Tag Archives: EcoMotion

K’s excellent green staycation

Posted: December 10th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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I have been told, on more than one occasion, that I have peculiar ideas about having fun and relaxing.  I was off last week, staying in town, and without deadlines and editors to deal with, had time to check out some of the green goings-on about town that I don’t always have time for.

First up, last Monday, was sitting in on a lunch webinar held by the Coachella Valley Branch of the U.S. Green Building Council. The topic was Passive House technology, developed mostly in Germany, but also with contributions from Canada and the U.S.,  that allows buildings to run on minimal power for heating or cooling — kind of like net-zero on steroids. Being certified as a Passive House is a complicated process, involving filling in an Exel spreadsheet with 42 tabs.

Here’s the official definition from the Passive House Institute of the U.S.:

A Passive House is a very well-insulated, virtually air-tight building that is primarily heated by passive solar gain and by internal gains from people, electrical equipment, etc. Energy losses are minimized. Any remaining heat demand is provided by an extremely small source. Avoidance of heat gain through shading and window orientation also helps to limit any cooling load, which is similarly minimized. An energy recovery ventilator provides a constant, balanced fresh air supply. The result is an impressive system that not only saves up to 90% of space heating costs, but also provides a uniquely terrific indoor air quality.

The interesting thing here is that some projects are now going for double certification, both the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification and Passive House. The reason is that Passive House is focused for the most part on building performance — which has always been a weakness of LEED. The kind of things it covers, ranging from building siting to water use, may not always guarantee low energy performance.  Passive House does.  

Eric Corey Freed, co-chair of the CV Branch, would like to see a Passive House building in the valley; even with our blistering summers, he thinks it’s possible.

“I’m of the mind set now, being less bad is silly,” he said. “Why not go all the way.”

After that, I tooled on over to the Century at The River for a screening of “Chasing Ice,” a documentary about photographer James Balog’s efforts to photograph and film the melting of the world’s glaciers, which has accelerated dangerously as the earth warms.

This is one of those films you should see for the good of your soul; it has turned climate change skeptics into believers. Beyond the beautiful and at times heart-breaking photography — the collapse of a giant ice sheet at the end of the film is like watching the death of some magnificent, mythic creature – Balog’s intense commitment to documenting the melting glaciers, taking him away from his wife and daughters for months at a time, is inspiring in and of itself.

It’s still at The River; run, do not walk.

Thursday I also took a quick trip to Desert Hot Springs High School where Ted Flanigan and the crew at EcoMotion had set up their CO2 Time Bomb for a lunch time rally their Save a Ton campaign.  Flanigan has worked with the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, doing carbon inventories and climate action plans for several cities across the valley.

Flanigan came up with the Time Bomb as a way to help people visualize what a ton of carbon actually looks like. The average Californian puts 12 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, the kids learned.  The event was during lunch period, and I was concerned about how much of the presentation they would actually absorb — they mostly stayed around the edges of the courtyard, eating their food. But at the end of the rally, many were eager to talk with Flanigan about their ideas for reducing their carbon footprint, and they all wanted the Time Bomb T-shirts, stickers and other swag the team had brought with them — so they’ll have something to look at and think about.

On Sunday, I took a quick road trip out to Desert Center to check in on Hot Purple Energy’s vegetable oil-powered race car at the 24 Hours of LeMons at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway.  I wrote about the Palm Springs solar installer’s veggie oil-powered fleet earlier ths month, but we had not been able to photograph the car fitted out for the race because it was still in the shop, so extra safety equipment could be installed. Here she is, at the track; you can see part of the roll bar in the back window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I got there a bit late. After a grueling day on the track Saturday, the HPE 350 Mercedes Benz was leaking too much oil to race on Sunday. The car managed around 78 laps around the track on Saturday and at one point was ranked 38th of the 140 cars in the race, according to Nate Otto, company president, who said a good time was had by all. 

When I got there, Sunday afternoon, Otto (right) and David Herrlinger, company VP, were hanging out, waiting for a trailer to haul the car back to the valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One question I realized I hadn’t asked Otto and Herrlinger last week was about the emissions from a veggie oil-fueled car. I mean, veggie oil comes from plant material and plants store carbon. The answer I got from Herrlinger, backed up with some of my own online research, is that veggie oil is considered more or less carbon neutral, because the plants it comes from have absorbed about as much CO2 as biodiesel emits.

But as some sites also point out, you have to take into account the emissions involved in processing the original veggies into the oil to start with. So, on a total product lifecycle basis, it’s not completely clean, but still better than traditional fossil fuels.

My last stop of the day was at Just Fabulous in Palm Springs, where owner Stephen Monkarsh collared me to show off his green gift options for the holiday. Top of the list are some very cool and different watches from a company called Wewood, which produces wood watches, some from recycled wood. Buy one of these sharp-looking time pieces and the company plants a tree — about 5,000 trees in the U.S. so far, according to the Wewood website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greenwash? Slightly, but obviously, green consumerism has become a significant niche market, which has to do with mind set. The idea that we should and in fact need to live more sustainably is making its way into the mainstream in different, creative and every-day ways.

 

Climate change — it’s the science . . .

Posted: June 6th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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When talking about climate change, the question that almost invariably comes up is — how do we know that the current warming of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans is the result of human activity and not just a natural cycle?

This is a valid question and not often well discussed, so I have to hand it to the Union of Concerned Scientists  (motto: Independent science, practical solutions) who have lived up to their name with a new book, “Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living.” The book  — and an interactive website the group has launched  – sets readers a challenge of cutting their personal greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent and lays out a range of well-documented, science-based options for achieving the reductions by making changes in their everyday lives.

But before diving into the reductions, the UCS lays out the science behind global warming and how we do know it’s not just Mother Nature having a hot flash.

First, there’s glacial ice, which contains air bubbles that provide perfect snapshots of the air and what’s in it from prehistoric times forward. Scientists drill down into glaciers, extracting cores that they can then study. Looking at the ice cores, scientists have found that over the past 800,000 years, carbon dioxide levels have never been anywhere near as high as they are today.

Next up is ”climate fingerprinting,” which involves looking at carbon molecules and changes in the atmosphere to figure out where the carbon came from.

The carbon molecules in carbon dioxide that comes from burning fossil fuels have a slightly different composition than the carbon in carbon dioxide from any other source, and scientists have found that the largest part of the increased carbon dioxide in the air comes from burning fossil fuels.

On top of that, the earth’s current warming patterns also confirm the human activity link. If the temperature increases were coming from the sun, we would see the atmosphere warming from the top down, which is not what’s happening. Instead, what scientists are finding is a warming of the lower atmosphere and cooling of the upper atmosphere — showing that the greenhouse gases are locking in the heat, as expected.

This, along with other evidence — melting glaciers, rising seas, etc. — makes for a pretty airtight case, one might say. As an increasing number of scientists point out, the only ones still debating the science of climate change appear to be U.S. lawmakers – and that denial is putting us and the rest of the world at increasing risk.

A case in point, as scientists have recently announced that carbon levels in the Arctic had cracked the critical 400 parts per million level – 350 ppm is considered the level we should be shooting for to stabilize the climate — law makers in North Carolina are considering a giant leap backward.

After the state’s coastal commission produced a report predicting a possible 39-inch rise in sea levels off the state’s coast by the end of the century, developers and officials from North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties banded together to attack the scientific models the commission had used.  Preparing for the impacts of a three-foot rise in sea levels would, it appears, put a serious crimp on resort and other commercial development in the region.

So far, the group has been successful in pressuring the commission to lower its predictions for sea-level rise by more than half, down to about 15 inches. It is also supporting a proposed law that would limit the coastal commission to calculating future sea level rises based only on historical data going back to 1900 and outdated, linear projections.

The law has not been introduced, just circulated, according to an article in the Raleigh News & Observer, but environmental officials and groups are warning of unintended consequences if it were to be passed.

The restriction could undermine  . . .  the ability of transportation and emergency-management planners to address rising waters.
The N.C. Coastal Federation, the region’s largest environmental group, said the bill could hurt local governments in winning federal planning grants. Insurance rates could go up, it says.
Relying solely on historical trends, the group said, is like “being told to make investment decisions strictly on past performance and not being able to consider market trends and research.”

Scott Huler, a North Carolina resident, has a jim-dandy rant on the whole thing on the Scientific American website.

Update: Unfortunately, the Emissions Time Bomb did not make it to Rancho Mirage on Thursday – due to some damage it sustained at a recent event. My apologies to anyone who went looking for it after reading the section below.

So, if you’re looking for a local dose of practical climate science, you can head over to Rancho Mirage City Hall between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Thursday, when the folks from EcoMotion will be inflating their Emissions Time Bomb — a 32-foot-tall, true-to-scale balloon showing what one ton of carbon dioxide looks like. 

EcoMotion's Emission Time Bomb in an appearance at the Camelot Theatre in Palm Springs in May. You can see it Thursday moring at Rancho Mirage City Hall.

EcoMotion, the Irvine-based consulting firm that has been working on greenhouse gas inventories of a number of valley cities, estimates that every valley residents puts about 9 tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year.

The time bomb is coming to Rancho Mirage as a highlight of a City Council study session on Mayor Scott Hines’ proposal for the city to form a community choice aggregation-type municipal utility, under which residents could stay with Southern California Edison or opt in to getting their power from possibly lower cost, independent power providers using renewable power.

More science, more practical solutions. It’s what we need now, desperately.

Visualizing a ton of carbon dioxide

Posted: May 4th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Green Blog | Tags: , , , , , , ,
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One of the challenges of involving people in energy efficiency efforts is getting beyond the obvious benefits — lower electric bills — to the bigger picture of climate change and doing more than the easy stuff — switching out  light bulbs and taking reusuable bags to the supermarket. 

You can say the average person in the Coachella Valley puts 9 tons of carbon dioxide in the air a year, but what does that mean? You can’t see emissions.

Ted Flanigan, the founder of the energy consulting firm EcoMotion in Irvine, decided to help folks visualize a ton of carbon dioxide by creating a true-to-scale, 32-foot-tall balloon — called the Emissions Time Bomb — and launching a new campaign urging people to “Save a Ton.”

Yup. Turns out a ton of carbon dioxide is pretty darned big. Multiply by 9 and that’s what each of us is putting in the air every year.

EcoMotion's Emissions Time Bomb will be in Palm Springs on Saturday.

Flanigan will be in Palm Springs  — with the Time Bomb — Saturday, May 5, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Camelot Theatre parking lot as a part of  the closing event for Palm Springs Bike Month. Arrive early — 8 a.m. — if you want to watch Flanigan and his crew inflate the balloon.

Some of the actions recommended to lighten your carbon footprint by a ton include –

– Reducing your driving 40 miles a week (based on a 20 mpg vehicle)

–  Composting 80 pounds of food scraps per year

– For businesses, buying 20 cases of office paper with 30 percent post-consumer recycled content.

If you miss the Time Bomb Saturday, Flanigan is bringing it back to the valley May 11 at a science fair at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus.