Jul 17 2009

The Green Seen

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:

• San Francisco is hosting an international design competition this week for ways to protect flooding of the region's coastal areas from rising seas due to global warming. There are projections of an increase of up to 55 inches above high tide in San Francisco Bay in the next 100 years. The competition, organized by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, attracted 131 entries from 18 countries; they included giant levees, a carbon fiber curtain under the Golden Gate Bridge to limit tidal flows, restoring marshes to offset flooding, tall buildings on high ground, and much much more. You can see the entries at the Ferry Building through Sunday, July 19, and the winners also are available at risingtidescompetition.com
• London is introducing Volvo hybrid double deck buses capable of going up to 12 miles per hour on city streets without using their diesel engines. Data on fuel economy or emissions reductions aren't available yet but Volvo's hybrid single deck buses in Gothenburg, Sweden, have posted a 30 percent improvement in fuel economy. Chicago and New York also are rolling out hybrid buses, and closer to our San Francisco headquarters the City of Santa Rosa and the Santa Clara Transportation Authority in Silicon Valley are adding hybrid buses with the help of federal Recovery Act funds.
• Hawaii and other Pacific islands are turning to the sun to power hot water heaters. Hawaiian Electric Co. offers rebates to consumers converting from diesel-fueled electric heaters to solar, and the state government requires that all new homes built beginning in 2010 must have solar-powered heaters. Elsewhere, a growing number of businesses on Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is moving to solar-powered water heaters and lighting systems and wind turbines to generate electricity.

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