The Future is Green

It's About Time: Obama Administration Limits Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cars

Can you believe it? Good news from Washington!

The Obama administration announced on Thursday that the US Department of Transportation and the EPA have set new fuel efficiency standards that will cut greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by about 30% by the year 2016.

The new combined fuel economy average of 35.5 miles per gallon will not only reduce emissions by nearly a billion tons of greenhouse gases over the lives of all regulated vehicles, but will save owners of an average 2016 car about $3,000 in fuel over the life of the vehicle.

An editorial in today's NY Times summed it up nicely:

The new automobile fuel economy standards formally adopted by the Obama administration on Thursday will yield a trifecta of benefits: reduced dependence on foreign oil, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and consumer savings at the pump.

Urine Powered Cars; Gas Tanks Made From Chicken Feathers. Is This The Solution to Fuel Efficiency?

I couldn't resist this. A blog post on the GenGreen Life web site this week reveals two innovations in hydrogen-powered car research.

One of the problems, it seems, with hydrogen fuel cell cars is that the fuel tank needs to be extremely strong in order to store enough compressed hydrogen for a decent driving range. A tank made of carbon nanotubes would do the trick but would add about $30 thousand to the price of the car. But researchers at the University of Delaware accidentally discovered that inexpensive hydrogen tanks of great strength could be made using keratin fibers found in chicken feathers, a plentiful and renewable resource.

The other discovery noted in the article was that hydrogen can be derived very efficiently from urine. I know, I know. But think of it - you're on the road and running low on fuel and you need to find a bathroom and there's no gas station for miles. Voila! Talk about killing two birds with one stone. 

You can read the entire blog post here.

Mass transit: a sustainable solution to economic recovery. A Republican shows us how - go figure!

  It's not often that I find reason to praise conservative Republicans, but I'm making an exception for Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, NC. Largely through his willingness to stick his neck out on an issue he, himself, thought might get him run out of town on a rail, he successfully championed the creation of Lynx, a state-of--the-art light rail system that should serve as a shining example of what US cities should aspire to.

As documented last week in an excellent segment of the PBS television program, NOW, entitled Stimulus Roadblock, McCrory seems to have gotten everything right about what mass transit can do for a city and how to make it work.

Charlotte's downtown, which prior to the opening of Lynx had largely been a 9 to 5 destination for office workers, has blossomed into a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use urban environment. Businesses are thriving and real estate values have surged. In some previously troubled areas that are now connected to the city center by Linx, home prices have doubled - in this economy.

One of the things that McCrory understood about making transit work is that not only do the trains have to be comfortable, attractive, and on time, they also have to be linked to residential areas by high quality pedestrian access. As a result, ridership of the new system is nearly double what was originally anticipated, and new transit-oriented residential development has been encouraged by the city and embraced by developers.

Charlotte's successful experiment with mass transit is a paradigm of how stimulus money could be spent to create sustainable, long-term economic development. The problem, though, as pointed out by the Now segment, is that it is much easier for cities and states to get Federal money to build roads than transit systems.

In fact, cities applying for transit funding in the stimulus plan are, in effect, penalized for their effforts. This must change. Let your representatives in Congress know that you support funding for mass transit.

I highly recommend watching this piece, which you can see here.