8:54 PM
GT
The Public Service Commission is holding a public hearing
January 30, 2008
9:30 a.m.
Hearing Room 148
Southwood Office Complex
Florida Power and Light Company will petition that there is a need for Turkey Point Nuclear Units 6 and 7 to generate electrical energy.
You can see information about the docket, the petition and other hearing details at the Public Service Commission website. Check with the Big Bend Climate Action Team website for their comments.
6:31 PM
GT
It is either awkwardly strange or elegantly ingenious.
Kite Ship is a California-based company that makes free flying sails, a giant traction kite that harnesses the wind to pull very large objects--the same principle as someone kite-surfing on the beach.
This kite contraption increases yacht speeds, improve the range of ships, using 10 - 15% less fuel and reducing sulfur emissions.
More on sky sails and the top 10 green ship designs at Ocean Kites.
9:47 PM
GT
The City of Tallahassee's Solid Waste Services building has received the silver certification from LEED. The building, first noted in a November post,
is the second municipal building in Florida to earn this designation.
6:02 PM
GT
It all started with the NPR story about Orange County, California, which I was sorry I heard over my breakfast of yogurt, granola and coffee (no, not all mixed together.) Californians can now drink water from the tap that is recycled from toilet water in it's "toilet to tap" program. The NY Times provided details about the program and as much as I believe in recycling, it gave me pause. It was one of those things that make you go hmmm...
Last month, the Orange County Water District began using the world's largest plant to purify sewer water to increase drinking water supplies and serve as a model for water systems around the world who are experiencing drought, water shortages and large growth.
The second thing to make me go hmmm. . .
This past week's testimony of the EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson about why the EPA denied California the ability to set its own carbon emissions standards higher than the US. During Mr. Johnson's appearance before the US Senate (yes, things are going on outside the horserace political poll speculations of the major media channels), he tried to explain why California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks was denied in direct contradiction to his own staff's recommendations that California's request be approved.
It seems the EPA staff staff stated that if the request was granted, it would be generally consistent with the federal greenhouse gas rule. Mr. Johnson testified that it was denied because it was inconsistent with federal standards. Confused? Yes, so was the Senate who had to go over to the EPA offices and retrieve documents when the EPA refused to provide them. More details on this and a tip of the hat to Senator Barbara Boxer for holding her position throughout the entire testimony.
It really makes me glad that Governor Crist has returned Florida to the sanity of government in the sunshine through his Commission on Open Government.
But the biggest made me go hmmm. . .
The announcement in Science by Craig Venter and his team this week that they had created the first-ever synthetic chromosome, meaning that they are now far down the road to creating artificial life.
Venter says his hope is that he will be able to create designer bugs that can be used to produce hydrogen and biofuels. Synthetic bugs could also be created to do nothing but absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. If all goes to plan, Venter's breakthrough could be the silver bullet in our battle against climate change.
Here's the link to the research article abstract that was accepted by Science magazine on 1/11/08 for our science friends.
The full article is covered in Science Now, "Scientists Synthesize a Genome from Scratch" for the rest of us.
I go on record as very, very skeptical. In addition, it is the ETC Group, that first exposed the Venter Institute's patent applications for the world's first human-made living organism built entirely from synthetic DNA.
Hasn't anyone been watching movies like I Am Legend?
And because it's rainy and it's Saturday and because I've now planted that tune in your head, 
here's C + C Music Factory's original 1991 video. Sorry, they won't let me embed it here. Go to: Things That Make You Go Hmmmm
9:47 AM
GT
The 2% Solution Webcast is coming to Tallahassee!
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30TH
Beginning at 7:00 pm
the interactive broadcast will stream live exactly at 8:00 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Church
2810 North Meridian Road
Room "L"
Tallahassee
information: 850.385.5115
join us for slow food snacks and discussion at 7. Everyone is invited to this event, no charge. Glimpse our solar panels when you come!
Focus the Nation is hosting this event. Join Stanford University climate scientist, Stephen Schneider, sustainability expert Hunter Lovins and green jobs pioneer Van Jones (you remember Van Jones from the broadcast: The presentation Al Gore Would Do if He Were Black) and youth climate leaders, for a discussion of global warming solutions.
Audiences can weigh in with cell phone voting.
Also, on January 31st. 1500 school and college campuses will participate in the largest teach-in in US history, educating students to become leaders in the challenge of global warming.
US Senator Bill Nelson, Tallahassee Mayor John Marks and the IFAS (University of Florida) Wakulla County Extension Office in Crawfordville have endorsed this effort.
Global Warming Background:
According to the Sierra Club, burning fossil fuels such as coal releases carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, making energy use the single largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. and the world.
Currently there is 30% more CO2 in the atmosphere than there was at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and we are well on the way to doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere during this century. Although the US has only four percent of the world's population it emits about 25% of global warming pollution.
Power plants emit 40% of total U.S. carbon dioxide pollution, the primary global warming pollutant. Although coal-fired power plants account for just over half of the electricity produced in the U.S. each year, they have been responsible for over 83% of the CO2 pollution since 1990. Coal-fired power plants have the highest output rate of CO2 per unit of electricity among all fossil fuels.
The atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases reached a new high in the 1990s, the hottest decade on record. Average global temperatures have risen already by one degree Fahrenheit, and projections indicate an increase of two to ten degrees within this century.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that global warming threatens human populations and the world's ecosystems with worsening heat waves, floods, drought, extreme weather, and by spreading infectious diseases. Unfortunately, global warming problems continue to grow as more greenhouse gases are spewed into our atmosphere. 
5:18 PM
GT
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced that Liberty Industries, an affiliate of Liberty Chips Corporation, will receive a $4 million grant (part of the Farm to Fuel program designed to spur the state’s agricultural industry to produce 25 percent of Florida’s energy needs by 2025) to build a plant to produce ethanol and electricity from forest products, crops and municipal solid waste. The project will use gasification and fermentation to convert the waste products from sawmills, nearby straw, peanut and cotton crops will be used in addition to discarded tires, plastics and municipal waste.
The plant, to be located near Hosford, is about 40 miles southwest of Tallahassee.
According to the Dept. of Agriculture, the total project will cost around $38 million and will produce 7 million gallons of ethanol and 5.4 megawatts of electricity early in 2009. Production is projected to doubled in the next two to three years. The plant's waste product is ash, which has been certified by the USDA as environmentally safe.
Other grants awarded under the Farm to Fuel program include gulf Coast Energy of Walton LLC, which received $7 million for the construction and operation of ethanol and biodiesel plants in Mossy Head, about 130 miles southwest of Tallahassee on the edge of Eglin Air Force Base. A $62 million project is expected to begin construction in the next few months to produce biodiesel by the end of 2008, and produce ethanol early in 2009.
Another ethanol company, US Envirofuels received funding to construct a plan in Highlands County.
9:42 PM
GT
The headquarter of America's oil industry spewed 670 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2003, enough that if Texas were a country, it would rank as the world's seventh largest polluter.
The Chicago Sun Times reported that if you add the second and third ranking states (California and Pennsylvania) together, it would not equal the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Texas.
Texas consumes more coal than any other state. Powered by 19 coal-burning plants, its per-capita residential use of electricity is significantly higher than the national average.
Yes, everything is bigger in Texas.
9:31 PM
GT
February 8th-10th hundreds of young people from the Southeast will converge in Valdosta, Georgia
for a just and sustainable energy future
February 8th-10th 2008, at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia we will continue to train to next generations leaders to meet this challenge.
6:34 PM
GT
Wouldn't it be great if all our neighborhoods had signs like these?
4:32 PM
GT
Use the water calculator to find your "water footprint." It's an interactive tool that helps you measure how much water you use, and gets you thinking about how to use less.
The calculator is based on national averages and estimates, you you receive a rough idea how much water that you use every day. Our family uses 25% less water on average per day. How did you score?
7:37 PM
GT
Every once in a while you wish you had just the perfect fact as rebuttal to some inane global warming comment made by your brother-in-law or wish you could have one, comprehensive source for reliable facts that you could access quickly. 
Real Climate is a one stop link for resources that people can use to get up to speed on the issue of climate change for complete beginners to those seeking serious discussion of details. Click on "start here" and find your niche. The site was started as a climate science commentary site by working climate scientists in a forum that is readable to non-scientists, interested people and journalists.
Along with its information for real beginners, it lists "Frequently Asked Questions," goes into "informed but in need of more detail," links, along with a little history and art, to "informed, but seeking serious discussion of common contrarian talking points." It even gives you an index of "debunks" of most common points of confusion about global warming.
I was wandering through some stunning photographs at World View of Global Warming when I came across the Hard Rain Project. It's perfect logic that "changing minds with a book is difficult, because those who buy the book mostly agree with the authors." The Hard Rain exhibtion is a collection of photographs and Bob Dylan lyrics that is touring throughout the world in hopes to be see by over 10 million people. It hasn't made it to the States, yet, but keep an eye out for it.
9:54 AM
GT
Terry over at the Fake Plastic Fish blog may be launching a campaign with Clorox, the company that owns the North American division of Brita, to create a way for consumers to recycle the plastic filter cartridges. Note: the Brita company does recycle in Germany, so it can be done. Beth includes the reply she received from Clorox when she inquired about why we didn't recycle in the US and Canada. [Clorox also owns the Burt's Bees brand.]
In Tallahassee, you may not need a Brita filter, according to the most recent Water Quality Report issued by the City, however, our drinking water source does have added fluoride and chlorine.
9:23 PM
GT
The 2008 Green Trends Conference
July 31 - August 2
Orange County Center, Orlando
Go to Florida Green Building for more information.
8:49 PM
GT
A seminar on pervious pavers by David Smith, author of Pervious Interlocking Concrete Pavers for Roadway & Stormwater Facility Reduction, will be held January 18, 2008, from 11:30 a.m. -
1:00 p.m. at the Brokaw McDougal House in Tallahassee.
Sponsored by the USGBC.
RSVP: 850.391.0360 or ltenace@woodandpartners.com
BBQ lunch if you're so inclined for $10.00, pay at the door.
Now, doesn't it just make sense if an area has to be paved, that the pavement be permeable?
10:58 PM
GT
Tallahassee was given the Green City Local Government Standard Award by the Florida Green Building Coalition, Inc. We are only the second city in Florida to receive this award.
Since Mayor John Marks signed the "Mayors' Green City Action Accord," the City applied its "Go Green Tallahassee" initiatives toward the adopted benchmarks.
The City maintains an environmentally preferable purchasing program, gives its new employees an orientation that includes things the employee can do at work and at home to reduce energy, waste and water consumption. The City recycles its used electronic equipment, involves school students in green projects within schools such as Schools on Solar and the CANpaign.
The City operates its own alternative fueling station, uses LED traffic lights, and achieved Florida's Department of Environmental Protection's wastewater plant operations excellence award.
For its City's citizens, it offers home and business energy audits, educates on Xeriscaping, rainwater reuse and rain gardens, offers green power, provides residential incentives such as exchange programs for compact fluorescent bulbs, and energy audit kits including low flow showerheads, wall gaskets and thermometer cards, and provides curbside recycling (except in apartment complexes).
5:59 PM
GT
While it's not a Porsche Cayenne Hybrid, it is a bus that the City of Tallahassee should consider.
The Sarasota County Area Transit (SCAT) introduced its first diesel-electric hybrid bus to the fleet on Aug. 7, with plans to add 29 more hybrids.
When the bus accelerates from a stop, the battery-powered electric motors assist the diesel engine for powerful acceleration. Once under way, the engine-driven generator charges the batteries. This results in a fuel cost savings of 25 - 30 percent in diesel fuel or an average reduction of 7,000 gallons of diesel fuel each year.
Emissions will be reduced by more than 90 percent on some items as compared to conventional diesel-fuel engines, including 97 percent lower carbon monoxide emissions.
Plus, the noise level is half that of a conventional diesel bus.
11:26 PM
GT
OK, full disclosure: I am an unashamed, rabid fan of Project Runway, and as you may imagine, my favorite "character" on the show was Elisa Jimenez.
While considering the vapid land of fashion, I was mulling the difference between recycling and upcycling. Was there something beyond just shopping at used clothing store, trading outgrown children's clothes and toys with other parents and the on-going conscious reduction of acquiring new stuff?
While it may be mucking around in the minutiae, the difference between upcycling was defined in the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, order from Tallahassee's Word Traffic Books) as the practice of converting waste materials into products of greater value--glass into building materials, tires into playground fall zones, etc. This is different from "recycling" which is turning waste back into the same or very similar thing.
So, for fashion, it's recycling just to reuse a garment the same way and upcycling when a garment is remade into something else of supposedly greater value. Nick Graham, designer and founder of Joe Boxer, has formed a San Francisco design team, and opened a store that upcycles used clothing under the label of William Good (a upcycled use of the store name Goodwill and Goodwill is a partner in the venture). If you're not traveling to the Mission District of San Francisco to shop for William Good fashions at the Fillmore Street Goodwill store, fashions are available at their online store.
Better yet, make your own!
3:08 PM
GT
I think there were two times this year that I read the comic pages in the local Tallahasee Democrat. I was catching up on a week's worth of papers today.
Sunday's paper summed up my years of discontent. Sally Forth's husband was complaining: "No jet packs, no flying cars, no food pills, no space vacations, no weather control devices, etc. It's like the future is never going to happen."
My biggest disappointment is no jet packs. I yearned for the year 2000 and the promise of my very own, private, jet pack. Green inventors everywhere: please, I long to fly high above congested roads powered by a pack on my back. Hydrogen, anyone?
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Terry over at the Fake Plastic Fish blog may be launching a campaign with Clorox, the company that owns the North American division of Brita, to create a way for consumers to recycle the plastic filter cartridges. Note: the Brita company does recycle in Germany, so it can be done. Beth includes the reply she received from Clorox when she inquired about why we didn't recycle in the US and Canada. [Clorox also owns the Burt's Bees brand.]
While it may be mucking around in the minutiae, the difference between upcycling was defined in the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, order from Tallahassee's Word Traffic Books) as the practice of converting waste materials into products of greater value--glass into building materials, tires into playground fall zones, etc. This is different from "recycling" which is turning waste back into the same or very similar thing.
