Green Options

At a breakfast meeting for Nashville business executives, Carlos Tavares, Chairman of Nissan America, said he fully expects the company to have 20,000 reservations for the Nissan LEAF by the time the car goes on sale late next year.

Scanning the week’s news of the leading fleet magazine, more than half the headlines are focused on automotive manufacturers including Toyota, Ford, Nissan and their commitment to greening of their fleets by moving to electric vehicle technologies.

For example, Nissan plans to use a $1.6 billion U.S. loan to rework a Tennessee factory so that battery-powered cars can be manufactured there. Ford Motor Company said it has developed an intelligent vehicle-to-grid communications and control system for its plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that “talks” with the nation’s electric grid.

Indeed it is exciting to read on a daily basis how much closer we are to the reality of EV’s for consumers and fleets.  Fleets will be the first mass adopters of EVs and PHEVs. We are already seeing businesses, government agencies, cities and countries across the world that are making significant and meaningful steps to reducing their fuel costs, our nation’s dependence on imported fuel, and our carbon footprint by converting their gas guzzling and polluting fleets to eco friendly EV’s…but what about the infrastructure needed to support such vehicles?  Is there different technology needed to support EV fleets vs. consumer EVs?  Just what are the needs of fleet managers when it comes to EV fleets?

With the historic passage of climate legislation through the House of Representatives, many concerns have trickled forth. Does the climate legislation do enough? Will it even work? Does it have the right aim? With the issuance of similar concerns have come proposed solutions and substitutions. The republicans have proposed that 100 nuclear power plants be built by 2030 in place of the proposed cap-and-trade climate bill. I’ve recently written two articles on the republican “solution” to both the climate and [...]

Three more car companies received sizeable loans from the federal government yesterday, but don’t worry; it’s not another bailout. In fact, the$8 billion is just the start of a larger $25 billion project called the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM for short) that was thought up back in 2007 and funded by Congress in late 2008 during the Bush administration. The project, overseen by the Department of Energy, is a federal grant and loan initiative bent on providing [...]

Nissan has announced plans to launch the large-scale production of electric cars and batteries in the United States, with a massive 50 billion Yen ($516 million) facility in Smyrna, Tennessee.

The site will be capable of knocking-out an impressive 50,000 to 100,000 EVs by 2012, with investment possibly DOUBLING to 100 billion Yen (more than $1 Billion).

While we here at EcoLocalizer generally try to put a focus on the good eco-oriented stuff people are doing around the country, we’ll occasionally spot an egregious instance of anti-green behavior that shouldn’t go unmentioned … at least for the sake of public awareness.

And that’s the case with today’s post, in which we point out reports that a string of Burger King restaurants in Memphis have been spotted with storefront signs reading, “Global warming is baloney.”

Oregon, Sonoma County, Tucson, San Diego, Phoenix, and now Seattle. Nissan has been on a media blitz over the last few months adding partners to its growing list of electric vehicle cooperators. In doing so, a clear picture of the company’s “West Coast Plan” has emerged.

The Tennessee Valley Authority and the EPA reported that levels of pollutants such as lead and arsenic were below safe levels for drinking water in areas affected by the Kingston coal ash spill. An environmental group’s tests had dramatically different results.

[Creative Commons photo by Andrew Ciscel]

Appalachian Voices teamed up with scientists at Appalachian State University to test water samples downstream from the spill. They found contaminant levels far above what is considered safe for drinking.

Authorities are now saying that the ash leak that devastated areas surrounding the Kingston coal-fired power plant in Tennessee is over three times the original estimated size. Rather than the 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash, an aerial survey that the TVA conducted on Thursday revealed the flood was actually 5.4 million cubic yards. The spill in Tennessee is over 120 times the size of the Exxon Valdez.

[Emory River. Creative Commons photo by Chris]

Even before these updated numbers, it was the largest toxic spill in U.S. history. According to the New York Times, water in surrounding areas is showing lead and thallium contamination. These chemicals are linked to birth defects and nervous disorders.

10 minutes of raw video clips from the coal slurry pond disaster in Tennessee.

Two environmental activists were detained by the Tennessee Valley Authority police for photographing the site of last weeks ash spill. While it does not appear that they will be charged with crimes, they were unable to document the ash spill’s effects on the area and its water supply.

The men, who are from the Knoxville based United Mountain Defense, say that TVA has yet to release the water toxicity results. They say they have the right to take their own measurements and photographs unless TVA shows their results. “This is an issue of national importance,” said David Cooper. “People need to know if the water is safe or not.”