Will there be a nuclear power renaissance in the United States, as a host of rosy-glassed prognosticators have predicted? Not as long as it remains such an abysmal investment opportunity, Matthew Wald writes in Technology Review’s November-December issue.

Wald, a New York Times reporter, contends that nuclear has come a long way in reliability and efficiency but still carries some serious financial baggage. “As the possibility of an accident that panics or injures the neighbors has diminished,” he writes, “the likelihood has grown that even a properly functioning new reactor will be unable to pay for itself.”

Wald cites three factors, all in flux, that make nuclear a huge financial risk. One is the sheer cost of building a new reactor, $4,000 per kilowatt of capacity using optimistic math, which is more than coal ($3,000) and far more than natural gas ($800). Another is the future competitive landscape in energy, and thus the price of electricity. And finally, no one is certain of the future price of fossil fuels, especially natural gas, which could change the whole equation.

The upshot is that prospective builders want government help in the form of federal loan guarantees—help that is not currently forthcoming. “The odds are probably not good enough for the nuclear industry to place a bet with its own money,” Wald concludes. “Only the government can agree to back up that bet, and has yet to do so.”

Elsewhere on the Technology Review website is another chink in the reactor for the nuclear renaissance crowd: The Physics arXiv Blog reports that the world’s supply of uranium is running short, citing a detailed analysis of the global nuclear industry by Michael Dittmar of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

“Countries that rely on uranium imports such as Japan and many Western countries will face uranium shortages, possibly as soon as 2013,” the blog states. “Far from being the secure source of energy that many governments are basing their future energy needs on, nuclear power looks decidedly rickety.”

Source: Technology Review (subscription or payment required), Physics arXiv Blog

Image by Topato, licensed under Creative Commons.

What’s the thirstiest industry in the United States? If you thought of agriculture, you’re spot on. But coming in second—guzzling 40 percent of U.S. freshwater withdrawals—is a surprisingly different undertaking: electricity.

Environmentally motivated researchers and policymakers are just beginning to grasp the importance of illuminating the complex relationship between water and energy, Sustainable Industries reports. The clock is ticking. By 2025, the United Nations forecasts half the world will meet with freshwater shortages. By 2050, upgrade that pinch to scarcity spanning three-quarters of the planet. And, oh, wouldn’t you know: All forms of energy production require water (and on the flip side, heating, treating, and distributing water requires energy too).

“Increased implementation of renewable power sources is key to securing future water supplies, but when it comes to water use, not all renewables are created equal,” writes Sara Stroud, SI’s Bay Area correspondent.

Wind and solar photovoltics are among the lesser offenders; they require only one gallon of water for each megawatt hour of electricity produced (excluding water used in manufacturing). (A megawatt is one million watts, and one megawatt hour could power 400-900 homes for that hour.) Compare that to corn-derived ethanol, which sucks anywhere from 5 to 2,000 liters of water for each liter of fuel. That higher number comes courtesy of agriculture undertaken in arid states, like California and Colorado.

“Federal incentives happened so quickly without evaluating consequences,” Dulce Fernandes of Network for New Energy Choices told SI. “If we are investing in alternatives, we have to get it right.”

Source: Sustainable Industries

Wind turbines don’t just collect energy. They collect attention. Environmental Building News writes in its May issue about the ways that many big green structures nowadays are incorporating “building integrated” wind power into their designs—and not always to generate much power but rather to make a loud and public statement about their greenness. EBN’s headline calls it “The Folly of Building Integrated Wind,” and for this rather staid publication that’s a pretty damning indictment.

Editor Alex Wilson, who reported the piece, doesn’t arrive at his conclusion lightly, however. In typical EBN style he come at the issue from an objective, information-driven approach that parses the pros and cons of wind turbines on buildings before concluding that “it’s usually a bad idea.”

“A green building is not green because it has [solar panels] on the roof—or a ground-source heat pump or a vegetated roof or integrated wind,” writes Wilson in his editor’s column in the same issue. “It’s green because it has an energy-conserving envelope, because it relies on natural daylighting, because it effectively controls unwanted heat gain, because it reduces dependence on automobiles, because it’s compact and resource-efficient, because it’s healthy, and because it’s stingy on water use. The heavy lifting in green design has to come from these measures, not from the window dressing. … Construction budgets are tight these days. Let’s not squander these limited budgets on high-profile visual statements.”

Source: BuildingGreen.com

Image of Bahrain World Trade Center by Ahmed Rabea, licensed under Creative Commons.

Carbusters—a Prague-based magazine defiant of all-things-gasoline-powered—spots a real doozy of an “activity” at the U.K. theme park Diggerland, which offers Bobcat-crazed children opportunities to ride in and drive construction machinery. (Which, admittedly, sounds pretty cool.) The new attraction, “Novice Driver,” puts young people (9 and up) behind the wheels of their parents’ cars, confined to a large off-road space. “If a parent’s car is too uncool, then a 4x4 is available for hire to teach kids how to be good citizens—one loves cars,” Carbusters observes. Imagine the blank stares of park execs were one to propose: “Walk or Bike to School: The Ride.”

Source: Carbusters

Image by plasticrevolver, licensed under Creative Commons.

Last winter when we named Tzeporah Berman one of Utne Reader’s 50 Visionaries, we spoke to the Canadian activist about her latest project, PowerUp Canada, which challenges citizens to take the “next step” in addressing climate change—that is, pushing for greener legislation. Private actions, like switching to CFLs, still matter, Berman said, but it’s critical to extend that greenwill to the public level and start changing laws too.

Guess Chevron didn’t get the message. The May-June issue of World Watch contains a biting spoof of the energy company’s “I will” ad campaign, which depicts earnest, average-looking folks alongside statements such as “I will finally get a programmable thermostat.” The spoofs—brought to you by the League of Conservation Voters—pair Chevron execs with their own “I will” statements, such as, “I will think about cleaning up one or two of Chevron’s 94 Superfund toxic waste sites.”

Putting the focus on large-scale regulation doesn’t give individuals a pass on small-scale green choices, of course. The ads, writes World Watch, merely “suggest that the company could also do well to embrace greater corporate responsibility.”

Source: World Watch

Image by philosophygeek, licensed under Creative Commons.

Ken Salazar is your new secretary of the interior. But “despite the title, he’s actually the de facto secretary of energy,” a petroleum industry source tells Alan Prendergast of Westword in the Denver alternative weekly’s April 2 issue.

“The Department of the Interior controls one-fifth of the land mass of the United States, and that land contains half of the country’s coal and a third of its oil and natural gas,” Prendergast writes.

The piece is the most detailed assessment we’ve seen yet of Salazar’s first two months in office, and while it’s ultimately too early to draw big conclusions—Salazar, true to his reputation, has so far displayed an “earnest, let’s-work-this-out centrism”—it does a good job of pointing out the challenges he faces as he makes grand pronouncements about “taking the moonshot of energy independence” and reaching a “New Energy Frontier.”

“He’s already presented glimpses of the kind of multi-layered agenda not seen since the dawn of the New Deal,” Prendergast writes. However, “true reform at Interior will require coming to terms with deep-rooted political realities that promote abuse of public lands and shortchange the public.”

(Thanks, Altweeklies.com.)

Image by Mike Disharoon, licensed under Creative Commons.

The Bush administration did a whole lot of overturning, overruling, rewriting, and deleting environmental regulations—but it also did a subtler kind of harm by allowing foot-dragging on all sorts of green initiatives.

One area where things were allowed to slide was in appliance efficiency: Laws already on the books required new energy standards for household and commercial appliances, but they were tied up in missed deadlines, bureaucratic disputes, and lawsuits. Without leadership from the White House, they languished.

The Obama administration has sent a clear message on the appliance standards: Get back on track. Its February order to the Department of Energy to start hitting deadlines “challenges DOE’s decades of failure to comply with laws dating to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975,” writes Environmental Building News.

The upshot is that the DOE has until August to meet the next set of deadlines, which cover lamps and lightbulbs, ovens, microwaves, vending machines, dishwashers, commercial boilers, and air-conditioning units. In other words, some serious energy gobblers, not just blenders and coffee makers.

Lane Burt, an energy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, has tracked these issues on his blog and has especially championed a new lighting standard. “It is an amazing new reality,” he writes, “when the president of the United States speaks directly to the importance of efficiency standards and goes so far as to instruct his energy agency to be proactive rather than reactive in issuing those standards.”

Sources: The White House, Environmental Building News, NRDC Switchboard

Image by Joshua Davis, licensed under Creative Commons.

If I were a coal company executive, I’d feel like I was getting beat up on: The entire month of February has seen big coal being pummeled by politicians, environmental groups, and activists as if it were something dirty. But if I had any sense I’d realize I deserved a beating for shamelessly propagating the most polluting energy source we use—and I’d prepare for another thrashing next month.

Let’s recap. On February 4, the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog chronicled “A Tough Week for Coal,” but that was just the beginning. On February 17, Grist reported on a crowd of coal foes who marched on the Kentucky State Capitol to listen to speakers including actress Ashley Judd and novelist Silas House demand an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. The same day in Washington, writes SolveClimate, the Obama administration’s EPA said it would reconsider whether carbon dioxide should be regulated as a pollutant, a move that would target big coal burners. And yesterday, the anti-coal Reality Coalition released a new mock ad (below) directed by Joel and Ethan Coen that ridicules the spin-speak behind the phrase “clean coal.”

 

So that was coal’s bleak February. Its March starts off with another doozy, a civil disobedience march Monday on the coal-fired power plant that Congress owns. Among the marchers at the Capitol Climate Action event will be high-profile figures such as Bill McKibben, who writes for Yale Environment 360, “Why I’ll Get Arrested to Stop the Burning of Coal.” We wish him the best of luck in both endeavors.

UPDATE (3/2/09): Despite a late-winter D.C. snowstorm, more than 2,000 protesters turned out at the Capitol Climate Climate Action event Monday and blockaded the three main gates to the Capitol Power Plant, according to Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post. No arrests were made. See McKibben's account of the protest at Mother Jones' Blue Marble blog.

Sources: New York Times, Grist, SolveClimate, Reality Coalition, Capitol Climate Action, Yale Environment 360, Huffington Post, Blue Marble 

It’s President Obama now. And his cabinet and administration picks have all been rolled out. So how green is Team Obama? The online environmental magazine Grist provides a cheat sheet of an assessment and a look at Obama's treatment of of environmental and energy issues in his inaugural speech. The good people at Grist also take a look back with an interactive time line charting George W. Bush’s environmental legacy.

The sting of cold in the winter is often accompanied by the shock of rising energy bills. Since not everyone can afford to install new, energy-efficient appliances throughout their homes, Utne Reader’s sister publication Mother Earth News published a guide to energy-saving and cost-reducing do-it-yourself projects. 

Many of the projects are surprisingly simple. Managing the energy used by the computers in his house, writer Gary Reysa spent $20 and an hour of work, and it ended up saving an estimated $178 yearly. Reysa also suggests insulating windows with bubble wrap and buying an electric mattress pad. And since not every do-it-yourself project is good for every situation, Reysa includes a guide to choosing which projects are right for any given situation.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has launched “One Million Acts of Green,” a campaign to mobilize everyone from TV studio execs to kids to commit basic green acts every day. Once you sign up, the site keeps track of your steps, and for every one you take, the website calculates its impact on the environment in kilograms of greenhouse gases saved.

The focus of the project is “not about overhauling your life; it’s about one act from each individual amassing to a million. It can be as simple as switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, starting a recycling program, or walking to work. You can do one act—or you can do all one million! It’s up to you… Together we can make an impact. Together we can make our lives, our communities, and our environment greener.”

Acts range from small changes in habit to home renovations, and the tangible impact on the environment gives the sense of working as a community. To date, participants have reported more than 634,000 green acts, saving an estimated 33 million kilograms of greenhouse gases.

A few months after a British jury acquitted the “Kingsnorth Six” global warming activists, the U.K.'s attorney general is attempting to invalidate the “lawful excuse” defense frequently employed by direct-action protesters facing criminal charges.

The Kingsnorth Six were cleared of criminal damage charges for scaling and vandalizing the chimney of a coal-fired power plant on the grounds that their actions intended to prevent greater damages the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions would cause. The verdict was celebrated by environmentalists around the globe, but didn’t sit well with prosecutors, who according to the Guardian, “were understood to be furious” with the acquittal, “arguing that allowance for demonstrations did not extend to breaking the law.”

Now they’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The Guardian reports:

[T]he attorney general is considering using her power to refer cases to the court of appeal to "clarify a point of law". It is believed to be an attempt to limit the circumstances in which protesters could rely on "lawful excuse".

…

Should the "lawful excuse" defence prove to be unusable by protesters, Britain can expect many more environmental and peace activists to be convicted—something which could backfire against a government accused of drastically curtailing the right to protest in the last five years.

Image by izzie_whizzie, licensed under Creative Commons.

There’s an untapped energy source right under your feet. Plenty (article not available online) reports on a new technology that captures and uses the heat from sun-warmed asphalt. Under the system, water is circulated through pipes embedded in streets, sidewalks, or parking lots, and then used directly for hot-water needs or tapped to produce electricity through a steam-powered turbine. Apart from using otherwise wasted heat energy, the system could help moderate the “urban heat island effect” by reducing pavement temps, adding a new literal twist to the phrase “cooling your heels.” The Roadway Energy System is best suited to hot climates with long hours of sunshine; the clean-tech firm Novotech hopes to begin commercial installations by 2010.

Image by tanakawho, licensed under  Creative Commons .

With “drill baby drill” standing as one of the more enduring (and creepy) catch phrases of the 2008 election, John McCain and Barack Obama clearly have significant differences of opinion on U.S. energy policy. Sarah Palin mentioned energy 29 times in her debate with Joe Biden, saying “energy independence is the key to America's future.” Questions remain, however, on where the candidates actually stand.

Utne Reader’s sister publication, Mother Earth News, has broken down Obama's and McCain's votes and policy proposals on drilling for oil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving fuel economy. My favorite part comes from the drilling for oil section.

John McCain voted:

-- For oil drilling in ANWR (2000)
-- Against oil drilling in ANWR (2002)
-- For banning drilling in ANWR (2005)
-- Against reducing oil usage by 40 percent by 2025 (2005)

Solar energy is becoming a community effort, and more accessible than ever before. Married couple Sylvia Ventura and Dan Barahona have launched 1BOG, “One Block Off the Grid,” a volunteer group that organizes neighborhoods and communities to install solar power en masse. Those who go solar through 1BOG have access to bulk discounts on equipment and installation, whose high cost has been a main deterrent for many potential buyers. The all-volunteer program boasts over 700 member homes in 20 cities across the country, with more to come.

(Thanks, Conscious Choice)

Image courtesy of  Trebosc , licensed under  Creative Commons . 

Although the environment has come up somewhat briefly in the recent presidential debates, do voters really know exactly how the candidates stack up on issues like drilling, animal protection, and conservation?

Advocacy for Animals, part of Encyclopedia Britannica’s website, has created a quick, four-part resource on those topics. "Environmental & Animal Welfare, Where the Candidates Stand" filters out the white noise of ads and accusations and leaves a clear, concise breakdown of each  presidential and vice-presidential candidate’s position on environmental matters, citing their voting records, public statements, and official actions.

The summary is not exhaustive, but still gives readers a good idea of what they can expect from the nominees.

Part 1: Drilling, Mining, and Energy 

Part 2: Animal Welfare and Protection 

Part 3: Global Warming 

Part 4: Environmental Conservation 

Image courtesy of ccgd, licensed under Creative Commons.

Finally, a little good news regarding the environment: A new report from the SUN DAY Campaign via EcoGeek reveals that renewable energy now makes up 10 percent of the domestically produced energy in the United States. Biomass and biofuels are in the lead, while hydroelectric comes in second and wind, geothermal, and solar energies trail far behind. But those energies with the smallest piece of the energy pie also have the most growth potential: wind power development is up almost 50 percent over its levels last year, and 2008 still has a few months to go. And, as reported earlier, geothermal energy is receiving much-needed attention and funding. Though investment in renewable energy still has a long way to go (especially after Congress caved on offshore drilling), the number is encouraging and shows a step in the right direction.

Image courtesy of  dervish , licensed under  Creative Commons .

“It’s a 9/11 thing.” 

We’re all well-accustomed to hearing this rote justification as we stuff toiletries into a tiny Ziploc bag at airport security or question the aesthetic judgment behind the makeshift, gigantic cement pylons encircling downtown buildings. But here’s an unexpected use of this most 21st-century of mantras: The response above came from an escalator company representative explaining why the firm couldn’t give a reporter from Next American City information about their products’ energy use and pricing.

The industry has good cause to be cagey. These icons of modern ease are dinosaurs when it comes to energy efficiency. As Next American City reports, “[t]he national energy use of escalators is estimated at 2.6 billion kilowatt hours per year, equivalent to powering 375,000 houses.” That’s a lot of wattage for devices that keep draining electricity even when they’re not being used (which is much of the time).

There are some attempts to green escalators. Next American City notes the efforts of J. Dunlop Inc., which has applied for a patent on a design for a plastic elevator step whose lighter weight would require less energy than the current heavy aluminum versions.

The article does not make mention of “variable-speed escalators”—those that stay still or move very slowly until someone in need of a lift climbs aboard. New York City is in the midst of transitioning a handful of subway stations to this more energy-efficient version. But, as the New York Times reports, the escalators hit a few bumps on their inaugural voyages: only 22 of the 35 escalators slated to shift to variable speed at four stations were functioning properly by showtime on Monday.

An earlier piece announcing the initiative notes that such technology hasn’t yet been approved by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. (New York City Transit had to get a work-around OK from state code enforcers for the experimental program.) The “sleep mode” or “intermittent operation” technology is used, however, in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Israel.

So perhaps that’s one greener option for stateside escalators in the future. Or, there’s always the other route: Take the stairs. As one mechanical engineer puts it to Next American City: "If you have a place like a mall, you could install an elevator for the elderly and the disabled and tell everyone else to take a walk. It’s not the kind of machine that you can make practical. Because it’s not."

Image by Jan the manson, licensed under Creative Commons.

Developing nations will soon benefit from personal stoves that combine energy efficiency and sustainable business models. Triple Pundit highlights efforts by EnviroFit and the Shell Foundation to distribute clean-burning biomass stoves in India.

EnviroFit, a Colorado-based nonprofit manufacturer, first became known for retrofitting two-stroke engines in Southeast Asia. Its stoves are designed to harness the power of “wood, crop waste, or animal dung” and produce nontoxic exhaust. This is valuable to India and other developing countries, where toxic indoor air pollution claims millions of lives every year. EnviroFit and Shell hope to subsidize the $12 to $50 cost of the stoves for families in need and eventually expand the program to Latin America and Africa.

Biomass stoves are part of an alternative-cooking trend that harnesses old technologies in new ways. Utne blogger Erik Helin pointed me to a spread in BackHome (article not available online) featuring the latest solar cooking technology, ranging from expensive high-tech cookers to do-it-yourself contraptions made from windshield shades and other materials. We’ve come a long way from the lukewarm hot dogs yielded up by the tin-foil-and-shoebox cookers my sixth-grade science class constructed.

You might think your home energy consumption is your own dirty little secret, but Lolly Merrell reports in the Bear Deluxe (#27; article not available online) that it is in fact probably public knowledge. “In most states, public service commissions require energy companies to provide the records of anyone’s power consumption upon request,” she writes. While making such requests is sometimes slow and cumbersome, she reports that more energy company websites “have made power snooping easy and inviting.”

Such snooping was famously used by a conservative group to shame Al Gore by publicizing the lavish energy use of his Nashville mansion. But Merrell points out that that the numbers can be used for constructive ends as well. She notes that a friend has gathered energy stats for her neighborhood and “plans to go door to door with a challenge: reduce each household’s consumption with the goal of lowering the entire neighborhood’s utility usage by 10 percent.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, my doorbell is ringing.

 

 

 If the future of nuclear power were as bright as its most enthusiastic supporters suggest it is, investors would be flocking to it like electrons to nuclei. But “the smart money is heading for the exits,” reports the Spring 2008 Solutions, the newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Institute energy think tank.

“The private capital market isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying,” write Amory Lovins, Imran Sheikh, and Alex Markevitch, in an article starkly titled “Forget Nuclear.” “In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street.”

The article goes on to crunch the numbers behind nuclear vs. renewable energy options, and lands, not surprisingly, yet authoritatively, on the side of renewables. In typical Rocky Mountain Institute style, the report is technical but not obtuse and even, in conclusion, quite impassioned:

“Isn’t it time we forgot about nuclear power?” the authors ask. “Informed capitalists have. Politicians and pundits should, too.”

Elsewhere in the issue, the institute thanks recent donors, and under the category of “Integrators”—those who gave $5,000 to $9,999—is R.E.M./Athens L.L.C., the business end of the little rock band from Georgia. I guess “Green” isn’t just the name of one of their albums.

The nuclear energy industry isn’t just mounting a P.R. campaign about the great green hope of nuclear power. It’s also applying good old political pressure to get its way, the Texas Observer reports, strong-arming Texas environmental regulators in order to win approval for a huge nuclear waste landfill over scientists’ objections.

The Dallas-based firm Waste Control Specialists is close to securing approval for a low-level nuclear waste landfill in Andrews County, Texas, Forrest Wilder reports. If the company scores two more necessary licenses from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), “Waste Control could bury more than 60 million cubic feet of waste over the span of 30 years, more than half the volume of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium,” he writes. Which of course would be a radioactive dream come true for all the people who are talking about a nuclear renaissance but still unsure exactly where all that waste is going to go.

The licensing process has led to a clash at the TCEQ between the scientists and engineers who oppose Waste Control’s plans and agency managers bent on approving the licenses. Three employees have even quit because of frustration with the licensing process, Wilder reports. Chief among their reservations were indications that the dump might be dangerously close to the water table and that Waste Control had previous “radiation protection issues” with worker safety.

—Keith Goetzman

February 9 was a historic day in the environmental shaming of the Unites States as Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, broke ground on Masdar City, a $22 billion municipality that will be carless, solar powered, and almost entirely self-contained. Water will come from a seawater desalinization plant, produce will come from surrounding greenhouses, and all waste will be composted or recycled, writes the New York Times.

The groundbreaking came on the heels of a January announcement by the Masdar Initiative, a renewable energy investment company, that the UAE will commit $15 billion dollars for initial research on sustainable programs. This investment represents the biggest government-sponsored renewable energy program in the world, and it comes from a nation that gained much of its wealth through oil and natural gas. This fact has some wondering: Can one grand progressive step erase decades of carbon emissions irresponsibility?

(Thanks, Groovy Green.)

—Erik Helin

Gas prices continue to rise, but there’s one energy source that’s as cheap as ever: air. French engineer Guy Negre has figured out a way to run cars on compressed air, BBC News reports, and his air-powered inventions could go on sale in less than a year. The OneCAT will cost about $5,000 and can be filled up with an air compressor in just three minutes. To watch a video of the BBC report click here.

(Thanks, Raw Story and the Arlington Institute newsletter.)

—Bennett Gordon

January means list time. Everyone feels entitled to publish an annual top ten list around the New Year, looking back on 2007’s notable scientific discoveries, blunders, and cat videos. But Sustainable Industries is looking ahead. The monthly green business magazine, nominated for a 2007 Utne Independent Press Award for its environmental coverage, has put out its annual Trend Watch, with in-depth articles on eight green business trends we can expect to see in 2008.

One thing to anticipate in 2008 is growth in the green building products industry. Despite worries over the U.S. housing slump, the green building market has been growing rapidly, with the market for green building materials increasing a whopping 23 percent annually from 2004 to 2006. Sustainable Industries attributes the growth to consumer demand, stricter building codes, and the reduced operating costs that come with green buildings.

But consumers aren’t satisfied with just living in green buildings—they also want to be able to keep tabs on their energy consumption within the home. Which is why Sustainable Industries predicts we will see an increase in technology that gives consumers easy access to energy usage information: “A growing number of savvy companies are providing value-added services that help individual users make sense of the environmental data available, using the now-ubiquitous cell phones, PDAs, laptops and other personal communication tools available.” One such tool, featured in Good magazine, shows how much energy is sucked up by common household appliances even when they are turned off. And Sustainable Industries reports that Nissan plans to add displays to vehicles that tell the driver how their acceleration and braking behaviors affect fuel efficiency.

Other predictions for 2008? Expect to see advances in battery operated cars, increased reliance on renewable energy sources, and a consolidation of green media sources.

—Sarah Pumroy

In Utne Reader’s latest issue, I tried to convince homeowners, builders, and buyers to get over their fear of the “green premium”—the price-tag hike for taking the eco-friendly path—and plunge into the green housing market. I argued that we could take a tip from corporate America, which has already realized that green buildings aren’t just better for the planet, they’re better for the people in them (happier, healthier employees) and they’re better for the bottom line (energy efficiency = big cost savings).

Then I read Environmental Building News’ latest issue, which points out that our work is far from done when it comes to minimizing the environmental toll of our jobs. The September edition of this newsletter from the hyper-informed folks at BuildingGreen Inc. tallies the eco-footprint of American commuters. “Commuting by office workers accounts for 30 percent more energy than the [average office] building itself uses,” write Alex Wilson and Rachel Navaro. When you look at newer energy-efficient developments, that gap widens to 140 percent. The authors make a compelling case for green building professionals (and their clients) to place a greater emphasis on location and access to public transportation when it comes judging a project’s environmental credentials. Because an office can only be so green if you have to burn an hour’s worth of gas inching through exurbia to get there. —Hannah Lobel