Starting October 1st, North Carolinans will no longer be able to dispose of motor oil filters, wooden pallets and plastic bottles in landfills.

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In recent posts on Planetsave and EcoWorldy about moratoria on soya and cattle products related to Amazon destruction, it was mentioned that McDonald’s is helping to save the Amazon. With the company also delving into green building, progressive energy saving software, and charging stations for electric vehicles, is McDonald’s a green company?

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Looking at a map of installed wind energy capacity in the U.S., one can easily see that the Southeast does not generate much wind power. Generally speaking this is because states like Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana have a poor wind resource. But in other places, like North Carolina for example, there’s a little more to the story.

In addition to a sub-par resource, political opposition based largely on aesthetics have prevented wind power from taking off in the western part of the state — where the only viable onshore resource exists. And if a bill currently being considered by the state legislature effectively banning large turbines wins approval, wind power won’t be taking off any time soon in the Tarheel State.

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Coulomb Technologies was founded in 2007 with the mission to ensure that anyone who is considering the choice to buy an electric vehicle will have adequate access to fuel for the cars.

In the US there are 247 million cars but only 53 million home garages, meaning that a lot of electric vehicles will need to be fueled outside the home garage. Exacerbating the situation, according to studies at UC Davis, 80% of owners of electric vehicles will want to charge more than once a day.

It comes to this: we need charging opportunities where our cars are parked when we sleep and when we work. Since Coulomb’s founding, much as been written regarding the “chicken and egg problem” with infrastructure and vehicles. Will people buy electric vehicles if they don’t have a place to charge them, and conversely, will anyone buy infrastructure if they don’t see cars?

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Come July 14th, a new “green” McDonald’s will be opening in Cary, NC. It will be the first U.S. location for the fast food chain to offer electric car recharging.

The restaurant–located at 1299 Kildaire Farm Road in Cary–will be using a ChargePoint station to provide the service. ChargePoint is a private fee-based network of charging stations. They provide grid access and related services for owners of plug-in cars.

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Atlantic wind farms alone could meet 25% of US electricity needs

According to a new report released by the Interior Department, shallow-water offshore wind farms could supply as much as 20% of the electricity in most coastal states. The report, released last week by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said that the greatest offshore wind energy potential in the U.S. lies off the Atlantic Coast which holds 1,000 gigawatts of electricity, or one quarter of national demand.

“More than three-fourths of the nation’s electricity demand comes from coastal states and the wind potential off the coasts of the lower 48 states actually exceeds our entire U.S. electricity demand,” Salazar told a summit meeting of 25X’25 America’s Energy Future, a group working to lower America’s carbon emissions.

From Maine to Florida, state and local officials have been drafting plans and regulatory structures for offshore wind farm siting and permitting.

States have regulatory jurisdiction within three miles of their coast, beyond that boundary, the federal government has jurisdiction. And the federal waters between North Carolina and Delaware hold 71 percent of the nation’s shallow-water wind resources, the Interior report says.

In North Carolina, where the shallow waters and high winds in and around the Outer Banks are legendary, state legislators and some coastal counties are already preparing standards for where to allow wind farms. The state’s sounds, inside the Outer Banks, could be likely targets.

“We don’t have a proposal yet, but in all the presentations I’ve seen, the (potential) facilities seem to be in shallow water,” Mike Lopazanski of the N.C. Division of Coastal Management told the Charlotte Observer.

The report also notes large potential in the Pacific—approximately 900 gigawatts along the coast of California, Oregon and Washington—but that deeper waters off the Pacific coast make developing that wind energy resource far more difficult with current available technologies.

There are more than 2,000 megawatts of offshore wind projects proposed in the United States, yet the country is still waiting for its first offshore turbine. Though it has yet to receive final approval from all relevant regulatory bodies, the Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts is the closest to fruition.

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Images: Sister72 via flickr; © Wmi_photography

These progressive US cities and businesses are not alone in their desire to lay the infrastructure foundation. Already in the US, cities including San Jose, San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Las Vegas and Chicago have networked infrastructure in place.

In Europe some of the biggest deployments to date are now installed in the Czech Republic, Netherlands and Amsterdam. Other businesses too are installing charging stations in anticipation of coming electric vehicles.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company installed two charging stations for patrons and employees of the brewery with electric vehicles. Coulomb’s charging stations are an important part of Sierra Nevada’s sustainability initiatives that include solar, fuel cells, recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and transportation improvements. Sierra Nevada was the first corporation to install the ChargePoint networked charging stations.

In this industry the recession helps. Tax credits and stimulus funding are providing funds to cities to pay for infrastructure. Additionally, cities, counties, and businesses are buying fleets of whatever car they can find. The time is right now, in part because of the recession, in part because every automaker has announced plans to manufacture electric vehicles.

Coulomb and our networked infrastructure have received broad support from leaders, policy makers and environmentalists. The rollout of electric vehicles in the next 18 months requires an open and ubiquitous charging infrastructure.

With progressive leadership from early-adopter municipalities, utilities, and businesses, infrastructure is in deployment now. Unlike the chicken and egg debate – there is a clear answer – infrastructure is taking shape worldwide, even though very few vehicles are shipping today. Progressive organizations are putting out the welcome mat for electric vehicles.

More on Coulomb Technologies:

• Amsterdam Goes Electric: Pilot-Program Makes Amsterdam a Pioneer
• Nevada Casino Becomes First of Its Kind to Install EV Charging Stations
• Henrik Fisker Debuts Karma Plug-in Hybrid in San Jose [+pictures]

Coulomb Technologies was founded in 2007 with the mission to ensure that anyone who is considering the choice to buy an electric vehicle will have adequate access to fuel for the cars. Visit www.coulombtech.com to learn more about Coulomb’s infrastructure plans and where you can find a local charging station. Follow Coulomb on Twitter @coulombevi

The NAACP has joined with environmental groups to oppose the construction of three power plants because of concerns that burning the feces will expose poor people to arsenic and other contaminants.

“Everyone wants jobs, but you have to be against a job that on the back end may bring disease,” said William Barber II, president of the state NAACP. “I guarantee you if they attempted to put it in a suburban community or a higher-income area, it would be an all-out fight against it.”

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Last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom reported for us that the city had just installed 3 charging stations for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Yesterday, the News & Observer reported that Raleigh, N.C. plans to install eight plug-in charging stations over the next few months, under a program called Project Get Ready.

Like the San Francisco-based program, drivers will access the charging stations through key-cards. In Raleigh, this means simple credit card access at a cost of about 2.5 cents per mile, while the SF-based program uses chargers provided by Coulomb Technologies at no cost, but are only available to members of the car-sharing programs City CarShare and Zipcar.

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According to the EPA, “The wastewater produced from the wet-processing of coffee places a heavy burden on the local ecosystems. Currently, there are few environmentally sound measures that monitor the discharge of this effluent. It is often discarded in a manner that disrupts both streams and the local water supplies.”

What’s the solution? A team of students at Appalachian State University, located in Boone, North Carolina, think they might have the answer. You might call it (as the EPA has) “fair-trade ethanol.”

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What started as a dinnertime conversation could revolutionize disaster relief. Chuck Cooper and his friend Jim Shamp were chatting about a neighbor’s free-standing home photovoltaic system. What if, they wondered, you built something like this on a truck that could help out areas in need to electricity? Cooper, a North Carolina environmental entrepreneur, took that idea and ran with it.

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For two weeks in the end of September, there was no gas to be found in the county surrounding Asheville, North Carolina and most of the gas stations remained closed.

The recent hurricanes are being blamed for shutting down the nation’s gas supply by up to 22%. But the problem remained far worse in this region of North Carolina.

Even over a week after the main pipeline to the East Coast, the Colonial pipeline, had reopened, gas remained scarce and there were few answers as to why.

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Duke Energy has a few small obstacles to get past before it can move forward with its plan. The company is offering 100 million dollars to any company that can supply the necessary materials, panels, and labor for the project. They hope to get started in early 2009. In addition to finding a supplier, they must also gain the approval of the North Carolina Utilities Commission. It seems likely though that they will obtain approval in the next few months, given the considerable amount of public interest in clean energy projects.

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Cleantech & Green Business Leaders for Obama (Cleantech for Obama, or CT4O) kicked off its campaign in San Francisco this week. The organization plans to hold fund-raising events across the country to collect at least $1 million to support Obama’s campaign.

Some of the group’s coming events include a Sept. 7 “Barbecue for Barack” in Durham, North Carolina, and an Oct. 11 “Baracktoberfest” in San Francisco.

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The commercial denounces the proposed gas-tax cut, a proposal which Senators Clinton and McCain both support, as the type of quick-fix policy solution that is emblematic of Washington politics. Running time: 1 min.

This story contains additional media. Click here to view the media.

See Also:

“Can Hillary Clinton Take On Big Oil?”

“Video: Obama on Climate and Energy”

“Clinton Takes Jabs at Obama’s Energy Policy”

These progressive US cities and businesses are not alone in their desire to lay the infrastructure foundation. Already in the US, cities including San Jose, San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Las Vegas and Chicago have networked infrastructure in place.

In Europe some of the biggest deployments to date are now installed in the Czech Republic, Netherlands and Amsterdam. Other businesses too are installing charging stations in anticipation of coming electric vehicles.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company installed two charging stations for patrons and employees of the brewery with electric vehicles. Coulomb’s charging stations are an important part of Sierra Nevada’s sustainability initiatives that include solar, fuel cells, recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and transportation improvements. Sierra Nevada was the first corporation to install the ChargePoint networked charging stations.

In this industry the recession helps. Tax credits and stimulus funding are providing funds to cities to pay for infrastructure. Additionally, cities, counties, and businesses are buying fleets of whatever car they can find. The time is right now, in part because of the recession, in part because every automaker has announced plans to manufacture electric vehicles.

Coulomb and our networked infrastructure have received broad support from leaders, policy makers and environmentalists. The rollout of electric vehicles in the next 18 months requires an open and ubiquitous charging infrastructure.

With progressive leadership from early-adopter municipalities, utilities, and businesses, infrastructure is in deployment now. Unlike the chicken and egg debate – there is a clear answer – infrastructure is taking shape worldwide, even though very few vehicles are shipping today. Progressive organizations are putting out the welcome mat for electric vehicles.

More on Coulomb Technologies:

• Amsterdam Goes Electric: Pilot-Program Makes Amsterdam a Pioneer
• Nevada Casino Becomes First of Its Kind to Install EV Charging Stations
• Henrik Fisker Debuts Karma Plug-in Hybrid in San Jose [+pictures]

Coulomb Technologies was founded in 2007 with the mission to ensure that anyone who is considering the choice to buy an electric vehicle will have adequate access to fuel for the cars. Visit www.coulombtech.com to learn more about Coulomb’s infrastructure plans and where you can find a local charging station. Follow Coulomb on Twitter @coulombevi

The proposed installation would be able to generate 1 megawatt of electricity, nearly 10 times as much as the next-largest solar farm in the state. That facility, located at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, produces about 105 kilowatts of electricity.

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