The Rhizome Collective operates out of a warehouse in Austin, Texas. Their mission is “to build the world [they] want to live in” through community organizing and education.

When the Collective got started, the warehouse where they work was centered on an asphalt courtyard. They pulled together to remove the asphalt and mulch the land. Now, the Rhizosphere Educational Center is home to a garden, rainwater harvesting, a polyculture pond, micro-livestock, and solar and wind energy collection. By designing these systems and living sustainably and through their workshops, they hope to help educate other communities about self-reliance.

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• Over in Dallas, for instance, officials and urban designers are gathering today for an all-day “charrette” (or brainstorming session) to figure out what it would take to create a fully sustainable city block. They hope to follow up their meeting with an international competition to design just such a thing. (You can read more here (PDF)).

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Whoever said a sustainability was impossible?!

Sustainability, impossible?!? That kind of negative thinking is nowhere to be found among the members of the Rhizome Collective in Austin, Texas.  They see a problem with the way we are currently living, and damned if they aren’t going to fix it!

Rhizome Collective chose their name based on the meaning of the word rhizome–

“An expanding underground root system, sending up above ground shoots to form a vast network. Difficult to uproot. “

–and the name couldn’t be a more perfect fit.  Rhizome Collective distinguishes itself as an exemplary resource center for sustainable efforts across the country, offering workshops, consulting and now even a book for others who wish to start up their own deeply green community.

What makes Rhizome Collective special?

Just one look at their Virtual Tour makes clear: Rhizome Collective is thorough and well-researched about the work they do.  They are also optimistic that the knowledge of natural systems can be applied to make the world far, far more sustainable than it currently is.

Furthermore, Rhizome Collective operates on what some would argue is likewise a “forward-thinking” model–a consensus-based, anarchistic (or “direct democracy”) organizational model.  Their hopes for environmental justice mirror their efforts for equality and fairness in organizing, too.

Sustainability in action

Anyone in the Austin area has probably heard of Rhizome Collective through its two-year transformation of the seemingly hopeless Grove Brownfield problem in the Montopolis neighborhood of Austin.  In just two years, the team of over 175 volunteers turned a decades-old landfill and illegal dumping site into an open space, on its way to remediation and reuse.  This outstanding accomplishment was honored with a major grant from the EPA Brownfield Cleanup Award, and Rhizome Collective’s emphasis on reusing the brownfield’s debris in creating an “environmental justice park” on the site garnered even greater praise.

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Americans produce millions of tons of e-waste each year. Our old computers, cameras, VCRs and so on are full of toxic substances that, if disposed of improperly, are terrible for our ecosystem. Sony is teaming up with Waste Management to help consumers responsibly dispose of e-waste. They’re hosting events across the U.S. and accepting TVs, computer monitors, computer systems, VCRs, DVDs, cameras, phones and other consumer electronics.

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Well, an engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin thinks he might have an answer to the second objection.

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• zero-emission electric cars and trucks
• hybrids
• plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, rated in excess of 100 miles per gallon
• vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells, natural gas, propane, biodiesel and ethanol

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Using a one-atom thick, carbon-based material known as graphene, the research team says it has already matched the energy storage capacities of today’s ultracapacitors. Eventually, their calculations show, graphene sheets could store twice as much energy as a standard ultracapacitor.

We currently have two main ways to store electrical energy: in batteries and in ultracapacitors. Finding an effective way to store large amounts of energy is critical for making the most of renewable energy sources like sun and wind, which deliver variable — rather than constant and steady — amounts of energy.

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Last week, the Austin City Council approved a $2.3 billion purchasing agreement with what will become the largest wood-waste-fueled biomass plant in the United States. The city will buy all power produced by the 100 megawatt facility for the next 20 years

Once completed—which should be sometime in 2012—the Sacul, Texas plant will be the largest of it’s kind in the country. The facility will generate power from burning wood waste from logging and mill operations, urban waste from tree clearing and trimming, and from shipping pallets.

All sources of fuel are required to meet Texas Renewable Energy Credit Standards and Texas Forestry Management Practices.

Businesses and some environmental groups have nonetheless voiced concern over the cost of the project and its environmental impact.

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In a new study published in the online journal Environmental Research Letters, Amanda Cuéllar and Michael Webber conclude that harnessing the full potential of cow poop power could not only help generate as much — or more — electricity as wind and solar power do today, but could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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If you think the energy/food potential for hemp is underutilized, wait’ll you get a gander at algae. This little microorganism really packs a punch.

According to The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know is Wrong (2006, Harmony Books) (I highly recommend it, by the way — it’s packed with fascinating information and weird insights), algae breathes out more oxygen than all the world’s land-based plants and trees combined. Certain types of algae also deliver a whopping amount of protein and nutrients per farmed acre (20 times more than soy beans, in the case of spirulina).

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Photo courtesy of Jarhelm via Wikimedia Commons

By Ecototality blogger A Siegel. Originally published on Thursday, March 29.

Austin’s Mayor, Will Wynn, is a serious plug-in hybrid vehicle supporter. And, he has been a strong advocate of PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) from Austin to Washington, DC. ”We have made our intentions clear that we want to pave the way for the plug-in hybrid …”

In short, the concept is to develop

• A concentration of plug-in hybrid vehicles plugged into
• A smart(er) grid that enables powering the hybrid vehicles or, as necessary (and according to owners’ desires), draw power from the battery back into the grid to
• Help balance out renewable power intermittency.

Austin currently receives six percent of its electricity from wind sources. As this increases, the issue of covering power requirements when the wind isn’t blowing becomes an ever more serious issue. With enough penetration of PHEVs plugged into a smart(er) grid, the car batteries can serve as storage for the grid, storing power when the wind is blowing and feeding power back into the grid when the wind isn’t blowing (and the sun isn’t shining).

As Wynn puts it,

“Really, the true beauty of this system is the fact that vehicles charged by the electric system will run on alternative energy sources, such as West Texas wind, instead of Middle East oil”

Austin plans to give $1000 to the first 1000 PHEV purchasers in the city.

Wynn is approaching this truly as a campaign. His goal is “a mafia of 50 like-minded, large U.S. cities that are fed up with pollution and high fuel costs. … Armed with commitments for fleet orders … to buy the first round of vehicles … this mafia will tell automakers that the time for change is now.”

For more information, check out Plug-In Austin.