EcoTech, a Los Angeles based company, claims their new roofing materials are the greenest and most sustainable product to date. Their new roofing panels promise to reduce energy costs and increase a home’s value easily.

“First and foremost, EcoTech is all about being green, eco-friendly and sustainable,” says the company’s CEO Jeffrey Barrett, Sr. “We’re committed to environmental leadership in all aspects of our business. Eco-friendly and sustainable responsibility is crucial to the future of our country and the future of our children and grandchildren.”

According to Barrett, the new roofing material is both durable and eco-friendly because they are made from interlocking highly-advanced polymer panels. The panels are supposed to be unbreakable, as well as resistant to mold, mildew and algae. Making them long lasting and cost saving for home owners. The highly-advanced polymer material also reflects heat off of homes, in a similar way white roofs would, which reduces energy costs for homes during the warmer months.

The Nu-Slate panels are designed to resemble other roofing materials, offering home owners both style and sustainability. The panels come in a wide array of colors, and can mimic wood, cedar, shake, and quarry slate roof panels. The Nu-Slate panels, however, are stronger and more durable than the typical building materials.

“EcoTech meets the industry’s stringiest certification programs, including the Cool Roof Rating Council, United States Green Building Council and Energy Star,” Barrett says.

Each panel is made from polymers that create 0 production waste, and are completely recyclable. They are strong enough to resist winds up to 130 miles per hour, as well as being class A fire resistant. They are so durable, EcoTech says they may be the last roofing panels a homeowner needs to buy.

Reprinted with permission from Green Building Elements

Range Resources submitted its first voluntary disclosures form of Marcellus Shale hydraulic fracturing to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on August 12, but is this enough to ensure responsible development of this natural gas source and protect PA’s water supply?

The Marcellus Shale is a Middle Devonian-age black, low density, carbonaceous (organic rich) shale that occurs in the subsurface beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York. In layman’s terms it is an extraordinary resource of natural gas causing a lot of debate in states where it could potentially be extracted.

Why the controversy? The method of extracting that gas could prove detrimental if left unchecked. A relatively new and controversial extraction process called hydraulic fracturing or fracking could pollute sources of the Delaware River that supplies Philadelphia’s water. Hydraulic fracturing entails a vertical drill moving horizontally to get the gas bound up in the rock and then millions of gallons of water mixed with toxic chemicals and sand being forced into the shale fracturing it; whereby making the gas pour out.

Range Resources Corporation one of the first companies on the scene to begin developing western PA’s source of natural gas drilled a Marcellus well in Washington County, Pennsylvania in 2003 and found a promising flow of natural gas. As of August 12, 2010 Range has committed to providing information on the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale. Information on the first three Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania that Range has hydraulically fractured since implementation of the voluntary initiative can be found on Range’s website. The purpose of this voluntary initiative is to provide landowners and citizens of Pennsylvania an accounting of the highly diluted additives used at each well site.

While the initiative has been met with supportive response from policy-makers, I cannot help but be skeptical about this new extraction method, the voluntary nature of the reporting and the effect on the 15 million people in Philadelphia who rely on the watershed which could potentially become contaminated. I hope voluntary disclosures are enough to keep the Marcellus Shale development safe.

Image Credit: chuckchuckchuck! via Flickr under CC license.

Reprinted with permission from The Inspired Economist

It has been five years since Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, and many parts of the city are still waiting to be rebuilt. Thanks to the Make It Right Foundation, much of the rebuilding will focus on green and sustainable technologies. Home owners still coming back to the infamous 9th Ward will get to be part of a new sustainable community.

What is the “Make It Right Foundation”?

The brainchild of actor Brad Pitt, the “Make It Right Foundation” is an organization created to help rebuild the devastated 9th Ward in New Orleans. By focusing on green and sustainable building practices, the members hope to create a sustainable community that residents can be proud of.

The foundation began in 2006 as a group of 13 architecture firms hired by Pitt to design affordable, eco-friendly houses for New Orleans residents. So far, Pitt and the “Make It Right Foundation” have begun building homes on the exact spot where the Industrial Canal levee breached on Aug. 29, 2005. The goal is to have 150 homes built by December, 2010. For the residents of New Orleans, the project provides a way to return home.

Many of the homeowners shared their stories about "Make It Right." One resident, Ann Parfaite said:

“This project affords residents in the Lower 9th Ward the opportunity to return to their neighborhood under better conditions than they were prior to the hurricane. I am very happy to be able to participate in the Make It Right program and to be restored to my home in the Lower 9th Ward,” said Parfaite

All of the homes built so far in the 9th Ward have been certified as LEED platinum for their energy efficiency and sustainability. According to “Make It Right” and the U.S. Green Building Council, the area is now the “largest, greenest neighborhood of single family homes in America.”

As rebuilding continues in New Orleans, other parts of the city are also working to become greener. The The Grand Bay Coastal Resources Center recently became the first Mississippi’s state government-owned building to be LEED certified. Soon, New Orleans could become the most sustainable city in America.

Image credit: eschipul via flickr/CC license

Reprinted with permission from Green Building Elements

This is the first major deployment of zero-emissions buses made by Proterra, Inc. The buses achieve between 18 and 29 miles per gallon (diesel-fuel equivalent) fully loaded with 68 passengers--a 500% improvement on comparable diesel buses.

With up to three hours of operation and the ability to recharge in less than 10 minutes on route, Proterra says the buses can easily be incorporated into any transit agencies' existing routes without impacting their schedules or routes.

Foothill Transit, a public transport provider in Southern San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys, put the buses and related fast-charging stations into operation this week. The company has set a goal of establishing a full fleet of clean-fueled vehicles by 2011.

The deployment of the Proterra bus by Foothill Transit, advances the electric transit industry, providing a real-world example of the benefits and ease of deployment. California transit agencies are required to make zero emission buses 15% of their annual bus orders starting in 2012.

The EcoRide BE35 has a light-weight composite body and contains all electric components, including an electric drive motor supplied by UQM (AMEX: UQM). Proterra says the bus offers greater than $300,000 savings in total lifetime operating expenses.

Reprinted with permission from SustainableBusiness.com

The energy efficiency retrofit industry for public buildings is relatively well developed worldwide compared to the private building retrofit industry. It is a large market in the United States, with annual revenues for energy service companies in the vicinity of U.S. $4 billion. However, long-term energy efficiency and carbon mitigation targets worldwide will rely heavily on improving the efficiency of the entire building stock. Public buildings represent only about a quarter of the total commercial building stock in the United States, and retrofits have barely begun to touch the private building stock.

One reason for the sluggishness of efficiency in the private building stock is the lack of post-retrofit data on building performance. Although there are many successful examples of retrofits in the private sector, the industry as a whole needs a robust set of data on post-retrofit performance and payback before they will be convinced that the opportunity to reduce operating costs is real, the risks are low, and the ROI is high enough to justify investments in efficiency.

Today, efficiency retrofits are typically based on a predictive model in which building engineers model energy use based on the building’s equipment, envelope, climate, and usage patterns. However, the actual performance of the building can often diverge significantly from the predictive model, and this discrepancy makes private building owners reluctant to invest in energy efficiency. It also makes financial institutions unwilling to provide the necessary financing to support efficiency projects, as the perceived risks (that buildings will not meet their predicted efficiency levels) are too high.

There is also the issue of payback period. Whereas the public sector is willing to accept payback periods of 10-15 years, the private sector rarely accepts paybacks of over 4 years. Additional post-retrofit performance data would ease concerns about the paybacks of certain measures and reduce the perceived risks. Today there is a tendency toward “cream skimming,” or selecting only measures with the fastest paybacks (such as lighting retrofits, energy control management systems, and retrocommissioning). Reliable data on the ROI for all efficiency measures would give investors the confidence they need to invest in efficiency.

The industry is just now starting to take the first few steps toward addressing this major barrier. For example, the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, a philanthropic arm of Deutsche Bank, is starting to compile a set of data on several hundred buildings in New York City. Gary Hattem, the president of the foundation, argues that “if underwriters can determine a predictable savings from retrofits, then they can create a financial instrument backed by these savings to sell on the open market.” In other words, data on post-retrofit building performance would reduce the perceived risks and free up capital for efficiency.

If the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and other groups can compile post-retrofit performance data in commercial buildings, it would do a lot to push the needle and lower the bar for private building owners to begin investing in energy efficiency.

Eric Bloom is a research analyst at clean tech research and consulting firm Pike Research

Every other month or so for the last eight years, my small local water district in Colorado has sent me--and everyone else in the district--a multi-page flier explaining that some of the water tested in my district contains elevated levels of lead.

The letter explains that homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes, fixtures and solder and that the water district is bound by the EPA to send us these letters -- however, I wonder how much it costs to print and mail all of these fliers versus the cost of finding the problem sources and fixing them. After discussing potential causes and possible health effects, the fliers conclude with a suggestion that you test your water, but it also hints that if you have a home built after 1986, you're probably okay.

But according to a piece by former California State Assemblywoman Wilma Chan at AlterNet, you may not be as okay as you think.

Chan writes:

"In 1986, a federal law was enacted to reduce lead in our drinking water plumbing. However, faucets sold today can still contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled as “lead-free” under the 1986 federal law."

According to the EPA, even legally “lead-free” plumbing may contain up to 8 percent lead and faucets may contain up to 4 percent lead. The most common problem is with brass or chrome-plated brass faucets and fixtures which can leach significant amounts of lead into the water, especially hot water.

Chan notes that the typical household faucet weighs about six and a half pounds. That means a typical household faucet can contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled “lead free” under the federal safe drinking water law.

Lead is particularly toxic to children and can lead to irreversible brain injury and developmental and behavior problems. The EPA estimates that fifteen to twenty percent of children's lead exposure comes from drinking water, costing the U.S. as much as $319 billion annually in lost productivity.

In adults, elevated levels of lead in drinking water can increase blood pressure and prolonged exposure could also lead to kidney problems.

The concern about lead content in faucets should be particularly striking consider that over the past twenty years, plumbing fixture manufacturing has moved out of the U.S. where, as recent product recalls for lead in toys, melamine in pet food, and toxic drywall--all manufactured in China--show that government oversight is nowhere nearly as stringent as it is in the U.S.

Elevated lead content in faucets first caught the eye of the California legislature in 2006 and is now raising the hackles of the U.S. Congress who see that current standards may not be stringent enough, especially considering the recent track record of some foreign manufacturers.

U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo (D-California) has introduced a federal bill, H.R. 5289, to truly eliminate lead from our drinking water plumbing. Modeled after a law first passed in California in 2006--and similar standards which have since been adopted in Vermont and Maryland--H.R. 5289 would tighten lead content standards to help ensure "zero leaching of lead" from faucets.

Just before Congress broke for summer recess, H.R. 5289 was passed by the House as part of a larger bill dealing with drinking water protections. The bill still needs to be passed by the Senate and signed by President Obama before it becomes law.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Tom Raftery

Reprinted with permission from Ecopolitology

If you've ever traveled on a U.S. Interstate Highway at night, you've likely come across large numbers of trucks idling at rest areas and truck stops. Long-haul truckers are required by law to rest for 10 out of every 24 hour period. But at rest, most trucks will idle their main diesel engine to provide heating and cooling, to keep the engine and fuel warm in winter, and to provide power for electrical appliances like microwaves and TV sets without draining the batteries.

But all that resting really adds up, both in terms of cost to the truckers and trucking companies, and in terms of environmental cost. At current fuel prices, the average long-haul truck uses $3,000-$4,000 worth of diesel every year just idling. And with some fleets as large as 10,000 vehicles, the high cost of idling cuts into already narrow profit margins.

But the bigger issue for state and municipal governments is not fuel cost, it is air pollution (the federal government has yet to enact any anti-idling laws but they have set forth guidelines for states to follow if they wish). Idling anywhere between 500 and 3,500 hours a year and burning an average of .80 gallons of diesel fuel per hour, long-haul trucks emit 11 million tons of CO2, 200,000 tons of NOx, and 5,000 tons of particulate matter into the air annually.

Trucking companies used to eat the costs of truck idling, including the cost of state and local fines. But rising fuel and fine costs have spurred companies to seek alternative solutions to truck idling because, according to some reports, it has gotten to the point where it can cost less to get a hotel room than idle a truck.

New laws spurring development of clean-idling technologies

As of July 2010, 22 states and several large municipalities including the District of Columbia have enacted anti-idling regulations that normally limit idling to no more than five minutes. And in California, anti-idling enforcement is on the rise (pdf). In 2007, the California Air Quality Resources Board issued 135 anti-idling violations for large vehicles. In 2008, this number jumped to 511.

But despite the rash of new regulations and stepped-up enforcement, industry estimates are that less than 10 percent of the 1.4 million big trucks on the road have some form of auxiliary power unit (APU) on board that allows the main diesel engine to shut down yet still provide heating, cooling and electrical power for interior lighting and appliances. And of those roughly 100,000 trucks that do have APUs, most of those still run on diesel fuel, emitting CO2 and particulates into the air. Not only that, but the more costly diesel APUs still require fuel and cost more to keep up.

Bucking this trend, several companies including Thermo King, Idle Free and Glacier Bay have developed all-electric APU and battery systems that can provide climate control and electricity for a truck cab or sleeper -- and do so while producing zero emissions.

According to company spokesman Russell Castronovo, who I recently spoke with via telephone, Glacier Bay's ClimaCab can keep a truck’s cab at 75°F for 10 hours anywhere and at any time of year in the US and Canada.

The ClimaCab combines a four-battery system with advanced battery management and variable-speed compressors and blowers. The variable speed motors are critical component of maximizing battery life and performance while the truck is at rest.

"Depending on variables, an electric APU can pay for itself in 1-2 years," said Castronovo. The all-electric ClimaCab system costs $6,000-$7,000 to install on a standard sleeper-cab truck. Castronovo also pointed out that many states have rebates and other incentives that could help reduce the cost even more.

And apparently Glacier Bay is onto something. In 2009, while the market for new trucks was down by 50 percent and the overall trucking APU market was down by 70 percent, Glacier Bay grew from a $2 million business to a $15 million business.

Reprinted with permission from Earth and Industry

Coffee production has long been vulnerable to drought or excess rains. But recently, a tiny insect that thrives in warmer temperatures — the coffee berry borer — has been spreading steadily, devastating coffee plants in Africa, Latin America, and around the world.

The highlands of southwestern Ethiopia should be ideal for growing coffee. After all, this is the region where coffee first originated hundreds of years ago. But although coffee remains Ethiopia’s number one export, the nation’s coffee farmers have been struggling.

The Arabica coffee grown in Ethiopia and Latin America is an especially climate-sensitive crop. It requires just the right amount of rain and an average annual temperature between 64 degrees Fahrenheit and 70 degrees Fahrenheit to prosper. As temperatures rise — Ethiopia’s average low temperature has increased by about .66 degrees F every decade since 1951, according to the country’s National Meteorological Agency — and rains become more variable, Ethiopian coffee farmers have suffered increasingly poor yields. Last year was especially bad, with exports dropping by 33 percent. Some have moved their coffee trees to higher elevations, while others have been forced to switch to livestock and more heat-tolerant crops, such as enset, a starchy root vegetable similar to the plantain.

Now, there is evidence that a warming climate may be linked to one of the major threats facing the coffee industry in Ethiopia and elsewhere: A tiny insect known as the coffee berry borer beetle has been devastating coffee plants around the world, and new research suggests even slight temperature increases promote the spread of the pest.

The beetle is a relatively recent problem in Ethiopia and Latin America, where most Arabica coffee is grown. A field survey of Ethiopia’s coffee-growing regions conducted in the late 1960s found no trace of the beetle, but in 2003 researchers reported that the pest was widespread. Drought and heavy rains during harvest time may be the prevailing problems for coffee growers in Ethiopia and other countries; but the lack of an effective treatment for the coffee berry borer is cause for concern, especially given new research findings tying the spread of the beetle to rising temperatures.

Coffee may not be a basic food crop, such as wheat, but it is arguably one of the most important agricultural products. Valued as high as $90 billion a year, coffee, which is grown in more than 70 countries, is one of the most heavily traded commodities in terms of monetary value. Seventy percent of the world’s coffee comes from small, family-owned farms and more than 100 million people are dependent on the crop for their livelihood. Researchers estimate that the coffee berry borer causes more than $500 million in damages each year, making it the most costly pest affecting coffee today. Coffee growers have tried various tactics to stop the beetle, but to little avail. Pesticides don’t help, and even if they did, they are an unfavorable option, given their negative effects on coffee quality.

Until recently, the coffee berry borer was confined to just a few regions in Central Africa. But since the 1980s, the beetle has gradually spread to every coffee-growing region except Hawaii, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea. Juliana Jaramillo, a biologist at Kenya’s International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology, suspects temperature increases are to blame. She and her collaborators recently identified the temperature range in which the beetle can survive. They found that the average minimum temperature the borer requires to reproduce is about 68 degrees F, and the mountainous regions of Ethiopia did not reach that temperature until 1984.

The borer did not appear in Colombia, Jaramillo’s native country, until 1988, but it has since become a persistent problem. Twenty years ago, Colombia was the second-largest coffee exporter in the world, and regularly sent abroad more than 12 million bags of Arabica coffee each year. But production has not reached that level since 1994, and 2009 was the country’s worst year ever. At an International Coffee Organization meeting in February, a Colombian coffee representative revealed that the country’s coffee exports had dipped to 7.9 million bags last year and that infestation by the borer — along with excessive rainfall and reduced application of fertilizer — was partly to blame.

Eliminating the coffee berry borer has become Jaramillo’s mission. She grew up in the picturesque Caldas region — the heart of Colombia’s coffee country — and her family still maintains a small coffee farm there. “It’s really a personal problem for me,” she said.

After establishing the temperature limits of the borer, Jaramillo and her colleagues used climate data to estimate the number of reproductive cycles the beetle could complete annually in four coffee-growing regions. While Ethiopia was on the low end, with only one to two generations per year, Colombia was one of the highest, supporting up to 4.7 generations of the borer in one year. Jaramillo believes the discrepancy is largely due to Colombia’s year-long growing season. Coffee plants are most susceptible to pests when they’re flowering, so regions that receive rain all year, such as Colombia, are more vulnerable to the borer than those with distinct dry and rainy periods, such as Ethiopia and Kenya. Female borers kill coffee plants by burrowing into coffee berries to lay their eggs. (Each female can lay up to 200.) The resulting damage attracts herbivores and pathogens. In Latin America, the pest is known simply as la broca, which means “the drill.”

In their research, Jaramillo and her collaborators found that for every 1.8 degrees F increase in temperature, the coffee berry borer became 8.5 percent more infectious on average. Not only did the female beetles lay more eggs at higher temperatures, but they also drilled deeper into coffee berries, causing more physical damage. A follow up study, published this year in the Journal of Economic Entomology, found that higher temperatures also caused the female beetles to travel from berry to berry earlier.

Even more troubling, Jaramillo’s data indicate that the beetle can survive in a dormant state in sub-tropical conditions. That means farmers will not be able to escape the pest by moving to higher altitudes. Indeed, researchers in Uganda and Indonesia have already started finding the borer as high as 6,115 feet above sea level; the beetle is typically only found at 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level.

“Coffee is migrating,” said Dean Cycon, owner of Dean’s Beans, a Massachusetts-based specialty coffee company that works with farmers around the world. “As it’s getting hotter at the lower altitudes, the lower plants are dying off, so it marches the coffee forest up the slopes.” Jaramillo’s research indicates that the borers are migrating with the coffee plants.

Jaramillo’s father, Alvaro Jaramillo — a climatologist at the National Coffee Research Center in Manizales, Colombia — has calculated that for every 1.8 degrees F increase in temperature, Colombian coffee growers will have to move their plants up about 550 feet in altitude to maintain current levels of quality and quantity.

The coffee berry borer could also be more difficult to control at higher altitudes since moving a pest into a new ecosystem makes its behavior harder to predict. For example, insects that could serve as natural enemies to the coffee berry borer may not interact with the beetle in the same way at higher elevations. “Natural enemies can be very useful in pest control, but their cycle has to be in sync with the pest’s,” said Curtis Petzoldt, a researcher at Cornell University’s Integrated Pest Management Program.

Traditionally, the cooling effects of shade trees have provided some of the best protection from coffee pests, including the coffee berry borer. Studies have shown shade trees can reduce the temperature around coffee leaves by 3 degrees F to 7 degrees F, depending on the environment. There is also evidence that shade-grown coffee plants produce higher-quality coffee. But many coffee growers have cut down the trees around their coffee plants in order to increase sun access.

“There is a dogma that sun-grown coffee produces higher yields than shade-grown coffee,” explained Fernando Vega, a coffee researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Jaramillo’s main collaborator. And consistently dwindling supplies can make farmers desperate. “If you’re getting a lesser crop — and in many of the countries they are — there’s more fear that you have to grab every percentage you can,” said Cycon.

But shade trees can take years to grow, and while some coffee retailers, including Starbucks, have started promoting shade-grown coffee, it’s still the exception rather than the rule. The notion of sustainable growing practices has also become popular with coffee importers, but these forward-looking efforts, which focus largely on conserving water and reducing carbon emissions, do little to address the climate-related problems that coffee growers are now facing.

Coffee farmers need new strategies to combat threats such as the coffee berry borer, Jaramillo said, and that requires research. “I think the coffee industry has two options,” she said. “Either they start investing in climate research, or they educate the consumers to drink something else.”

Photo by jakeliefer/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360

The move marks the last step before final approval of U.S. subsidies for one of the world's largest point sources of carbon dioxide emissions, and yet another strategic misstep for the global climate and the clean technology export sector in the United States.

The 3,960-megawatts (MW) Sasan project is one of nine "Ultra Mega Power Plants" (UMPP) being pursued by the Indian government. Each UMPP is roughly the equivalent of eight average U.S. coal fired power plants. Sasan alone will be responsible for 26 to 27 million tons of carbon dioxide annually--one fifth of all proposed coal fired power plants in the United States combined. With India averaging some of the highest transmission losses in the world of 25-40 percent, as well as facing an increasing need for imported coal, which leads to price instability for end users, many question the ability of these plants to deliver India's much needed boost in energy supplies.

Civil society groups have condemned Ex-Im Bank's reversal on Sasan. "The fix is in at Ex-Im Bank. The Bank's board bowed to political pressure and in so doing wastes public financing to worsen their fossil fuel binge" said Doug Norlen, Policy Director for Pacific Environment.

Like many large scale projects Sasan requires government backed financing to reduce the risk the private market refuses to take on.

"The US government already lavishly subsidizes the coal industry with some $19 billion in tax breaks and other handouts," said Michelle Chan, Economic Policy Director for Friends of the Earth, which recently issued a subsidies report. "With this vote, Ex-Im Bank is choosing to dole out hundreds of millions more to dirty coal." The U.S. company set to profit from the deal, Bucyrus (Nasdaq: BUCY), took home hefty profits last year with $2.6 billion in revenue; and despite its jobs rhetoric, the company's 10-K states that it "recently finalized a joint venture with a local partner to expand our manufacturing capacity in China."

However, the support of Sasan is not an isolated incident. According to a recently released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, more than 95 percent of Ex-Im's energy portfolio is based on fossil fuels, and in 2009 Ex-Im Bank financing for renewable energy was less than 0.5 percent of the agency's total financing. Yet, according to a recent study by the World Wildlife Fund, for every million dollars invested in energy projects, 13.5 jobs are created in the clean tech export sector, while only 3.7 and 4.9 jobs are created in the oil, gas and coal industries, respectively.

"Addressing climate change by developing and exporting tomorrow's clean energy technologies strengthens the US economy. Continuing to finance outdated technologies that destroy our environment also destroys our chances for clean energy job creation. It only serves to cripple our competitiveness in the long run" said John Coequyt, Director of International Programs at the Sierra Club.

The agency is now turning its sights on an even larger and more destructive project, the Kusile coal-fired power project in South Africa. The 4,800 MW project would be responsible for 36.8 million tons of carbon dioxide annually and would increase South African energy sector emissions by 12.8% and the country's total contribution to climate change by 9.7%.

US citizens have already submitted nearly 7,500 public comments in opposition to the US government's contribution to this dirty project and its environmental impacts. The US Ex-Im Bank Board is expected to take up a due diligence vote on Kusile in early September. With the agency's reversal on Sasan, and the sheer scale of the Kusile project in the pipeline, it is likely to be a pitched battle.

"These public financing decisions will literally determine our future. We can either help lead the world in a clean energy economy, or deepen the climate change crisis we are already in," said Norlen.

Photo by dickuhne/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Business

As we've previously reported—to a gregarious response—the topic of adding pedestrian alert sounds to plug-ins and hybrids when traveling at low speeds with little noise is a polarizing one.

Advocacy associations for the blind, elderly and other such higher risk populations argue that these cars are more dangerous to those groups because there are few cues as to their impending approach. Anti-noise pollution organizations say that quieter vehicles are where we want to head anyways, so why would we ruin that kind of progress with self-imposed noises. And, some electric car advocates say that the "silent-but-deadly" argument is just another ploy to scare potential customers away from the vehicles by those determined to thwart the electric car's rise. Some people go even a step further and say that by treating these disadvantaged groups as being so frail and helpless, we are doing them a disservice.

While there is likely truth and wisdom in all of those group's conclusions, what is clear is that it's a topic that little in the way of fact is currently known about. There are virtually no studies that show a positive or negative link between the silence of next gen vehicles and an increase in accidents with unaware pedestrians. Also, no standard sounds have yet been agreed upon by governments or automakers that we can use to evaluate whether or not these are noises we can live with. Almost all of the debates that are occurring about this topic are uninformed to the point that it feels like we're all banging our heads against the wall in a repeated cycle.

Nevertheless, the regulations have started coming—namely in Japan and the U.S.—and in anticipation of eventual adoption of those regulations, builders of these next gen vehicles have started including their own in-house developed pedestrian alert sounds. Nissan, with their LEAF, have included a rather quiet and futuristic electric whooshing sound that drivers can turn off if they want, but otherwise is on all the time when driving at low speeds. GM, with the Volt, has included a driver activated alert sound that chirps when the driver pulls on a lever at the steering column.

And now Toyota, with their Prius and the upcoming Plug-in Prius, have added a new alert sound as well. Initially the sound will be available as an add-on to the Prius in Japan for about $150 extra and will emit a synthesized electric motor sound at speeds below 25 km/h. You can listen to it in the Japanese language video below.

So, even though there are plenty of questions left unanswered about the efficacy and, even, the necessity of pedestrian alert sounds, it seems like the winds of change are clearly blowing in one direction—for better or worse. What do you think, is this something that's inevitable, or is it something we still have time left to evaluate?

Reprinted with permission from PluginCars