2011 July 13

How Would You Grade Obama’s Environmental Progress?

9MW New Jersey Solar Roof Will Be Biggest in the USA

Ultracapacitor 101: Pros and Cons

Is It Time To End The War On Salt? In A Word, No.

Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk." Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties. Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge? Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhea...Read the full story on TreeHugger

After Lifting Fracking Moratorium, Will NY Gov. Cuomo Explain Girlfriend’s Ties to Petroleum Industry?

Tea Party Attempt to Block Incandescent Ban Fails to Get Enough Votes

DIY Laundry Soap at 20 Cents a Gallon, But Is DIY Always Green? (Video)

Many Corporate Sustainability Ratings ‘Not Financially Viable’

Environmental Leader reports on findings from the fourth and final phase of SustainAbility’s Rate the Raters research program.

From the article:

In the future, corporate sustainability ratings need to be financially viable, forward-looking and transparent, according to the fourth and final phase of a research program into such ratings, published by SustainAbility.

In the final phase of Rate the Raters, SustainAbility argues that today many ratings are not financially viable and thus cannot invest adequate resources to improve and evolve.

Ratings also need to be predictive and forward looking. It is more important to know how a company is positioned to compete in the future rather than how it fared in the past, the white paper argues.

And transparency is also key for successful future rating systems, according to the white paper. Those ratings that reveal methodologies and results will build trust and stimulate further demand, Rate the Raters says.

Read the full article at Environmental Leader.

Renewable Energy: What It Is and Who Is Using It (Infographic)

Big Coal Claims Inbreeding is Behind W. Virginia Birth Defects, Not Mining

Get Well Soon

The Lancet recently published a major international study revealing that 347 million adults worldwide suffered from diabetes in 2008 – a number that has doubled since 1980 and exceeds that shown in previous studies. As it was a scientific study, it doesn’t address the staggering economic implications of this number in terms of lost productivity and exorbitant healthcare costs for treatment and support. However, a study also published in June in Value in Health contends that nearly one in five people with diabetes are regularly unable to attend a full day at work due to disruption caused by episodes of dangerously low blood sugar. And one in every ten healthcare dollars in the US is spent on diabetes and its complications.

The Best Source of Clean Energy: Superman! (Comic)

Enterprise and FedEx: Bullish on electric cars

The company that owns more cars than any other in America is buying more electric vehicles.

Andy Taylor, who is chairman and chief executive officer of Enterprise Holdings, which owns the flagship Enterprise Rent-A-Car brand as well as Alamo Rent A Car and National Car Rental, said at a Washington energy forum today that the company is expanding its offerings of electric cars as fast as it can.

Andy Taylor of Enterprise Holdings

“We are finally getting the vehicles in some numbers,” Taylor said, at the National Summit on Energy Security, where he and Fred Smith, chairman, CEO and president of FedEx Corp.

Smith, too, made an impassioned plea to electrify the U.S.’s cars and light trucks. If the goal is to displace imported oil, Smith said, “there has never been a technology that offers this much opportunity,” he said.

While it’s great to see CEOs of big companies pushing electric cars, the numbers we’re talking about remain small. I emailed Lee Broughton, head of sustainability for Enterprise Holdings, and asked him how many vehicles the company is buying. He replied:

We have approximately 80 EVs today and just shy of a dozen Volts. By calendar year end we’ll have many hundreds of EVs and definitely many more Volts (provided they give them to us) and anticipate I-miev (Mitsubishi). We also have a dozen Peugeot i-on’s in London too. All with a charging station infrastructure across the locations receiving them.

…According to TreeHugger.com, Nissan has sold approximately 4,000 LEAFs in the U.S.; Enterprise has purchased 500, or 12.5% of all LEAFs sold as part of its roll out of the nation’s largest EV rental fleet.

Altogether, Enterprise owns more than 1 million cars and trucks, making it the world’s largest car rental company. Here’s the company’s announcement.

More significant than the numbers, perhaps, is the enthusiasm these companies are showing for EVs. Both CEOs said the economics of EVs is compelling, and that the climate and national-security benefits are real.

Taylor said his company will go ahead and purchase EVs with or without government incentives. He said customers want then, and Enterprise workers are excited by them.

“It is our family’s philosophy that, regardless of what the tax incentives are at this point, that this is coming, it should come and we should help it,” Taylor said. “If we don’t make money on these for some years, fine. Eventually, we’ll make money.” As the leader of a family-owned, privately-held company, he can afford to think long term. “We don’t have to worry about quarter to quarter.”

Fred Smith of FedEx

As a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, Smith has credibility talking about national security. Dependence on oil imports, he said, is “one of the greatest dangers this country faces….We’re still hostage to the vast majority of oil reserves owned by national oil companies, many of which are owned by governments that are antagonistic to our interests.” By contrast, there’s more than enough spare electricity generating capacity in the U.S. to power many millions of electric cars.

His company also has a lot at stake. FedEx, he said, burns about 1.5 billion gallons a year of petroleum fuels in its trucks and planes. Revenues last year were about $35 billion, so fuel costs matter. There’s also the history of FedEx to consider. “We were almost killed in the cradle by the Arab oil embargo.”

Smith is no treehugger. He strongly supports domestic oil and gas drilling. But, he says, electric vehicles can play a big part in reducing oil imports–and, more important, they are fun to drive.

“If you get into a Leaf or Volt, these are wonderful cars. They are terrific in every respect. They aren’t golf carts,” he said. Best of all, it costs 70 to 80% less per mile to operate an electric vehicle, depending on gasoline prices.

Battery prices will have to come down to make electric cars more competitive with conventional vehicles, Smith said, but he predicted that they would drop by as much as 40% in the next five years.

Taylor and Smith argued that government needs to help stimulate the growth of electric cars, by supporting EV charging infrastructure. Of course, the government is already subsidizing electric cars–with tax credits of up to $7500 for electric-car buyers as well as loans to battery makers like Ener1. Smith’s a political conservative, but he said that when the costs of electrifying the fleet, when compared with the benefits,  are “a pittance.”

This is a clean-energy technology that can’t arrive too soon.

40 Million Hunters & Fishermen Fed Up With GOP’s Anti-Environment Agenda

The History of the Bathroom Part 3: Putting Plumbing Before People

Cheap, Biodegradable Carpeting Eliminates Latex, Cuts Energy Consumption In Half

Vegan Faro Salad with Plum and Olive Oil

Boycotting Murdoch Could Be Harder Than You Think

Want to join the Facebook and Twitter crowds eager to make media mogul Rupert Murdoch pay for the hacking scandal? Prepare to give up Hulu, American Idol and the Los Angeles Lakers, too.

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Boycotting Murdoch Could Be Harder Than You Think

Want to join the Facebook and Twitter crowds eager to make media mogul Rupert Murdoch pay for the hacking scandal? Prepare to give up Hulu, American Idol and the Los Angeles Lakers, too.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The TreeHugger Recap: Tuesday, July 12, 2011