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I N · T H I S · I S S U E
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FLANIGAN'S ECO-LOGIC
Bio-Cycling at Home
At a seminar last weekend, Tom Brady, the City of Glendale’s
recycling expert, rattled off some of the basics of
composting and then vermiculture, the use of worms to
create high-quality compost, the castings that experts
call “black gold.” Brady was not particularly motivational,
and there were only three of us in the audience, but
the logic of his message is compelling: Bio-cycling
is a step beyond recycling, a means of keeping valuable
organic materials on site, tightening an ecological
loop.
Imagine a tree in the forest that sheds its leaves in
the fall. These mix with green grasses on the forest
floor. This mix – laden with carbon and nitrogen --
experiences the elements – water and air – and is digested
by naturally occurring microbes in the soil. It then
becomes rich humus ready to retain moisture and to provide
essential nutrients to the trees and the forest, the
lungs of the universe.
Now take that same system in modern suburbia: The leaves
are raked and removed from the site, the grasses are
manicured and their clippings removed. The soil is replenished
by fertilizers that are trucked in, produced in energy
intensive ways -- an ecological loop that extends far
from the property boundary.
Brady gave each of us a composter and a pitch fork compliments
of the City since bio-cycling reduces wastes and the
City’s ecological footprint. With little instruction,
some humor about composting “recipes,” my fellow students
and I were eager to get started. Within a week we too
could have compost piles approaching 140 degrees!
I must admit, having composted for many years of my
life, I had succumbed to the convenience of trashing
my kitchen wastes and putting green wastes in the appropriate
bin. But now I return to my belief system – and to eco-logic
- and composting. And I encourage you to do the same,
to be part of the basic wonder of bio-cycling, keeping
valuable nutrients on site, lessening the manufacture
and transportation of fertilizers, and letting nature
coupled with a little effort do nature’s productive
work for the next season.
Check with your city or local recycling center. What
support can you get for bio-cycling?
Here’s what Glendale, California offers:
• Free workshops on composting and vermiculture
• Lots of literature including “The Composting Cookbook”
• Choice of composting bins. I took the Smith & Hawken
“Bio Stack” (value $100)
• Free pitch fork! (value $20)
• $100 rebates for green waste shredders ($200-500 cost)
to accelerate composting
• Discounted vermiculture systems, “worm hotels” ($25
net cost; $75 incentive)
Finally I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the
City offers discounted trash collection rates for those
who have done so much recycling that they can now use
smaller garbage bins. I’m going to sign up, get a new
smaller bin, and save money while saving the Earth!
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ECOMOTION UPDATES
Santa Monica
Ted
Flanigan addresses 19 solar contracting firms in Santa
Monica during the Solar Contractor briefing there. EcoMotion
is facilitating Solar Santa Monica, a demonstration project
involving the retrofit of 50 buildings. EcoMotion’s task
is to develop a market- based model to help the City achieve
its goal of energy independence. To do so, EcoMotion is
bundling energy efficiency and solar power and melding
the good standing of the City, the interest of its citizens,
and advanced technologies to make Santa Monica a net zero
electricity importer by 2020.
Corona Department of Water and Power
Working for Corona (California) Department of Water and
Power, EcoMotion has completed a detailed evaluation of
one new customer’s “excessive” power bills. EcoMotion
analyzed eight factors to provide CDWP and the customer
with detailed recommendations for tightening operations
to reduce bills, the facility’s footprint, and for nearby,
new developments.
Coachella Valley Housing Coalition
In partnership with Facility Dynamics Engineering – and
its lead Southern California engineer Tony Pierce – EcoMotion
has recently completed an analysis for the Coachella Valley
Housing Coalition, developing a strategic air conditioning
approach for its new La Quinta Dunes housing development.
Harbor Gateway North Neighborhood Council
Pictured above are B.J. Mynatt (right) and Bettye Watson
(left), President and Vice President of the Harbor Gateway
North Neighborhood Council, with Ray Paduani and Ted Flanigan
at the site of a new Sam’s Club just north of the Port
of Los Angeles. Mynatt asked EcoMotion to help her community
minimize the environmental footprint of the new “big box”
by maximizing solar power.
Cindy Lee, Intern
University of California Irvine student Cindy Lee interns
at EcoMotion.
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| “Long
live EcoMotion and Director Chen! Thanks again for what
sounds like a wonderfully productive effort with our Chinese
colleagues.”
Ralph Cavanagh, Natural
Resources Defense Council
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Movie Review: The Great Warming |
This past weekend, I had a hot date. Well, better put, my date was flexible. Instead of taking her to a thriller like Mission Impossible III, we made a big effort to go see The Great Warming, another documentary on global warming. Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the Great Warming presents a sobering picture of man’s role in changing the climate and threatening our existence on what now appears to be a very fragile global ecosystem.
The Great Warming was produced in Canada and features a wealth of fascinating footage from around the world. Unlike An Inconvenient Truth, it presents few if any charts and graphs, and has no talking head. Instead, if features compelling animations and scientists from around the world, as well as concerned citizens and professionals, telling their stories. And the movie concludes far more optimistically than Gore’s dire tale, presenting a wide variety of solutions that leave the viewer with hope for the future.
But back to viewers for a moment: While its advertisements featured Alanis Morissette and Keanu Reeves, and pledged to reach those that would never listen to Gore in any circumstance, my date and I were the only ones in the theater. At one point a few second-movie opportunists straggled in, and then straggled out after catching the drift of the film in a few minutes or less. While I appreciate the movie, and recommend it, it – like the Gore movie -- is not worthy of the big screen, and certainly cannot be recommended as date material!
For more information see: thegreatwarming.com
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Water Turbines
Hit New York
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Water turbines, or more accurately underwater tidal energy turbines, are a hot topic around New York. In fact, three water turbine companies are competing for the best sites in New York’s East River. Others are competing for sites in “the race” of the Plum Island gut and near Fishers Island where the currents are strong and the waters deep. Water turbines capture natural currents and generate renewable electricity.
The most ambitious proposed project covers 136 square miles at eastern end of Long Island Sound. Permits have been filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for rival projects as well. One firm, Natural Currents, plans a 1 MW pilot installation, followed by a 250 MW water turbine underwater array. The modular units will be placed ten meters or more beneath the surface to avoid interfering with shipping lanes. Local environmentalists, however, are concerned about the impacts on lobster trapping. Others are “flabbergasted” calling the schemes, “another industrialization of our waters.”
The three companies – Verdant Power, Natural Currents, and Astoria Tidal Energy – believe that water turbines can be either affixed to pylons driven into the bedrock at the bottom of rivers and the sea, or suspended using buoys and guy wires from docks and or floats. They claim that the use of slow RPM (revolutions per minute) technologies, and amply spaced systems well beneath the surface even at low tide, will avoid fish kills and will have minimal effect on navigation.
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Solarizing Google and LA Community College |
Google's new Silicon Valley headquarters will soon
shine with one of the largest private solar power systems
in the United States. At the "Googleplex" campus in
Mountain View, California, every available surface was
evaluated for solar, and ultimately a 197,000 square
foot solar generating system mounted on rooftops and
new parking shade structures will be installed. The
photovoltaic system has a generating capacity of 1.6
megawatts, enough to supply about 30% of projected use
at the administrative complex, reducing the complex’s
CO2 footprint by 3.6 million pounds per year, equivalent
to 4.28 million car miles per year.
Remarkably, Los Angeles Community College District plans
to take its nine campuses “off the grid.” The nation’s
largest community college district, LACCD educates 200,000
students each year and plans to produce one megawatt
of electricity at each of its nine colleges using photovoltaics,
enough for all daytime power needs.
The solar program is part of LACCD's Energy Strategy
Plan which includes performance-based efficiency service
contracts and a sustainability curriculum at each campus.
Future plans call for excess daytime generation to produce
hydrogen for use in fuel cells for night-time electricity
use. LACCD's plan is to make each of its nine colleges
energy self-sufficient.
Installation of the solar panels is projected to be
completed in 2008 and to cost $7-9 million. The "greening"
is part of its $2.2 billion Proposition A/AA Bond modernization
and sustainable development programs, funded and approved
by Los Angeles voters in 2001 and 2003. LACCD will also
use incentives from Los Angeles Department of Water
& Power and Southern California Edison.
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A Million CFLS Hit the Midwest
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Commonwealth Edison of Chicago has launched the Midwest’s
largest CFL promotion in partnership with the Midwest
Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA). ComEd will make 1
million CFLs available to residential customers for
up to 60% off regular prices at more than 350 stores
across northern Illinois. The program enables residential
customers to purchase up to 12 CFLs for as low as 99
cents each at participating Ace Hardware, Do It Best
Hardware, Menards, Home Depot, and True Value Hardware
stores. ComEd will make about 250,000 of these bulbs
available to Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
(LIHEAP) participants who will receive a coupon in the
mail to be redeemed for four free CFL bulbs at participating
retailers.
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Triple-Certified Coffee |
So what’s up with the coffee you drink? Is it organic?
Is it a product of fair trade practices? Are the coffee
plants shade grown, maintaining biological diversity in
their harvest? More and more coffee drinkers are beginning
to link their values with their caffeine fixes and triple-certified
coffee. Café Femenino takes it a step further, featuring
woman- owned and operated Peruvian coffee farms. So why
drink organic coffee?
Bluntly, according to Treehugger,
“So people don't have to pick coffee amid pesticides,
and so you don't have to drink pesticides.” Why fair trade?
Fair trade coffee ensures that farmer co-ops receive at
least $1.26 per lb of green coffee — a lot more than most
coffee farmers get in the commodity market. “The coffee
biggies [Kraft, Nestle, Sara Lee, and Proctor & Gamble]
helped engineer a huge overproduction of coffee that made
coffee farmers dirt poor — a situation dubbed the coffee
crisis.”
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Toyota’s New Priuses
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The marked success of the Prius has Toyota planning more versions of the Prius, notably a mini city car and even a “beefier” crossover sport utility. Reportedly Toyota’s goal is to triple sales of its popular gas-sipper. Toyota’s Endo (shown above) once a concept car, will soon enter the Asian market and may be a clue to the look of the mini city car to come.
In related news, an update from EcoMotion Charter Member Henry Dudley: “And on the new car front, last week we bought a Smart car. 60+mpg and so much fun to drive!!! It’s our first new car in seven years and a reward for years of hauling seven or eight people all over the region in our Suburban. The Suburban sits quietly in our carport, waiting for its next big road trip, but for local driving for up to two people it’s the Smart car. It was quite an adventure going over Wolf Creek pass last weekend in a snowstorm after picking the car up near Denver.”
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