In what may be his last performance on a world stage as governor, Schwarzenegger launched last week the R20 climate network, an alliance of regional leaders who have pledged to work together to fight climate change. Mr Schwarzenegger is the ”founding father” of the new venture, a self-appointed global champion in the war against global warming.

”I always was a big believer in doing things on a global level,” Schwarzenegger said. ”Everything I have ever done, I always was interested in doing it globally – if it was the fitness, if it was the bodybuilding, if it was entertainment and acting and showbusiness.”

Schwarzenegger admits he stumbled into the role of environmental activist when he signed California’s ambitious climate change law in 2006 – the same year Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth. Four years later Schwarzenegger helped defeat an attempt to repeal the law by Texas oil companies in the midterm elections. He said California had offered signs of encouragement. Californians voted by more than a 20% margin last month to reject the ballot initiative that would have rolled back the state’s landmark climate law. The scale of that victory demonstrated that climate change had outgrown the old categories of being seen as a Democratic issue or a Republican issue and was now a much broader concern.

Global leaders will gather in Cancun later this month for the UN’s climate conference. But after the collapse of last year’s summit at Copenhagen, they have warned that there is scope only for limited agreements on climate finance issues. In Cancún Schwarzenegger says the R20 will hold a side event at the UN climate summit. Then there is the prospect of another star turn for Schwarzenegger, who is thinking of putting in an appearance at Davos, the talking shop of the global elite. Then he will see where the R20 takes him.

Via: The Guardian | The Sydney Morning Herald

A last bureaucratic step is still needed, the approval from the Federal Bureau of Land Management, which is scheduled to make a decision before the end of October. Construction is scheduled to begin in 4th quarter 2010, with initial commercial operations to begin in 2th quarter 2013 when the plant is expected to generate electricity.

The plant has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, grouping four 250 MW plants, and represents more than double of the U.S. solar energy capacity installed last year (which was 481 MW), according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. The largest solar plants to date are in the 200-350 megawatt range, so the project opens the door for a new scale of concentrated solar power plants.

The plant will make electricity by using mirrors to heat a fluid that generates steam, which expands through steam turbine generators. The technique is known as parabolic trough technology.

The project, which will generate 2,500 jobs during the construction and 200 permanent jobs once facility is fully operational, will produce enough energy annually to supply more than 300,000 homes.

This is a great step for laying the groundwork for a terrific expansion in solar energy generation in the United States and around the world. In this sense, the CEC is trying to review nine large-scale CSP plants before the end of 2010, hoping to allow developers to begin construction before a deadline to qualify for federal stimulus funding that covers 30 percent of their costs.

Via: Reuters | Power-gen

If you are from British Columbia, Washington or Oregon and you are planning to buy an electric car now it’s the time. Starting this fall and with an investment of $1.32 million the Washington State Transportation Department plans to turn Interstate 5 into the nation’s first "electric highway". The highway will hold enough charging stations so electric vehicles will be able to make the entire 276-mile trip from the Canadian border to the Oregon state line.

10 Level-3 electric charging stations will be installed along the route. Each station will be capable of charging at 400 volts and 30 amps or more. A typical electric vehicle will be 80% charged in just about 30 minutes, so you will have the excuse to, while plugging in the car, grab a cup of coffee, chat with other car-pluggers, and be on your way. There will be stations every 80 miles, so if your future electric vehicle is a Nissan Leaf or a Ford Focus Electric type, with a nominal range of 100 miles, you can relax during the trip.

The Seattle area is getting 2,500 charging stations as part of the $230 million electric vehicle project, more than half of which will be public. Altogether, 4,700 electric vehicles and nearly 15,000 charge stations will be introduced in four states -Washington, California, Arizona and Tennessee- and the District of Columbia.

The project also helps further the West Coast Green Highway, a partnership of Washington, Oregon and California to encourage more use of cleaner fuels. Officials hope it will help turn more people to electric cars and help reduce greenhouse gases. Furthermore, Washington is an ideal spot for the implementation of the electric highway project because the state relies mostly on clean hydro-power.

Via: Inhabitat | Green Auto Blog

California Grazing “provides holistic land management and brush & weed control through grazing”. They have over 800 goats, and offer their service in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and surrounding areas.

To control the goats and make them mow limited areas, California Grazing provides portable electric fences.

According to Google, the price of hiring these goats is similar to that of hiring lawn mowers. However, the benefits of the goats are quite interesting: the emissions caused by mowers are avoided, as well as the noise, plus goats fertilize the soil while grazing. And, Google workers get to have fun watching the four-legged mowers eat up extra weed!

You are eligible to receiving a $1,500 rebate when buying certain electric motorcycles. California has ambitious plans for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, specifically 25% by 2020. This program is aimed at fostering more sustainable transportation.

The first electric bikes to have qualified for the rebate are Zero Motorcycles, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger helped promote.

He said: “I love the financial side of these motorcycles because they cost less then one cent per mile to operate and you get a 10% federal tax credit plus a California rebate of $1,500. That equates to a 25 percent price reduction making these electric motorcycles affordable for anybody.”

I’m interested in your opinion. Do you think this rebate system will encourage the buying of electric bikes? Do people trust them enough?

VIA: Inhabitat

As my plane was leaving LA  after TED2010 and I watched the curious man-made landscape of circling streets and repetitive housing, I thought of the provoking book by Stewart Brand called Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto which stated some environmental heresies. The first one, and the one I will examine here, was that cities are green. It is hard to think about New York City, for instance, as a model for sustainability but let’s examine the lifestyle of organic eating, juice sucking, prius driving  southern Californians for a minute. They all live 30 to 90 minutes away from their jobs, so each family has at least one car, usually two, with a big commute twice a day. If we do some math with this calculator from the EPA we’ll see that a typical Californian household emits between 20,000 to 35,000 Kg of CO2 a year.

Each house has to receive (at least) water, electricity and some bandwidth so pipes, copper cables and fiber optics have to be deployed to cover miles and miles of land. Furthermore, all those lawns require massive amounts of water and fertilizers, let’s not forget we are actually on a desert with almost no rain. Each time they need groceries they go to a supermarket, you need quite a bit of them to cover such big areas, and they all need truckloads (literally) of food and supplies. The amount of energy and other resources consumed by this design is monstrous.

The contrast of this way of living with Californian’s love for anything green is startling. At the TED conference we received an aluminum bottle to refill from filtered water dispensers instead of the typical and stupid water bottle. If 1500 persons consume 3 bottles of water a day for 5 days we would have fabricated a mountain of 22500 plastic bottles. Although you could argue that they can be recycled if properly disposed, it takes quite a bit of energy and carbon emissions to turn that amount of slightly used plastic into usable bottles. I personally think that it is a catastrophe that after installing all those water pipes, people everywhere in the world still consume bottled water. The plastic has to be fabricated from oil using energy to melt and take its shape, then sent to a spring, if you are lucky, and then back to supermarkets all over the world. Then you grab those waters, haul them to your trunk, take them home, drink them, throw them away and probably end in a landfill nearby.

TED had also on display Hybrid Cars by Lexus, and although I applaud Hybrid’s oil efficiency I hardly think that they constitute a solution for a zero-emissions, green way of transportation. There were a few Segways and a few bicycles but most people there had arrived either by car (bad) or by plane (the worst), including myself. I took a flight from Buenos Aires, to Dallas and then to LA. The carbon emissions of that flight were roughly 2,825 Kg of CO2. You can calculate them here.  As one TED U session said, if you wanted to be green going to TED you would have to go walking.

I’d better start walking now to reach TED2011 on time.

California is one of the most progressive states in terms of environmental action and policy. This particular case is yet another proof of it. Starting on 2011, California will demand new buildings to comply with a number of green regulations. These will be included in the first mandatory state-wide green building code in the US; dubbed Calgreen.

The set of rules was passed unanimously by the California Building Standards Commission. Starting January 1^st 2011, buildings will have to meet these new green requirements.

California has set the ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33% by 2020. Calgreen is expected to help accomplish this target.

Some of the requirements of the code include having to reduce water usage by 20%, and having to recycle 50% of the waste generated during construction stages.

The building demands have quite a wide span; from construction waste to indoor air quality, they cover many aspects of a building. Indoor finishing products need to be low-emission; i.e. paints ought to be low in VOC (volatile organic compounds) contents, as do carpets and flooring.

Further, regarding water usage, non-residential buildings will have to install separate indoor and outdoor water meters.

Thanks to all these measures, according to the California Air Resources Board, 3 million metric tons of GHG emissions will be avoided.

Having to comply with the code will increase costs for builders. However, they support it anyway because it will enable them to obtain green building certification from the state. Otherwise, in order to get it they would have to pay to a third party.

VIA: Inhabitat

This will help supply a growing population while attempting to preserve a fragile environment and will be funded by a bond measure. It has been a long time in the making but was forced to resolution by a third dry year, decreased snowfall and the introduction of new pumping restrictions to protect delta fish.

At the centre of these water bills is our need for a sustainable and reliable water system. Legislators, for example, want to require California cities, with some exceptions, to use 20 percent less water by 2020. Clearly, there is a dual issue based on our level of consumption of water and our accessibility to it. They both require large investments, which mean job creation, and we can strongly contribute to one of them by managing our own personal water levels.

California’s Water Woes

The cost of sustainability may be high, but the cost of inaction is much higher. That Californians recognize this and are now investing in their future despite (and because of) serious economic problems should encourage us all to do the same.

Source: msnbc

The project involves 20 lots located in a hill side. It is being directed by Jean Paul  Cazedessus, American born in California, but that has been living in Costa Rica for the past 20 years. Today, the construction of its first house called “Boomerang” has been finished (name due to its roof shape on an aerial view). This project not only suggests building sustainable homes, but also to build a sustainable society with the same goal: living in sustainability.

Taking advantage of the hill side, the lots have been strategically located in order to make the gathering of gray water easier and more efficient. This water will be properly treated in a water facility treatment plant that will be located in the base of the hill. All homes will have grass roofs. These roofs not only offer the advantage of great thermal isolation but also will give the urbanization a feeling of dissapearing effect while looking from the hilltop. 

Another thought for the future is to plan investments among residents aiming to seize natural resources to generate energy and harvest their own food. Besides solar panels that can be installed on the roofs, a common wind power turbine mill could be installed taking advantage of the excellent wind conditions of the region. The energy generated would supply all homes and the extra energy produced can be sold to the electrical power company that will help to recover the investment faster.

You can find more information in the next link: www.b-green.org