Will bike-sharing work in the U.S.?

Inspired by the cool Trek/Shimano 3-speed bike that we saw (and got to ride) after class on Monday, this blog post is about bicycles and the introduction of bike sharing programs in the United States.

Here at Stanford, I think we take the prevalence of bicycles for granted. According to P&TS, there are spaces for more than 12,000 bikes on 800 bike racks, and 3,300+ bikes are registered every year. That’s roughly one bike for every incoming student! While this may not seem unusual to us because bikes are so ingrained into our campus culture, consider that only about 1% of all trips made in the U.S. are on a bike. Even in the Bay Area, which is generally considered to be one of the most progressive areas of the country when it comes to bicycle policy, I am often amazed by how many cars are on the road, and how many of them could easily be replaced by bikes.

One way to potentially get more people riding is through bike-sharing programs such as SmartBike DC, which is starting up this month in Washington. Proponents of bike-sharing programs argue that eliminating the hassles of bike ownership (security, storage, maintenance, cost), will increase the number of trips taken by bike. Detractors argue that the answer is not increased availability, but rather safety improvements such as creating more bike lanes and corridors.

Sponsored by Clear Channel Outdoors, SmartBike DC is calling itself “America’s first self-service public bike rental program.” The general idea is that members will pay a $40 annual fee, for which they will have unlimited use of 120 rental bikes parked at 10 locations in the city. (Well, not quite unlimited… rentals must be returned after three hours.) Bikes are checked out with RFID or swipe cards from electronic racks, similar to the way luggage carts are rented out in airports.

As part of their agreement with Washington, Clear Channel gets exclusive advertising rights in the city’s bus shelters in return for running the bike program, an arrangement similar to many of the bike-sharing programs in Europe. One of the better known programs in Europe is Velib, in Paris. That program, which was started last year, has grown to more than 20,000 bikes and 1,450 pickup/dropoff locations. Like the DC program, it is also sponsored by an advertising company, JCDecaux. Another well-known program is Bicing, in Barcelona. That program currently offers 3,000 bikes at 200 stations.

In contrast to the formal systems in place in Paris and Barcelona, bikes have been shared informally in Amsterdam for about fifty years. There, about 40% of all trips in the downtown are on a bike. The city’s transportation policies are also very conducive to biking: many streets are either closed to cars or are one-way, and it is expensive to park a car. (This brings up the concept of congestion pricing plans, where cities charge for the privilege of driving into the city center… this might be a good topic for another post).

Personally, I think bike-sharing is a great idea (though my opinion may be skewed because I’m a bike & train commuter). Perhaps the biggest potential issue is theft, but if the locking racks work as designed, hopefully that will be minimized. A distinctive design can also make the shared bikes less desirable to thieves. Another issue is getting people to ride when the weather isn’t perfect…

In any case, it will be interesting to see how the SmartBike DC programs works out. If it does work, and people discover that biking is a viable alternative to driving, more bike-sharing programs will undoubtedly spring up around the U.S. But regardless of the outcome, it’s still a step in the right direction, and many lessons are sure to be learned from this terrific experiment.

Links:

SmartBike DC webpage:

http://www.smartbikedc.com/

NYTimes article about SmartBike DC:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/us/27bikes.html

A bike-sharing experiment in New York:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/nyregion/10bike.html

An Op-Ed arguing for bike-sharing in New York:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/opinion/18haskell.html

User Chooser 2: personal solar panels

I was looking out my window a few days ago, and I noticed one of my neighbors had small solar panels on his windowsill. I asked him about it, and he told me they came from a small company called Solardyne. This company

The solar panels come in a kit, which includes 22W Panels, a battery, DC and AC power ports, a light, a carrying back, and other various components. The solar panels charge the batters, which can then provide AC power. The dormmate who owned them told me that he has no trouble charging the battery, and that he is able to get all his laptops power from the solar panels.

Although this product is marketed mainly towards campers and missionaries, I believe it has many applications in promoting sustainability. Buying this kit is a small step that many people could do to make themselves more sustainable. It’s affordable ($419 for the entire kit), and using it isn’t overly inconvenient or require a lifestyle change from the user (plugging devices into the battery instead of your wall). The kit is small and portable, and could be set up in any apartment or dorm room.

The one disadvantage of these panels is the high cost. You will not save money with this product. I did some quick calculations, and at 22W power intake, 12 hours of sunlight a day, you only save about 8 kWh per month, or $1 per month. The Solar panels are rated to last about 5 years, so you will not break even. Still, you can get a sizeable quantity of ones electricity from a pollution free source.

I checked out some other Solardyne products, and found one other that also has potential to promote sustainability. The company also sells a small, all inclusive windmill kit to generate home electricity. The windmill even comes with a special inverter, so that you can sell surplus electricity back to the power grid, reducing your electric bill further.

Like the solar panels, this product is expensive (the entire kit goes for $4979). However, the windmill is more cost effective and more litely to break even or even save you money. With an average windspeed of 12 mph (which is the case in most places), the windmill produces 400 kWh/month. This translated is to $48/month less in power costs. The windmill pays for itself in 9 years.

The windmill is also an example of a small step many people could take towards sustainability. If every house had a small windmill, it would reduce the need for pollution emitting power plants greatly. Congratulations to Solardyne for making it possible for many people to take small steps towards sustainability.

(Note: for my calculations, I assumed power costs $.12/kWh. This statistic came from http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html. All images come from www.solardyne.com).

Recycled Water Hits The Showers

So-called “gray water” recycling is nothing new—car washes have been doing it for years, including our local favorite Lozano’s Brushless Car Wash. It is also being used in many other applications, mostly in irrigation, but has also been extended to use as toilet flushing water.

Now, there’s a new product out that I think we will probably all fall in love with. It’s called Quench, and it’s a shower system for the home that allows you to take showers of unlimited duration, while using only 4 liters of fresh water each time. It also shows us that indeed, cool stuff can come from Down Under! Actually, the 4 liter rating pertains only to the recycling phase of the shower. Because they haven’t built in a filtration system, with a Quench shower you first wash yourself off, then you indulge in the heated, recycled, showery goodness (YouTube). In effect, you use electricity (hopefully the renewable kind) to heat your body, while using recycled shower water as the medium. Which is nothing super-innovative, as it is simply a permutation of the Jacuzzi bathtub experience. So it’s really a Jacuzzi for the space- or water-conscious. Now if they’d only make one that filters the water such that you shower for multiple days on the same 4 liter supply… that would truly be awesome. It would then be a challenge to dispose of the filtered material—maybe they can take a cue from the weirdest pet product in recent memory, the CatGenie.

Walmart- i kinda got carried away

Walmart is a company of strong paradox. Whatever opinions it evokes, they are probably strong. On one hand it epitomizes American mass corporate culture that stymies creativity and small businesses. During the late 90s it was an easy target for the anti-globalization market: a lucrative business producing billions for a select few and dumping its factories and human rights and environmental abuses in poor countries.

On the other hand, it’s provides cheap goods for lower income Americans. And most recently, it’s being hailed as a model for green business. Here are the its two most important claims to greenness researched on their website (http://walmart.triaddigital.com/Sustainability.aspx and http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/):

1. environmentally friendly products: I went on their website and investigated their eco-friendly production section. They divide their products up into apparel (they offer organic cotton), home (more organic cotton), baby (reusable cloth diapers, biodegradable toilet paper, endangered species butterfly stroller), energy efficient appliances, electronics & entertainment (energy efficient stuff, Planet Earth!), and garden & patio (sustainably harvested wood). Ok so none of these products seem particularly innovative, but then again with Walmart’s target clientele (generally more concerned with saving a buck than saving the Earth), I want to say it’s great how they are bringing the Earth into the consumer picture by advertising the eco-friendliness of their products. In the end though, I think it’s more appropriate to celebrate that consumers are demanding these products and making it more economic for companies like Walmart to carry these products. In other words, it’s a sign of a good consumer trend, but there is nothing truly innovative going on here.

2. Reducing energy and pollutants: There are two main avenues through which Walmart is seeking to reduce energy. The first is by reducing emissions of its truck fleet through a number of measures. They are attacking this with more efficient trucks and even getting involved with projects to develop cleaner engines that run off alternative energy sources. The second is by building sustainable buildings. Now I was pretty impressed with what they are doing in this area. You expect fluorescent light bulbs? You got some catching up to do. In their experimental stores they have installed LED lights. They monitor their energy and water usage. Their long term goals are 100% renewable energy and zero waste. Yeah those may be fuzzy long term goals, but once the rhetoric is there, we have something to hold them accountable to. I think what they are doing in this area is truly innovative. I haven’t seen the numbers, but I feel like I don’t even need to. Everything they are doing here is to their benefit. A carbon tax is around the corner. Energy prices are skyrocketing. We’re going to have to adjust our infrastructure to alternative energies in the future anyway. So they are not only saving money now, but investing in their future.

Precisely because I was impressed by their claims (ie that they embodied all that was talked about in “The Death in Environmentalism,” that being sustainable is self-serving) I felt I needed to dig deeper into the changes Walmart is making.

First I wanted to check the validity of its claims. There are actually a number of groups that monitor Walmart and jump on it any opportunity they get (http://wakeupwalmart.com/ and http://walmartwatch.com/). Their main concerns regarding Walmart and the environment persist, but really only because of Walmarts shear size. Of course Walmart is going to have an enormous impact because it serves so many customers. However, I saw nothing on either website that made me question that Walmart’s initiatives are a good model for other corporations.

Second, I was curious about whether Walmart is greening as a response to trends in consumerism, whether it is narrowly defining itself as “green” (as in how environmental movements can narrowly and harmfully define themselves as “environmental”), or whether we are witnessing Walmart progress in a more holistic sense. There is an enormous article on Wikipedia about Walmart (well cited too). Basically, as I kind of expected, Walmart is progressing in a more holistic sense. The main reason I thought this would be so is because Walmart is #1 on the global Fortune 500. It is run by smart people. They aren’t ideologues, so they are free to take the best ideas they can find and use them to their interest.

This is evident in the way Walmart is trying to open its customer base to a up-scale liberal base, as opposed to its traditional low income, conservative customer base. Its rating by human rights groups have been climbing since 2000. It even elected to sell Brokeback Mountain in the face of anti-gay protests (http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/04/06/brokeback-walmart-protest.html).

I think this is a perfect illustration of what Adam Werbach was saying when he talked about environmentalists harming their cause by narrowly defining themselves as environmentalists. Walmart and other corporations were harming themselves by not considering how a little greening and progressing could help them. Walmart is tactfully drawing in a liberal base without isolating its conservative base. It is loudly exclaiming “Yes!” to the environment and gay rights, while still saying “yes” to its billions of dollars and family values. Key lesson: the value systems are not mutually exclusive and we only hurt our causes by closing door on other values.

Agricultural Water Conservation

Agricultural processes are the largest water consumers in many areas in the US. In Texas, for example, they account for 42% of the state’s total projected water use. The current model of water usage is not sustainable – 80% of water there comes from groundwater, and the existing groundwater supply is supposed to decrease by 18% by 2050. Furthermore, it takes a great deal of energy to power the current water processes. How do we tackle this problem? Farmers will only adopt a new solution if they don’t have to concede their main needs: convenience (via an automatic irrigation system), and high plant production (via constantly moisturized soil). There are several new processes in the design of fields and irrigation systems that minimize water wastage while continuing to cater to these farmers’ values.

Field design:

One interesting method I came across is called laser leveling, in which land-leveling equipment that contains lasers is used to shape the land in the manner that is best given the type of irrigation system used (level land for sprinkler systems and a uniform slope for furrow irrigation systems). Studies have shown that field unevenness and poor farm design leads to the loss of 20-25% of irrigation water during farming. Laser leveling therefore can make water use in irrigation much more efficient.

Furrow diking is another method that involves making small dams in the furrows so that precipitation or irrigation water can be captured and be slowly released into the soil, thereby decreasing runoff and increasing the amount of water sustained near the plants. In addition, conservation tillage – leaving most of the soil surface covered with crop stubble – is also an effective way to decrease wind and water erosion and increase soil moisture. Lastly, since there will always be some amount of runoff, it is important to have a tailwater capture system that reuses this runoff.

Irrigation system design:

In addition to better field design, more efficient irrigation systems are important as well. Many farmers currently use a sprinkler system or a furrow system, but studies have shown that drip irrigation is more efficient. With the drip process, small amounts of water are frequently emitted from underground tubing. Drip irrigation (shown in picture below) delivers water directly to the roots, which eliminates many of the problems of sprinklers, i.e. evaporation. Also, since moisture is concentrated near the roots, weed growth in the furrows is reduced.

If sprinkler or furrow systems are used, an improvement that can be made is to place the sprinklers lower to the ground and use less pressure in the water. This reduces evaporation and conserves energy. With furrows, a surge flow system can be used in which surges of water are applied intermittently instead of continuously, and the surges alternate between two different furrows. This allows for more uniform water distribution since water will always travel over wetter furrows to drier ones more quickly.

All of these agricultural methods conserve water and energy, while often increasing production and saving money. As water and energy prices rise, these efficient processes are becoming more and more necessary for farmers to adopt.

Sources:

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/assistance/conservation/ConservationPublications/AgBrochure.pdf

http://dswcpunjab.gov.in/contents/data_folder/Laser_Level.htm

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/agriculturalsciences/news/?p=289

Square IC Engine

Now I know that this is a class on sustainability and IC engines are not considered “sustainable,” but this is a very interesting design. Basically, it is a low cost, modular, and cleaner 2-stroke engine.

Now, the two stroke engine has been around for a long time. Designed in 1878, the engine became really popular in the 60’s when motorcycle companies realized the potential and started investing. Compared to the four stroke engine in your car, the normal two stroke is very efficient, but there are drawbacks. The engine is loud, they tend to use more gasoline, and they emit more pollutants because they burn oil with fuel.

Today, these engines are used in lawnmowers, snow mobiles, chainsaws, and off road motorcycles. There is a big market out there for a cheap and lightweight IC engine. While street motorcycles in the US are 4 stroke, much of the developing world’s engine power comes from two stroke engines. It is estimated that there are 100 million 2 stroke vehicles in south east asia alone. Each of these vehicles produces 50 times the emissions of a regular car.

Now to the Square Piston Engine (SPEC). It has all the benefits of a normal 2 stroke without many of the drawbacks. It’s modular design makes it easy to build and maintain. It also burns cleaner. It compresses the air more than a normal two stroke, resulting in more complete combustion and it has a closed oil lubrication system. This means that it doesn’t burn the oil and it can be more flexible with the kinds of fuel it burns.

I don’t think this is anything close to a solution to our emissions problem. I do think it’s a stepping stone though, albeit a small one. It demonstrates how existing technologies combined with some ingenuity can help turn things green, but if you ask me, I would hope the future of transportation lies somewhere here or here.

Movies and links below.

http://www.engine.fuelnews.co.nz/

http://www.yet2.com/app/list/techpak?id=44202&sid=90&abc=0&page=tpoverview

Store Wind Energy On the Ocean Floor

Wind power has been an effective energy source for nearly twenty years. At the end of 2007, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 94.1 gigawatts. Wind currently produces over 1% of world-wide electricity use, and it accounts for approximately 19% of electricity production in Denmark, 9% in Spain and Portugal, and 6% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland. Yet, there is an inherent problem to wind energy as a renewable energy source. That is, wind is not constant. So, it would be useful to somehow store wind energy in an economically efficient manner so that we can pull from this source when we need.

A UK Professor thinks that he has found a solution to the problem. He wants to create a system in which wind power is stored in flexible containers on the ocean floor. His idea of using Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is not necessarily a new idea, but his method of storage is. The traditional method of CAES is to store the compressed air in an underground reservoir. There are currently only two places in the world that have a CAES unit–in Huntorf, Germany and in McIntosh, Alabama.

Garvey’s method seems simple. Essentially, he hypothesizes that wind could be compressed using the wind turbine itself, which would have the ability to compress the air all the way down to the ocean floor. He believes that if each of the wind turbine’s blades were hollowed out and carried inside a piston that fell due to gravity as the blades spun, the air in front of the piston could be compressed.

Of course, storing large amounts of air requires large amounts of space. He envisions a cone-shaped structure located at the bottom of the ocean that is 50 meters wide at the top and 80 meters wide at the bottom. This structure would hold the compressed air (at nearly 600 m under sea level), and be made of various plastics so that it could expand and compress appropriately.

At a depth of around 600 meters, Professor Garvey calculates that the bags would be able to store 25 megajoules of energy for every meter cubed. The deep water is essential. “Only in deep water, where the pressure is greatest, are the bags a good economic proposition,” Garvey explained.

This youtube video explains the technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUhlsV32iHk

Automotive X Prize

At this years New York International Auto Show the X Prize Foundation and Progressive Insurance announced a $10 million competition for a car that gets the equivalent of 100 mpg. The competition will go for several years where the entrants will be judged on the safety, reliability, and ease of production of their designs. The competition will conclude with a series of stage races where the cars will travel as quickly as possible while maintaining 100 mpg.

The competition was only announced 2 months ago, and 64 teams have already signed up. They range from relatively established auto companies like Tesla Motors to high school auto shops. Most of the front runners are proposing designs that are hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or purely electric. Some of the proposals are to cost as little as $7000, while others will cost upwards of $100,000.

The X-Prize Foundation claims that this competition was created to spark the public’s imagination about high efficiency vehicles. While I am sure the competition will get the public’s attention, it seems to have come a bit too late. Many of the competitors are already most of the way through developing their cars. The competition is just convenient publicity for them. With gas over $4/gal in the Bay Area and at record highs across the country, even stodgy old automotive companies are looking for methods to improve fuel economy.

Similar competitions in the past have yielded their most important results in unintended consequences. The human powered airplane completion ultimately created a greater understanding of composite materials and solar powered aircraft. The Darpa Grand Challenge fostered a lot of thinking about artificial intelligence. The automotive X-Prize may be too literal and not outlandish enough to have the impact its creators intended. That said, after spending $60 yesterday filling my average sedan, I am excited to see the results.

Abu Dhabi planning carbon neutral city

Can a modern city that produce zero waste and zero carbon? We’ll see by next year.

Abu Dhabi is taking city planning towards a new direction. As the title suggests, this oil rich country is planning to unveil a new sustainable city. The actual article can be found here, but I summarized most of the key features of this city below:

1. Six square kilometers large2

2. All electricity generated by photovoltaic panels

3. Cultural sustainability

4. City hosts the Masdar institute of science and technology(with help of MIT), laboratories/research facilities, commercial space for clean-tech companies, and a carefully selected pool of international tenants who will invest/develop/commercialize advanced energy technologies.

5. Planned development costs: 500Billion in the next seven years. (6 cities total)

6. Zero cars. Everything you need will be 200 meters (656 feet) away. Walking and cycling will be primary mode of transportation.

7. Sustainable materials used for construction

8. All food organic/sustainable/fair trade

9. Sustainable water target specifies per capita water consumption 50% less than national average. Landscape uses grey water. All waste water will be re-used.

3. Construction starts early 2008, scheduled to open late 2009

The Little Brown Dress

Alex Martin, a Seattle dancer/choreographer, took on an interesting project between July 2005 and July 2006: to make a statement against America’s increasingly consumerist culture, she wore one dress for an entire year. She kept a blog about her endeavor, making her personal experiment a public affair. In her own words: “In this performance, I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense.”

Alex made the brown dress herself, tailoring it to her lifestyle needs as well as her measurements. She allowed herself to wear existing articles from her wardrobe for extra warmth. It was made to be versatile enough to be worn during her dance practices, special events, and the daily messes that came with taking care of her young children. The fact that she designed her dress specifically for her individual needs and for durability reflects a sustainable design sensibility that’s missing from the fashion world. The majority of clothes are mass-produced because it’s more profitable. Tailor-made clothes are an exception, not the norm. Though clothing advertisements often promote ideas like ‘timelessness’ or ‘durability’, the fashion world is notorious for its fickleness. Clothes aren’t designed to be worn every day for years into the future, because consumers have come to expect to have multiple clothes on rotation to wear for a while before something new comes into vogue.

Through her project, Ms. Martin explores how people, primarily women, feel compelled to express themselves through their objects. So much of design, especially fashion, focuses on aesthetics. But is there a point where the desire to have beautiful and unique products goes too far? Commenting on the feminist undertones of her project, she said: “let’s stop agreeing that the best way for women (in particular) to “express themselves” is by purchasing new wardrobe items and putting together daily outfits.

Alex Martin created no revolutionary new product, service, or technology, but the concept she promoted through her brief experiment — owning very few but very well-designed products — is an interesting answer to the question of how to design for a more sustainable world.

Links:
the brown dress website: http://www.littlebrowndress.com/default.asp
the author’s 2nd project, making a recycled wardrobe: http://www.littlebrowndress.com/recycling%20journal.htm