It's Getting Hot in Herre (30 Apr)

Reviewing The Latest in Environmental, Energy and Sustainability News

• Count Mrs. F and me in: A recent Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive Personal Finance Poll found that one-third (33%) of US adults who plan to purchase or lease a new vehicle say they are most likely to seriously consider an alternative-fueled vehicle for their next purchase. Most (92%) of those adults say they are willing to pay more for such a vehicle than a traditional, gasoline-powered version of the same vehicle. [Green Car Congress]
  
  
• According to the Diesel Technology Forum, the number of light-duty diesel vehicle registrations grew by 31 percent last year, and as we know, like hybrids, diesels offer fuel economy that is 20 to 40 percent better than gasoline-only vehicles. The DTF quoted an EPA study stating that if one-third of U.S. light duty vehicles were diesel, we would save up to 1.4 million barrels of oil per day, or the amount that we currently import from Saudi Arabia. [Wired's Autotopia]
  
  
• Should you go organic? Wired answers three questions about how you can live a more green lifestyle, and here's what they say about the big O:
  

  The latest data from the Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial, a 22-year comparison of organic-versus-conventional farming, firmly supports going organic: The chemical-free approach yielded the same amounts of corn and soybeans as the conventional method but required 30 percent less energy and produced less soil erosion and groundwater pollution.
  [...]
  Before you go patting yourself on the back, however, keep transportation costs in mind. A 2005 report in the journal Food Policy calculated the energy expended to truck produce from farm to market and concluded that consumers would do less environmental damage by buying locally grown conventional food than organic produce from across the continent. The ideal is to buy organic food from within 12 miles of your dinner table.

  
  Difficult, indeed, if you're hankering for tomatoes in the dead of winter. But now that it's summer, why not consider a CSA (community supported agriculture) produce program, which help to keep down the transportation miles and amp up the organic freshness. Here in Seattle, we've got a number to choose from, including the Pike Place Market and Helsing Junction Farms (which Mrs. F and I used last year, and are most likely going to do again this summer).
  
  
• Canada's top climate scientists are calling for action on climate change after the new government said it will not try to meet its emissions cuts commitments under the international Kyoto Protocol treaty. Canada's new Conservative government recently cut 40 percent of the budget for state-run programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  
  Under Kyoto, 34 industrialised nations, including Canada, are obligated to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Instead, Canada's emissions have risen 30 percent since 1990, mainly due to a booming oil and gas sector. By comparison, U.S. emissions rose 16 percent. [IPS]
  
  
• Scotland will be the site of the biggest onshore wind farm in Europe after Scottish ministers approved the project yesterday. The 140-turbine farm, to be built by Scottish Power on moorland at Whitelee, to the south of East Kilbride, will have a maximum output at full capacity of 322 megawatts — enough, it is claimed, to power almost every home in Glasgow. When completed in 2009, it will be able to satisfy more than 2 per cent of Scotland’s electricity demand in a typical year. [London Times; hat tip to Climate Change Action]
  
  
• Germany just cut the ribbon this last week on construction of the world's largest continguous solar plant. This plant demonstrates new standards in cost-efficiency for solar power. Using the master-slave inverter concept developed by Shell, the plant delivers the optimized energy output. Also, flexible installation technology--such as the use of either aluminum, wood or steel racks depending on material prices and the foundation on either concrete or piles--optimizes the costs. And if solar is viable in Germany, just imagine the efficiencies possible where the sun really shines! [Treehugger]
  
  
• Beginning this month, Cincinnati (Ohio) Metro is fueling all of its buses with a B50 biodiesel blend (50% biodiesel). This increase will make Metro one of the largest biodiesel users in the nation, consuming about 1.3 million gallons a year. Budget is the primary reason for this aggressive use of the alternative fuel. Metro?s 390 buses use about 3.6 million gallons of fuel per year. [Greeen Car Congress via This Week in Sustainable Mobility at WorldChanging]
  
  
• Taking a nod from MC Hammer (i.e., we got to pray/just to make it today), a Christian prayer ministry is calling for clergy around the Washington DC area to pray for lower gas prices. Andrew Leonard at Salon's How The World Works comments thusly:
  

  Actually, I'm surprised at these people. If there's one thing I've learned to count on from evangelical Christians in this country, it's that they usually think big. Praying for lower gas prices seems like a clear case of aiming too low. Why not pray for fusion power? Or a hybrid SUV in every garage? Or for the immediate relocation of all that oil currently controlled by desert-dwelling heathens to the God-fearing, but somewhat depleted, oil reservoirs of Texas?
  
  Praying for low gas prices demonstrates a pitiful lack of ambition. It's like praying that someone from the government would take pity on our 75-dollar-a-tank gas bills and write us a check for $100. What's the point?
  
  You just know God has to be having a little chuckle about this. God is well aware that low gas prices contribute to the profligate waste of fossil fuel resources, inhibit investment in renewable-energy technologies and just plain aren't good for the environment. Low gas prices, obviously, are an instrument of Satan.