Renewables At Home » Transport

Green Music Special: Reducing festival transport emissions

thomas — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:13:41 +0000

The logistics behind any large event are complex. Øyafestivalen is no exception in this respect.

Masses of visitors, artists, festival workers and tons of equipment are moved to, from and inside festival site Medieval Park, turning its relative tranquility into a weekful of intense hustle and bustle.

This almost over-the-top activity could quickly result in over-the-top emissions and pollution. Luckily, the festival organizers are working hard to limit the nasty side-effects of transport. Here’s a rundown of this year’s efforts:

Public transport
Visitors are encouraged to get to the festival site by public transport. A special, discounted ticket – valid for the duration of the festival – is sold.
No unnecessary transport
The most effective way to reduce transport emissions is to transport nothing at all (duh).
Bikes and trolleys
Anything small and light that needs to moved within the festival area, or in the immediate vicinity of it, is transported by human-powered vehicles.
Greener cars
Electric cars are used for quick runs to destinations close to the festival. A Toyota Prius converted to run on hydrogen is also part of the festival’s car fleet.
As the usable range of “green” cars increase, more of them will be put to use – with the eventual goal of phasing fossil fueled cars out entirely.
Airport express train
Smaller groups of people will mostly be transported to and from the airport by express train, rather than by car.
Eco-driving/hypermiling course
Key personnel went through a course in economical and fuel efficient driving and will be teaching all drivers a condensed version of this course.
Fuel efficiency contest
Fuel consumption and mileage is tracked for all gas and diesel cars, and drivers are scored against each other. The top drivers – fuel efficiency-wise – win a prize.
Local artists
Okay, so maybe this isn’t really done to reduce emissions, but the effect is still relevant: By having a musical profile with a large portion of local musical talent, transport needs and emissions are reduced.
Carbon emissions tracking
Transport carbon emissions will form part of the entire festival’s year-to-year emissions tracking. An ongoing goal will be to reduce emissions significantly every year.

Want to read more about music, festivals and green issues? Take a look at the other posts in the Renewables At Home Green Music Special.

Why getting rid of my car was a great relief

thomas — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:37:00 +0000

We all know cars are bad for the environment.

Even if you wore earmuffs and a blindfold for the past 20 years, you’d probably still know that cars are a major source of pollution, make a lot of noise and just plain stink up the place.

So I won’t go on about those things here.

Instead, I’ll tell you why I gladly sold my car thirteen years ago:

Ongoing expenses galore
I didn’t have to pay for my car, but boy were there other expenses to be had.
Gas, windshield wiper fluid and oil changes. General maintenance. Cleaning. New tires. Toll booths. Parking costs. Parking tickets!
And this was just when everything was running like it was supposed to. Which it frequently didn’t.
Repair upon repair
By the time I got rid of the car, it felt like I’d had half of its parts replaced.
No parking spots
Endless circling before settling for a free spot 5 blocks away from where I lived.
Getting towed
Check your car every 24 hours or pay half a month’s salary in fines when we tow you to clear away snow or debris.
Insurance
What, you’re a male under 25? You pay double!
Break-ins
Hey look, a car that obviously has nothing of value in it!
Let’s break into it and sit in it while we eat our hamburgers and toss the trash on the floor! Or steal a cheap flashlight with no batteries or ONE of those gloves!
Won’t that be hilarious?

Good riddance

When I sold my car, I was so fed up with all of the above that I would’ve been happy to sell it even if it made no difference to the environment.

I now lead a happier life without a car.

I get around by foot, bike or public transport. For most of my daily needs, this gets me where I want faster than the car did. And I stay in better shape.

I don’t have to worry about my car all the time.

And I save tons of money every year.

I wholeheartedly recommend getting rid of your car.

Voice your complaints

If you’re now saying “That’s all very well for him to say, but where I live there isn’t any proper bike lanes or public transportation, so I might as well go on driving my car until that’s magically fixed”, I hope you’ll forgive me when I say:

Boohoo.

Do something about it, then. Write reader’s letters to your local newspaper. Nag your local authorities. Demand better options.

If you don’t make yourself heard, no-one’s going to care or even know that you want alternatives to throwing your money away and sitting around in your car and cursing at rush hour gridlocks.

(This post is my take on Reduce Footprints’ current Change The World Wednesday challenge)

Great habits for green home cooling

Fresh shot of capital for electric car Think City

thomas — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:30:07 +0000

Looks like things are finally lightening up for electric car manufacturers Think.

Think had just started production of their Think City – one of only two electric cars that have been properly crash tested and highway approved, worldwide – when the ongoing financial crisis took off.

With a backlog of orders for their car and their production line all primed and set for scaling production upwards and onwards, the Norwegian company suddenly found themselves in an acute liquidity crisis, with no available funding for actually building the cars.

The last six months have been spent trying to coax more money out of existing owners and finding other sources of capital. It looks their efforts have finally paid off; more than 40 millions of US dollars has now been made available to partially resolve debts and restart production.

More than half of this sum comes from new investors, all of which are kept secret until debts have been renegotiated.

Greenwashing or actual environmental commitment?

thomas — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:23:49 +0000

Shell is running a campaign these days, touting their commitment to environmental issues and helping to “shape the new energy future”.

They are sponsoring the Eco-marathon, an annual race where participants compete by building special fuel efficient vehicles and seeing who can attain the highest average speed over a distance of 10 miles (16 kilometers) while expending as little energy as possible.

As part of Big Oil, Shell doesn’t exactly carry much traction among the green crowd, but at some point I guess it’s a question of adjust or go bankrupt for them, too.

Have a look at the video below and let me know in the comments what you think – is this the voice of genuine concern for the environment or just an attempt at greenwashing?

Electric car sharing launched to Norwegian general public

thomas — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:33:39 +0000

Claiming a world first, Norwegian company Move About recently launched a pay-as-you-go electric car sharing service to the general public in Norway’s capital Oslo.

Anyone with a membership can book electric cars on their website, pick their car up at one of their pickup locations in the Oslo region and zip merrily along to the gentle hum of the electric engine.

Their current fleet of vehicles is 13 electric cars – all Think City cars – spread across three pickup sites. Both the number of available cars and pickup sites will be ramped up over the next 12 to 18 months, with 75 cars to serve Oslo’s population of 600.000 being the target.

Pickup sites will be placed close to infrastructure junctions for other modes of transport, like trains, subway and city bike racks.

With the Think City having a range of 180 kilometers (111.8 miles) on a full charge, the service obviously isn’t an attempt to cover everyone’s full transport needs, but it’s a perfect offer for anyone with occasional, short trip needs.

Membership and rental prices are quite reasonable – the monthly membership fee is 100 Norwegian kroner (currently USD $15.5), and a full weekend’s use is 800 kroner (USD $124), with no extra distance charges and insurance included.

This might not seem very reasonably priced to you, but considering that typical Norwegian prices for a regular car full weekend rental will quickly amount to 2000 kroner – with extra charges for long-distance driving and fuel cost – it’s really quite acceptable.

The only other proper car sharing service in the Oslo area (Bilkollektivet) charges a one time fee of 6000 and a yearly fee of 590 kroner for membership, and 792 kroner for a weekend’s use (insurance and fuel not included).

Are hybrid cars pointless?

thomas — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:59:20 +0000

If you’re interested in personal transport and the environment, chances are you’ve heard about hybrid cars.

You’ve also probably heard the claims made about their good fuel economy and low emissions, as well as the jeering from individuals claiming it has no better fuel economy than a standard car.

So, who’s right? They both are!

If you drive aggressively, you’ll get terrible mileage with any car, including a hybrid. Possibly even slightly more so than with a regular car, in fact, since the hybrid relies on a bank of heavy batteries for storing power.

If you drive sensibly, however, your mileage will improve radically. With any car, certainly, but more with a hybrid than with a regular car.

I’ve test-driven the most well-known hybrid car, the Toyota Prius, daily for a couple of weeks.

I intentionally tested both styles of driving, both on short and long trips.

For the first days, I always accelerated up to the speed limit as quickly as I could, kept the accelerator depressed as long as I could before I had to stop, and generally tried to keep the gas engine running as much as possible. The fuel economy was, quite predictably, not very good – I averaged 30 miles per gallon (7,8 liters per 100 kilometers).

I then moved on to a more sensible style of driving. I accelerated (relatively) slowly, tried to keep the speed as constant as possible and avoided any sudden bursts of speed. After two weeks of this, the fuel economy was quite different: 69 miles per gallon (3,4 liters per 100 kilometers), on average. Pretty good.

So, you can get good fuel economy from a hybrid car if you drive it the right way. A better fuel economy than pretty much any other comparable car, at that.

Is a hybrid car still spewing too much greenhouse gases to the atmosphere? Sure.

Would the world be a better place if everyone that really has to drive around switched to a purely electric car. I think so.

Does that make hybrid cars pointless? No way.

A large scale shift to electric cars in the immediate future just won’t happen. Their range is too short at the moment, and there are too few models to choose from. Given time, though, I’m sure they’ll be a feasible solution for 95% of all driving needs.

In the meantime, we’ll have hybrids as an intermediate solution that will improve things a little and give car manufacturers valuable experience.

For a look at some other aspects of hybrid cars, have a look at Hybrid Car Myths at the GoGreen blog.

Green Music Special: Reducing festival transport emissions

Biogas powered city buses one step closer in Oslo, Norway

thomas — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:12:40 +0000

Plans to fuel the city buses of Oslo, Norway on biogas were reported earlier this year. The biogas, more specifically called biomethane, will be produced from the city’s two sewage plants. Initially, 80 buses will be fueled this way, with further plans to expand to the whole fleet of 400 if trials are successful.

These plans were recently concretized – on Earth Day, somewhat fittingly – by Swedish industrial gas company AGA signing a long-term contract with the Oslo municipality.

AGA will process the sewage plants’ output to deliver about 2.2 million liters of biogas a year, which is enough to run approximately 100 buses – 20 more than the original plans for the trial project.

As part of these deliveries, they will build infrastructure for the distribution of the biogas and do research with the goal of liquidizing it. Liquidizing the gas would be a great improvement to the overall energy efficiency, as it would allow trucks to move six times as much fuel in one run.

The first biogas will be delivered towards the end of 2009, with production being scaled up over the course of the next one to three years.

Norwegian publisher Teknisk Ukeblad has more details in this article about the biomethane contract (Norwegian text only).

I suppose tasteless jokes about the origins of this fuel can – and will – be made. I choose to ignore that, though. In fact, I pooh-pooh the people making these jokes (D’oh! It appears I’m one of them!).

I hope this trial is successful, as it seems to be a perfect utilization of resources all round:

Waste products are turned into something valuable and useful.
The waste/raw material of the process is virtually carbon neutral in and of itself.
The biogas fuels public transport, which obviously has far less environmental impact than everyone driving around in their car.