Wellington, New Zealand

New Zealand is in a very windy region of the world, particularly around Cook Strait!

A $440 million wind farm with future capacity to power Wellington was connected to New Zealand’s electricity grid yesterday.

Twenty 111m-high turbines at Meridian’s West Wind project in the hills of Makara began spinning to generate enough energy for 17,000 homes.

By the end of this year it will use 62 turbines, which have 40m-long blades, to generate enough power (more…)

Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

No problem, now you’ll have environmentally friendly LED lights to show you the way.

In 2005 San Jose, California adopted a 15 year plan with goals focused on three elements: Clean Technology, Sustainability, and Green Mobility.

Towards that goal, last week the city announced a trial of smarter, more energy-efficient street lights, which will be powered by low-energy LED bulbs and monitored across a smart network.

Launching this summer, (more…)

Biofuels, Not the Only Option!

Transportation accounts for more than 40% of California’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the state relies on petroleum-based fuels for 96 percent of its transportation needs. Causing in January 2007, California Governor Schwarzenegger to issue an executive order mandating a statewide goal be established to reduce the carbon intensity of California’s transportation fuels by at least 10 percent by 2020 (“2020 Target”). Establishing a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) greenhouse gas standard for transportation fuels.

Late Thursday, April 23, becoming the first in the nation, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved standards to target greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels. With the aim to cut 16m tons/year of greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 2020. (more…)

Start a Trend: Commit to Earth Day Resolutions

Earth Day celebrations are over and you are wondering what you can do to contribute. But, you don’t know what or where or how. So, here are some small steps we can do right now. Because what may seem like insignificant actions by each of us, results in giant steps as a whole. Some are old and some new. So feel empowered for going green with little or no effort and money:

Wash clothes in cold water, they get just as clean.

Switch from bottled water to reusable bottles, fill with filtered tap water. (more…)

Earth – The Only History and Future We Have!

April 22, 2009 will mark the 39th anniversary of Earth Day. On the following link is a remarkable history on the birth of Earth Day, by the man who actually started it all, it is truly a ‘must read’. Once word got out it, the interest in the project spread like wildfire. It is staggering to think of the numbers of people, the involvement, and the honest ecological concern that people around the globe shared.

http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html

So, what happened? It sure would have been nice to be 39 years ahead of our current environmental situation. Who knows? Global warming could actually be a non-issue at this very moment. But, nooooo…! Our nearly four decades of waning interest is caused by a myriad of reasons. No sense in listing them, each one of us could name at least 5.

We no longer have the luxury of procrastinating, not even 1 day longer, much less 39 years. Earth has fever, and we better put forth a Herculean effort to nurse her back to health because who wants to be in the cross-hairs of a planet’s antibodies. Not pretty. (more…)

Need A Hero? Focus Earth Finds SIX Saving Our Planet.

On Sunday, April 19 at 9pm ET/PT, Planet Green will air an hour long Focus Earth special. Bob Woodruff will circle the globe to meet six courageous heroes fighting on the frontlines for our planet’s environmental survival.

From the villages of Kenya where lives are being saved “one seed” at a time … to the cities of China where one American boy hopes to change a nation… and to an American “Main Street”, where a corporate maverick is helping usher in new sustainable ways of doing business. (more…)

Way to go, Govenor!

In 1800, Alessandro Volta made the first battery by layering plates of silver and zinc with blotting paper that had been soaked in salt water, he called it a voltaic pile. Each layer in the pile increased the battery’s voltage. In 1859, a French physicist named Gaston Plante created the lead acid cell. It later became the world’s first rechargeable battery.

Lithium-ion batteries (sometimes abbreviated Li-ion batteries) are a type of rechargeable battery in which a lithium ion moves between the anode and cathode. The lithium ion moves from the anode to the cathode during discharge and in reverse, from the cathode to the anode, when charging. Lithium-ion batteries can be formed into a wide variety of shapes and sizes so as to efficiently fill available space in the devices they power. They’re generally much lighter than other types of rechargeable batteries of the same size. (more…)