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San Francisco mayor calls for city to go 100% renewable by 2020
San Francisco’s mayor wants an all-renewable town.Photo: jfraserWhere could you get 797 people to stand in line outside a nightclub to attend a $100-a-ticket fundraiser for a nonprofit that advocates for solar energy? Not-so-sunny San Francisco, of course. The queue to get into the Vote Solar Initiative annual spring equinox bash snaked down the street […]
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Sears Tower to become giant solar farm
The Sears Tower, lately unceremoniously renamed the Willis tower, is about to pioneer a kind of crazy-innovative window, one that produces power without obstructing the view or letting in appreciably less sunlight. It's way too complicated to explain in mere words, so hopefully this image will help. If it doesn't, feel free to be a […]
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Google Maps tells you where to shove it, where “it” is the plug of your electric car
Looking for a place to plug in your electric car? Now you can find it the same way you find everything else: Google Maps. The Goog has reached out its electronic tentacles and absorbed the Department of Energy's master list of U.S. electric vehicle charging stations (there are over 600, at least one for every […]
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What we can learn from Japan’s nuclear disaster
Nuclear plants: unsafe, uneconomic, and unnecessary.Photo: Thomas AndersonCross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute. As heroic workers and soldiers strive to save stricken Japan from a new horror — radioactive fallout — some truths known for 40 years bear repeating. An earthquake-and-tsunami zone crowded with 127 million people is an unwise place for 54 reactors. The […]
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Cities with the most energy efficient buildings: L.A., Houston, Detroit, Dallas
It’s that time of year, when the United States Environmental Protection Agency releases its list of the top 10 American cities [PDF] with the most energy efficient buildings. In this case, that means commercial buildings that have earned an Energy Star rating that signifies they consume 35 percent less energy and release 35 percent less […]
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Renewables or nuclear: maybe we do have to choose
Can we have it all?Debates over nuclear power in the U.S. tend to follow a certain course. The left says, No Nukes, Just Renewables! The right says, Screw Renewables, A Gajillion Nukes! Then the sensible centrist nods sagely and says, We’ll Need Both. Everyone who doesn’t want to be branded a (gasp) partisan ends up […]
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Can peer-to-peer sharing green the planet?
It’s all about the connections.Photo: Côte d’AzurBy the third day of any conference, one’s eyes begin to glaze over. But Lisa Gansky provided an intellectual jolt on the final morning of the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco this week when she appeared on stage to talk about “the Mesh.” That’s what Gansky, a veteran Internet […]
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Wanna green your ride? Ditch the Prius, hop on a train
Chart: EPA Here’s one to piss off the yuppies: Driving your hybrid car from your Energy Star home to the food co-op is not as green as hopping on the subway from your apartment. A new EPA study says that moving from a car-oriented to a transit-oriented community has the biggest impact on your energy […]
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Your iPod is polluting China and L.A. — and Wyoming might be next
Your 4.9-ounce iPod is responsible for at least 200 times its weight in greenhouse-gas emissions.When you bought your last Apple iPod, you may have been aware that it had been manufactured at a factory in China, perhaps the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen in the province of Guangzhou. (Let’s put aside for the moment the working […]
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As in U.S., European food giants use shenanigans to continue marketing junk to children
Big burger, little bugger: Fast food marketing to small children knows no borders.Photo: (C) sean dreilingerI just returned from a two-day meeting in Brussels. I was asked to participate with other experts from around the world (mostly from Europe) to address the problem of cross-border marketing of unhealthy food to children. In the age of […]
