Where is my alt fueled internet? 

From the San Jose Business Journal

Seventy-seven percent of Bay Area CEOs think that global warming is a very or somewhat serious threat to the region's future economy and quality of life.
...
One third of Bay Area companies (32 percent) report they have discovered market opportunities for their business related to global warming or greenhouse gas reduction, and 52 percent of respondents say that they have made changes in their operations or policies in the past two years regarding global warming.

These are good signs. But.

At last night's Good Business Network salon eBay and Google touted their greenness. And there is credit due to both companies. However, there was the suggestion that these internet giants were somehow "inherently green" because they don't have any dirty manufacturing.

That's not how we would judge them if they were cars. What fuels these companies after all is electrons - 50% of which is coal. Since we expect auto makers to produce alternative fuel vehicles maybe we should look to silicon valley to play a stronger role in the "alternative fueled internet."

Waves of energy right under our surfboards (updated)

San Francisco launches a study of tidal power.



There is enormous potential here but tidal power is in the earliest concept stages, perhaps like wind twenty years ago. And doubtlessly there will be some of the same problems like siting and minimizing wildlife impacts. However, if the concept is proved it could become viable quickly especially since it has one huge advantage over wind - the tides are always 'blowing' so the power is available on demand, "dispatchable" in utility-speak.

Updated: More here on SF's energy plan. The target is 51% green power in 10 years.



Update: More on the tidal project on Quest radio

Update 2: The Christian Science Monitor carries an article on the topic

Sunnyvale takes up emissions report

This in from Barbara in Sunnyvale:

We in Sunnyvale are awaiting the CO2 Emissions Reduction Report, currently scheduled to be presented to Council on July 10 at 6 PM at a Study Session, prior to the council meeting. The report is expected to contain the results of the audit of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from city operations, options for a base year and reduction target, and an action plan. This report focuses on just city operations.

Council is currently scheduled to act on the report on July 24, during their regularly-scheduled meeting which begins at 7 PM.

The next Cool Cities meeting in Sunnyvale meeting will be July 12 at 7:30 PM in a second floor classroom of Toyota of Sunnyvale (a green-certified business) on El Camino between Hollenbeck and Mary. (Elevator available.)

Like many cities Sunnyvale is starting with city operations. But since city operations account for an average of 3% of a city's emissions it is essential to create the community-wide inventory, target and action plan. Sunnyvale has not signed the Mayors' agreement but the Cool Cities team will be encouraging that. Go Barbara and team!

Bush steps up

Addressing Climate Crisis, Bush Calls For Development Of National Air Conditioner

"The challenge of building an air conditioner for all Americans will be the greatest we have ever faced," Bush said. "But we must face it. We must act now to ensure that our children and our children's children can live in a world where they don't get sweaty and have to change their shirts all the time."

Sadly, the Onion remains closer to reality than we'd like...

And speaking of recycled air, for those who haven't seen it - Will Farrell's hilarious sendup of Bush making a statement on global warming

Picture worth a few words

How many cities on the peninsula and south bay have signed the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement? Pierre offers a map:



This is great progress from where we stood at the beginning of the year with only 3. Still more to go. But the real work is only just beginning. In all of the cities we need to make sure a concrete action plan is developed and implemented (Palo Alto gets a nod for having an action plan on deck).

Still much to do...

Stephanie, about that call from the headhunter... 

More news on Google's plug-in hybrid initiative.

As part of an $11 million green cars initiative, Google is creating a plug-in hybrid car-sharing fleet. Employees will be able to book a super fuel-efficient plug-in Prius online through a partnership with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, charge the car under a solar-powered canopy at the Googleplex and, eventually, feed electricity from the car's battery back to the grid.

This is a big deal. BTW, Greg? Dave? You could show up for weekend rollerhockey in one of these and recharge while we play! And Stephanie, you know that call from the Google headhunter...

A lot more on the matter at Green Wombat

Not to be outdone: Los Gatos makes a move (updated)

Los Gatos is the 15th city in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties to sign the MCPA, in large part thanks to the Cool Cities campaign and all your efforts. Let’s keep going and try to reach 20 cities by the end of this year!

Rob reports on the June 18th meeting:

Los Gatos council agreed to let the mayor sign the climate protection agreement. There was a suggestion to have signing ceremony but the mayor says he is chomping at the bit to sign and did not want to wait.

The staff had prepared a good report with 5 recommendations. The council voted to accept all of them.

• Direct staff to return to council by dec 07 with recommendations regarding greenhouse gas emissions inventory, reduction goals, and a reduction plan.
  
• Direct staff to work with regional climate protection agencies, including but not limited to joint venture: silicon valley to determine the best approach for development of a regional greenhouse gas reduction plan
  
• Considering designation of an advisory body on climate protection activities. It was agreed to convert the community services commission to this.
  
• Direct staff to incorporate policies and goals in the upcoming general plan review process.
  
• Provide direction to staff regarding the U.S Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Update: A video of the council procedings can be found here (select June 18th City Council meeting). The Mayors' agreement is the first agenda item.

Millbrae joins the leaders

Community bulletin

Millbrae pledges to reduce global warming

Millbrae is one of many cities in the United States that signed a protection pledge to save the environment.

As part of the program, Millbrae will reduce waste, use compressed natural gas vehicles for the city’s fleet, install energy efficient light bulbs in city facilities, participate in the Spare the Air program, plant 300 trees along El Camino Real, participate in Arbor Day and use waste grease to provide energy at the city’s treatment plant. The city is also a member of the Climate Protection Task Force, a collection of local governments in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, to reduce greenhouse gas.

From the San Mateo Daily Journal

Heather adds the following comments from the meeting on June 12th:

Millbrae City Council voted to adopt the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement and also voted to hire ICLEI to assist them with determining a baseline and for developing goals and milestones for decreasing CO2 emissions. Stephanie and Ben Liu gave great support speeches following a wonderful presentation made by one of the city staff members. Ben offered to provide the city with a free solar site survey of their buildings. The Mayor showed interest and one of the staff took Ben's card.

Well, that's all for now. We'll keep moving forward. It's nice to be able to convey good news. The city of Millbrae impressed us with all of the work they have done.

Best Regards,
Ben and Heather
Millbrae Co-Leaders

Great work Ben and Heather!

Yeeehaaa!! Solar fee free in Foster City!!

Just in from Kurt...

Foster City Eliminates Fees To Install Solar Panels

Foster City, CA; June 15, 2007

In an effort to encourage local businesses and residents to pursue alternative energy sources, the City Council in Foster City recently voted to eliminate all building fees associated with installing solar (photovoltaic) panels. Permits are still required but no fees will be charged.

Last year the City Council reduced fees for installation of solar panels by one half. This year they decided to eliminate the fees altogether. “We find that very few permits are issued in Foster City for solar panels. We want to make sure that people are making decisions about solar energy on the merits of the option, not on the cost of the City permits,” said Councilmember Linda Koelling.

All residents and businesses in Foster City wishing to install solar panels are encouraged to call the Community Development Department at 650-286-3232 prior to beginning the project for a free consultation on the permitting process.

For two years the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club's Global Warming team led by Kurt Newick has been doing a bang up job of getting cities to reduce their fees on solar installations. Kurt and company have helped make possible the quadrupling of solar wattage installed in our area from 2005 to 2006!

Rollerblading glimpse of the future

So my wife and I play rollerhockey. That's hockey on rollerblades. The trick is to find a good parking lot without obstructions that's the flat, the right length, and that has curbs that can serve as boards. For 10 years Stephanie has played with a group of friends in what was the SGI HQ parking lot in Mountain View.

It just so happens that this is now Google. And the group, now including me, continue to play there.

Recently Google installed an impressive set of solar panels over the lots but Sunday we noticed that a bunch of the arrays had new power cables hanging down from them with plugs. Only one thing they could be for... plugging in cars.

Sure enough Google is going in big to plug-in hybrids, a critical new technology. To the tune of $10 million.

The company is going to modify six cars, a mix of Toyota Priuses and Ford Escape hybrids, with batteries that can draw juice from the grid and feed juice back in. The promise of this technology is that if it spreads, it will enable distributed electricity storage that can smooth spikes in electricity demand without expensive new generation plants. That means less new dirty coal.

Hat tip Gristmill

Integrated Design: Amory Lovins

Amory Lovins did a recent series of five presentations on integrated design for energy efficiency at Stanford. He walks through case studies in which buildings are less expensive to build up front and are less expensive to operate (up to 80%) through integrated design which eliminates conventional heating and cooling systems.

The first presentation:
Advanced Energy Efficiency, Lecture 1: Buildings


Superwindows, insulation, orientation, etc. play prominent roles. The case examples are "real life" feasible - not specialized custom examples. The techniques and products used are readily available. It's all dependent on holistic design.

The full series at Climate Change Action

Calling all Spinal Tap fans

Spinal Tap Reunites for Live Earth To Fight Global Warming



More on Live Earth

IT push for efficiency but disclosure a problem

Google, Intel, HP, IBM and others make a push to reduce hardware energy consumption.

An estimated 2 percent of worldwide carbon emissions comes from producing the electricity that powers computers and telecommunications gear. The two high-tech titans hope to reduce that by 54 million tons of carbon dioxide a year - the equivalent of the output of about 11 million cars.

This is good, obvious business stuff with environmental benefit. The companies should be applauded.

At the same time, beyond their products energy use there is the question of the companies' own footprints.

At yesterday's Climate Savers Computing Initiative press conference at the Googleplex, a Forbes reporter asked Google exec Urs Holzle to disclose the size of the search giant's carbon footprint... ...If you operate huge server farms around the world and are locked in cutthroat competition with the likes of Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), such disclosures are more problematic. "Our carbon footprint is too close to information that is competitive," Google energy strategist Bill Weihl told Green Wombat during a post-press conference chat.

But here is a problem. As Green Wombat points out pressure for disclosure is likely to increase. In fact, if we are to be successful in curbing CO2 it's a requirement. That's the only way we can track what's happening. We will need to have this kind of disclosure be a part of the annual financial disclosures every company makes.

And ultimately we need to move away from relativistic metrics (this server is better than that server by X%) to concrete end-result metrics (these changes move address Y% towards keeping global CO2 below 450ppm). It's difficult but we are unlikely to succeed unless we do.

Renewable energy: not just hardware



Yup, it's greenware from a local firm Fat Spaniel Technologies.

The San Jose company's software monitors solar energy systems at more than 500 locations around the world. That allows the operators of solar arrays installed everywhere from the Loma Linda, California, City Hall to a Seventh Day Adventist church to a home in Ranch Mirage to go to Fat Spaniel's site and see real-time data on how much solar power is being generated and consumed.

More at Green Wombat

Updated: And while we're at it. Here's another business lead from the Wombat.

MMA Renewable Ventures is a San Francisco firm that finances and owns massive rooftop solar arrays for companies that want to power their operations with green energy but don't want to shoulder the considerable capital outlay of installing such systems. Today the MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA) is launching a new business to finance energy efficiency projects. The target: mid-sized companies - regional retailers, grocery stores, manufacturers and the like - that want the benefits but not the expense of high-efficiency lighting, energy-conserving heating and cooling systems and other technology.

Cities could be required to plan for sea-level rise 

A little noticed bill is moving through the legislature. This could have significant impact in waking up more cities to the reality of climate change.

One line blurb in the San Mateo County Times

Who you gonna call?

You've heard all the bad news and now you want to take action? Put in a CFL but figure there's more you can do around the home?

Green@Home answers the question, "What can I do about global warming?" We show people ways to save energy and reduce the burning of fossil fuels − while helping their neighbors and building community.

Learn more about Acterra's Green@Home program.

Time is short: Water in the West 

Definitely in the 'bad news' category. Even as a few voices out there continue to deny this is happening, water shortages in the West are becoming real.

With snowfall diminishing at "statistically significant" rates, spring runoff coming earlier and a dead zone the size of Rhode Island in the ocean off the Oregon coast, senators were told Wednesday that global climate change is already being felt in the West.

Dam operators, water district managers, farmers, conservationists and scientists all predicted mounting problems as scarce water supplies dwindle further in an area stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the desert Southwest.

More in the SJ Mercury.

National Climate Townhall - July 7th

MoveOn is hosting house parties for a national townhall on the climate crisis.

Sign up and get your question in!



Hat tip It's Getting Hot in Here

Meeting of the minds

Spent the morning at SSV's workshop on Climate Action Plans held at San Mateo's green library (expected to be LEED silver certified soon). There was a good crowd - perhaps 50 or so - from an interesting cross section of folks, including local city staff trying to figure this out, some business reps, and a few advocates (including Pierre Del Forge of the chapter Cool Cities core team, Mike McCord lead of Burlingame's new Cool Cities team, Margaret Suzzo of StepItUp Silicon Valley and now San Jose Cool Cities fame.)

There were several presentations - mostly top-level, soft-skills type information. I have to admit I was looking for more brass tacks stuff (methodology, resources, mechanics).

Jennifer Shephard of Canyon Snow Consulting had a pretty good discussion of stakeholder engagement considerations in rolling out a corporate emissions reduction effort. And there was a pretty inspiring 'what one person can do' story from Catherine Byer of Cornerstone Research. Catherine heads Cornerstones facilities support and started a program on her own following her participation in Acterra's Environmental Leadership Program.

Walt Hayes and Emily Harrison discussed Palo Alto which of course has been a real leader completing its community-wide inventory and action plan last year. But as Carl (?) of their utilities group pointed out afterwards - they haven't actually done anything yet on their new action plan.

Palo Alto still deserves applause for their leadership but of course the urgency now is around action. Even if there isn't a comprehensive plan we need to get everyone moving. We will know we have made progress when we look at San Mateo's library and think not how unusual it is but how far we've come.

Dell push on GHGs

Dell appears to be taking a big step.

The most-far reaching aspect of its Zero Carbon Initiative is a requirement that its suppliers publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions.

This is potentially very significant as it can ripple through factories world-wide. We should get Silicon Valley firms to follow suit. No announcement on Dell's site though, would be better if more visible.

More on Green Wombat

Lantos bill on climate change

From SF Chron. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) offers a bill on climate change to put in place a serious initiative on climate change.

It finally brings the United States to the table on climate change to deliver more than just lip service. Unlike the Bush administration's plan, the bill has binding targets and workable methods, such as a cap-and-trade system, to get there. And unlike the Bush administration's plan, the legislation includes specific strategies to engage India, China and other major polluting countries on an ongoing basis to come to an agreement. The House of Representatives will soon consider this timely bill.

It's unlikely this president will do anything constructive on the climate crisis but still it's good that some electeds are pushing. It sets the stage for progress when this catastrophic administration is behind us.

Fully solar housing project on Peninsula

From the Palo Alto Daily News

Construction of the Peninsula's only development fully powered by the sun began in August 2006 and should be completed by mid-2008. Buyers of the first-phase homes will move in next month, Pruitt said.

With price tags from the mid-$800,000's to low $1 million, the townhouses range in size from roughly 1,200 to 1,600 square feet and each comes with a 2-kilowatt solar electric system installed on the roof.

Two things of interest here - it makes sense to put solar and other green elements in up front, the costs then being amortized as part of the mortgage, and secondly home sizes are very livable without being huge.

Since WWII average home sizes have more than doubled from around 1,000 sq ft to over 2,200 at the same time that family sizes have declined. The larger the home size the larger the carbon footprint.

More from TED: John Doerr

Ok, yeah, TED was in March but this is still a great emotional talk from Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr covering a broad look at solutions and challenges:



What we are doing is not yet enough. We need a quantum leap.

Policy matters, companies matter, individuals matter. That's why we need action at every level personal, institutional, municipal, state, federal, and international.

What conversations will we have with our children in 20 years?

A little music...

Now for something a little different



Hat tip to Climate Change Action

Solar Valley

New solar alliance in Silicon Valley targeting in particular making the financing of solar more attractive...

SolarTech proposes the widespread adoption of the power purchase agreement model used by companies like San Francisco's MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA), which finances the installation of huge commercial solar arrays for corporate clients. MMA Renewable retains ownership of the rooftop systems and sells the electricity back to the client at a discounted rate. SolarTech proposes an online market to match up solar power providers and purchasers. The upside for business owners - or even homeowners if the model was adapted for residential solar power - is that they get clean green energy without forking out the capital costs of installing rooftop systems. The solar financiers reap the benefit of renewable energy tax breaks, rebates and tradeable credits associated with the projects.

More on Green Wombat

Updated: More at SF Chronicle

Disruptive technologies

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the Net Squared (Net2) Conference which brought together technologists, funders, and NGOs working on exciting technology initiatives. The buzz was all around "web 2.0" applications - peer to peer, user generated content, etc. Like the facinating Nabuur which allows people to connect on local needs all around the world.

Part of the solution to global warming is going to be around creativity to make local connections so they don't always need to be "shipped in" from somewhere else.

Some of the solutions of course need to be big. But they also need to be small - small enough for everyone to use.

One small one brought to my attention is Solio. A portable, easy to use solar recharger for electronic devices. Don't wait, get yours now! Solio's in Berkeley.

Distributed, small scale power generation is *huge*. Count up all the cell phones in the world and how much power they use - it's gotta be a big number. And in the developing world simple tools for economic development - hand held chargers, microlending, etc. - can offer a quantum leap for personal economic opportunity and dramatically reduce environmental impacts like cutting forests for charcoal.

Another interesting newcomer like Solio is BogoLight, a solar flash light.