Green Options

Attending the recently concluded CAR Expo in San Jose CA we could see that things weren’t exactly hopping, especially in the Green seminars and Green expo booths. Who could blame everyone, with the still lingering effect of the economy, unemployment and overall uncertainty? The Expo offered a bevy of economic forecasts, short sale sessions and new DRE laws going into effect but of course we went to check the green goings on. How’s the Green movement within the ranks of the real estate world? If my Green colleague and I would guess from the sparse attendance at the few green sessions and Green display booths then the state of Green Real Estate isn’t exactly on everyone’s radar.

It’s good to have West Coast Green back in SF. Not that San Jose didn’t play a fine host to last years bigger conference but the show lacked something last year, call it a vibe, or energy but something didn’t gel. So, this year’s scaled down but energetic and education West Coast Green found itself a new home at the Fort Mason. Maybe the ocean air and bay views added a green spark to the conference.

The economy definitely had an impact on this year’s West Coast Green with less venders but with less money that mean that people just had to get more creative with less moola such as the floating island, show gardens and even the sustainability built Jewish Sukkoth. The usual green rock stars like Eric Corey Freed and Michelle Kaufman made their presences felt with their energetic personalities.

Editor’s Note: John Gartner is Editor in Chief of Matter Network and an Industry Analyst at Pike Research

While San Francisco and Portland are each publicly claiming they’ll have the best electric vehicle networks in place in their cities, San Jose may be have made the most progress.

The city of San Jose has installed 7 charging stations so far, including spots at City Hall and a public parking garage. At the charging locations vehicle owners don’t pay for the power; instead they are charged based on the time in the parking spot. To simplify payment, EV owners get a keychain fob that’s connected to their credit card.

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?

You may have gotten your fill of the phrase “energy independence” with last year’s election: both parties and presidential candidates touted the idea repeatedly. It’s a compelling concept…  it’s also contentious. For some, energy independence means harvesting solar, wind, and geothermal power; for others, it’s the motivation behind “Drill, baby, drill!” Either way, it’s a challenging goal at the national level.

At the local level, though, energy independence may be realistic… and numerous communities around the United States are exploring available renewable resources, and the technology necessary to harness them. Here’s just a handful of towns creating models for clean energy production… and good old fashioned self-reliance.

Achieving a goal of 100 percent energy independence is a little closer for San Jose thanks to a momentous move by the City Council today. The City Council authorized the City Manager to negotiate and execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop potential lease terms and guidelines for developing an organics-to energy bio-gas facility.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on the Clean Fleet Report on April 7, 2009.

Intermodal solutions allow people to effectively navigate major cities such as New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Madrid, and Tokyo. Subway and light-rail are especially effective, but expensive to build. As cities grow, change, and morph, not every potential route can be served with subway and light-rail. Bus rapid transit is a cost effective way to duplicate some of the benefits of light-rail, at a fraction of the capital expenditure. Buses, taxis, car sharing, bicycling, and walking are all parts of the solution. For many, cars are their preferred way to get around, yet if all transportation were cars then cities would be frozen in gridlock.

High-speed rail integrates all these systems together and moves people from city to city at high-speed. When the distance is only a few hundred miles, high-speed rail coupled with city transit beats airplane and car every time.

Now an 800 mile high-speed rail network is being started in California. Because it depends on local and public-private partnership funding, as well as state and federal funding, it will be built in sections. First online are likely to be areas that are currently overwhelmed with passenger vehicles crawling on freeways that should be renamed “slowways.” Likely to be among the first in service are the Orange County - Los Angeles section and the San Jose - San Francisco section.

San Jose provides an example of current transportation problems as well as the future promise of high-speed rail integrated with intermodal solutions. Currently, during rush hour, cars crawl from all directions into San Jose, the self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley. Vehicles overload some of the nation’s busiest highways - 680, 880, 101, 280, 87, and 17.

Falcon-cams and electric-car chargers on streetlights may sound like things out of the future, but for the city of San Jose, California, the future is now.

There are a couple ways to try and get the sought-after Colbert Bump, one of which is naming an animal or mascott after the Comedy Central kingmaker.

With servers humming constantly and air conditioning systems keeping the climate at just the right temperature, data centers have some pretty steep power demands. Now the industry is promoting a new set of energy efficiency guidelines.

The Green Grid, a consortium of tech companies founded in 2007, launched the new guidelines at its second annual technical forum in San Jose Wednesday. The Green Grid calls it the Data Center 2.0 program, which it says will create a “multi-year set of design guides proposed for use by data center operators and designers to build and operate energy efficient data centers.” The program will offer guidelines for newly built centers and renovations to existing ones, the group said.

Tesla Motors hopes to secure federal funds by applying to redevelop brownfields - once-developed land that is now deemed hazardous or polluted - something judged quite favorably in loan process.