By Nick Chambers

Over a morning conference call for just a few members of the media — of which I was happy to be a part during my layover in Seattle on my way out to the New York Auto Show — Brian Carolin, Nissan’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, spilled the long-awaited pricing beans on the upcoming Nissan LEAF electric car.

Contrary to some of the recent rumors, at a base price of $32,780 it is relatively affordable… so affordable, in fact, that, after the $7,500 federal tax credit, Nissan is able to offer the LEAF for a lease price of $349 a month not including generous state incentives. When you add in some of those — like a $5,000 tax credit in California, up to $6,000 in Colorado, $5,000 in Georgia, and $1,500 in Oregon — all of a sudden you might be talking a final price of around $20K.

As Mr. Carolin said during the conference call, the LEAF lease of $349 runs for 36 months and includes a $1,999 down payment. Nissan has always said they want to storm the market with EVs, and at that price it certainly seems attainable. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to get a $33,000 car for $20,000 — regardless of its propulsion system? But with this one, you get zero emissions and incredibly cheap “fueling” costs to boot.

“Imagine the possibility of never needing to go to a gas station again. Or of paying less than $3 for 100 miles behind the wheel. Or of creating zero emissions while driving,” said Mr. Carolin. “Nissan leads the industry by offering the first affordable, zero-emission vehicle for the mass market. Nissan LEAF truly is in a class by itself.”

Two Trim Levels

The starting price of $32,780 is for the SV “base” model with standard equipment such a navigation system, Internet connectivity, bluetooth, LED headlights, a key with push button start, Sirius/XM satellite radio, roadside assistance, stability control, traction control and six airbags. The LEAF also comes standard with many recycled and recyclable materials, including seat fabric, instrument panels, and front- and rear-bumper fascias.

In addition to the base model, Nissan will also be offering a more tricked out SL model for an additional $940. The SL adds in features such as a rearview monitor, a solar panel spoiler, fog lights, and automatic headlights. Production of both trim levels will begin in September although they won’t hit showrooms until December. Brian Carolin said that there will be approximately 50,000 LEAFs available for sale in the 2011 calendar year. Home Charging Stations

Also announced during the conference call was an option for the installation of a 220V home charging station priced at an “average cost” of $2,200. Of course, actual pricing may vary widely depending on the electrical state of your home, but a home wiring assessment is included at no charge.

The stations will be built and installed by AeroVironment and can be bought at the same time as the vehicle. If that cost is rolled into the lease price, it would add an extra $30 a month to the lease. Both the charging station and the installation are eligible for a 50% federal tax credit up to $2,000. Based on average electricity rates in the US, Nissan is claiming that the LEAF will cost less than $3 to “fill up” in your garage.

Purchase Process Revealed

As has long been known, the LEAF will go on sale in December of this year. Those who are signed up on the LEAF interest list (of which Nissan says there are now 85,000!) will be given the first shot at getting their names in line on the actual reservation list when Nissan opens it up on April 20. To ensure your place in line at that time, you’ll need to pay a fully refundable $99 reservation fee.

In August, people who have plunked down the $99 reservation fee will be able to start ordering their own LEAFs based on their place on the list and geographic location. Nissan has guaranteed certain areas of the US — such as Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, and some parts of California — access to the LEAF first. If you don’t live in those areas, don’t fret, every month of 2011 Nissan plans on adding additional markets so that “By the end of 2011 [the LEAF] will be nationwide,” as Carolin said. Paying the reservation fee also allows you access to “special upcoming Nissan LEAF events,” according to Nissan.

So, now that we know the actual base starting price of the LEAF, what do you think? Is the second coming of the electric car all starting to come together clearly yet? Now that we have some firm pricing out in the open for the vanguard EV, it somehow seems more real to me.

Reprinted with permission from gas 2.0

While the railroads may have built America, there's no question that today, the trucking industry keeps it rolling. The creation and expansion of the Interstate Highway System has connected all but the smallest American cities to this massive freight transportation network, and other than a few locally-produced niche products, nearly every consumer product in America has found its way into the trailer of a big rig at one point or another.

However, this massive industry has one critical flaw—complete dependence on petroleum. The ecological effects of diesel exhaust pollution, along with the economic impacts of a highly volatile oil market, could have disastrous results for the shipping industry and consumers alike.

Fortunately, a new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists reveals that several key technical upgrades already on the market could massively reduce the reliance of the nations heavy truck fleet on oil, slow the pace of global warming, and improve environmental conditions nationwide.

By far the most impressive gains can be gleaned through improving the aerodynamics of the truck cab. High roof fairings, which sit on top of the cab, form a minimally disruptive slope to the top of a standard 53-foot trailer, dramatically improving airflow around the vehicle. Fairings can also be added around fuel tanks and exhaust stacks. While some of these retrofits can be added to older, boxier-style cabs, the most impressive gains come on newer cabs that have been designed for aerodynamics from the ground up, and can improve efficiency by up to 15%, saving 2,500 extra gallons of fuel per truck.

The truck trailer itself also offers tremendous room for improvement. While the traditionally-shaped trailers stack well, their flat sides and sharp edges create massive amounts of drag; improving this airflow with skirts along the side of the trailer between the wheels, and with specially-shaped additions to the front and rear, can reduce this drag by 20%, leading to a 10% improvement in fuel economy.

Tires and wheels can also put significant dents in heavy truck fuel dependence. Higher-efficiency tires offer improvements of 3% over average models, while using single tires instead of side-by-side tire designs, lowers both rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. Finally, lighter aluminum wheels can reduce the energy needed to get the truck up to speed, and taken with these other wheel-and-tire based improvements can improve fuel use by roughly 5%.

Taken singly, none of these improvements makes an overwhelming difference in fuel efficiency.  As a complete retrofit across large portions of the American truck fleet, however, gains could be massive. UCS estimates that for most long-haul truckers, payback times on the new investments could be as short as two years. Across the average lifespan of a big-rig, this could yield savings of more than $30,000, 17,000 gallons of fuel, and 220 tons of global warming pollution per truck, not to mention significant cuts in volatile gas and smog-forming emissions.

Photo by Flickr user tomsaint11

For the past few years, the corn-growing regions of America had high economic and environmental hopes pinned on corn ethanol production. Subsidizing legislation promised to help make the new product economically attractive, while providing residents of many corn-producing states with higher octane fuels at a lower price. Reduced carbon emissions would have the obvious impact of slowing global warming, higher demand for the crop could keep farms employing more people while still protecting margins.

But then things came apart. A worldwide food shortage hit, causing many leaders in developing nations to assail the US for burning food while others starved. This forced cutbacks in production, and a series of studies associated corn ethanol use with increased ozone risks, as well as carbon debts—that is, the amount of carbon released by conversion and nurturing of land used to grow corn ethanol—as much as 420 times higher than the fossil fuels they supplanted. Corn quickly went from biofuel leader to biofuel has-been.

Still, some dissent always followed the debate over corn ethanol crops, with the first serious challenges coming earlier this year. Researchers predicted that throughout much of the US, corn ethanol could be grown on existing or degraded farmland, which would slash the emissions created by starting up new biofuel production. Studies based on these hypotheses were carried out, and, indeed, returned data similar to the predictions—corn ethanol could be a viable alternative to fossil fuels in terms of carbon-reduction.

The corn industry has sprung into action with the news, touting its ethanol fuels as environmentally superior to gasoline. But while the data provided seems solid, I don't believe it should prompt a wide-scale reinvigoration of the corn ethanol industry. Better than gasoline—which has to be pumped out of the earth, shipped, refined, and shipped again before it enters the gas tank of your car—isn't nearly good enough to meet the needs of the world in time to head off the effects of global warming.

Plus, there's more at play here than just carbon. Corn crops still require massive amounts of arable land, which could just as easily be used to help stabilize the global food supply. Other biocrops, such as sweet sorghum offer reduced carbon impact in addition to providing a food source, while cellulosic ethanol can create a fuel source from essentially any leftover plant materials. And in terms of raw energy per square mile, it's tough to beat the output of aquatic biofuels such as seaweed and algae.

This isn't to say corn ethanol can't still play an important short-term role in creating a biofuel economy. Last time I checked, the US still produces a fair amount of corn ethanol, while most other biofuel industries are in their infancy. A ready supply of ethanol fuel creates incentives for carmakers to produce more ethanol-friendly engines, and a greater supply of flexible-fuel vehicles will increase consumer awareness to clean vehicle tech, while still reducing carbon dioxide emissions—just not by as much as sustainability advocates would like to see.

Photo by Flickr user Dodo-Bird

Few question the environmental benefits of switching from traditional fossil fuel sources to renewable biofuels. Decreased carbon emissions, more stable fuel costs, and even a new generation of jobs are all seen as potential benefits of this new wave in agriculture.

But as a spike in food costs earlier this year showed, converting arable land to biofuel production is not without economic peril. Land reclamation has presented itself as a potential solution to this problem, but the environmental costs of the procedure may not be worth the ostensible gains.

Land reclamation -- the conversion of shallow bays or swamplands to solid ground -- has long played a role in expanding areas for human habitation. The Netherlands provides perhaps the best know example of land reclamation, with its elaborate Deltaworks system, created after a series of devastating floods in the 1950s. The city of Boston, Massachusetts, also dramatically increased available land through reclamation, but unlike the Netherlands, its efforts predated widespread environmental awareness, leading to that city's famous association with dirty water.

Aside from acting as a water filter, pulling particulate contaminants and other foreign particles from water, wetlands also act as a complex chemical filter, absorbing heavy metals and other toxic pollutants, and keeping them out of the larger biosystem. Furthermore, coastal wetland developments can serve as a first line of defense against severe weather, offering protection against everything from the storm surge associated with major tropical storms and hurricanes to a natural check against land reclamation.

In addition to these environmental issues, land reclamation also threatens biodiversity. Because of the unique environmental features presented by coastal systems, some species are unable to thrive outside their narrowly defined ecosystems. Despite the extensive planning and mitigation involved in recent South Korean land reclamation projects, massive declines have been noted in several species of shorebirds, totaling a loss of 137,000 individuals across all regional species. Similar losses have also been inflicted upon other creatures reliant on the delicate coastal habitat for survival, Australia's Dugongs foremost among them.

The key to finding a balanced solution between biodiversity maintenance and increasing useable land is optimizing use of existing land, and recreating the delicate coastal structures that reclamation developments all too often destroy. Aquatic biofuels, such as algae and seaweed, can reduce the need to convert shorelines to arable land, while mass transit and higher population densities can increase the size of populations that existing municipalities can support.

Photo by Flickr user dbdbrobot

While falling gas prices have toned down the chants of "drill, baby, drill," the perceived benefits of expanding domestic oil production remain fixtures in the popular consciousness.

The "two cents in 10 years" arguments against expanded domestic offshore oil drilling are well known, but attempts to expand controversial drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may prove to be the worst of all possible options. Amory B. Lovins, one of the cofounders of the independent Rocky Mountain Institute has termed drilling in the region "insecure, unimportant, unprofitable and uncompetitive."

For Lovins, who led a Pentagon-co-sponsored study into the theoretical elimination of US oil use by the 2040s, the most obvious shortcoming of tapping the refuge for oil is security. While technically within the borders of the United States, and thus "domestic," oil from ANWR would still be thousands and thousands of miles away from the vast majority of US markets. The only connection between the two is the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an aging, corroded structure that ex-CIA Director James Woolsey called "indefensible" and that has been shut down in the past by saboteurs as unsophisticated as drunks with rifles.

But even discounting the obvious problem of securing 800 miles of pipe, drilling in the wildlife refuge is unlikely to yield much of a benefit to consumers. Lovins characterizes oil supply in the region as "limited and scattered," and notes that extraction wouldn't begin until 2018 at the earliest. Factoring in the skyrocketing cost of on-shore drilling—up some 564 percent between 2000 and 2005—and the recent volatility of the oil market, expanding drilling operations into ANWR hardly seems worth the economic risk, either.

Lovins instead argues that the US should focus on what it has the ability to do better than any other country: substitute non-oil resources for additional petroleum creation. If the rates of oil savings between 1976 and 1985 (before the oil glut of the 1980s lowered prices and all but killed off conservation efforts), had been maintained, Lovins insists that we would already be free of reliance on Middle Eastern oil resources, without unduly introducing inefficiencies such as tariffs or subsidies into the free market.

Counting energy saved through more efficient cars or alternative forms of transportation as "negabarrels," Lovins pins this cost of oil replacement at a mere $12 per barrel, a fraction of the current crude market prices, even after the crash in prices earlier this year—not to mention "all-American and inexhaustible, climate-safe and secure."

So while exhortations to increase domestic energy production may seem alluring, careful analysis of the data reveals them to be an economically and environmentally dangerous short-term solution to current energy costs.

Photo by Flickr user Madpai

The U.S. Forest Service has enrolled its Rutland, VT headquarters in Central Vermont Public Service's Cow Power  -- a program that provides its customers with power generated from methane. CVPS already has 4,000 customers enrolled, and plans to add a fifth farm to its group of energy suppliers within the month.

The Forest Service will pay approximately $2,100 for its electricity annually, including a four-cent premium on energy provided by Cow Power.  That money is used to help farmers join the CVPS program. CVPS customers can receive all, half, or a quarter of their electricity through Cow Power and pay the premium on only the amount of power received through the program. The Forest Service will be receiving a quarter of its power via Cow Power.

Not only does Cow Power make use of a renewable energy source, it also helps to reduce the amount methane released into the air. The methane needed to produce the Forest Service's electricity alone is the equivalent of the emissions of 30 cars. The system also boosts farmers' incomes: CVPS pays the farmers involved in the Cow Power program 95 percent of market value for the energy they sell to CVPS.

The energy doesn't come directly from cows, of course. Cow Power generates electricity by placing manure and other agricultural waste in a sealed concrete tank heated to 101 degrees Fahrenheit — the same temperature as a cow's stomach. Bacteria digest the materials, generating methane, which fuels a generator. Any pathogens, weed seeds or other problematic matter found in the manure is neutralized during the digestive process.

"We work hard to improve the environment every day, so it's natural that we'd want to lessen our environmental impact through Cow Power," said Forest Supervisor Meg Mitchell. "As we looked at ways to reduce the impact of our energy usage, enrolling in CVPS Cow Power had a great impact. We are supporting a working landscape, helping to improve water quality and removing methane from the atmosphere."

CVPS started the Cow Power program in 2004. Since then, it has received numerous awards and similar programs have gone into development throughout the U.S. Cow Power remains the first manure-based farm-to-consumer energy program, however. Any of CVPS' customers are able to enroll in the Cow Power program and receive at least a portion of their energy from a renewable source. In the event that the Cow Power program cannot meet all of its energy commitments, CVPS has guaranteed that it will purchase Renewable Energy Certificates to cover the shortfall.

Photo by Flickr user JelleS

Barack Obama isn’t your run-of-the-mill candidate. He’s an emissary from the future.

To embrace sustainability, people need to be sensitive not only to where we are, but also to where we’re headed. Take climate change: If you can’t look beyond the present, it’s a non-issue. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what it is for many people.

Until recently our politics have reflected our cultural inability to look forward. With the current presidential campaign, however, this pattern may finally be changing. For perhaps the first time in our history, the future is a key factor shaping the voters’ decision-making process.

More precisely, it is the future incarnate that is shaping their decision. Barack Obama embodies the future. He speaks to people of the future, and he speaks to them from the future. He is a bridge, an improbably talented politician doing skilled work in the here-and-now, and also a man whose message is, "I am the face of tomorrow."

People react to politicians for various reasons and on many levels. We definitely respond to who we imagine them to be; we may even respond at times to who they actually are. We put them to the test: We want them to make us feel safe, comfortable and hopeful. Winners have images people can attach to. Ronald Reagan was our ruddy, kindly uncle. Bill Clinton was smart and charming, with a touch of the devil about him. George Bush was the guy we’d have a beer with.

The future hasn’t really entered into this mix -- until now. How people feel about Obama reflects, among other things, how they feel about the future that is crashing with hurricane force into their lives.

It’s been the rule for our presidential candidates to have their psyches firmly planted in the present. With Obama, this familiar baseline is dissolved. He is post -- well, he’s “post” a lot of things.

For starters, and most visibly, he is post-Caucasian. Power is shifting to darker-skinned people. Globally China is ascendant. In the U.S., the Latino and Asian populations will almost double by 2050 as a percentage of the total population. Whites will be a minority (47 percent), compared to the current 67 percent figure. Barack’s face is a freeze-frame from the future.

Obama is also post-tribal. For hundreds of years, our world view has been limited and provincial. Us vs. them, Yankees vs. Red Sox, my country right or wrong. Politicians defy this mindset at their peril, which is a big reason our political discourse is so banal. We’re good and they’re bad. We’re right (or left) and they’re wrong. And so on.

This world view made sense -- and was, indeed, inevitable -- when all our knowledge came from the tribe. Now, however, information comes to us from sources far beyond these enclaves. This has produced a divide in our culture and often in our psyches, too. We’re still tribal, but we’re also global (or “world-centric”) and growing more so all the time. The result: a strange brew of old-style tribal politics-as-usual, mixed with a growing readiness to entertain and assimilate foreign points of view.

Obama reflects this division in a way that tilts considerably more toward the world-centric. He plays tribal politics, and he plays them to win (hence the familiar, if exaggerated, charge that he’s an "old-style Chicago politician"). At the same time -- and some see paradox in this -- he’s comfortable acknowledging that opposition views can have merit.

This readiness was on display during the first presidential debate with his repeated acknowledgement that “John is right.” People’s response to this depended on their world view. Tribalists saw it as a sign of weakness -- the beta dog was going belly-up. Globalists found it refreshingly mature.

Finally, Obama is post-modern. What I mean by this much-abused term is this: Obama integrates competing reality tunnels inside his psyche. As we’ve seen, he’s strongly tribal and strongly post-tribal too. His faith is a uniquely post-modern combination of a belief in Christ and secular humanism. His views on race are similarly nuanced.

One of the first rules of theatrical improvisation is, never say “but” when you can say “yes and.” This is because “but” negates while “and” supports. Barack Obama is our ultimate “yes and” candidate. He is black and he is white. He is tribal and world-centric. He understands black and white anger, and he’s transcended both. He’s got that old-time religion and the new-time religion. He’s got one foot in the present and the other in the future.

I believe this goes a long way toward explaining Obama’s appeal. He integrates multiple viewpoints into a new and higher-level mix, and he does so in ways that are new to national politics.

In this way, too -- as a man who can cope with complexity -- Obama is a man of the future.

These same qualities also explain why many people are frightened of Obama. The future can be a scary place.

He is not a “visionary politician” in our usual understanding of the term. His policies aren’t especially visionary, with the exception of his commitment to green jobs. In another sense, though, he is visionary, for this reason: simply by being who he is, he reveals possibilities.

The container, not the contents, are what’s relevant here. By virtue of his mixed blood and multi-faceted personality, Barack Obama embodies a world that is coming into being: a complex, post-tribal, rainbow-colored world. While it would be easy for us to be threatened by this world -- and many people are -- there’s something about Obama that tells us we needn’t worry. By all appearances, he is calm, contented and unflappable. These reassuring qualities tell people that Barack-World isn’t just a future place, it’s also a safe harbor, serene and coherent.

This is the ultimate Something About Barack. He doesn’t just show us the future. He offers us peace of mind there.

If he is elected, it will mean that a fundamental shift has taken place in the national psyche. It will tell us we’ve grown more comfortable with looking toward the future. It will say we’ve gotten more adept at accepting the world as it is and as it will be … and that we may finally be ready to tackle in earnest the challenge of sustainability.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) have formed Partners in Project Green, “North America’s largest eco-business zone.”

Under the project, approximately 12,000 hectares of industrial and commercial area have been set aside in an effort to enhance the current businesses operating within and around the Toronto Pearson International Airport. In addition to improving existing offices, the project is expected to generate additional business leasing in the airport area.

Partners in Project Green began by recognizing that greening business operations has become a key component to success.  As economic purse strings tighten, the costs of doing business rise, and new environmental regulations take effect, investing in environmental technology like energy efficient lighting, recycling waste products from business operations, and more, make sense as ways to reduce costs.

The project also operates on the fundamental philosophy that by working together businesses can achieve more for the environment than they could working apart.  The project is expected to mark the Toronto region as an area flourishing in eco-businesses, green jobs, and implementation of green technology practices.

October 9th was the official kick-off of the project, and ceremonies included words from politicians, John Gerretsen, Ontario Minister of the Environment, Donna Cansfield, Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and project leaders like Lloyd McCoomb of GTAA, and Brian Denney of TRCA. Complete with a view of the stars from the center of the airport, businesses and the public gathered to learn more about the economic advantages of going green and reducing environmental issues associated with operating a business.

The Project Green Eco-Business Zone (the project’s official name) will provide various programs through which businesses can identify ways to operate in a manner that is safer for the environment and makes good business sense. Running a business from a retrofitted green building, for example can reduce its carbon footprint and trim energy costs. Other solutions include creating more and better commuting options for employees, the ability to buy green office supplies at cheaper costs, perform energy audits, create waste reduction plans, install stormwater management bio-swales, make use of natural landscaping, and offer open, vegetated spaces.

More than 250 businesses are taking part in the project alongside supportive local communities.

Sonoma Mountain Village is one of only five One Planet communities in the world. The village is in process of undergoing a transformation from 200-acre industrial park to eco community right near my own Northern California neighborhood.

Once the site became available for sale, the local, environmentally active Codding family was the only bidder to offer a vision for its future development as a sustainable community. The eco-minded City of Rohnert Park jumped at the chance to give the Coddings the opportunity to turn their vision into reality.

"Transformation" only begins to describe the process. More accurately, the industrial park -- formerly the workplace of 2,500 Agilent workers before their jobs went overseas -- is being completely recycled. For example, every last acre of the current park's old parking lots will be crushed and re-used to build the new town's sidewalks. Making new concrete is a carbon-intensive process, so the recycling effort will spare the environment a lot of CO2. It will take an estimated 10 to 15 years to complete the recycling job of turning the business park into a town.

As planned, the town will be fully integrated. All housing will be mixed-use, with homes ranging from an urban core of lofts above shopfronts and galleries in the downtown area (think SoHo in the '70s), to two-story townhouses with stoops on tree-shaded streets (think Brooklyn). A mix of large and small suburban houses and small duplexes with backyards featuring chicken coops and beehives ensures a steady supply of fresh eggs and honey to the stores at the town center. The town has both a highly urban core and yet within just a five-minute walk, becomes as completely rural as the surrounding farms of Sonoma County.

The job of framing the village's buildings makes use of the steel panel factory the Coddings recently opened on-site. This factory is of environmental interest in and of itself, powered by an acre of solar roofing. Furthermore, the prefabricated steel structures it churns out have been recycled from local SUVs; each 2,000 square foot of housing will recycle six SUVs worth of local junkyard steel. A relatively lightweight, extremely recyclable material, steel is an efficient building product.

Other sustainable aspects of the plans for Sonoma Mountain Village include green roofs, ground-source heat pumps, ultra-efficient lighting and appliances, super-insulated walls, floors and roofs, solar hot water systems and solar photovoltaic power integrated into the roof design. The building process will bring approximately 4,400 construction jobs to local workers, twice the number of Agilent jobs lost.

There are already two acres of solar panels atop the Village's new theater building, and if Kirstie Moore, the project's boundlessly optimistic Sustainability Manager, succeeds in changing the law (PUC rule 13) that currently prevents net metering, there will also be additional acres of solar atop the gigantic market hall that would power the entire community much more economically than on individual houses.

Moore told me that, "The Coddings learned from the first certified One Planet community, in England, where they found that once people left the town they became in effect '3 1/2 planet people' again, like everyone else in England."

Moore went on to say that self-sufficient design was a critical element in the project, "because once we leave this One Planet town, we are right back in the American economy -- and here in America we need even more planets than they do!"

The project includes a vision for a high-tech telecommute center to help reduce lengthy commutes, as well as car- and bike-sharing programs. The village will feature electric car fast-recharging centers as well as a Smart rail connection to the rest of Sonoma County and into Marin.

Tenants include Comcast and locally loved caterer Sally Tomatoes. Like the extremely fast-growing small business incubator housed in the original buildings, all current tenants got a complete sustainable revamp to zero carbon.

A preference for local workers will be codified into the town's charter; restaurants, stores, offices, the theater will be required to hire local first. A certain percentage of the space within stores will be set aside for local produce and preserves, not only recycling income within the local economy, but also greatly reducing food miles traveled. A daily farmers market will be held every day in the public square at the center of town, or housed inside the giant community center on rainy days.

Town-wide composting will create new, fresh soil to nurture community gardens, small parks and even fruit trees for snacks along nature walks into the preserved habitat at the Village's outskirts. There will be habitat-protected bioswales that act as wetlands, conserving water in a four-million-gallon reservoir underground that will recycle water for irrigation purposes.

The radical concept behind Sonoma Mountain Village is that we really can develop our towns in a kind and equitable way that honors the contributions of all us, taking sustainability further than simple "green design." The project promotes an entirely new green lifestyle in a respectful way.

To realize their dream, the Coddings reached out to a panel of sustainability experts ranging from the international Bioregional One Planet team that certified Abu Dhabi's MasDar City, to wetlands protection scientists and leading architects and town planners. Laura Hall of Hall Alminana was among them. Hall Alminana is one of the leading U.S. New Urbanist town planning firms, and a strong proponent of the Smart Code, which turns the suburban zoning model of compartmentalized bedroom communities versus separate industrial parks on its head.

Hall is "thrilled that the green movement is moving into the human habitat and away from green gadgets only," and clearly happy that the Codding's family vision for this project intersects so well with her own.

Hall said that she has been living in a remodeling project, herself, for 12 years, and I think she appreciates one other aspect of the gentle pace of Sonoma Mountain Village: Even its funding mechanism is self-sustaining, rather than shackled to an unstable credit market. "Some buildings can be used while the planning is going on," she explains. This will keep the project funded with rents from current tenants even as the new town acquires its permits and the recycling of effort takes shape around them.

The development model being employed by Sonoma Mountain Village is a new prototype for the U.S., and as such, will be very expensive, according to Kirstie Moore. "So much of what we are doing has never been done in this country," she says. So taking it slow -- building as income rolls in -- literally recycling rents into buildings -- is a sustainable funding mechanism.

In many ways, the Coddings' profoundly lovely vision of radical Utopian development could have an impact on future city plans in the U.S.

What a beautiful way to end the Age of Oil.

Another day on Wall Street, another few hundred points in the red. The economic decline is getting to the point where it seems that finding a stock that’s only down ten percent is something of a miracle. But for Taiwan’s Giant Manufacturing, the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer, the 31% decline in the DJIA makes its 5% increase in stock price all the more satisfying.

 

It’s no secret that high oil prices do a fantastic job of getting people out of their cars. Bicycles, along with mass transit, car pooling, and plain old walking, got a tremendous boost from the $150-a-barrel oil of earlier this year. But with the world-wide recession—possibly the worst economic downturn since 1929—looming, oil prices have fallen.  Despite this, though, bicycle companies continue to flourish. 

Giant, which earned a profile in the September issue of The Economist for its gains in the face of collapse, isn’t the only one profiting. While Lance Armstrong drove interest in the sport and in racing equipment during his seven-consecutive Tour de France victories, small-town shops have profited even more from renewed interest in cycling as a form of transportation instead. Additionally, the rising trendiness of fixed-gear and other urban-oriented bicycles has fueled the growth of a cottage industry around converting old frames and reselling them to eager patrons.

 

With oil prices well below their heights earlier this year, some might anticipate a drop-off in sales. But as the Economist article points out, the bicycle “seems like the remedy for many modern ills, from petrol prices to pollution and obesity.” Other benefits include reduced wear on road surfaces, less productive work hours lost to congestion and fewer barriers between residents and the communities they live in.  Plus, as one of the many “sweeteners” added to the recent bailout bill, employers of bicycle commuters will now receive a tax credit. 

 

Most importantly, though, the flourishing of the bicycle industry is coming during an especially trying period for the automotive industry. After dominating American transportation for decades, American auto manufacturers took too much advantage of the credit available to consumers and focused on producing large, expensive and inefficient light trucks and SUVs.  The glut of cars that are essentially unsellable in the current economy has lead to massive losses for car makers, which in turn may weaken their lobbying, allowing more accommodations for cyclists on city streets. 

 

While few—if any—industries are recession-proof, it’s clear that as long as consumers are conscious of both their own health and the health of the world around them, bicycles will continue to sell. Limits on consumer spending during any upcoming recession will certainly help draw more riders to the road, but as the economy turns around, it will be the benefits of riding that keep them there.

Photo by Flickr user Tanakawho