Green A City

Canada Green Review

We've just returned from the Energy Matters summit in Ontario, near Toronto, where a number of speakers from up north and across the pond gave food for thought at this unique event:

Peter Love, Ontario's chief conservation officer, and others from the province presented on its attempt to use a combination of renewables and more energy efficient ways of replacing 80 percent of its power grid by 2020. They've already:

• phased out coal-fired plants and now are developing aggressive energy efficiency programs across industry, government and residential buildings
• started implementing renewables (5% by 2007; 10% by 2010)
• have launched a "standard offer" program to have businesses sell clean power back to the grid
• sent out 800,000 smart meters to better regulate peak demand, during super hot days, for instance

Two congenial representatives of Sweden, Anders Franzen and Magnus Schonning, gave summaries of how that country has substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions while increasing the nation's GDP. 

Sweden is using more local biomass for power, biofuels for transportation and district energy for municipal hot water supplies (Anders' city of Vaxjo, population 85,000, is almost 100% fossil-fuel free). Net result: greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden have decreased by 7 percent between 1990 and 2005 while economic output has increased 36 percent during the same period.

From the Canadian city of Markham, Bruce Ander, presented how district energy is reducing fossil fuel energy use in that city.

Wind powered light rail for public transportation in Calgary, Alberta, was the highlight of Dave Colquhoun's dog and pony show. The go-go economy of Calgary is taking taxes from the fast-growing local energy economy and is putting it back into something that will run clean and non-polluting in the form of its CTrain. 

In other big news from the north, Canada's federal government last week announced a $4,000 tax on SUVs combined with a credit for hybrids.

Some quick observations on Toronto: nice public transit system, however dated; cool curbside bike lock mechanisms and plenty of graceful street riders; stylish and large volume recycling/ non-recycling waste kiosks on street corners; nightlife and local businesses were bustling, even on a late Tuesday night. Runs With Kittens rocks!

Toronto downsides: locals say smog is getting worse; no pedestrian crosswalks despite the masses of people on foot at all hours; and poor interconnectedness with regional transit for outlying cities of Mississauga (population 650,000!!!) and Brampton (434,000). 

Berkeley-BP Biofuels Brouhaha

A public forum at the University of California at Berkeley last week explored how the new Energy Biosciences Institute may impact life on campus and earth. Besides Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, public policy professor Robert Reich and those leading research in biofuels and biodiversity had the floor.

Just a few weeks back, SustainLane Government ranked Berkeley as one of the top five US cleantech incubation clusters because of the biosciences center announcement Feb. 1. Unless the center's agreement is not signed, we would continue to rank it so. Thursday's forum was meant to suss out the unpublicized details of BP's $500 million grant to the biofuels research center, which will be managed by the federal Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories. 

At stake are three sometimes competing interests:

1. Addressing global climate change, which Chancellor Birgeneau characterized as the most urgent need facing humanity today;

2.  The ability of the university to remain reasonably independent of multi-national corporate control, and;

3. Maintaining planetary plant biodiversity and integrity in the face of genetic engineering--gentically modified organisms (GMO) are a supporting strategy of the biosciences center.

Chemical engineering professor Jay Keasling spoke to how the center's research will for the first time be "evaluating markets and (business) risks directly as a parallel part of the research pipeline." Keasling also spoke about how the center will be "educating people in government about the possibilities of biofuels."

Beth Burnside, vice chancellor for research for Berkeley, said that 70 percent of the biosciences center's work follows the standard industry sponsorship guidelines for the University. As for the proprietary 30 percent: "We won't have any control of that," Burnside said. She said that outside funding for Berkeley will increase from 3.5 percent to 5 percent as part of BP's largesse. The national university average for such funding is 7 percent, she said.

Evironmental sciences professor Ignacio Chapela said the center's funding and GMO research will compromise the university's integrity as well as the earth's biodiversity. "(Genetically modified) biofuels show tragic aspects of insatiable consumption. It's a solution for a crazed consumer binge."

Former US Labor Secreatry Robert Reich was compelling laying out for analysis some risks of major corporate sponsorship of a public university. "The gravitational pull (of BP, the center's funder) may be apparent even though invisible, like a black hole in space." He concluded: "The Energy Biosciences Institute's safeguards will determine if this is a feather in Berkeley's cap or a huge noose around it's neck."

There is no easy answer for how UC Berkeley should proceed, besides that it must use transparency, caution and dilgent financial, ethical and proceedural analyses, in addition to continuing its well-established scientific and economic research. What is clear is that the challenge to confront global climate change will produce not only unprecedented new industries and economic development opportunities; it will also produce unintended consequences that will require many more discussions--public and private--similar to Berkeley's.

Which city has the Greenest Fleet???

Las Vegas!!

Most are surprised  that Las Vegas has the highest percentage of alternative fueled vehicles in its city fleet--more than 60% of its vehicles are burning biodiesel, or compressed natural gas or are hybrid electric. SustainLane Goverment released yesterday this ranking.

The top other cities are as follows:

2. Honolulu

3. Kansas City, MO

4. Albuquerque

5. Dallas

6. Denver

7. Phoenix

8. Los Angeles

9. Seattle

10. Portland, OR

These cleaner-fuel vehicles cut air pollution locally, but they also reduce carbon emissions that cause global climate change. They push further development of clean technologies that are likely to be rolled out to consumers, and, alternative fuels provide economic opportunities for regional farmers producing fuel crops--or better still ag by-products that can be used as to make fuel, such as used cooking grease. My latest favorite biofuel is bio-butanol, which is way more efficient than corn-based ethanol, and can be made from a variety of crops.

Final footnote: two of these cities, Denver and Albuquerque, vow to implement 100% alternative fuel fleets by the end of 2007 or so.

Appearance Tonight on KRON 4 TV in Bay Area

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can watch my appearance this afternoon at about 4 to 4:10 Pacific Time on KRON4 TV's "Rob Black and Your Money." Rob and I will be discussing SustainLane Government's Top 5 US Cities for Cleantech Incubation, including Berkeley and San Jose from the Bay Area.

BP/ Berkeley Biofuel Center Plans Unveiled

Today's San Francisco Chronicle carried as its lead page-one item a story SustainLane Government wrote about on Feb. 16, when we interviewed the new director of Berkeley's Energy Biosciences Institute, Chris Somerville, in our list of leading US cities for cleantech incubation.

Anyway, besides "unveiling" Somerville, who is a visiting scientist from Stanford at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, which is co-managing the new $500 million biofuels institute, the Chronicle also named others involved in the venture.

UC Berkeley professor Daniel Kamman stands out in the role of "Next-Generation Assessment" lead as part of the lab's socio-economic research. Kamman, a renewable energy expert with a strong background in economic impact analysis, has testified throughout California and in Congress about the potential of cleantech to become the lead engine of national, regional, and local economic development.

Our cleantech city ranking has been covered throughout the blogosphere ( Joel Makower, WorldChanging, Wired) and as of this morning has been picked up in print such as The Toronto Star ("Toronto Asleep at the Cleantech Switch"), The San Jose Business Journal, The Boston Business Journal, The Austin Business Journal and the Oakland Tribune.

Mayor Will Wynn of Austin, ranked number one, issued a nice statement for being recognized by SustainLane Government as the best in class. Austin media is also covering our scoop on its Clean Energy Incubator's test-bed work with city-owned Austin Energy as a national first.

Shouts out to Abendigo Reebs and the SL Gov staff of Richard Young, Ken Ott and Ramsay Millie for charting the course!

Top Ten Green Cities: Review of "The Climate Code" Episode on SustainLane's US City Rankings

The Weather Channel's "The Climate Code" covered in-depth The SustainLane US City Rankings yesterday, featuring reports from the top ten cities out of the largest 50 US cities SustainLane ranked in 2006. Look for How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings from New Society Press in April with expanded and updated information on the rankings.

Yesterday (rebroadcast Saturday, January 27 at 3, 5 and 11 p.m. Eastern), we heard about the following cities:

1. Portland, Oregon

Portland provides a great example of what cities, citizens and businesses can do together to improve their quality of life along with the local economy.

Once having some of the nation's poorest air quality, Portland now has some of the best air and tap water quality nationwide, along with free public transit downtown, the highest bike-to-work rate, the most LEED-certified buildings, strong local food and an emerging alternative fuels economy. Plus the real estate community has backed the first residential home multiple-listing service with green features in history.

2. San Francisco

San Francisco is a close competitor with Portland for managing sustainability programs that help provide the nation's best solid waste diversion rate (recycling and commercial composting), and feature bold projects for solar and tidal energy generation. San Francisco's housing affordability remains an issue that forces many to commute long distances into the city. Fortunately the Bay Area features strong public transportation to help make that commuting less polluting and congested.

3. Seattle

Mayor Greg Nickels, who appeared on "The Climate Code," is a strong national advocate for climate change policy, clean technologies, green building and effective sustainability policy management. Seattle, its port authority and King County, have been teaming up on biodiesel ferry and bus initiatives, while the city has strongly pushed for restoring native forests in the Emerald City.

4. Chicago

My hometown, and each time I visit, I'm more wowed by what I see under Mayor Daley's leadership. Mayor Daley, who spoke on "The Climate Code" about wanting to go from #4 in the SustainLane rankings to #1, has been greening streets, freeways and even abandoned industrial sites.

Chicago blends the aesthetic with the technical aspects of sustainability: the world's largest green roof at Millennium Park underlies a Frank Gehry-designed bandshell, all part of an ongoing study to reduce urban heat-island effect.

5. Oakland, California

Oakland is a great "sleeper" in the top ten, with growing public transit use, policy supporting more local food, renewable energy and a move toward energy security. New Mayor Ron Dellums is instituting a "green collar" jobs program for youth and low-income workers, so that the clean tech jobs the city is trying to lure can equally benefit professionals, skilled people in the trades, unskilled workers and students.

6. New York City

With the country's best urban public transit system, New York is not resting on its laurels. Mayor Bloomberg is putting his weight behind city appointments, committees and processes that are making a sustainability plan a reality in 2007. Out of such activities, look for the city to assume a leadership role in developing alternative fueled vehicles, renewable energy (including tidal) and Gotham-scaled green buildings.

7. Boston

The Bean goes Green. Boston is poised to become the leading city for green building with its new zoning requiring that all buildings over 50,000 sq. feet be LEED (the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. Add that to high renewable energy use, great public transit, walkability and low sprawl, and you get a promising future. Weakness: recycling. 

8. Philadelphia

Philly's #8 has been a surprise to some, but the city is a great model for local urban food, with strong networks of farmers markets and community gardens. The city also is riding a wave of interest in sustainability from citizen groups, business (including the local Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), and just plain folks who have been attending large planning and visioning meetings.  From that process the city needs a sustainability plan that city officials buy into, along with more recycling and renewable energy.

9. Denver

When cities claim that they can't build public transit like that of such "older cities" in the top ten, I always point to Denver. The city and 30 surrounding towns in 2004 passed a ballot measure to build out more than 100 miles of new light rail and other new public transit lines.

Mayor Hickenlooper has made sustainability the foundation for the city's future, through economic development that will be integrated with the new public transit. The skinny: 4x current public transit ridership in 15 years and a vital new American city.

10. Minneapolis

Minneapolis wants to increase its energy and food security, as Mayor R.T. Rybak described on "The Climate Code" yesterday. The city will continue being the leader in renewable energy for Midwestern cities, while bolstering farmers markets and community gardens (it's already #1 in that area), and green building. 

Portland to Use 5% Biodiesel Citywide?

Portland, SustainLane's #1 city in its US City Sustainability Rankings, is introducing legislation that would require that all diesel fuel sold within the city contain 5% biodiesel starting in 2007 and move to 10% by 2010. Besides ethanol use, it's one of the first times any U.S. city has attempted to truly wean itself off its addiction to oil not only on the demand side (public transit, planning, etc.) but also on the public supply side.

Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil rather than fossil fuel, and besides polluting about half as much as regular diesel fuel, it also can be homegrown from American crops such as canola and soybeans. It can also be blended with typical diesel fuel.

I just spoke with the Portland city commissioner that introduced the measure this week, Randy Leonard. "Our hope is that it does develop into an economic initiative for the state of Oregon. We will be successful if we establish a program that ends up reducing our dependenece on foreign oil," Leonard said. "The fear in this state is that the large oil corporations have manipulated the market. This ordinance will also increase reliance on the American farmer rather than on the executives at Exxon."

The five-member Portland city council made of Leonard, three other commissioners, and Mayor Tom Potter, will discuss the proposal Wednesday before voting on the measure Wednesday, July 5.

"We're digging in for an onslaught from the oil industry,  which is claiming that the supply of this fuel is inadequate," Leonard said.

The availability of biodiesel is definitely an issue when attempting to legislate such supply-side approaches. But Leonard believes that the old conundrum--the chicken and the egg and which came first--applies here. "East of the Cascades in Oregon the land is ideal for growing canola. Farmers in Oregon said they would grow more of this crop for biodiesel, but the market isn't large or predicatable enough, so this builds predictability into that market."

As part of Leonard's ordinance, Portland's city fleet, about 25% which use alternative fuels including biodiesel, is also being directed to use at least 20% biodiesel in all diesel vehilces. According to Tricia Knoll at the Portland Water Bureau, her agency is shifting this summer from 20% biodiesel use to 99% biodiesel for its fleet of more than 140 vehicles. Berkeley, California previously made the switch to 100% biodiesel for its fleet of 180 trucks. They then switched back to B20(%) and now reportedly are ready to switch back to B99.

Leonard is also introducing legislation to make regular gasoline in Portland contain 10% ethanol-based fuel throughout the year. A state measure is set to expire that mandates 10% ethanol for regular gasoline throughout the city during winter months because of air pollution.

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On my commute ride in to San Francisco today I was joined by mountain biking legend Joe Breeze, one of the sport's early pioneers. Breeze and fellow Marin County locals Gary Fisher and Otis Guy started in the mid-1970s tricking out their balloon tire Schwinn bikes for the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. In what history is calling the first mountain bike race in 1976, Alan Bonds won, being the only rider not crashing during the 1,000-foot shotgun descent. For fastest times over  the next few years, Gary Fisher came in number one and Breeze a close second on Fairfax, California's notorious Repack. Check out these mondo photos of Joe and others racing on this dirt fireroad.

Joe was commuting this morning to his job in Sausalito, which is where his "transportation bicycle" company Breezer is located. These durable and functional bikes are equipped with racks, headlights and tailights, and mud flaps for ultra dependable bike commuting. They're built for the challenges of city and suburban commuters, not the trails of Mt. Tam, and they are hitting a sweet spot of need for gas-free transportation that many are turning to in cities throughout the U.S. Joe told me while we rode along that his company has shown 40% growth each year since they launched in 2004.

Is Breeze still living up to his name? Well, to give you an idea, I was on my skinny-tire road bike and he was on a heavier hybrid Breezer and kept pace with me until we split off in Sausalito 12 miles later.

Look for an upcoming movie featuring Joe Breeze and others from that fat-tire genesis, called Klunkerz, which comes out this summer and might be debuting at the upcoming Sundance.    

Greenspan on Oil Addiction

Did anyone else catch Alan Greenspan's testimony before the foreign relations commitee yesterday? He seems as worried as the rest of us about our nation's dependence on foreign oil.

"We're out of the market essentially as a very critical player with respect to price," Greenspan told the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He said,"current oil prices over time should lower to some extent our worrisome dependence on petroleum," with the development of alternative fuels and broader use of electric-hybrid cars. This "would help to wean us of our petroleum dependence," Greenspan said.

"We are gradually ... weaning ourselves off petroleum. It is slow and in many ways like watching grass grow," Greenspan said, adding that if the shift "happens smoothly, that is the best of all contingencies. ... But what happens if it doesn't go smoothly."

Greenspan went on to discuss ethanol as an alternative fuel source, but noted its tie to corn, which does not make sense in terms of energy efficiency as it requires so much petroluem-based fertilizer. Cellulosic-based ethonal from switchgrass and other non-food plants is a much better option, according to the former Federal Reserve chairman and other experts.

Is it just me, or am I giving Americans too much credit thinking they can cut down oil dependency through driving less in more fuel-efficient cars, riding public transit, working closer to home and occasionally telecommuting? Is it un-American to expect such behaviors rather than always seeking out the next-generation technology that will act as a magic silver bullet?

Time will tell.