Archive for the 'Infrastructure' Category

Density, Congestion, and Car Culture

Published
by
Taylor
on June 2, 2008
in Environment, Infrastructure and Sustainability
. 1 Comment

One of my new favorite blogs is Ryan Avent’s site The Bellows. In a post about biking and mass transit in DC, Avent makes a striking statement about density:

Imagine [...] a world where the city established dedicated bus and bike lanes, free from automobile traffic. Imagine that drivers who did want to come into the city had to pay a daily toll, and that the proceeds of that toll went toward increased bus, streetcar, and rail capacity in the city and out into the burbs. Does it not seem that everyone, drivers included, would get where they were going a lot faster? That those without cars would enjoy greater mobility, and that the metro area as a whole would spend a lot less on gas?

Automobiles just weren’t made for the kind of urban density one finds in the District, and it’s incredibly inefficient to just give the streets over to them. At some point, a city reaches a threshold at which it needs to say that cars are welcome, but they’re going to defer to people using other modes of transportation, because we simply can’t afford to accommodate the parking and road space occupied by thousands of single-passenger motor vehicles.

I would love to bike to work, though doing so would necessitate some sort of showers at my office and–in the relatively small city where I live–a death wish as I combat obscene amounts of traffic, no bike lanes, etc.

This is of course an issue of city planning priorities and resources, an unchecked car culture (where 15 minutes waiting in traffic still, for many folks, beats a city bus or a bike ride up a hill), and a host of other factors (like pre-existing narrow streets with scant room for a bike lane). But it’s also, fundamentally, an issue of density.

I have no real wisdom to offer on this subject, but I wanted to highlight Avent’s comments and pose a few questions: What’s the solution for small or mid-size cities that lack the requisite density for these measures to really work? Is that density threshold lower than I imagine? Instead of transportation alternatives, should we be equally concerned with expanding incentives for tele-commuting and satellite work locations?

Image used under a Creative Commons License courtesy of Flickr user bfick.

Going Nuclear?

Published
by
Taylor
on March 28, 2008
in Energy, Environment and Infrastructure
. 8 Comments

nuclear-power.jpgWhen the subject of energy comes up, I’ve heard a number of intelligent people defend nuclear power as a favorable alternative to coal-fired plants. In recent years, a smattering of environmentalists have even joined the pro-nuclear camp. Nuclear proponents argue that atomic energy produces zero emissions, gained an unfair bad reputation on safety thanks to disasters like Chernobyl, and is a no-brainer solution to energy needs in the face of climate change. A recent Los Angeles Times Editorial speaks to all of the “pros” in the pro-nuclear movement:

Safety:

“Nuclear waste remains highly toxic not for a few years but for millenniums; if the ancient Egyptians who built the Great Pyramid had also built nuclear plants, the waste would still be deadly. This material is being stored on-site at nuclear plants [...] As these plants age, the chance of a system failure increases.”

Continue reading ‘Going Nuclear?’

Monday Links: February 25th, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on February 25, 2008
in Advertising, Business, Energy, Gadgets, Infrastructure, Monday Links and Philanthropy
. 2 Comments

Sunday, at least in my part of the country, was a gloomy day of bitter cold, rain, and gray skies. As a result, I stayed indoors and read a fair share of blogs. Here are a few gems I uncovered:

  • The Japanese space agency, in partnership with Mitsubishi, launched a ridiculously cool satellite. This is an amazing step forward in terms of connectivity, and I’m excited to see how this seemingly cheap (given the scale?) project pans out:

“[The satelite] will bring high-speed internet access to Japan and neighboring countries. The $342 million project [...] is expected to culminate in a terrestrially accessible internet connection reaching speeds of 1.2Gbps, dwarfing current [DSL] connections that typically allow data transfer to occur at [or] below 8 Mbps.”

  • In about three months, domestic airlines will use 100% electronic tickets. That doesn’t mean a complete end to paper during the course of your travels, but it does complete the seemingly obvious transition to computer-based records in place of paper tickets. Oh, by the way: it will save the airlines over $3 billion a year.
  • A Spanish firm will soon begin construction on the largest solar power plant in the world near Phoenix, Arizona. Initial estimates price the power (enough to serve 70,000 homes) at 20 cents per kWh, or twice the price of coal-fired plants. But, as the article points out, that cost disadvantage could disappear if the US moved toward a cap-and-trade or carbon tax system.
  • Recent major events in my life (ahem#getting engaged#ahem), made me think about this piece dissecting colleges and universities’ outdated means of connecting with young alumni for contributions:

[Alumni magazines are increasingly irrelevant to recent grads]. “Why wait four months for ‘class notes’ when you could simply check Facebook to see what a friend is up to?” Further, while many colleges have online giving programs, many also still communicate with alumni as if writing a check is the normal way to give. “It likely shocks most development officers as to the percentage of young alumni who don’t write checks, or own stamps.”

  • I watched an embarrassing number of episodes of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel today. They ran an all day marathon, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. You see, I used to look down my nose at Dirty Jobs as sort of a one-trick-pony: “I get it…he gets dirty doing disgusting things.” But the combination of host Mike Rowe’s quick wit and this Fast Company profile describing his motivations for the show and evolving view of work turned me into a fan. The profile is a great read.

That should get your week started. Hope it’s a good one.

Cleaner Energy Ideas

Published
by
Taylor
on February 21, 2008
in Energy, Environment and Infrastructure
. 2 Comments

power-grid.jpg

I spent the beginning of last week at a great conference on North Carolina’s Energy Future. While in future posts I want to offer specific reflections based on individual speakers, let me first quickly highlight a few clean tech and energy policy ideas from various sources that I found particularly compelling:

  • “Feebates” — the idea is simple: tax owners of high-emissions/low-mileage vehicles and transfer money from those fees (in the form of a tax rebate) to owners of low-emissions/high-mileage vehicles. An easy, straightforward incentive that pays for itself.
  • Composite Cars –many Americans have a tremendously dangerous misconception that heavier cars are safer. In reality, heavier cars yield deadlier accidents. An alternative to bulky steel frames are carbon composite shells that can be manufactured 10-100 times stronger than steel. The great part? They weigh just a fraction of a similar sized steel frame. This is crucially important considering the energy wasted by conventional (heavy) cars, SUVs, and trucks. As a Rocky Mountain Institute Report points out:

“The contemporary automobile, after a century of engineering, is embarrassingly inefficient: Of the energy in the fuel it consumes, at least 80 percent is lost, mainly in the engine’s heat and exhaust, so that at most only 20 percent is actually used to turn the wheels. Of the resulting [20%] force, 95 percent moves the car, while only 5 percent moves the driver, in proportion to their respective weights.”

  • Smart Power Grids –power distribution systems with at least three key features: (1) a two-way flow of electricity, allowing micro-level power generation systems (solar panels on houses, to use an obvious example) to feed excess energy back into the grid; (2) energy storage capacity that’s dispersed over a given area to optimize power flow (minimize the distance electricity travels) and (3) a decentralized power-generation system that makes micro power plants like wind turbines and solar cells more cost effective by drawing all energy produced by those sources into a common pool and sharing the power-generating burden across a variety of sources. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a lot to learn about Smart Grids, but these types of major infrastructure overhauls will eventually be necessary as we transition to new energy technologies. I’ve heard of at least one company working on this technology, though I know there are many more.

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user EdTarwinski.

Monday Links: January 28th, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on January 28, 2008
in Business, Design, Education, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Monday Links, Philanthropy and Sustainability
. 2 Comments

Here we are again, another week and another link-thread to kick things off. Back on our regular schedule, so grab your coffee and let’s get started:

  • Sometimes a simple trip down memory lane can remind us of the astounding pace of change online. This gallery, courtesy of Gizmodo, shows websites from corporate giants like Apple and Reebok back in the mid 1990s. My how web design has evolved.
  • I’m always wary of any seemingly progressive sound bytes originating in Bentonville Arkansas, but Wal-Mart execs are saying all of the right things about sustainability and supply-chain management innovation leading to increased energy efficiency and (surprise!) larger profit margins. Certainly something to watch based purely on the power Wal-Mart wields across so many industries. EcoGeek blogger Hank Green puts it well: “I don’t think the Wal-Mart model is a good model. But I do believe that, since they’ve pretty much taken over the (retail) world, when they do good things, it has gigantic impacts.”
  • Speaking of EcoGeek, here’s a really cool resource they featured last week: a mapping tool that assesses the feasibility of wind and solar power for any location in the U.S. Did I mention that it’s free? I love the Internet.
  • Sometimes change arrives by freak accident. Mental Floss directs us to 10 Accidental Product Discoveries. Still no indication of why “Silly Putty” was a good idea.
  • Good to see the GiveWell crowd back at work after their kerfluffle a few weeks back. Their two part discussion on evaluating charter school programs speaks eloquently to the difficulty of measuring impact in education programs.

Enjoy your week, and keep checking back for new material and the debut of Joel’s (super secret) Wednesday afternoon feature.

One last note: if you notice the stat counter on the bottom right corner of our sidebar over there (–>), we’re nearing 1,000 unique visitors since the site launched 3 weeks ago. Leave a comment if you’re lucky visitor #1,000 (or the first after 1,000 to comment) and maybe we’ll hook you up with something cool (Tropophilia t-shirts? no?)