By Tom Kessler

The battlefield cry “charge” is taking on new meanings. Portable fuel cell systems from SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG won first and third prizes in the U.S. Defense Department’s inaugural Wearable Power Competition, the DOD announced.

Nearly 170 designs competed in the event, which was established by Department of Defense Research and Engineering to “encourage innovation in energy systems carried by personnel during field missions.” The systems, attached to a military vest, were required to provide 20 watts of average electric power, have peak-power capability up to 200 watts and weigh no more than 8.8 pounds.

The M-25 Portable Fuel Cell from DuPont and SFC, won the $1 million first prize. The AMI team from Ann Arbor, MI, won the $500,000 second place prize. SFC and partner Capitol Connections LLC of Middleburg, Va., took third place and $250,000 for their JENNY fuel cell.

These portable devices are used to power a range of field equipment that includes GPS navigation systems, communications equipment, computers and robots. The devices weigh up to 80 percent less than conventional power sources.

The winners were announced Oct. 4 at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

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By John DeFore

Honda is shifting gears in its strategy for hybrid cars. Judging from announcements at last week’s Paris Motor Show, the automaker has decided that the hybrids most likely to succeed in the marketplace are models with a standalone hybrid identity — like Toyota’s Prius, which is not available with a conventional gas engine — rather than those, like Honda’s Civic, that are already familiar in all-gasoline incarnations.

So while Chrysler’s new plan will speed up electric vehicle roll-out by building on existing cars, Honda will now focus on “dedicated” hybrid models like the new Insight Hybrid, which it expects to have in showrooms early next year. (Perhaps confusingly, this new car recycles the name of a previous Honda vehicle, a gas/electric hybrid that was discontinued a couple of years ago due to poor sales.)

The five-passenger car will be followed by two other dedicated hybrids — within the next four years, Honda intends to introduce both a compact similar to its Fit and a sports car resembling the CR-Z. The Insight’s fuel efficiency figures are not yet public, pending full EPA review, but company spokespeople have said its performance should be comparable to the existing Civic Hybrid, which gets a combined 42 mpg.

Though no price has yet been mentioned, in a press release the company boasts it will offer the Insight at “a price significantly below hybrids available today” and therefore expects to sell 200,000 cars a year, with half that in North America.

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By Harriet Blake

Catalog mailings are nearing full swing now, with mailboxes being deluged by hefty full-color enticements to get that Christmas shopping done by phone.

Obviously, online shopping is more prudent, ecologically speaking. However, at the recent Business of Green Media Conference in Boston, the printing industry showed signs of taking green issues seriously.

Consumers can “take solace” in the fact that many catalogs are recycled and others are certified as coming from sustainable forests, said Beth Reardon, a corporate accounts manager with Appleton Coated, one of more than 30 companies represented at the conference’s Expo.

Appleton Coated, a paper company that sells under the Utopia brand, uses virgin fiber but does not use any fiber bleaching, said Reardon. None of their pulp comes from old-growth timber or rainforests. It’s all 100 percent certified by one or all of the following: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).

These certification groups were created as a result of concern for the planet’s forests. They review companies’ practices to assure that they do not use old growth or rainforest timber, or engage in disreputable forestry practices that can lead to habitat loss or the displacement of human residents.

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By John DeFore

The first-ever RGGI auction, which we reported on last week, has concluded, and now begins the long process of seeing how it works.

Critics are skeptical, saying the emissions caps were set too high and therefore led to allowance prices that were too low. GOOD Blog contributor Ben Jervey calls it a “doomed-to-failure program (or, at least, doomed-to-very modest success)” while allowing that it “will prove invaluable, mostly for the lessons learned from what goes wrong.”

But RGGI members, who never claimed they’d fix the world immediately, are taking a brighter view: The six states involved in the first round raised $38.5 million from the auction, money RGGI says they’ll invest in “energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, and programs to benefit energy consumers.” That’s something by itself, even if it takes time for the cap-and-trade plan to have much impact on emissions.

The going rate for a single allowance, once the gavel fell, came to $3.07 per ton of emissions. All twelve million-plus of the allowances put up for sale were sold, not just to power-plant operators but also to financial and environmental organizations.

Fifty-nine buyers took part in the auction, presenting a demand (close to 52 million allowances) that was four times as much as the available supply. Maryland, putting the most allowances up for sale, took home a hefty $16.4 million. According to Deputy Director of Communications Dawn Stolzfus, the state passed a law this year to determine exactly how that money will be spent (even if the categories are broad) — allocating, for instance, 10.5% to “clean energy & climate change programs, outreach & education.”

The next RGGI auction is December 17, and they’ll be held on a quarterly basis for the next three years.

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By John DeFore

Some unenthusiastic recyclers grouse about having to keep separate collection barrels for glass, plastics and paper. Imagine the whining taking place in Southern California right now, as certain Los Angeles residents are being asked to start separating food scraps from the rest of their trash as well.

Following the lead of existing programs in places like Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, L.A. is testing a food-waste recycling program in pursuit of its zero-waste goal. As the L.A. Times reported when the plan was announced, around 5,000 residents of three neighborhoods are being recruited for the experiment: Each gets a two-gallon bin (the size of a small cooler), which they’re to keep in the kitchen and fill with a variety of food-related waste — not just apple cores and spoiled leftovers, but egg shells, bones, and even non-food items like pizza boxes and paper plates that have been soiled by food contact and therefore are forbidden in the normal recycling bin.

On collection day, residents are to empty these kitchen bins into curbside receptacles they already have — the green ones used for leaves and tree branches. That material should, in the colorful language of a city report, “absorb fugitive liquids” and keep odor to a minimum. Together, food and lawn waste eventually will be turned into compost.

Los Angeles already has a program helping restaurants recycle their wasted food, but estimates that over a quarter of what goes into residential trash bins is food waste as well. According to this NPR report, planners believe that if it were to expand throughout the city, this household scrap collection could divert “600 tons of wasted food that go to the landfills every day.”

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By Catherine Colbert

Organic products are much easier to come by these days. Items with the Fair Trade Certified label also are expanding and taking up more precious real estate on store shelves.

So far this year, more than twice as many Fair Trade Certified products have been introduced in the U.S. compared to last year. Some 284 products with the Fair Trade Certified designation have been launched compared to 130 in 2007, and as few as 17 in 2003, according to a report this month by Mintel, Chicago - a market researcher focused on consumer behavior and product innovation.

The Fair Trade food items include a virtual gift basket of treats: a variety of teas, cocoa, fruits, flowers and chocolates.

TransFair USA, headquartered in Oakland, California, is the governing entity in the U.S. behind products deemed Fair Trade Certified. The nonprofit is one of 20 member organizations worldwide that comprises the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations (FLO) International. TransFair audits agreements between U.S. companies and international suppliers to guarantee that farmers in developing countries around the world use environmentally friendly practices and are paid a fair price for their goods. Farmers in Costa Rica and Ghana have reinvested profits in their communities to build schools, develop improved sustainability practices, and establish health clinics.

Since its founding in 1998, TransFair USA has certified more than 74 million pounds of Fair Trade coffee, which in turn has given coffee farmers in Latin America and Africa more than $60 million more than if they had sold their coffee locally, according to the organization.

Most U.S. consumers were introduced to the concept of Fair Trade Certified products with the help of coffee marketers. Fair Trade, which asks consumers to buy products at a “fair price” to be socially responsible, initially seemed like a niche market. But it has gone mainstream. From 2001 to 2006, retail sales of coffee grew tenfold to $730 million, cites TransFair USA, in a recent Brandweek article. When worldwide retailer Wal-Mart joined the fold, Fair Trade Certified coffee sales really began to percolate.

Fair Trade products were available only at specialty retailers, such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, as well as online, when they were introduced to the U.S. In recent years, however, Fair Trade products have moved onto store shelves in big-box discounters Costco and Target, and mainline grocery stores like Kroger. See the Transfair website for where to buy products.

After more than a decade in existence, TransFair USA now certifies tea, cocoa, sugar, fruit, rice, and flowers. With the organization’s fifth annual Fair Trade Month, held in October 2008, it’s counting wine among the products it recognizes and certifies. Certified chocolate bars are available in many grocery stores, as well. Look for Green and Black’s chocolate made in the Dominican Republic and Belize, El Rey from Venezuela, and Valhrhona from Trinidad.

For consumers who are taking copious notes on the growth of Fair Trade, there are businesses like Divine Chocolate, based in the United Kingdom, that are entirely farmer-owned.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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By Barbara Kessler

Once again, California is leading the way toward greener cities. Today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that addresses sprawl concretely (and one hopes that’s concrete mixed with recycled fly ash).

Many states and cities have talked about the need to shorten commutes and to connect work centers with fuel-saving public transportation. These talks have sometimes yielded more commuter rail lines, bike paths and awards for urban renewal projects. But just as often, they’ve produced more talk.

Dealing holistically with sprawl has seemed beyond the grip of many large cities where the citizenry and leadership have long equated bigger with better. (Need we name these Sunbelt perpetrators?)

Now California may help break the impasse. The bill, SB 375, signed today puts some green on the table - to push the issue beyond talk. It will link federal transportation funding to climate change goals, offering incentives to builders to keep their projects closer to city hubs and to build more affordable housing projects within major metro areas.

Denser urban population growth will mean shorter, fewer commutes, translating to lower fuel consumption, preserved agricultural land and cleaner air. Neat how those things all go hand in hand, huh? The re-direct will help the state meet its goal of reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Critics were miffed that during machinations, the building lobby won some exemptions from some other environmental requirements for those pursuing these incentives. But as we’ve seen in Congress, even crisis legislation can crack and falter if compromises aren’t made.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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By John DeFore

Once upon a time, the only humans who lived in trees were such fictional folks as Tarzan and the hero of Italo Calvino’s charming romance The Baron in the Trees. That was before the “tree-sitting” phenomenon, in which activists climb into trees threatened by development and refuse to come down.

The population of real-life tree dwellers shrank this month as the last two participants in a 20-year-old protest agreed to leave their perch in Northern California redwoods.

As the story was reported locally, the protest ended after bankruptcy put the Pacific Lumber Company under new ownership. Humboldt Redwood Co., which took the company over, committed to a sustainable-harvest policy that the Associated Press says “promised to spare any redwood that sprouted before 1800 with a diameter of at least 4 feet. It also pledged to avoid clear-cutting, a practice that the timber giant aggressively practiced under its previous owner, Maxxam Inc.”

Humboldt president and chief forester Michael Jani trekked out to the occupied trees himself to make the promise explicit, and the activists are taking him at his word. Last week, the final tree-sitters in Humboldt County gave up their temporary homes, including a 300-foot tree at least 1,500 years old where 22-year-old Billy Stoetzer had lived (in a hammock shelter) for almost a year.

Organizers tell reporters that they’ll keep an eye on the area to ensure that promises are kept. Since Humboldt Redwood is owned in large part by the owners of The Gap, they’d have plenty of opportunities for high-profile protest if things were to change.

For more information about old growth redwood forests, see this National Park Service webpage.

(Photo: National Park Service.)

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By John DeFore

This week, for the first time in the United States, an auction was held allowing power plants to bid against each other for the right to spew carbon dioxide into the air.

The goal, of course, is to reduce atmospheric carbon by finding the best way of putting a price tag on it for polluters. Ten Eastern states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont — have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (or RGGI, pronounced “Reggie”) to coordinate their efforts by placing mandatory overall caps on emissions levels, then auctioning off allowances for CO2 emissions that can be traded between companies. As a result, companies will have a financial incentive to clean up their own act as quickly as possible.

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By John DeFore

We’re already used to worrying about at least one set of issues when it comes to melting caused by global warming: that water entering oceans from disintegrating arctic ice may cause sea levels to rise worldwide.

Now scientists suggest that another sort of melting could not only be caused by climate change, but could in itself accelerate it. At issue is not polar icecaps but permafrost, the frozen ground found in the far north.

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By Barbara Kessler

Some not so pretty news out about cosmetics this week shows that teen girls tested for chemical exposure from beauty products had become human repositories of parabens, phthalates, triclosan and musks.

These chemicals, some of which are hormone disruptors or have been linked to cancer, turned up in the blood and urine of 20 teenage girls tested by the Environmental Working Group.

On average, the girls, ages 14-19, tested positive for 13 hormone-disrupting chemicals each. Parabens, commonly used as cosmetic preservatives, were detected in every girl tested.

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By John DeFore

Nitrates, substances which when consumed by humans can be toxic, especially for infants (whose blood can be made less able to carry enough oxygen), are commonly used in fertilizers. While efforts have been made in recent years to reduce fertilizer use, it’s hard to know — since it takes time for substances to migrate from topsoil into aquifers — how quickly changes to agricultural practices affect water supplies.

Now a study published in the Journal of Environmental Quality finds that nitrate levels in ground water are on the rise in many parts of the U.S., leading researchers to call for increased monitoring.

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