New EV (Electric Vehicles) and New Places to Park Them

Been getting pretty interested in the whole Electric Vehicle thing. It seems of all the technologies being heralded out there, this one has maybe the highest "reality" factor in terms of how, when, and how much will it really cost.

To recent stories that caught my eye. First this press release about SeaTacParking offering - among other "green" updates, electric vehicle parking spots. Sure there are only four of them, and no idea what they charge to charge you, but it's still a cool idea and an indication that the EV movement continues to pick up stream (er,I mean electricity).

Then there's this one out of neighboring Spokane at The Tango billed as "The World's Faster Urban Car". I'm not sure about that, but my son's headed back to Gonzaga in the Fall so maybe I'll just pop by and test drive one for myself (you listening there Tango folks?). In addition to the obvious fuel efficiency, it is my understanding that you can use it in the carpool lane which is pretty epic especially considering our wonderful traffic. According to their website, they cost $10,000 and "are being delivered as mostly-assembled kits making completion by any customer a quick and easy task. Batteries and drivetrain are not included." Hmm, I'm pretty handy, but building my own car?

Good things happening on the EV front here in the Northwest. I'm gonna look into this one a bit more.

Symposium to Explore Land Grant Response to Globalization, Climate Change

How should land grant universities prepare to respond to the impacts of globalization and climate change on agriculture, natural resources, and communities?

A daylong symposium on that topic will kick off the western region joint summer meeting of land grant universities, being hosted by Washington State University. The meeting will attract leaders from colleges of agriculture and natural resources, Extension, and agricultural research stations from 13 western states and four Pacific territories.

The symposium will be held on Monday, July 20, starting at 8:30 am, at the Semiahmoo Resort near Blaine, Wash., launching the three-day meeting.

At noon, the symposium will hear from Rajiv Shah, President Obama’s nominee to become U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary of Research, Education, and Economics and Chief Scientist. He will discuss the impacts of poverty, population growth, energy depletion and globalization in developing countries. Shah has been Director of Agricultural Development for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In that role he managed the foundation’s programs focused on reducing poverty and hunger by improving agricultural productivity.

The cost to attend the symposium is $35 per person.get more details here.

My Boat Trailer Tire - A Green Story

Sometimes the opportunity to be green comes at an unexpected time. In fact I didn't even consider this a green story until I told my business partner John about it.

Last week my sister flew up and we planned to all the family and my boat over to Chelan. It gets us the warm, sunny part of the State, but it's about a 4 hour drive and over mountain pass. Anyway I realized that I needed a new spare tire for my boat trailer since years before I had had a blowout in the middle of nowhere and trailer tires are specialized and it was hard to get one. Anyway, one shouldn't leave home without a spare, especially on a long trip. So, I starting calling around, and best price I could find for tire and rim was $250 pretty much anyway I sliced it.

Then my brother in law had an idea. Call the guy who fixes trailers and see if he has a spare 'spare' laying around. So, off we go, we had to jack up the trailer and take one of the tires off just to make sure if we found one the bolt pattern would match. So we go visit this guy who has a small business and he's got all kinds of spare stuff and old parts and sure enough, he sold me one for $50 that would work just fine.

So I saved a couple hundred dollars, put back into service something that was just laying around, and helped a small business guy put a few bucks into his pocket.

And that's the green story of my boat trailer tire.

Cash for Guzzlers

I've been following this issue closely because of it's potential impact not only here in Washington State, but Nationwide. Follow the progress of the Cash for Guzzlers or Cash for Clunkers legislation as it works it's way through Congress and becomes law. Surprizingly there is oppositiion from environmental groups, among others.

How much land area does it take to support your lifestyle?

From our friends North of the border comes this quiz to find out your Ecological Footprint, your biggest areas of resource consumption, and learn what you can do to tread more lightly on the earth.

I found the interface to be a bit clunky but worth slogging through, apparently it would take 3.2 Planet Earths to support us if everyone lived like me. Hmmm.

Recycle Books, Cd's and Stuff and profits from their resale goes to environmental groups

This is what we in the marketing biz call a "two-fer". Not only do you recycle your old stuff (as opposed to throwing it out) but then the money your old stuff resells for goes to environmental causes. So you save the environment and help the environment all at the same time.

I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds darn cool and it's a non-profit group so all the better. Sounds like the motivation I need to clean out my closet....

The group is called Eco Encore and here the scoop.

Happy conserving!

Kent's New ShoWare Performance Center Gets it right with LEED Certification and "Green" Parking!

Every once in a while somebody really gets it right.

Thursday, I had the opportunity to go check out the new "ShoWare Center" for the 38 Special, REO Speedwagon, Styx Concert. The 'ShoWare' is the new Events Center in Kent (about 18 miles South of Seattle). It was built by the City with anchor tenant the Seattle Thunderbirds Hockey Club - but is also available for other events including concerts, family shows, professional and exhibition sports, trade shows, and community gatherings.

The City of Kent not only built a beautiful building, they also hold the distinction of being the first sports & entertainment arena to achieve SILVER certification for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design by the US Green Building Council.

But it doesn't stop there. No only do they have FREE PARKING (when was the last time you didn't have to shell out $10 to $20 bucks to park at a concert - sheeze), but what really blew me away was this - FREE PREFERRED PARKING FOR FUEL EFFICIENT VEHICLES! Yep, hybrids, alternative fuel vehicles and carpools park right up front in one of "90 parking stalls in ShoWare Center's west lot for drivers of low-emission/fuel-efficient vehicles and/or carpools of four or more. Parking attendants and signage is in place to direct qualifying vehicles to the designated parking stalls."

As far as I know, this is the first venue to offer free preferred parking to fuel efficient vehicles. The closest thing I think I've ever seen to this is in Vancouver, Canada, where they have small on-street parking "half spots" in preferred locations just big enough for a Smart Car, Mini or motorcycle.

Think of the ramifications if all government venues or even private employers starting offering this!

Would it stimulate YOU to go get a more fuel efficient vehicle if you knew there was a FREE parking space waiting for you right up front?

1,000 Web Sites to Visit Before You Die.

By now you've no doubt seen various incarnations of the '1,000 Best' books. Thought I'd throw in my own version for those looking for environmental information. The Editors at the World Environmental Organization have located and catagorized 1,000 of what they call "the most useful environment related web sites". They are arranged into several categories, each containing 100 web sites. link here. Maybe they should have titled it "1,000 web sites to keep us ALL alive...."

Get A $20 Bike Shop Gift Card for Riding Your Bike to Work.

A Lynnwood, Washington bike shop is offering a $20 gift card to anyone that rides their bike for 20 days via an alternate means of transportation- biking, walking or public transit. All Seattle-area business, non-profit and government workplaces are eligible to participate. Seattle-area residents and workplaces who are interested in being part of the program can learn more by downloading a flier here.

Gas for $1.80 Per Gallon In Seattle????

Well, sort of. Compressed Natural Gas, that is.

Okay, I know this is a bit "niche" and I'll admit that I don't know how many CNG vehicles are currently running around the street of Seattle. That being said, even a casual reader of my blog knows what a HUGE fan I am of alternative fuels. Bottom line, we HAVE to get off of our "oil addiction" if this planet is going to survive for our children- so I am in favor af anything and everything that has even a promise of moving us in that direction. And hey, gas at $1.80 a gallon in a Honda Civic is pretty darn attractive.

Here's the story from Environmental Protection:

PetroCard, a fuels distributor, and Waste Management announced on May 1 the grand opening of a "Clean N' Green Fuel" compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station in South Seattle, the first public-access CNG facility in the city. For businesses and consumers with CNG-compatible vehicles, the facility offers a readily available and affordable fuel. The station sells CNG at prices typically one-third below gasoline and diesel.

There are currently more than 120,000 CNG vehicles in the United States and more than 8 million worldwide. Locally, several municipalities, airport shuttles and taxis run fleet vehicles on CNG including vehicles from the King County Government fleet and STITA airport taxis. The Honda Civic GX is currently the only consumer CNG vehicle on the American car market, however many standard engines can be converted to use CNG.

CNG is sold in gasoline gallon equivalents (GGEs), with each GGE having the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline. Vehicles using CNG typically have similar or better fuel economy ratings than standard gasoline or diesel vehicles, and today CNG is approximately one-third lower in price. Current pricing at the station is in the range of $1.70-$1.80/GGE.

CNG produces 17-80 percent less nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, 25 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and provides up to 85 percent reduction in toxic soot associated with conventional diesel engines.

PetroCard, based in Kent, Wash., sells fuel to commercial fleets through a chain of unattended cardlocks and provides mobile fueling services. Today the company has 66 cardlocks – 27 sites in the greater Seattle area, 3 sites in Spokane, Wash., and 36 sites in Oregon.

Seattle Makes List of Car.Com's Greenest US Cities. Barely....

This from the greencarwebsite.co.uk.

Mirror, mirror on the wall - which is the greenest city of all?

That is the question posed by Car.com’s second annual Green Cities Index which shows which areas have the most interest in hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. The index ranks cities across the USA by evaluating the number of hybrid searches as a percentage of overall car searches in each market and then ranking them.

Eight of the top 10 cities on the list can be found in just three states - Oregon, California and Washington - as the Pacific North West continues to show the greatest eco-conscious.

Eugene in Oregon finished at the top of the list ahead of its Oregon neighbor Portland and Santa Barbara in California. Meanwhile, it is cities in the south that are lagging behind with seven of the bottom 10 cities coming from Mississippi, Texas or Louisiana - Laredo in Texas finished at the bottom of the list.

Another interesting note is that in addition to the West Coast cities, it is often cities with colleges that rank high on the list. In among the top 15 cities are several smaller cities with large state universities such as Charlottesville, VA and Gainesville, FL.

Here is the top 10 in full:

1. Eugene, Oregon.

2. Portland, Oregon.

3. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California.

4. Monterey-Salinas, California.

5. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, California.

6. Charlottesville, Virginia.

7. Medford-Klamath Falls, Oregon.

8. Chico-Redding, California.

9. Juneau, Alaska

10. Seattle-Tacoma, Washington.

What City of Seattle Partnership with Nissan to build EV Charging Stations means to you.

(photo courtesy grist.org)

From the press release "The Renault-Nissan Alliance today announced that Nissan and the City of Seattle are forming a partnership to advance zero-emission mobility by promoting the development of an electric vehicle (EV) charging network. Nissan will introduce zero-emission vehicles in the United States in 2010 and will mass market them globally two years later."

Further in it states: "As part of the agreement, Nissan and the City of Seattle will develop plans to promote a charging infrastructure for EVs, as well as the deployment, operation and maintenance of a charging network. The partners also will work to coordinate the establishment of policies and help streamline the deployment of an EV infrastructure. Nissan also has agreed to make available a supply of EVs in and around the Seattle metropolitan area."

So Seattle will plan to join San Francisco and Portland Oregon in building a network of charging stations (Portland now has 11 such stations funding by their local Public utility PGE).

According to what I could find, the cost appears to be about $3,000 per charging station. One article talks about the cost to build a "network" at about $1 billion dollars. So where is that money going to come from?

Here's part of that answer "Electric vehicles received a major jolt yesterday from the new economic stimulus bill, which allocates $2 billion in grants for manufacturing advanced batteries, plus tax credits to cover the cost of manufacturing facilities. Additionally, tax credits of up to $7,500 will be available to those who buy new plug-in electric vehicles along with $300 million set aside for federal agencies to buy alternative fuel vehicles (including plug-ins), and $400 million for “transportation electrification.” Another $4.5 billion will be set aside for improving the nation’s electric grid."

And, never missing a trick, the city has also figured out a way to slip a tax increase into the plan. The announcement of the partnership also revealed the city’s plans to mandate residential permits for EV home charging stations. This appears to mean that the city will collect additional revenue by forcing EV owners to buy a permit to charge their electic vehicles, even if they are doing so at their own home on their own dime.

In my view, the biggest problem in the equation of course is not the absence or need for charging stations, it's the batteries in the cars themselves. Most electric vehicles today haul around heavy, lead-acid batteries – that take hours to charge to only get a very limited range (estimated about 40-miles). The Volt’s lithium batteries are lighter but far more expensive. This limited range may be okay for commuters, but range is a major consideration for anyone who wants to drive farther without having to own two cars.

On the good side, there are going to be significant tax credits to consumers to purchase an EV, and there are more and more options coming from both Nissan and other manufacturers. And then there are "plug in hybrids" which I personally think are a much larger market for consumers offering the benefits of both short and long term commuting. I'd personally rather see more focus there than spending money building charging stations and taxing us for it, but that's just me.