cars

How much does congestion affect society?

The big story this week was congestion: the Texas Transportation Institute released its annual Urban Mobility Study to the typical fanfare. See, e.g., stories here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The headlines, as always, are gloomy: congestion's on the rise just about everywhere, and is wasting our time, gas, and money. The word from the researchers isn't particularly hopeful either. Sure, there are things that can be done to slow the increase in congestion. But they can be expensive -- and, worse, there's no guarantee that they'll actually work.

I dipped into the numbers a bit. And to the extent that the TTI estimates are actually accurate (which, as we've written about before, and as this LA Times story mentions, is a big question), it seems to me that there could be a silver lining in all of the wailing. You see, depending on how you look at things, congestion may not be as big a deal as the headlines make it out to be.

Who will lead on advancing smart-grid technologies?

To bring on the amounts of variable wind and solar energy and plug-in vehicles needed to meet our vast energy challenges, we will need a smart grid capable of managing much more complex power flows. Outside of some progressive exemplars, however, don't expect leadership to come from the utility sector. Instead, changes will be forced by new policies and players, including some you might not expect, like big box retailers.

Those were my key takeaways from the stellar line-up of smart grid speakers at the Discover Brilliant sustainable technology conference in Seattle this week. David has been blogging away from the conference, so I don't want to go over too much of the same turf. Instead I'm going to synthesize what I heard across a number of sessions and offer my interpretations.

A few statistics from the conference underscore the sluggishness of the electric utility industry when it comes to advanced technologies:

A panel discussion on how much plug-ins rule

Today at lunch: “Squeezing the Balloon — The Opportunities and Challenges in Plug-In Hybrids,” by conference moderator P.S. Reilly. Also: Andy somebody from UC Davis, John Baker from Austin Energy Andy: Oil prices are rising, peak oil’s on the way, automakers are worried they won’t be able to sell their cars. Plug-ins offer redundancy — […]

Residents in over 100 Chinese cities urged to walk, bike, or use public transit this Saturday

China, once famed as a bicycling nation, tries to put the genie back in the bottle.

Freelance writer embarks on biodiesel tour of sporting events

Freelance sports writer Joe Connor is embarking this fall on a four-month-long Green Power Sports Tour (holy neon website!), visiting more than 100 football, hockey, and basketball venues — in a biodiesel car, natch. Hey ladies … he’s self-described “very, very single” …

Cutting edge investment philanthropy from the search engine’s .org arm

Joel Makower brings news of an interesting and innovative initiative (an III, if you will) from Google.org, the search company’s non-nonprofit philanthropy arm. They’re sending out an open call asking inventors and entrepreneurs to pitch them on products and services that would speed the commercialization of plug-in hybrids. There’s $10 million in investment capital waiting […]

An open letter from 13 governors to U.S. automakers

As you know, today automakers lost their big lawsuit in Vermont — the judge ruled their their objections to higher tailpipe emission standards were, um, silly. Now, the governors of 13 states have sent an open letter to the automakers. "We do not believe it is productive for your industry to continue to fight state […]

Vermont judge rules that Calif. and other states can implement tough tailpipe emission standards

Big news: the lawsuit by U.S. automakers attempting to block California and 14 other states’ adoption of tough new tailpipe emissions standards has lost: A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the U.S. auto industry’s attempt to block California and 14 other states from setting tough new fuel economy standards, saying the industry had not proved […]

Ultracapacitor company claims it will revolutionize electric cars

The AlwaysOn Network has selected its GoingGreen 100 — the 100 top companies in greentech, based on "innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value creation, and media attention or ‘buzz.’" Here’s the category I’m watching: Energy Storage A123 Systems Bloom Energy Cobasys Deeya Energy EEStor GridPoint Jadoo Power Lilliputian Systems ZPower (Gridpoint was the top company […]