Solar powered coffee van coming to a town near you?

I recently stumbled upon a mobile coffee company this week, near where my wife works.

Besspresso is a solar and biofuel (soy-based) powered green van that serves a blend of organic, fair trade, and sustainable wood roasted coffee and various espresso drinks. They serve their coffee in 100% biodegradable corn and plant based cups.

They originated near Portland, Oregon a few years ago, but the new owners are taking it all over the United States. They will be here in Iowa City for a few more weeks, then off to Tempe, Arizona for the remainder of the year. They will also be making stops at various music and environmental festivals this summer.

They offer a relaxing atmosphere to enjoy coffee outdoors, and listen to music through their high quality loudspeaker system.

To learn more about their service, and where they are located now, visit their website at: http://www.solarespresso.com/

Philadelphia Eagles set the bar high for sports industry

One of the last industries you think of for promoting sustainability is the sports world. Players and fans flying and driving all over to attend games in large air-conditioned venues with lots of lights, huge amounts of concession stand food in disposeable containers.

One team is stepping out and taking the lead towards sustainability, the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL).

In 2003, the Philadelphia Eagles owners, Jeffrey and Christina Lurie, decided they wanted to make the Eagles more environmentally responsible.  They had the insight to see that they could make a difference, and set the team apart from others with a program called “Go Green!”

The Go Green! initiative focuses around some key initiatives: renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation, recycling and waste reduction, reforestation (tree planting), and procurement decisions.

To start with, the Eagles offset their carbon emissions for the 2010 season through the GoZero program, which is managed by the Conservation Fund organization. They had been working their way up to 100% offset over the years. In 2009, the Eagles ran 100% of their operations on wind and solar, a small portion of which comes from their solar array at the NovaCare Complex, which produced 12,757 kilowatt-hours (kWh). In addition, they have cut their stadium’s annual electricity use by nearly 50% since 2004 through energy conservation and efficiency improvements.

The Eagles also created the country’s first Renewable Energy Employee Benefit Program, which encourages all full-time Eagles employees to purchase renewable energy credits (REC’s) from Delaware Valley region energy. The program compensates employees by paying the difference in price between current and renewable energy. In 2009, more than half of the organization’s eligible employees took advantage of this program.

In 2008 and 2009, the Eagles offset 100% of the greenhouse gas generated by team travel (air, bus, train and hotel) through tree planting. Their tree planting efforts take place at Eagles Forest, a 6.5-acre site at Neshaminy State Park in Bensalem, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It contains more than 4,000 trees and shrubs, including over 150 trees that have been purchased by Eagles fans. They are also sponsoring tree plantings in Louisiana’s Lake Ophelia National Wildlife Refuge in Marksville, Louisiana, and helping with restoration projects in that area due to the recent oil spill in the gulf.

In 2009, they launched a composting program, in conjunction with their cafeteria service provider. They capture unwanted and disposed of food, and utilize compostable or post-consumer recycled content for utensils, plates and cups. In addition, the cooking oil is sent out for conversion to bio-diesel. They are also using environmentally preferable cleaning products to clean the food service and facilities areas. Along with a strong recycling program that has been in-place since 2003, they are getting very close to achieving a zero-waste operation.

In the office area, they have also made strides in reducing paper usage. They reduced newsletter publications by 36 tons of paper by moving more of the publications to online. They also moved to a digital media guide, saving more than 200 trees. They also increased the post-consumer content of the following items: game day programs, office printer paper, business cards, memo pads, invoices, staff handbooks, stadium credentials, facial tissue, hand towels, toilet paper, stadium maps, event staff birthday cards, tickets, cardstock and certain envelopes.

The efforts continue with the cheerleaders. The 2010-2011 Eagle Cheerleaders calendar was the first in the league to be printed on post-consumer recycled paper. The 38 cheerleaders are wearing eco-friendly bikinis made from organic cotton or recycled plastic bottles, with accessories (earrings, necklaces and bracelets) made from recycled materials such as CD's and computer chips. Additionally, 10% of the calendar sales will go to the Gulf Restoration Network to help protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf for future generations.

Finally, one of the key activities that got the effort moving was the Carbon Neutral game, which took place in 2005 between the St. Louis Rams and the Eagles. The teams worked with Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), StopGlobalWarming.org, and NativeEnergy to offset the energy usage for a single game. They agreed to use clean energy from a Native American wind project in the Midwest, and energy from a Pennsylvania dairy farm methane project.

They determined that a single game produced 58 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution. The majority of the energy during the game came from heating the dome (wintertime in St. Louis), and running the huge lights during the game.  However, fans, media, and teams traveling by air, bus, and car to the game had a much greater impact. They estimated that travel took up more than 10,900 tons of CO2 – about 99% of the event's total carbon footprint.

Hats off the Eagles, and especially Christina Lurie, for her drive and determination to make this happen! I hope that other teams pay attention, and start competing with them in their sustainability efforts, not just on the football field. 

Learn more about the Eagles' Go Green! program >>>

Offset your carbon emission usage to feel better and make a difference

I was a little leary of carbon offset programs, but as I read more into Carbonfund.org, they have a very rigorous process for validating projects. Even though I do drive a Prius, I do impact the environment with the gas I purchase and consume. I also commute 25 miles each way, five days a week, so those miles add up to about 15,000 per year.

Therefore, I decided to offset the last years worth of driving. According to their calculator, I have contributed almost 3 metric tons of CO2 to the environment in the last year. To offset that amount, I had to pay about $30, or around $2.50 per month. That seems very reasonable to me, and it helps me feel slightly better about my driving habits.

Don't get me wrong. Paying someone to allow me to continue my bad behavior is not the intent. The alternative is that I don't spend the $30 on anything related to the environment, so I'm letting them do it for me. I don't want to pay that amount each year (as affordable as it is), so there is some incentive for me to continue to find ways to reduce my driving.

If businesses and companies were forced to offset their carbon footprint each year, imagine how many projects we could get started? For example, my company generates about 150,000 metric tons per year. If they paid $10 per metric ton (which is what CarbonFund.org charges), that would be about $1.5 million! Imagine how many solar and wind projects we could implement with that kind of investment! (As a side note, my company has set aside $500,000 to fund energy reducion projects this year, which is a great start).

Good movie about where electricity comes from

We attended a green expo today, and one of the sessions was a 1-hour video called "Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America", which was made in 2007. I hadn't even heard of it before, but I was very impressed with it.

The movie, created by Jeff Barrie, explores the source of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global warming. He walks through step-by-step how you can reduce your energy usage in your home and learn more about "green" renewable energy. 

One of the better parts of the movie was the discussion about energy conservation that many cities have taken on. Instead of building new power plants to address their increasing energy demands, the city of Austin, and the state of California spent a fraction of the power plant construction costs on education and rebates. In Iowa, we are having the discussion right now about building a new nuclear plant to meet our increasing energy demand, so that really hit home for me.

You can also download a classroom exercise for grade school kids, that corresponds with the movie
http://www.kilowattours.org/curriculum/KilowattOurs-Challenge-Activity.pdf

You can learn more about the movie at http://www.kilowattours.org/

Crete renewable energy makes up for shortcomings

My wife and I got a chance to vacation to the island of Crete, the biggest island in the Greek Isles, located in the Mediterranean Sea. The weather was incredible, the scenery was mountainous and amazing, and the water was warm and clear. The local people were very friendly and spoke excellent English, so it made the trip very enjoyable.

What I didn't anticipate was the amount of renewable energy available in Crete. We saw many applications of green technology.

Almost every home had a passive solar water heater system on the roof, which means they aren't spending money on heating their water. With the amazing weather we experienced, it seems like a no-brainer to implement that everywhere in the Mediterranean.

We saw at least 100 wind turbines on the mountain tops, and probably 5-6 different wind farms (on the east side of the island only). It was pretty impressive. The good thing is that they didn't need huge towers to get them way up in the air, since the mountain was already high enough for constant wind. That probably keeps the costs down.

We also passed by a solar photovoltaic farm, with maybe 10-20 large panels. It was hard to get a picture of it due to the road we were travelling on, but it looked very impressive.

A couple observations about Europe:

1) they limited the use of ice. Every time we ordered soda or a water, we got 2-3 cubes, which melted quickly. I'd consider that a savings on the use of energy to generate all the ice cubes, even though it might not help the customer satisfaction for those of us used to having a drink that has too much ice.

2) Most hotels had a switch that required the room key, in order to turn on the electricity. This forced you to turn everything off when you left the room, by removing the key from the device. The only downside was when we were trying to recharge something (cell phone, laptop, etc), we could only do it when we were physically there. Overall, I like the idea, and would like to see it expand to the US.

I was looking for a website that summarized the renewable activity in Crete, but was unsuccessful. Maybe it's available on a website written in Greek. If anyone can find one that talks about the number of wind farms and turbines, solar arrays, solar water heaters, etc in Crete, I'd appreciate it.
Now to the negatives. In general, I did not see many places to recycle. We actually had to save up all our stuff, and take it to the Scandinavian resort up the hill, where they had many different bins all over the place for recycleables.

It might help the second problem as well, which is the amount of trash lying around. Along every street and highway you could see trash, bottles, cans, and many other items that shouldn't be there. If your primary economy is based upon tourism, I would think that cleanliness would be a primary focus.

Fortunately, most of the beaches were trash-free, except for the last beach we stopped at, on our way to the airport.

As you can see from this photo, it looks amazing, so we stopped right away to check it out. Crystal clear waters, cool rock formations, and ocean as far as you can see.

However, when you get up close, this is what we saw everywhere.

Trash bags, food packaging wrappers, styrofoam, plastic silverware, and other small plastic pieces that would surely be eaten by marine life. It was really gross. I would only get into the water up to my waist, and even then, I was not comfortable. We grabbed as many large objects as we could find, but it would take an army to clean it up.

I don't know how it got there. I don't even blame the locals, since it could be coming from the cruise ships or tourists. However, I would not recommend anyone go to that particular beach (Voulisma Beach) because of the trash we saw. This needs to be addressed right away. To have a beautiful island ruined by litter and trash would be a shame.

Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute (VISFI) leading the way

On our recent trip to St. Croix, we discovered a very cool farm up in the rainforests. The VISFI provides "a working educational farm enterprise that integrates sustainability in education, environment, and community through quality instruction in Agroecology and related fields." We wanted to get a first-hand look at what they did, and so we made the trek up the mountain for a visit.

They offer many workshops and educational programs to study-abroad students, along with the locals. The have recently setup the VI Locally Grown program, where buyers can purchase local produce and hand-made crafts online.



The first thing you notice is the solar panels on the roof of the community center. Inside is a library of sustainable books, along with tables where the staff work wirelessly from their laptops. There is also a kitchen, where the food from the land is prepared each day.

Everyone was very friendly and helpful. We decided to take the self-guided tour. We were given a map of the area, along with descriptions about each area.



One of the coolest features was the treehouse, which had a bed and living room area. It was buried high up into the trees, and could fold up during inclimate weather. There was a lot of craftmanship that went into building it.



Another helper lived in the yurt pictured above, which was buried into the forest, and was difficult to find.



They also have a program called Farm Stays where you can stay in one of the solar-powered cabanas for about $35/night and help out around the farm during the day. A great option for those trying to save money. The farm is only a couple miles drive from the beach, or you can also opt to hike down from the mountain.

There is a lot more that they offer, so visit the VISFI website for more information, or stop by if you're ever in St. Croix.

Current Energy Store in Dallas

For the past year or so, I have wanted to create a store that only sold eco-friendly items, like solar powered items, low flow toilets, automatic composters, energy monitors and organic cotton tees. Turns out Current Energy in Dallas had the idea a couple years earlier. I was able to visit it recently (there's only one right now).



All the products you can imagine. The one store you don't have to worry about what you're buying, because it is all good for the environment.

Visit their website, where you can order these products online

Current Energy Dallas

Review of Solio Solar Powered Charger

I received the much-anticipated Solio charger as a gift recently, and I couldn't wait to try it out. The thought of having my cell phone taken "off the grid" was pretty cool.



When I received the package, I was impressed that it came in a reused Motorola cell phone box. They could have chosen a fancy packaging with their logo out of virgin materials, but instead chose to keep with their green image.

Since I have an iPhone, I had to order a special attachment for the charger. When it arrived, it took me a while to figure out that I had to use my computer USB adapter for the iPhone, along with their adapter cable, in order to get things to connect together properly. I made a call to customer service, and they were able to set me straight. The instructions provided were mainly pictures of what to do, which usually are sufficient, but i kept looking for some written instructions for specific issues like this one. Once I got the pieces aligned, I was able to start capturing the sun for my own personal use.

You need to first charge your Solio via the computer first, before charging your device. I fully charged the Solio, but had trouble getting the charge transferred to my iPhone. Turns out you have to turn off your cell phone completely to have the device begin charging back up. That wasn't very clear either. Finally, some success! I was able to charge my phone from the Solio. Next step, getting a charge from the sun, instead of my computer!

I work in an office building that doesn't have any nearby windows, so I used the cool suction cup feature to set the charger on my car windshield while I was at work. I work in Florida, so sunshine is not a problem. After work was done, I expected to find a partial charge on the device, but was disappointed to find the same charge level as when I left it.

What happened?

Turns out the Solio likes to have a direct sunlight right at the device, otherwise it doesn't show a red charge light, and therefore is not charging. Maybe I am unfamiliar with solar technology, but I figured you could just lay the charger on the dashboard, and any sunlight, direct or not, would get captured. Since a full charge requires 12-24 hours of direct sun, i've been unable to get a full charge. I think I would probably need to go out to my car every couple hours and adjust the device so it has the best position to capture sunlight. Maybe I need to park my car in a certain angle so there are no shadows or nearby cars to block the sunlight. I think I need to completely rethink my parking situation at work.



Bottom line, I so wanted this device to be an easy way to avoid charging my phone with electricity, but it has been really frustrating so far. The company gets an A for effort, but I would rate it a C for execution so far. I haven't given up hope yet, but I've been pretty disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high to begin with. Look for updates later, if I find success with this device. If I can find a spot that gets good sunlight most of the day (without leaving it outside, or on top of my car), then that might take care of my main issues.

Oat: The new renewable energy?

I saw this mentioned on an environmental website the other day, and thought it was pretty cool, especially since I'm a former alum.

"According to a University of Iowa video, burning oat hulls - instead of just coal - saves about $1 million per year for the school. It gets the oat hulls from a Quaker Oats facility, which is just a short distance away in Cedar Rapids, IA. By 2010, the university plans to reduce its energy consumption by 10 percent and use renewable sources to generate 15 percent of all energy on campus."

There is also a short video developed by the University of Iowa to describe the "oat hulls" used to generate power.

Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor

We bought the Kill-a-Watt, in order to help us figure out where we were spending most of our money in electricity. We were hoping it would also help us figure out whether we had phantom power on some of our devices (using power when not in use).



The device works by simply unplugging the 110-volt device from the wall, plugging in the Kill-a-Watt into the outlet, then plugging the device into the Kill-a-Watt, and pressing the on button. That simple! It starts to measure the amount of kilowatt hours (KwH) of electricity used, and retains the amount of minutes and hours that it has been plugged in, so you can determine how much is used per hour, per day, etc.



We determined that many of our devices did not have phantom power (good!), and that certain devices are very energy intensive, such as ovens and refrigerators. We turned down the temperature slightly on the fridge, and started using our toaster oven more often, instead of heating the entire oven for items that could fit in the toaster oven.

We would highly recommend this device to anyone looking to reduce their energy usage and electrical bills (which should be everybody!). It is affordable, easy to use, and will pay for itself in no time!

"Consumer's Guide to Alternative Energy" DVD

I recently viewed a DVD called "Consumer's Guide to Alternative Energy". This video provides a more thorough explanation of alternative energy and fuels than I've seen any other place.

The video goes through the following alternatives:

» Ethanol
» Solar Power
» BioDiesel
» Wind Generators
» Hybrid & Electric Cars

It also has additional links to resources and websites to learn even more about each one. At the end, it also includes an Energy Efficiency and Conservation module that has tips for reducing your impact, if you aren't looking to invest in any of these options right now.



What I liked best was the unbiased opinion. For each category, it would give the positives and negatives of each, so that people would know what they were getting into (for example, using ethanol-based fuels can reduce your gas efficiency by 25%). Often times, these details are not mentioned, or are not discovered until you get too far into the investigation.

This would be a great video for classrooms, businesses or just for people who want to learn more about the different options out there today. It lasts 34 minutes, but there's quite a bit of information presented, using real people who are already using these options.

The DVD was created by Syndikast, as part of their Future Fuels Series. If you are interested in purchasing it, visit their website at Future Fuels TV.