipment and develop the engineering for the conversion itself. The second tier is the installers - the people that actually install the equipment into your vehicle. In some cases these are all done by the same company, but several companies are now split between the tiers (for example Hymotion has certified several installers across the country to convert hybrids to PHEVs). With these vehicles now converted they can travel for anywhere from 5 to 40 miles without using any gas, as long as the vehicles are plugged in and charged prior to use.

This market has been growing (some would argue slowly), but it is very difficult to size as there are no registration requirements and most companies do not publish their sales numbers. However, an estimate of about 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles (including fleet vehicles) converted over the years may not be too far off. The number of companies offering PHEV conversions is also somewhat tough to estimate because there are many do-it-yourself type operations that help advanced consumers convert their own vehicles. However, the major players in the market are EDrive Systems, EETrex (formerly Hybrids Plus), Hymotion (part of A123 Systems), and OEMtek. Overall the marketplace is still relatively new, largely because of the limited access to the conversions and high costs (conversions have been falling price but remain at least $5,000-$12,000 over the price of the original vehicle, and often higher).

But as automakers begin to join the PHEV marketplace with mass produced PHEVs (such as the Chevy Volt and Plug-in Toyota Prius both in 2010), what will happen to these conversion companies? In most cases the trend has already been toward offering components, for example EDrive Systems is part of EnergyCS, a battery management system company, and Hymotion is part of A123 Systems a battery maker.

Additionally EETrex is offering a vehicle-to-grid product called the Inverger which manages energy flow from a vehicle to the grid - the smart grid technology that is widely expected to become more critical as the volume of PHEVs grows. We anticipate the market for conversions will continue to last beyond the launch of the Volt and Plug-in Prius, particularly for fleet customers - though the launch of these vehicles will definitely have a dampening affect on the Prius conversions currently being completed. Currently, there are a few companies that do conversions for pick-up trucks, large medium duty and heavy duty trucks, as well as full size vans. As additional hybrids are brought to market in other vehicle segments, we expect that companies will continue to develop the engineering to convert them into plug-in hybrids.

Looking further into the future towards the latter half of the next decade, it would not be surprising to see conversion going the other direction, such as adding additional charging apparatus to full EVs (e.g. adding fuel cells or solar arrays) to provide vast or essentially unlimited range. The one thing about the conversion and aftermarket business, imagination is essentially the only limitation.

Reprinted with permission from Pike Research

A new group is attempting to better reconcile high velocity wind power development with its impact on avian victims.

Wind power has come a long way from technology employed earlier this century, but according to Dr. Judd Howell of the American Wind and Wildlife Institute, more research is needed

Recently named the first Director of Research at the AWWI, Howell's background is a combination of wind energy impacts and raptor studies, which culminated in extensive work in the Altiplan.

Raptors, as birds of prey and top predators, are fewer in number than other species and could be threatened by any excessive damage to their numbers.

"Birds fly into things." said Howell, "As human development has continued, buildings, automobiles and power lines have presented a similar threat."

Often cited is the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in California, one of the oldest American wind farms and largest in the world, and a location that has resulted in the annual deaths (according to a 2005 report) of 1,870 and 4,310 birds of 31 species.

However, the primary issue with Altamont Pass, as emphasized by Howell, was the lack of planning. Spurred on by the 1970s energy crisis, the small turbines, rather than the larger ones used primarily today, wreaked havoc on raptors hunting for their prey.

Howell says it's important to keep in mind, that the Altamont Pass was a test area, an "experimental site where people were doing proofs of technology with a number of different types of turbines." The impact in the area drove home Howell's emphasis on site inspection and preconstruction guidelines, which "states are working diligently on," while compiling national efforts.

The danger that wind energy poses to birds has been contentious at best, having been characterized as minor by reports, such as one released two years ago where it was estimated that it would take over 30 turbines to reach an annual mortality rate of one bird; though the study also acknowledged that rates vary greatly by site.

What efforts are being made to curb the threat posed not only to birds, but more recently noted, to bats? Iberdrola Renewables last year conducted an experiment where designated wind turbines would shut off during low wind-speed nights. The first U.S. based effort of its kind, it reduced bat mortality by 53 to 87 percent. Airports, for example, use noisemakers and other devices to some effectiveness, but birds habituate to noise fairly easily, Howell explained. He continued to say that another technique attempted was the painting of turbine blades, however it had "yet to be implemented on any large scale."

Painting of blades has been not conducted often, though he was involved in a "Visual experiment to reduce avian mortality related to wind turbine operations." In the 2002 Permitting of Wind Energy Facilities Handbook, Howell's study and two others released in 2001 by McIsaac and Hodos et al covered birds sensory physiology, such as observing bird reactions to turbines in terms of speed and distance as well as painting different color patterns on blades.

Selecting a wind turbine site is one of the most important factors in avoiding avian collisions, according to Howell. However, visual deterrents, "if... effective, may be another item in the toolkit."

The AWWI presents a unique junction for new milestones to be passed "where conservation groups, industry and non-governmental organizations have come together to answer difficult research questions and to help the industry be proactive in dealing with this particular issue," Howell said. He added that with the renewable energy challenges of the time, there is an opportunity to develop new infrastructure while remaining conscious of wildlife conservation

By doing so, the pilot will help the city as a whole (as well as Dutch utility Nuon) make smarter use of energy. The pilot is part of they city's Smart City initiative, which fosters collaboration between individuals, government, and companies in the creation of a sustainable Amsterdam.

The pilot will measure the energy consumption of 500 selected households, using an innovative energy management system comprised of smart metering and home energy management technology. These will monitor participants’ household appliances, thereby helping them gain a clearer understanding of their energy usage. With this understanding, participants will be better equipped to alter their behavior and reduce the amount of energy they consume. The program is expected to help participants decrease their energy bills and CO2 emissions by 14 percent or more.

IBM and Nuon will develop the system’s applications (including collection of energy data), and Cisco will be responsible for the IP-based home energy management solutions (including implementation of energy-reducing measures). IBM and Cisco aim to show that e-intelligence is a valuable component of an effective energy-management strategy.

Reprinted with permission from Triple Pundit.

John A. Tossell of the University of Maryland was extending work by Simon Brooks, Philip Gale and Mark Light in the 2006 "Anion-binding modes in a macrocyclic amidourea." The bowl-shaped molecule (a macrocyclic amidourea) manages to capture local carbon dioxide through an evaporation process that promises not only to remove CO2, but to effectively imprison it for later controlled release.

The slow evaporation from a dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solution, which disrupts base pairing, that contained organic compounds was found to yield a complex CO3 molecule that draws local CO2. "The ready formation of this compound [CO3] suggets a high stability… may be a candidate as a receptor or absorber for atmospheric CO2," per Tossell.

Using water instead of DMSO as a solvent or heat would decompose the CO3 to release the carbon dioxide. This molecule could serve as a carbon "usher," working to isolate and confine the CO2, potentially even from the pollution from a power plant, which could then be controlled to redirect the CO2 towards combustion.

Carbon dioxide could be directed towards a multitude of uses, including feeding commercial algae farms. Carbon sequestration has been considered dangerous due to the lack of control over the actual gas once it is released, as explained recently by a company that has already managed to demonstrate carbon recycling.

Tossell suggests that the process may be "most useful for removing CO2 [in] ambient air," while capturing excess CO2 might be better served by the creation of solid polymeric carbonic acid. Carbonic acid occurs when carbon dioxide is dissolved in water and is a weak acid.

The potential from H2CO3 was explored by Tossell in 2006 in "H2CO3 and Its Oligomers: Structures, Stabilities, Vibrational and NMR Spectra, and Acidities." He considers the evaporation process required for the carbon capture to occur a "complimentary one" to carbonic acid.

The full text of the article, "Catching CO2 in a Bowl," can be viewed at here, and the report will be published in the August 3rd edition of the American Chemical Society journal, Inorganic Chemistry.

While Exxon Mobil shareholders were busy rejecting a number of environmental initiatives last year, CEO Rex Tillerson, said that even in 30 years, most energy needs will still need to be met by fossil fuels.

In somewhat of a reversal, the oil giant has revealed a new algal biofuel effort, marked by a $600 million investment and partnership with Synthetic Genomics.

The broader green changes sought by Exxon shareholders who are members of the Rockefeller family have not taken root, but the biofuel partnership with a company founded by one of the leading scientists of the century (Craig Venter) could indicate that a small shift in Exxon's philosophy is brewing. Exxon will be working with the genomics company to develop efficient algae to be refined into liquid transportation fuel.

The oil company's initial investment (that can be expanded) will be split between in-house studies and research by Synthetic Genomics. Exxon is covering its environmental bases in a time of evolving regulations, but large scale commercial algae plants still lie far in the future, from five to ten years according to the vice-president of research and development, Dr. Emil Jacobs.

Synthetic Genomics could provide the efficient algae required for a cost-competitive biofuel through the multi-year research and development agreement. Venter's company has been working in previous years to develop more efficient oil harvesting methods, having already produced lipids in a continuous process.

With initial public offerings becoming increasingly few and far between, one Southern California startup is looking to pave the way for private equity transactions.

Launched in June, Santa Monica–based SharesPost hopes to connect shareholders and buyers to move shares of some of the most high- profile startups around, including Tesla Motors, SolarCity and Silver Spring Networks.

The site offers access to the “most interesting” companies, while providing an exit for shareholders, says Greg Brogger, SharesPost’s CEO and founder and a former securities attorney. With more than 150 companies listed on its bulletin board, SharesPost allows its members to anonymously buy and sell shares, with a minimum transaction of $25,000.

Most companies need at least $500 million in market capitalization to go public, which leaves a lot companies without access to potential investors, Brogger says. SharesPost aims to fill that niche, focusing on mature, late-stage companies that have at least $100 million in market capitalization, but are still not ready for an IPO.

While anyone with at least $25,000 can become a member of SharesPost, buyers must either be institutional investors, or accredited with a net worth of more than $1 million or an income of at least $200,000. Sellers, meanwhile, must have possessed their shares for at least a year.

SharesPost doesn’t earn a commission fee for transactions, though escrow provider U.S. Bank (NYSE: USB) charges a fee to each party. Instead, the startup plans to make its money through a $34 per month membership, which is required to buy, sell and post.

The site also hopes to solve the problem of a lack of available research about private companies by providing access to reports from third-party research providers.

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Industries

While states are vying for clean energy funding and busy dedicating land to solar and wind farms, North Carolina's Progress Energy and Advanced Energy Corporation are scouting rooftops instead of land plots thinking about how to generate wind energy in the city, not in the country.

The two companies are searching for viable rooftops including parking areas to install windmills available to generate clean energy. The wind energy would then merged into the grid's clean energy portfolio.

Roofs cannot support the weight of massive windmills and there might be some visual, aesthetic, aviary, and air travel logistics that prevent large windmill blades from operating on every building in a city. Small-scale blades, such as those sold by Swift Wind Turbinewould be installed and will be spun by the updraft of wind currents. If this project works there is a plethora of opportunities across other metropolitan areas for those structures not already dedicated to solar panels or vegetated rooftops.

If the somewhat powerful wind currents can very efficiently generate clean energy to offset the amount equal to a building's lighting needs, for instance, then many buildings and cities can soar into clean energy and out of fossil fuel electricity. Hopefully these projects will work and make progress in transitioning from a system powered by foreign oil.Watch North Carolina for more information and wind power progress.

Photo from Swift Wind Turbine

To date, the program has led to the installation of more than 50,000 hot water heaters. Last year Hawaiian Electric paid rebates of $1,000 to more than 8,200 customers at who converted to solar powered heaters.

Customers receive rebates from both the utility and local and federal governments which reduced electricity bills and quickly offset the initial cost (ranging from $1,700-$2,600 according to Solar Direct, for a solar powered heater.

The program has been so successful in meeting its goals and is so popular that the state has now regulated that all new homes built beginning in 2010 must use solar powered hot water heaters making use of the state's vast sunlight resources to power showers, baths, and cooking (I'd also add cleaning, but really, no one should clean with hot water anymore: cold is energy efficient, even if powered by the sun).

For a state that uses electricity generated from fossil fuels (primarily diesel generators) for almost all of its energy needs, mandating that homes use clean energy is a major step in reducing carbon emissions.

It is an even larger step for the clean energy movement because it proves that change is possible even on islands segregated from a major energy supply. Across the country, many efforts are gearing up to transfer to clean energy, but because so many of those projects require vast amounts of funding, land and contract negotiations, and finally operating infrastructure, those projects will take years to complete putting clean energy off for several years.

Hawaii is proving clean energy can happen now and can happen on a much more localized level, with the average consumer. The only rub is that the building of new homes has slowed across the country and no doubt in Hawaii as well, a land of limited space and a high cost of living. To overcome this, perhaps the regulation should mandate that a new solar powered water heater be installed at the sale of a home, similar to other state and local regulations that require a home inspection at the sale of an existing home. The overall housing market is still down, but soon enough homes will be bought at low prices as the economy begins to correct itself providing a faster opportunity to implement solar powered water heating.

Photo from Solar Direct

Last July, the City & County of San Francisco launched the first local solar energy incentive program in the nation, The results are in, and, the program is an unequivocal success.

In the year since our solar energy incentive program GoSolarSF launched, we have seen a 450% increase in applications for solar installations in San Francisco over the previous year, from 200 to 850. And despite the current recession, 56 applicants met our low-income standards and will receive incentive payments.

And nonprofit and affordable housing organizations are going solar too. Just last week, I joined a local affordable housing developer, our San Francisco Housing Authority and our San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to announce three new solar installations at Hayes Valley North and South and Plaza East public housing in San Francisco.

The dramatic increase in solar installations in San Francisco over the last year, coupled with the City’s aggressive plans to deploy large-scale solar on municipal properties like the mammoth Sunset Reservoir, have helped catapult San Francisco to state leadership in solar power and renewable energy. A report issued this week by Environment California ranks San Francisco third in California, just behind much larger and much sunnier Los Angeles and San Diego, in number of rooftop solar installations in California. On a per-capita basis, San Francisco leads the state’s large cities for rooftop solar.

The good work to create this program started with our local Solar Energy Task Force, chaired by our Assessor Phil Ting, who joined me and many others in thinking creatively about how to incentivize and accelerate solar power and renewable energy in San Francisco.

This year, we’ve managed to fund GoSolarSF at an even higher level despite a very tough budget year. That’s because making clean energy and the environment a priority is also good for San Francisco’s economy. Every solar installation incentivized creates good green jobs. The GoSolarSF program alone has created dozens of green jobs for low-income City residents who graduate from our workforce development programs.

By any measure, our solar energy incentive program has been a stellar success after just one year. If we continue making smart investments guided by the right priorities, imagine what we can do for our economy and our environment this year and in years to come.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica.

The regulation requires charging acces for at least 20% of parking spots at new condominium and apartment buildings, along with some city-owned parking lots, according to a CBC report.

The council decided to double the original proposal, which called for only 10%. The new regulation goes into effect in 18 months.

In April, BC Hydro announced that Mitsubishi Motors would begin testing its all-electric iMiEV vehicle in Vancouver by the end of the year.

In Related News...

A CNNMoney.com report outlines the different electric car strategies taken by Nissan, GM and Ford. The competitors have different visions as to how soon the U.S. market will adopt the new technologies.

Read the report at the link below.

Website: money.cnn.com/2009/07/01/autos/electric_cars_strategy/index.htm

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Business

A coalition of environmental groups has sued the federal government over the creation of transmission corridors that will perpetuate the use of coal-fired power throughout the West.

The lawsuit against the Interior, Agriculture and Energy departments filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California charges that the agencies “created a sprawling, hopscotch network of 6,000 miles of rights-of-way” without:

* considering environmental impacts;
* analyzing alternatives;
* weighing federal policies that support renewable energy;
* ensuring the corridors’ consistency with federal and local land-use plans, and;
* consulting other federal agencies or Western states and local governments.

The coalition, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, National Parks Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and San Miguel County, Colorado charges that the federal government violated several laws in creating the so-called West Wide Energy Corridor, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act.

Katie Renshaw, an Earthjustice attorney who helped lead the suit, told E&E News that the groups are hoping the Obama administration will decide not to defend the corridors and to instead sit down and discuss a possible settlement. She said the goals of the group and of the administration are in sync.

“In order to develop solar and wind, you have to have transmission to connect that to the cities and the need,” Renshaw said. “It’s a really good opportunity, a good shift from old dirty energy to new clean energy.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit Tuesday hope to stop the plan before it is implemented and point to the Western Governors’ Association’s Western Renewable Energy Zone Initiative as a better alternative.

Reprinted with permission from Red Green and Blue

As energy shifts to become more distributed and with a greater emphasis on intermittent renewable resources, the need for temporary storage will expand significantly. Distributed storage increases energy efficiency by eliminating transmission losses, and wind and solar power require temporary storage to counteract the daily peaks and valleys in demand.

Entrepreneurs and researchers sensing the opportunity have been developing a wide variety of technologies to meet the expected surge in demand. Just like an elephant, which takes a relatively long time to gestate (22 months) the storage market has taken time to develop, but once it starts, it will keep growing and growing. According to Pike Research's recent report "Energy Storage Technology Markets," the market for stationary utility energy storage will grow by more than 10 fold between 2008 and 2018, to $4.1 billion.

Jim Woolsey, the former CIA director and current partner at Vantage Point Venture Partners, is one of the most vocal proponents of storage systems for renewable energy and will be speaking on the subject this week at an energy storage conference.

The wide-open field includes batteries, which are being adapted to be part of large energy storage systems, as well as compressed air, pumped hydro power, flywheel and supercapacitor systems.

Beacon Power just received a $43 million loan from the Department of Energy to continue work on a 20 megawatt flywheel storage system. Competing flywheel storage company, Pentadyne Power Corporation is expanding operations, raising $22 million last year, and making lists from Inc magazine and the Los Angeles Business Journal of fastest growing companies.

General Electric is taking another approach, betting that sodium batteries can play a role in energy storage. The company is partnering with New York to build a $100 million battery manufacturing facility.

While an open field encourages innovation, it complicates the task of grid operators on setting standards for adoption. According to the DOE's National Council on Electricity Policy, no cohesive plan exists as to how storage technologies will be incorporated into the grid.

These technical issues will be sorted out over the next few years as the shakeout occurs and dominant and niche players are identified. Battery technologies may have an advantage as they are receiving the most investment because of their use in electric vehicles.

John Gartner is Editor in Chief of Matter Network and an Industry Analyst for Pike Research.

Image: Mr Moremi

Social networking. Web 2.0. Social media. Call it what you will, they all mean the same thing: The tools of marketing are rapidly changing. For companies focused on sustainability, this can be an opportunity to cultivate a new base of vocal and active brand evangelists, but it can also carry an extra risk if not managed correctly.

People continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites than ever before, according to the Nielsen Co. The average time per person spent on soclail networking sites increased 67 percent from May 2008 to May 2009. More importantly, Nielsen found that social media now accounts for almost 10 percent of Internet time. This is significant if online real estate and online advertising slots are increasingly measured by time spent, rather than pages viewed, which Nielson and others expect them to be.

For companies not involved in some kind of online social network, “it is a blind spot that will increasingly be apparent to customers,” according to Gabriel Scheer, founder of Seattle-based Re-Vision Labs, a company that provides community-building products and strategies for sustainable businesses and organizations.

The term social networking has morphed into social marketing at many companies. A recent report, “Social Media Playtime is Over,” by Forrester Research found that while many marketing budgets are being tightened in the current recession, more than 50 percent of marketers polled in their survey said they will increase their spending on social marketing. Companies as large as Ford (NYSE: F) (which “tweets” at twitter.com/Ford or as @Ford in Twitter parlance) and as small as Seattle-based Molly’s Salads (@Mollyssalads) are using Twitter to gain a captive audience for their promotions. But triple-bottom-line companies are an especially good fit for marketing via online social networks, according to Scheer.

To be successful, such companies are already committed to transparency and holding true to their core values. The same holds true on social networking sites where users will abandon a feed and its brand, or worse, tell their friends if it is deemed inauthentic, Scheer says. More frighteningly, if bad news comes out about a product or company—sweatshop labor used in a factory to manufacture organic-cotton clothing, for example—the news can spread like wildfire. So it’s better to be there to put out the flames.

“If you are not engaging in these member communities, you’ve already lost control of the conversation,” says David Raycroft, vice president of product strategy at San Francisco-based startup Milyoni. The company is readying an e-commerce solution that will allow customers of companies, including Equator Coffees, to purchase products without leaving a company’s Facebook page. It may be the first time a marketing strategy aimed at online networks creates a verifiable revenue stream, he says. (Both Facebook and Twitter don’t make money.)

Just like in the “real world” though, all the transparency and belief in sustainability or useful “tweets” won’t get a company anywhere online if its leaders don’t remember the most basic fact of doing business, Scheer says. “You can develop an audience through transparent communities, but you still have to have a good product.”

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Industries

A new study from West Virginia University exposes one more dirty little secret about America’s favorite fossil fuel, coal. Though coal mining is touted as an economic boon to local communities, the study reviews mortality statistics to conclude that coal mining communities in Appalachia are among the weakest economies in their home states, and in the country. The study, “Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions,” appears in the July-August issue of Public Health Reports, the official journal of the U.S. Public Health Services.

Mountaintop Removal and Clean Coal

The promotion of “clean coal” as a sustainable fuel hearkens back to the days when cigarette smoking was promoted as a healthy habit. Sure, you get a kick, but there’s a cost. Regardless of any new technology for burning coal or converting it to other fuels, coal comes from the ground. The worst damage is done by the relatively new phenomenon of mountaintop removal - literally blowing up mountains to reach coal seams close to the surface. It’s a cheaper method than underground mining, but as the environmental equivalent of lung cancer, mountaintop removal has leveled hundred of pristine mountains and obliterated hundreds of miles of streams in one of America’s richest ecosystems, the Appalachian region.

Coal Ash Dumps and Clean Coal

Given the devastating effects of mountaintop removal, clearly the “clean” in clean coal refers only to emissions from coal fired power plants, not to coal extraction methods. That’s quite a narrow definition, especially when you factor in the impact of coal ash disposal. Ash is the stuff left over from burning coal. With about 50% of the electricity in the U.S. currently generated by coal, that adds up to a lot of ash.

The disposal method of choice is to quarantine the ash in open reservoirs. It was barely a year ago that the dam on one such reservoir failed, spilling 5 million cubic yards of coal ash into a Tennessee community. The U.S. EPA responded by proposing new regulations for coal ash dumps. That’s hardly a comfort to communities that host hundreds of ash dumps in the U.S., especially the 44 coal ash dumps that the EPA lists as “potentially high hazard” due to the risk of human fatalities from a dam failure.

The Impact of Coal Mining on Local Economies

As revealed by the new West Virginia University study, the “clean” in clean coal pulls an even more impressive disappearing act when it comes to the benefits of coal on the communities that are home to mining operations. Charleston Gazette writer Ken Ward Jr., whose previous work includes an article on the health effects of coal mining operations, covered the release of “Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining” and has made a pdf of the study available through his blog, Coal Tattoo. The authors are Michael Hendryx, associate director of the WVU Institute for Health Policy Research with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University. As Ward notes, the authors determined that the coal industry contributes about $8 billion annually to the Appalachian economy, but under their analysis the economic losses attributable to premature deaths associated with coal operations are in the range of $42 billion.

The Hidden Costs of Clean Coal

The authors of the study emphasize that their estimate is conservative, based primarily on the well documented connection between early mortality and economic health. Ward’s blog cites additional factors that were not part of the study, which make the economic picture even gloomier: the effect of poor health on worker productivity, the increase in public aid for foods stamps and Medicaid, and the economic consequences of natural resource destruction. This last item is particularly relevant to mountaintop removal, which is a highly mechanized process linked with job loss, not job creation. Appalachia lost more than half of its coal mining jobs in the 20 years following 1985, when mountaintop mining came into its own. On top of that, the destruction of pristine, tourist-friendly areas near the famous Appalachian Trail closes at least one door to alternative employment opportunities that could help improve community health.

Whither Clean Coal?

Local opposition to mountaintop mining is just one indication that the “clean coal” moniker isn’t pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes. Another is the increasing number of canceled coal fired power plants. The Sierra Club just marked the 100th cancellation of a planned coal fired power plant in the U.S., a trend that goes beyond green-leaning states like California. Wyoming and Kansas are among the states recently canceling coal plants, and in Illinois a coal-to-liquid plant got the heave-ho. Coal is running out of places to go in the U.S., regardless of its cleanliness — or lack thereof.

Hat tip to Earth News.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

A new kind of light source promises 75 percent more efficiency over incandescent bulbs in a slim profile. A clean energy start-up, Lumiette, has introduced the notion of flat panel lighting.

Originally used for backlights in liquid crystal displays, the unique form factor could be used for a variety of residential, commercial and industrial needs, inside and outside. The technology is based on External Electrode Fluorescent Lamp technology, promising directed light and five times the durability of compact fluorescent light bulbs.

The flat lamps will provide superior light and share the profile of light emitting diodes, according to the company

The company recently received the "Most Likely to Succeed" Award in Clean Tech at Launch: Silicon Valley 2009 and presented by the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs.

The LEED approved lighting will also be dimmable, allowing for further efficiency. Paired with intelligent dimming systems, the apartment of the future could be filled with these flat sheets of electrode-powered glass.

More importantly, the technology could provide a new way of looking at lighting design. Why stick to forms that were designed around antiquated hot bulbs?