Green Options

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For the past several years, a motley crew of Americans ranging from novelists to energy investors to senators have warned that rising gas prices will end the suburban way of life and force hordes of people back into cities. As driving even small amounts becomes painfully expensive, it is becoming easy to accept this prediction. But will it hold up?

According to The Los Angeles Times, maybe not. Statistics show that despite gas prices approaching $5/gallon, many suburbs are doing better than cities in terms of population growth and job creation. According to the 2000-2006 census, 90% of all metropolitan growth is occurring in suburban communities.

This may seem counterintuitive—shouldn’t high gas prices encourage people to live closer to centers of employment? Well, yes. But cities are currently lacking the abundance of jobs that would encourage mass migration.

Originally posted in Gas 2.0

As if there isn’t enough bio-diesel controversy over the food for fuel debate now we have a little skirmish arising here in San Francisco. When we walk by any San Francisco restaurant (particularly the ones that have that delish yet oh so bad for you fried cuisine) we can smell where this fuss originated – the fryers. Yes, it’s that oh so wonderful french fry grease that companies like Blue Sky Bio-fuels and Got Grease work with to create biofuel. To us this method makes much more sense to reuse old oil and grease than to the create fuel directly from real food.

In this case the grease skirmish remains between the City of San Francisco and the private sector. Both Got Grease and Blue Sky pick up grease (usually for free) from small restaurants, but now the City jumped into the fryer and collects it as well. The fact that the City collects the oil isn’t a problem but the fact that the City has been using health inspectors to secure oil from the restaurants smells like burnt oil to us. Apparently a letter from the City exists that says something to the effect of “The City has been so busy collecting restaurant oil that we haven’t had time to write up violations.” Should we call this mess “Greasefellas”?

As if there isn’t enough bio-diesel controversy over the food for fuel debate now we have a little skirmish arising here in San Francisco. When we walk by any San Francisco restaurant (particularly the ones that have that delish yet oh so bad for you fried cuisine) we can smell where this fuss originated – the fryers. Yes, it’s that oh so wonderful french fry grease that companies like Blue Sky Bio-fuels and Got Grease work with to create biofuel. To us this method makes much more sense to reuse old oil and grease than to the create fuel directly from real food.

In this case the grease skirmish remains between the City of San Francisco and the private sector. Both Got Grease and Blue Sky pick up grease (usually for free) from small restaurants, but now the City jumped into the fryer and collects it as well. The fact that the City collects the oil isn’t a problem but the fact that the City has been using health inspectors to secure oil from the restaurants smells like burnt oil to us. Apparently a letter from the City exists that says something to the effect of “The City has been so busy collecting restaurant oil that we haven’t had time to write up violations.” Should we call this mess “Greasefellas”?

I hope PG&E is not an advertiser on Green Options, because they almost certainly would want to censor this post. I feel compelled to do the post because a lot of folks in the Bay Area are concerned about PG&E’s effort to subvert California’s Community Choice Energy law (AB 117). So is the Attorney General; see the article below!

Community Choice enables cities and/or counties to pool their purchasing power and collectively bulk purchase electricity from their selected providers. It is structured as a private-public partnership in which cities do their own procurement, opting for greater quantities of renewable energy than they could with PG&E, and PG&E continues to do the transmission, distribution, metering, billing, and customer service.

Recently, a neighborhood group - the Downtown San Jose Solar Project - banded together to purchase solar in bulk and find their own solar installer through a competitive bidding situation. They put their collective requirements for three solar systems out to bid by several solar companies to get the best price, equipment, warranty, and service.

As of February 20, the project included 24 San Jose homes producing 99kW of electricity. The 24 systems in San Jose will produce 3,560,000 kWh over the systems’ lifetime and will eliminate, according to today’s current fuel mix, about 5,055,861 pounds of carbon dioxide. The community group wants to see this program spread across the Bay Area and held a training for people interested in setting up their own community discount programs.

Going solar is like purchasing your electricity upfront for the next 20 years with a one-time payment. Yeah, you may save money in the long run, but the upfront payment is no joke. Currently solar photovoltaics cost about $8 per watt (installed), so a four kilowatt system will set you back about $32,000 before state and federal incentives.

Photo credit: Pete Beverly, NREL/DOE

A new model of solar purchasing appears to be coming of age: community solar purchasing programs. Last month, two colleagues in the Local Clean Energy Alliance and I carpooled to a workshop by the Downtown San Jose Solar Project about their experiences setting up a community purchasing program.

If you’ve ever been to San Francisco, or lived there for a time as I have, you can’t help but be charmed by the city, but also aware of the natural beauty of the entire 9 county bay area. That charm and beauty, in many cases, was won in difficult and often contentious battles between environmentalists, governments and developers to name a few.

This weekend at the Sasquatch! Music Festival in Washington, you can hear the likes of Bjork, The Arcade Fire, Manu Chao and the Beastie Boys. And if you listen closely, you might also hear the sigh of atmospheric relief as Carbon Harmony neutralizes the effects of all carbon dioxide emmissions resulting from this year’s Sasquatch!

You may remember from my previous post that the United States produced at least

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If not us, WHO? If not here, WHERE? If not now, WHEN?

These are the questions that gave birth to the Bay Area Urban Alliance of Sustainability three years ago. With a mission to "Inspire and integrate the sustainability movement,” and a vision to "Support the transformation of the world into a harmonious social, economic and natural environment for the benefit of all," UAS is working to connect local green organizations and individuals

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Photo Credit: Ecocity Builders

What if your commute to work included an experience in the following:

• Plant and pedestrian-friendly plazas
• Pedestrian streets
• A bike ride
• Rooftop gardens
• Bridges between buildings
• Car-free streets
• And neighborhood waterways

How different would we feel if our cities were designed “for the long term health of human and natural systems?”

At Ecocity Builders, this question is asked every day with an urban re-design approach that treats each city as a giant living organism, with

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Photo Credit: I Heart Organic

Think about the last time you ate a piece of organic fruit. Do you know where it came from?

Born from the desire to support and connect with local organic farmers, Bay Area start-up I Heart Organic is currently distributing sweatshop-free, and 100% organic American Apparel t-shirts at green festivals around the Bay Area. With 10% of all net profits to education and local organic farms,

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