A year ago when we saw an article at MAKE: on how to make a fuel cell out of a band aid we knew we had to get in touch with this guy. Gavin D.J. Harper is a frequent contributor to EcoGeek and has written several books in McGraw Hill’s “Evil Genius” series.

Most recently, Gavin completed Solar Energy Projects for the Evil Genius. The book, filled with projects on how to harness the sun for your own personal gain, was forwarded by Willie Nelson and has been sitting on my nightstand for the last few days. We’re happy to have Gavin as this week’s ecogeek of the week.

EcoGeek: When I think of evil geniuses, I don’t generally thing of solar power. That’s more for benevolent geniuses. Where do evil geniuses fit with solar?

Gavin D.J. Harper: Hey Hank! You must have missed the Solar Powered Death Ray….. It’s OLD technology: Archimedes was rumoured to have suggested it waaay back when, like a lot of renewable innovations - we’ve known how to do it for a long time - we are only now starting to refine the technology. However, I must state, despite the natty title, I think solar power is definitely a force for good in the world.

EG: What’s your favorite project in the book?

GH: I think that the photochemical solar cells are ‘really cool’ as they are such a futuristic high tech - wowfabgroovy technology and yet they are something easy that you can make at home and get to understand relatively easily. It’s complicated science, but made easy for the smart kid in the street.

EG: What’s the easiest project in the book?

GH: Hmmm… that all depends on your skills and where you are coming from, but I have to say making a solar powered engine from a drinking bird is the most impressive project for the least effort… that is if you’re not a clumsy klutz and manage not to break the drinking bird (no names…. Gavin Harper).

EG: As an environmentalist, what scares your pants off.

GH: Transport. Electricity we can do easily if we put our minds to it. I have total faith in renewables, and think that their large scale adoption could meet our electricity needs with relative ease. However, transport is waaay scary - I think there are a lot of issues surrounding alternative vehicle fuels that we don’t yet fully understand - these problems are as much social, economic and political as they are technical. I also think that we are going to struggle to live in the built environments that we have created with a ‘reduced’ level of transport that will be necessitated by an increase in the cost of energy.

EG: What keeps you hopeful.

GH: Kids. I see some really great ideas come out of school Design & Technology departments, and I passionately believe that if we can get more kids fired up about science and technology, they can come up with some fantastic ideas for the future. I have less faith in adults… they’ve kind of got us where we are today, and the rate of change isn’t fast enough by far, so I think if you are going to do anything important… drum it into a kid who is a friend how important these issues of sustainability are, and show them, empower them with the tools to change the world. (Pass the tissues Hank, I think I’m going to burst into song.. “I believe that children are our future…. teach them well and let them lead the way….”)

EG: OK…that’s enough of that…What applications for solar power do you think will be most important in the next 20 years.

GH: Thin film… thin film… we all love thin film. I think we will see thin film everywhere very soon indeed. I look forward to seeing innovative building designs using vast arrays of thin film solar. I think we are going to see solar power become ‘ubiquitous’ due to the versatility of the thin film material - we are already moving forward to ‘ubiquitous computing,’ we see power-munching computers in every possible application - but I think we now need to move forward to ubiquitous energy generation, where everything you see around you has some element of embedded generation, doing its bit to capture some ambient energy.

EG: Do you hope that solar power will someday be a significant source of electricity for our planet?

GH: I don’t hope Hank, I ‘know.’ Let’s face it: as time goes on, our options are going to get more and more limited. We have this huge nuclear reactor that is 149 600 000 000m away (which I think is the only safe distance away from my home that I’d wish to have one), and it is producing this massive amount of energy for free. The smart man harnesses that energy. I think that there is going to have to be a focus on large scale solutions as well - I think that ‘embedded’ generation has it’s place in the world - and we can go a long way by deploying solar panels on our homes, but I think that we still need to be considering some element of centralised generation, albeit implemented using renewable technologies.

EG: What’s next for “High Tech Guru” Gavin D.J. Harper?

GH: Lots more learning, lots more books. I’m going to be a research student for the next several years, looking at Alternative Vehicle Fuels and their impact in society, which I am really excited about. I love writing the books, on the immediate horizon, ‘Fuel Cell Projects for the Evil Genius’ is going to print very soon indeed, and I’m already discussing ‘what next’ - probably a How-To book on Biodiesel Conversion. Of course, expect lots of posts to EcoGeek!

EcoGeek of the Week is a syndicated column from EcoGeek.org. If you would like to syndicate the column, or know an EcoGeek that proffiling, email our editor at editor@ecogeek.org

Dear EcoGeek,

My parents are always bugging me about computer usage and how the computers are sucking up energy. I want to know what I can do so that my computer doesn’t waste so much energy? I totally wanna go green and save the Earth from Global Warming!

- Lukas

Hey Lukas,

You probably won’t be surprised to discover that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about this very question. First, you should let your parents to know that your computer, with all of it’s amazing opportunities for educational, economic and social advancement, likely uses less power than the light bulbs that share the room with it.

Most desktop computers use between 100 to 150 watts. Now, this goes way up if you’ve got some kind of monster high-end gaming system, but 100 watts is a pretty good energy investment for what these glorious machines give us…in my opinion anyhow.

But that doesn’t mean that they’re aren’t steps you can take to decrease your computer’s power usage.

First, it’s important to realize that computers use varying amounts of power depending on what they’re doing. So writing an email doesn’t use as much power as playing Unreal Tournament. However, when your computer is completely idle, even if your monitor is off, it still is probably pulling about 100 watts from the wall. And when you’re not using your computer, that’s a pretty significant amount of waste.

So, always either shut down or suspend the operation of your computer when it’s going to be idle for a long time. This is the most important step we can take to decrease computer use. Of course, sometimes it’s hard to remember. Which is why I like to use Snap’s CO2Saver application. It keeps an eye on the way I use my computer, and idles my machine when I’m not using it. It also lets you know how much CO2 you’ve saved by using the application’s new settings. Unfortunately, it only works withy XP and Vista.

It’s also really important to consider not just the cost of the energy needed to power your machine, but also the energy required to create it. By most measures, more energy goes into creating a computer than will ever be used to keep it running. So one of the best ways to lower your computing carbon footprint is to try and keep your machine alive. You can do this a few ways. Don’t weigh your computer down with too many unnecessary applications. Learn how to upgrade and fix your computer when things go wrong, and never complain about taking your machine in to a repair shop. You’re doing the right thing for your pocket book and the environment.

And when you do finally need to upgrade (I like to try and make my computers last at least five years), look into computers that are designed specifically for efficiency. A new breed of low-energy desktops, like the Zonbu and Shuttle, are drawing far less than traditional PC’s. Dell, Toshiba and HP are all looking into low-energy solutions. Additionally, laptops will always be far more energy efficient than desktops, because they have to be designed to run on battery power.

I hope that’s a help to you and everybody else who’s concerned about PC power use. But don’t fret too much: you’ll save way more by changing your light bulbs than your computer.

EcoGeek of the Week is a weekly column provided by EcoGeek.org and syndicated all over the net. If you’d like to ask a question, or if you’re interested in syndicating the column, just use our submission form.

I’ve just finished reading The Lazy Environmentalist by Josh Dorfman. While not every chapter was for me (babies and children?!) the book contains a gigantic amount of information on how to make good, informed, green decisions. Without condescension or guilt trips, Dorfman lays down easy-to-digest information on how to live a cleaner greener life that isn’t a big pain in the ass.

We recently had a chance to talk to Josh about his book, which you can get at Amazon.com

EcoGeek: What is a Lazy Environmentalist?

Josh Dorfman: Lazy Environmentalists are people who want to be environmentally conscious, and will be, provided the choices are convenient and fit the way they want to live. Deep inside there’s probably a lazy environmentalist in just about all of us. After all, we live in the culture of convenience. The expectation of convenience seems like it has become hardwired into our DNA

EG: What do you say to the "America Can’t Buy Its Way to Sustainability" argument?

JD: I’d say that I agree. But that doesn’t mean we ought to disregard all the really cool green solutions presently available to us to get us moving in a significantly greener direction. To really solve climate change and other serious environmental challenges, we’re going to need a joint and massive effort from business, government, non-profit organizations, and consumer-citizens. We are all responsible for our situation, and we all have a role to play in achieving solutions.

EG: What, if anything, scares your pants off?

JD: The mindset that still thinks Hummers and McMansions are a good idea. That and snakes.

EG: What what gives you the energy to do this for a living?

JD: I like operating on the cutting-edge and "green" is where the action is. "Green" is where the most innovation is taking place across nearly every industry. "Green" is what’s going to determine whether the 21st century is peaceful or chaotic. And there’s no going back. We have to deal with what’s in front of us. That’s the great challenge for every generation alive. What could be more exciting?

EG: EcoGeek wasn’t listed in the "Electronics Information" resources section…WTF?

JD: A big mistake that’s being rectified immediately if not sooner.

EcoGeek of the Week is a syndicated column from EcoGeek.org. If you would like to syndicate the column, or know an EcoGeek that proffiling, email our editor at editor@ecogeek.org

I just saw a kinda disturbing article on fark.com and wondered what you would think of it. Could walking really be worse of the environment than driving?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece

Seulswalker

Seulswalker,

When I read your question, I assumed that there was no way the article had any credibility… that it was written by an angsty high school student who was sick of people telling him what to do. But I was wrong, and that is scary.

Someone took the results of a scientific study on how inefficient our food production system is, did some really bad math, and then found themselves a glorious headline that would send shock waves throughout the blogosphere. You could call it sensationalism…I just call it evil.

Here’s the "scientific" basis for their thesis:

Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg of CO2 to the atmosphere … If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

Now I hope we can all see some gaping holes here, but maybe not all of them at first glance. So let’s go through the five I came up with one by one.

Most obviously, this assumes that 100% of the calories we use to walk come from beef. Actually roughly 75% of the calories most people burn come from plants (usually in the form of carbohydrates.) Plant calories are much less energy intensive to create. This leaves out Atkins dieters…but I hope they’re offset by vegetarians.

Second, We need to pick our battles in this war. As both driving and eating inevitably add to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, these are both issues that we should be working on. But if we go 100% I’dl rather remove cars than exercise from my lifestyle. Not because it’s better for the earth, but because it’s better for me.

Third, we have the supposed correspondence between exercise and consuming food. Yes, if you exercise, you’ll have to eat food to replace those calories, but the obesity epidemic is a testament to the fact that, frankly, most people eat because they want to, not because they need to.

Fourth is probably the least obvious hole…but it might turn out to be the most important. Walkers don’t travel thirty miles to go to the grocery store, but drivers do. Walkers opt for the corner grocer over the Wal-Mart. Driving doesn’t encourage waste because just because it’s inefficient. It also exponentially increases the amount of ground we can cover, creating sprawling cities and destroying local economies. Even if walking produced four times more CO2 emissions per mile than driving, walking reduces the number of miles traveled for most errands by ten to forty times.

Fifth, and this really is a huge omission, the study counts every piece of CO2 produced in the creation of the cow, but it only counts the carbon produced by burning the gasoline for the car. That’d be like only counting the CO2 that we exhale while walking. The hidden carbon costs of automobile travel are gigantic, more than double the final emissions for the car. They include the cost of mining and smelting the steel, pumping the oil, shipping the oil, refining the gasoline, shipping the gasoline, creation and maintenance of roads, construction of the car, etc etc. To leave out these costs while counting every drop of fertilizer sprinkled on a cow’s pasture is extremely foolish and, frankly, disappointing.

So, in short, walking is better for you and the world than driving is. Biking, being even more energy efficient than walking, however, is indeed better for the Earth. However, the point of the original study rings true. Our food production system is foolishly inefficient and unhealthy. It must be reformed in order for this to become a healthy and sustainable world. And for more on that, I suggest Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy.

When Ron Hochstetler graduated from Purdue with a degree in aviation technology, he didn’t know how different his path would be from the other graduates of his class. Though trained to work with the helicopters and jets that we today associate air travel, Ron became fascinated with a different type of craft. An aircraft that "belongs in the sky."

Now, twenty years later, Ron is one of the world’s leading experts in "lighter than air" technology. It’s an industry that many believe died with the Hindenburg. But Ron makes his case…the golden age of airships may be yet to come. And we’re happy to have him as this week’s EcoGeek of the Week.

EcoGeek: How does someone go about becoming an internationally recognized airship expert?

Ron Hochstetler: When I graduated from college I saw lots of people going into major technical fields where pretty much everything had already been developed and the technologies they’d be working on were very mature. Not much room for a new guy to make a new mark. But then I read an article about a little company in Britain (Airship Industries) that wanted to build modern technology airships. I figured here was a part of aviation that was cool, was still pretty much unexploited, and was made up of such a small cadre of people that just about any contributions I could make would have some significance. The short answer is: if you pick a small pond a lot of the splashes you make will be big ones.

EG: In as brief a list as possible, what kind of advantages does airship travel hold over traditional air travel?

RH: The best word picture I can give you is to refer back to where we left off, with the Hindenburg. It could carry a whopping 100 tons of payload and people at a top speed of 83 mph (cruise was closer to 65 mph). Yet it was powered by only four diesel engines each with a maximum of about 1,200 hp., so for less than the horsepower of one engine on a four engine C-130 turboprop cargo plane (that only carries 20 tons) the Hindenburg could fly from Southern Germany all the way to the US in about 72 hours. The transport airship exchanges time for fuel, and yields space. What I mean is that with airship you can travel to your destination consuming a fraction of the fuel required by a jet aircraft of the same payload capacity, but at a slower airspeed. Your airship cruising speed is about one-tenth of the jet’s speed, but because you’re traveling slower than the jet, your airship cabin area can be quite spacious and give you an air travel experience that is actually comfortable. The airship could be outfitted with broadband access to the Internet, satellite phone communications, and all the media entertainment you can imagine. You could have wide open sightseeing windows, sit down dinners, or full sleeping quarters where you can stretch out in a real bed. And this would not just be for the First Class crowd: the airship has the extravagance of space, and can offer plenty to every passenger.

EG: Could travel by airship be more efficient than automobile or train travel? What about barge shipping?

RH: Barges and ships are among the most fuel efficient ways to ship anything. In countries where you have efficient ground transportation systems, the airship is not going to be competitive. Where the airship can compete is with short-distance air transport, or with ground transportation in those places where the ground transport system is poor to non-existent. Here, I’m talking about passenger transport; if you switch to considering the airship for its cargo hauling capabilities, the news gets even better. If the stuff you what to haul won’t fit into your aircraft, your ground transport vehicles, or over your highways and railways, and you’re not in a real hurry to ship it, then the cargo airship begins to make economic and fuel efficient sense. If designed properly, an airship can do vertical load transfers. That means you can hover over the stuff you want to pick up, lift it up to the airship by an internal hoist, and then motor off to where you want to put your stuff back on the earth. This type of cargo airship would be used more like a “flying forklift,” and would be utilized to move outsized or heavy things around a city, construction site, or around a region where there are insufficient bridges or roads. This type of airship could really change the way modern society moves its stuff because it doesn’t depend on highways, railroads, bridges (that sometimes crash), or airports. You have almost complete freedom to move just about anything, just about anywhere, just about any time, provided you’re not in a hurry.

EG: What do you think are the biggest obstacles facing the airship industry?

RH: The technology is available today to build airships with payloads of up to approximately 90 tons lift. With an R&D program focused on certain key enabling airship technologies, it should be possible to build airships up to the range of around 350 tons lift. The problem is that we need good business and engineering leadership to craft the airship development programs that can build the modern airships that society will use. The airship industry has no shortage of enthusiasts, visionaries, and passionate dreamers, but it’s almost barren of the steely-eyed business people who have the professionalism and expertise to first build the solid enterprise that can build the airships. I guess it’s just easier for these people to get an MBA and go manage an IT start-up or a Fortune 500 company. The airship market is there, and the technology is in our hands, but where do we find the business architects who have the courage to take on this great challenge?

The other obstacle (if you can call it that) is the scale of the airship. The bigger the airship, the more efficient and useful it is, and the more challenging to construct. Eventually, the sheer size of the craft begins to tax the engineers as they devise ways to manufacture and join the increasingly large (and lightweight) structures that make up the ships.

EG: Are there any particularly exciting advances in airships that might make the technology more feasible in the near future?

RH: The new high strength fabrics, light weight aircraft composite materials, and computer-aided design tools have revolutionized airship design. Modern computer simulation and modeling also allow us to better navigate around inclement weather conditions. In the old days, the pilots of the big airships had to take their best guess at where the bad weather was. Now we can minutely plan every flight route to minimize the impact of headwinds, and actually take advantage of the weather to lower our airship fuel consumption by 20% to 50%, depending on the particular journey.

The other interesting change has been the advances in hydrogen powered systems. The airship has some very unique qualities that enable it to probably be the most fuel efficient (and environmentally friendly) air transport system possible. The large surface area of the airship causes the high aerodynamic drag that limits its airspeed, but that surface area can be used to carry thousands of square feet of solar cells to provide electric power for the ship’s propulsive needs. The non-flammable helium inside the ship also provides a perfect environment in which to store hydrogen fuel containers that can provide hydrogen not as a lifting gas (as was used in the Hindenburg), but as a fuel for either a fuel cell propulsion system or simply to burn in conventional internal combustion propulsion engines. These technologies could be used to produce “zero emissions” transport airships with the ability to carry hundreds of tons of cargo or people over distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles.

EG: Are there applications that airship travel is particularly suited for?

RH: Slightly more than half of all passenger jet aircraft travel is over distances of approximately 400 miles or less. Airship passenger travel gets more competitive with jet travel as the overall trip distance decreases (and as jet fuel becomes more expensive). But you have to factor in the “total trip” time, which includes travel to the airport, parking the car, going through security, boarding the plane, waiting for clearance to take off, etc… The amount of time spent at either end of your journey (whether by jet or airship or whatever) remains the same regardless of how long the trip itself is. So, if you can use the airship’s ability to do a vertical landing in or near the locations you really want to get to or from, then you have a good shot at reducing the total point-to-point travel time enough to make the airship quite acceptable for short distance air travel.

EG: You’re obviously captivated and excited by this technology…how did you catch the bug, and why do you think you’ve stuck with it for so long?

RH: I got interested in airships when the Goodyear blimp came to Purdue University for a football game. The ship was moored out at the University airport where I was taking most of my aviation classes. My parents had come down to visit me that weekend, so we all went out to see the ship after dark. The ship was surrounded by a ring of ground lights which made it shine silvery against the night sky. The door of the ship was open, and my dad and I could barely see inside because the ground crew had ballasted the ship to be slightly light so her tail was high and her landing gear was about a foot off of the ground. My mother wanted to see inside the ship, so she grabbed the hand rail that runs along the side of the gondola and pulled the airship down to the ground! At that moment I knew this aircraft was something completely different from the airplanes and helicopters I’d been training on. I saw that this was an aircraft that actually belonged in the sky, and I decided I belonged with the airships! I have no regrets after more than 20 years in this business. I also have great optimism that the airship’s golden age has not passed, but is truly upon us. The conjunction of soaring fuel costs and increasing concern about aviation’s contribution of GHGs to the environment is causing mainstream decision makers to reconsider the qualities of the airship. I’m convinced that the modern airship is part of the solution set for dealing with global warming, in addition to providing an affordable and sustainable air transportation option to the developed and developing countries.

EcoGeek of the Week is a syndicated column from EcoGeek.org. If you would like to syndicate the column, or suggest an EcoGeek to be featured, please contact our editor at editor@ecogeek.org.

Dear EcoGeek,

Who killed the electric car? Seriously, why can’t I buy one yet and when will I be able to?

Alan Carney
Dallas, Texas

Hey Alan, Much love to the people who made Who Killed the Electric Car?, because they got a lot of stuff right. It wasn’t any one person, corporation or technicality that killed the EV1. As with all product failures, it was a combination of tons of factors.

The reason major auto companies aren’t making electric vehicles look like this. First, Americans were looking for SUVs, not ultralights. Second, the technology was primitive, the biggest problem being that batteries could only take cars a hundred miles before they needed to spend hours at a charging station. Third, major car companies were too foolish to see that, in the next decade, electric cars could quickly become technologically viable and extremely appealing, so the abandoned their projects completely.

And now, here we are. Electric cars are technologically viable and extremely appealing. But no one’s done the kind of development necessary to introduce a pure electric vehicle to the mass consumer market. But it will happen. It’s just probably going to happen intermittently, by solving all three of the above problems in different ways.

Drivers will have to get used to smaller, lighter, sportier, more aerodynamic vehicles. It’s already starting to happen, and the new Prius body, most folks agree, is a very nice looking car.

Technology to make EVs more viable are being developed constantly. Ten minute recharge times, higher capacities and energy densities, and safer and more environmentally friendly components are all on the way, if not already proven. Of course, there’s a difference between a battery working in the lab, and being able to get it into a car for less than $30,000.

The short answer, for you, is that you can buy an electric car now. But you’ll either have to pay a premium for a Tesla or a Phoenix model (both companies have battery packs that cost more than Honda Civic) or you’ll have to go small, with NICE Cars or the Smart Fortwo. Or you can head to EVFinder, and search through listings for quite a lot of new and used electric vehicles.

But if you wait for mainstream manufacturers to catch on, it might be a while. Plug-in hybrids will soon (though no one has any concrete dates planned) offer an intermittent step which will allow for at least some emissions-free driving. We should see a Prius plug-in and possibly a plug-in from Saturn before 2010. And plug-in series hybrids (which always use the electric engine, but use a gasoline engine to charge the batteries (not to spin the wheels)) will offer another step toward full EVs.

But we’re going to have to wait for the ultra-expensive, high capacity, quick charging batteries to start getting way cheaper before we see any major car company embracing electric vehicles. Because if the EV1 hit the streets again…chances are, we still wouldn’t be able to get it off life support.

Ask the EcoGeek is a syndicated column provided by EcoGeek.org. If you want to ask a question, send it to Hank through our submission form.

Editor’s note: A few technical glitches kept us from getting EcoGeek of the Week up on time this week — we apologize for that. We didn’t want to skip this one, as the featured EcoGeek is a good friend to all of us in the green web.

Jonathon D. Colman is the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at The Nature Conservancy. As such, it’s kinda his job to understand the wild ways of the internet and then to harness it’s raw power for the forces of awesome. Of course, The Nature Conservancy is one of the big players in the "International Alliance for Awesomeness." He’ll be giving us his take on the web, digital media, and saving this world. We’re excited to have Jonathon as this week’s EcoGeek of the Week.

EG: OK…lets get this out of the way…briefly, what do you actually do…

JDC: Sure thing! As you know, the mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.

So I help the Conservancy accomplish that vision by leading the strategic management, marketing, and promotion of our flagship web site, www.nature.org. That means that I’ve got my fingers in a number of cookie jars every day: web development, web traffic recording and analytics, blog and online community outreach, search engine optimization, online ad placements, and posting our stories to online social networks and other “web 2.0” sites. Not to mention organizing a redesign of our web site, developing an RFP for a new web content management system, implementing a new web analytics system, and chatting with my coworkers about how great LOST and Battlestar Galactica are.

Now, if you’re like me – and I am – then you’re a geek and would love all that stuff. So I tend to think of my job as just a way of being paid to have fun and work with the best and brightest.

EG: I’ve seen some resistance among big environmental organizations to embracing online media. Do you run into that at The Nature Conservancy, and, if so, how do you deal with it?

JDC: I think that we face similar challenges with online media as many other organizations: lots of great ideas and very little staff and budget. The way we’ve overcome this hurdle is to invest our efforts where they’ll have the biggest bang for the buck (like bidding on search engine keywords using Google AdWords) as well as using all of the great, free tools and networks that are now available, like Google Analytics, Google Video, Care2, and Gather.com. We’ve also found a great partner in the Public Radio Exchange, which produces our weekly Nature Stories podcast.

I think that nonprofits have been stymied by online communities, what they’re for, how to build them, and how to engage them. Our guiding philosophy here is to engage people where they’re already being active rather than spending time in R&D building our own version of things that already exist. For example, rather than building our own photo-sharing application, the Conservancy ran a photo contest on Flickr. Rather than build our own GIS mapping system, we put together a Google Maps mashup with the locations of our nature preserves.

Why try to reinvent the wheel when a best-in-class web presence or tool already exists and has a huge audience of millions of people? We’d much rather leverage the expertise of existing communities to find new supporters and engage our existing audiences with fun, exciting opportunities.

EG: Why do you think it took the environmental movement so long to catch the wave? And do you think we’ve suffered because of it?

JDC: A lot of people working in nonprofit technology (or as we call it, “nptech”), are “accidental techies”; that is, they’ve been slated with web or technical projects because there’s literally no one else to do them. Furthermore, if they’re lucky, these folks might get to spend 5-10% of their time working on those technology projects when they’re not also doing media relations, fundraising, organizing events, and managing the office. It’s hard enough for someone like that to publish a web page, let alone adhere to XHTML standards compliance, optimize their pages for search engines, and – God forbid! – keep up to date with Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Beth Kanter, Holly Ross, and Seth Godin.

A lot of nonprofits invest heavily in program work – after all, that’s what the donations are supposed to be supporting, right? And that’s what gets you a four-star rating on Charity Navigator. So having a nifty, helpful web site that establishes a strong, trustworthy, credible brand is sometimes seen as an afterthought.

What we’ve found at the Conservancy, however, is that the web can bring in new supporters, new ideas and resources for project work, and new passion and emotional investment from existing members. Leveraging the strength of your offline, “bricks-and-mortar” brand can help you reach new audiences online.

The environmental movement isn’t suffering for falling behind; we’re embracing the online world and are catching up quickly. Look at the success of TreeHugger. Look at the Google Trends curve for searches on “global warming." Look at how EcoGeek is getting dugg every few minutes. I’d say that green is bringing sexy back in a pretty big way.

EG: We at EcoGeek love readers of sites like Digg and Reddit and Slashdot. Has TNC had success with social news?

JDC: Social news is a big, growing area for us. The type of things we post regularly on Digg and Netscape and Newsvine are real-world events, announcements, and discoveries – so our online efforts dovetail with what we’re doing offline. We’re becoming popular on Digg and a number of the other big social news networks regularly because of the strength of our content. We’ve brought huge amounts of new visitors to our site through these tools and have worked hard to develop engaging communities on them at the same time.

We see these emerging web sites and news venues as being important because they dictate, for a growing amount of people, how news and information are now being discovered online. There are a lot of good, engaging stories that end up on the cutting room floor of the daily newspaper and nightly TV news, even though they’re worthy of broadcast, solely for lack of space, right? Well, social news networks don’t have to plan their layout in picas, charge for home delivery, and never run out of space for breaking news. And because they’re fairly democratic, our organization has just as much chance at engaging people with our news and stories as does anyone else.

As far as demographics, my sense of the folks using social media and “web 2.0” sites is that they’re very advanced in their grasp of technology and the online world. They have access to many sources of information and are used to looking at multiple perspectives of issues. They’re also not afraid to speak their minds where they see fault – or inspiration! – and, indeed, expect to be able to share their thoughts directly with the entities making the news.

Me, I don’t want to play it safe and only talk just to the folks who I know are going to agree with my ideas about the importance of conservation… that’s way too easy and it leads only to a lack of growth. I want to talk with the ones who are skeptical, who aren’t so sure of the science, who don’t believe everything that they’re told. Ultimately, if I can help them to convince themselves to support the environment, then they’ll be much more passionate about it and motivated to make a real change than if I just spam them with e-mail day after day. In reality, they’ll do all of the hard work of conversion; I’m just helping them by making resources and information available.

I love meeting new people on these networks and finding out what they’re interested in, so EcoGeek readers, please send me your connection requests!

EG: I’ve been really impressed by a lot of TNC’s current projects. Are you proud of what you guys do?

JDC: You bet! It’s a great adventure each day, just getting up, walking out the door and taking public transportation to work. We could be focusing on the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada, the endangered coral reefs in tropical areas around the world, or even the oft-overlooked connections between HIV/AIDS and wildlife conservation in Africa. It’s great to work with such dedicated, passionate people. No two days are ever alike and while there are always little things that get in the way, we try to keep in mind that everyone wants to help protect nature to benefit people, animals, and the environment as a whole.

The bottom line is that The Nature Conservancy is an organization that gets things done…or as one of my colleagues often states, “Conservation plus adrenaline equals 100% job satisfaction!”

EG: Sometimes this business can get a little overwhelming. Is there any issue that particularly scares your pants off?

JDC: Climate change is no joke – it’s not the sort of thing we can play around with and ask for a do-over if we get it wrong. I sincerely believe it’s the single biggest threat facing our world right now. The upside to this is that it’s not all doom and gloom – there are many things that we can do in terms of science, technology, policies, business practices, and personal behaviors to help slow the effects of climate change.

To this end, the Conservancy recently launched a carbon footprint calculator to help our visitors determine their impact on the climate. Our web application helps you see that even little changes in our daily routines can make a big difference when everyone works together.

EG: It’s a pretty scary world…at the end of the day, what keeps you hopeful?

JDC: The passion of our supporters, the dedication and persistence of the Conservancy’s staff, the discoveries that we’re making every day in conservation science, the way that people are using the web to get closer to each other than ever before, and the strength of human creativity and imagination.

EG: Do you love the internet? Why?

JDC: It’s often hard for us to remember that, just a little over a decade ago, the InterWeb as we know it didn’t exist. Not a drop of Wi-fi to be found in coffee shops, no way to pay bills online, and it was about the last place you’d go if you were trying to find a job, an apartment, or even a movie to see. In fact, I can specifically remember not loving the Internet when all the discussion on it was about how people were going to use it to make money, if only they could figure out how!

But what I see happening today is people from all over the world getting to know one another, breaking down barriers, and discovering new and innovative ways to make change happen on issues that they care about. And that’s damn exciting! We couldn’t have guessed fifteen years ago that my job would even exist, let alone the Internet as it is now. I love it, I live it, and I spend a good portion of my waking moments using it. I think it’s the tool that humanity is using to turn our dreams into reality and construct the future from the present.

EcoGeek of the Week is a syndicated column from EcoGeek.org. If you would like to syndicate the column, or know an EcoGeek that proffiling, email our editor at editor@ecogeek.org

Dear EcoGeek,

Have there been any developments in the pursuit of sustainable, cost-effective alternatives to plastics? I am aware of the recent gains in using corn starch to produce biodegradible plastics (chocolate candy trays, shopping bags, etc.), but what about durable goods such as toolboxes, exercise equipment, or any other product made from plastic that is designed to last.

Thanks for your time and expertise.

Jim

Hey Jim,
It does seem a bit silly that we wouldn’t solve two problems at once here. I mean, as long as we’re removing oil from the process, why don’t we move away from our foolish disposable-everything culture as well?

But this all becomes more clear if we ask a different question. Instead of “why aren’t there durable bio-plastics?” we should first ask “what’s wrong with durable petro-plastics?” Lets start by listing the reasons why oil sucks.

1. We will eventually run out
2. When we burn it, it creates CO2
3. When we throw away petro-plastic, it pretty much never biodegrades and can harm wildlife
4. Refining oil is energy intensive and produces toxic chemicals
5. We often have to import it from places with unstable politics

Now, those are five really good reasons to stop burning oil. Taken together, I can’t quite figure out why we’re still burning the stuff. But when we talk about disposable plastics, the second problem, that of carbon dioxide, isn’t a problem anymore, so only four problems remain. And when we list reasons for replacing durable products, the list gets even shorter.

We don’t burn it, we don’t throw it away, and even if we do, it would persist as much as petro-plastics. Plus, the demand for durable petro-plastics is considerably lower than the demand for fuel and disposable plastic. Because we’re talking about fewer petrochemicals in total, all of the above problems are diminished. In fact, creating durable plastics is pretty much the most intelligent use of oil, as we gain permanent benefits from the items we produce and the environmental consequences are much less significant.

That being said, the world would probably be better off if we figured out ways to completely erase our need for oil. And some people have begun creating durable plastics from biological stock. There’s no technical reason why we can’t do it. But there are fewer economic and ecological reasons to replace durable plastics than disposable plastics.

Ask the EcoGeek is a syndicated column provided by EcoGeek.org. If you’d like to ask the ecogeek a question you can submit it to him through our form. If you’re interested in syndicating the column, email our editor at editor@ecogeek.org.

Editor’s note: This week’s EcoGeek of the Week interview was conducted by our own Philip Proefrock (who also writes at EcoGeek.org).

Tobias S. Buckell is a Caribbean-born speculative fiction writer who grew up in Grenada, the British Virgin Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He has published stories in various magazines and anthologies. He is a Clarion graduate, Writers of The Future winner, and Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer Finalist. We at EcoGeek are huge fans of his novels and his blog, and we’re happy to have him as our first Sci Fi EcoGeek of the Week.

The first 1/3 of two of his novels Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin are available online.

EcoGeek: What is your vision of life on Earth 100 years from now?

Tobias Buckell: More of the same, I hope. We’re inching forward in our own way, and we’ve dodged a lot of big mistakes. I hope we’re able to fumble on, and I hope that we’re able to bring in all the other countries that are developing right now along instead of viewing them as competitors.

EG: You posted a piece on your blog (tobiasbuckell.com) a couple of months ago where you decided you were a "nuclear power loving environmentalist." Can you elaborate further about how you consider yourself an environmentalist?

TB: It’s a bit of a flip phrase on my part. I’m more an environmentalist due to my background living off the grid, so to speak, because I grew up living on a boat in the Caribbean. You live on a boat and you have your diesel engine and wind generator to charge up the batteries, you use significantly less water, you sail places, and your overall footprint is a bit lower. Moving to the mainland here in the US I use vastly more space and artificial light and so on. As a kid I always viewed people living in houses as extremely wasteful. Now I’m one of them. And one thing I found, moving into a house, is that I’m already strapped for money, time, and the environment around me (people, products, access to products) doesn’t focus on rewarding environmentally lower footprint. So I’m not really an environmentalist any more than a wannabe hippy college prof who happens to drive a Prius and hammer his students about how horribly un-environmental they is, but I am intrinsically interested in what it will take to become a better steward of the Earth, but in a way that is easily adoptable by consumers.

I’m also a die-hard capitalist and market believer. So the environmental solutions that interest me are ones that seem counter-intuitive and that are easy behaviors to modify. You see, getting better about our impact on the Earth is like trying to get fit. We all know we’re supposed to do it, but altering it is tough. Micky D’s is just around the corner, people get defensive when you go on a diet, and if you radically alter your diet and life, socially there is pressure on you to not be different or do it (lift weights intensely, or do a low-carb diet, and be very open about it, and see how people respond, it’s usually negatively or suspiciously).

I heard of a green power co-op offering free beer at an expo, I see the Tesla electric car that’s a sexy, fast, sports car. That’s the approach we need. We need the iPod of alternative energy, so to speak, not the ‘build your own Linux distro’ version. And as a capitalist, we need competing alternative energy sources, diversification.

I’m not against using fossil fuels, either, it’s that burning them, changing them into a non-recoverable state, is criminal. Our world depends on plastics, we build and package everything with it. Burning building material up is a problem, and I think it’s important to consider that from a cold, hard economic viewpoint. I’d rather see a world where we use pebble-bed nuclear reactors, wind, and solar power for our transportation and power needs.

EG: What new technologies do you think have the potential for the greatest impact on the environment?

TB: The tough thing is that there is a great deal of power contained in oil, it’s efficient from that simple equation. And we’ve transitioned out of a human-powered world, where bondage and the price of life was cheap because calories were used to do things, to one where fuel powered machines run our world. And for all of the Western world’s faults, I’d take our fuel-powered world over a muscle powered world any day. Some third world countries offer a look at post-oil worlds that haven’t solved the power and machine problem, and they’re tough. Cuba, now bereft of Russia’s free oil, uses farm animals to pull buses around and a lot of manual labor.

Right now ethanol and biodiesel has a big buzz, but the issue there is that in order to harvest the amount of ethanol needed to run our country, we’d have to plant just absolutely enormous amounts of crops, it would have a tremendous effect on us to attempt this. Even our attempts to slightly up our ethanol usage are having impacts on the global crop market right now. I’ve seen some research about algae for biodiesel that looks promising, algae fields are more doable than soybeans and corn, one can grow that stuff in a wide range of locations. And while I like solar and wind, the problem there becomes storage and transmission. Solar and wind are variable power productions, and as a result, you can’t just hook them up to your grid willy nilly because of the fluctuations they bring, so you need batteries to store that power. And batteries use nasty heavy metals that are tough on the environment, so you then have that side effect.

So far the most intriguing vision I’ve seen for alternative power has been the AirCar. What this car does is use electricity to power a compressor that fills a tank with compressed air. That compressed air then powers a piston, much like steam does. The electricity to power that compressor is fairly cheap, and if the AirCar’s basic piston design gets as much power out of the compressed air as they’re saying it does, then compressed air generators are a complete alternative power change agent.

It’s a complete change agent because we already have the technology to easily store compressed air. Scuba tanks are no mystery, and the technology is easy to understand and use. It’ll also be easy to adapt our existing patterns to it. So you hook up tidal generators, wind generators, solar power farms, biodiesel generators, whatever, to power compressors that store air. Air generators tap into this resource to again create electricity to do whatever.

If consumers don’t want lighter cars, you invest in stronger air tanks to compress air better. It doesn’t pollute, anyone can tinker with the fuel storage and delivery mechanism, and I’m very interested in seeing if AirCar’s claims hold up. I like this low-tech solution because the biggest problems with pollution and fuel use are going to be the very hungry and always rapidly growing China and India. You can design super advanced tech solutions to these problems and beat the US consumer over the head with a message all you want, but in about a generation the combined forces of China and India will have more of an effect on the world than we will, and so the trick is to find solutions and methods that will work for their economies and people. An expensive fuel cell car or quarter of a million dollar green house isn’t going to do the trick, I don’t think.

EG: What environmental issues do you think are going to require technological intervention? Or, to put it a bit better perhaps, what environmental problems do you think *can* be remedied by technological intervention?

TB: People focus on cars, I think the big issue will be main electricity generation. Right now the bulk of US power generation comes from coal. It’s one reason why the US isn’t too threatened by gas issues when you think about. Sure we drive around on it, but most of our power generation comes from coal, and we have a 200 year supply of it. I’m not sure if peak oil theory is correct, but even if it happened, with transportation adjustments, the lights are still going to be on here in the US. But coal is pretty dirty, and even though GE has invested a ton of money in trying to clean up coal, but there’s some way to go yet, I believe. And, allow me a digression: here’s a sign of where things can and should be going: one of the largest investors in green technology research is GE. Although they’re not getting a ton of credit from environmentalists, their current leadership strongly believes green is the way of the future. The company has spread this EcoMagination movement throughout all aspects of their company. They’re one of the leading groups studying how to manage power fluctuation when hooking up alternate power sources to a main power grid, and I think they’re the largest wind turbine group now, it’s pretty interesting.

Okay, that aside, though, I still think energy independence for a country is a rational, patriotic thing to do. I think Denmark is one of the few countries aiming for this, and they’ve done a lot of neat things to try and get to that point. Besides the environmental reasons, I do think getting out of competing for power resources will get you out of some of the biggest conflicts that will come to a head in the next few generations.

EG: In Ragamuffin, you make brief mention of the orbital mirrors that were used to help terraform the planet Nanaganda. What do you think about proposals to do similar scale projects to adjust Earth’s climate?

TB: I don’t know. I think the idea of building giant carbon sinks to try and get at some of the carbon is an interesting idea, but that it might be smarter to just try and green things up with smart building design and outside space design. I hate seeing suburbs and giant parking lots. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can still have Wal-Mart, but encourage or mandate parking garages with trees on top and on top of the buildings, you know? Green matter is the best carbon sink we have going, I think natural resource management and smart planning works better than big engineering. I live in a small town with lots of trees, and it’s cool, shady, makes for good property values. Around the town are a couple developments. Bare lawn all the way. No trees. If the town can mandate that I can’t build a bright pink house with neon signs on it, why can’t they have tree edicts? A bare development is just as ugly to me.

EG: Who do you think is writing interesting things about environmental issues?

TB: Paulo Bacigalupi has written a series of stories for F&SF that dwell on a lot of these things, and I’m really enjoying them. He’s amazing.

EG: You grew up living in Grenada and the Caribbean for many years, and lived on a boat for some of that time. I’ve also read that much of your family was (and still is) involved in boats. [ed note: correct me if I’m getting any of my facts wrong here] How did this affect your writing? Do you think you have a different attitude about the environment because of that?

TB: Yeah, like I mentioned, it was living off the grid, and so I got a lot of those viewpoints, but without the sort of super green indoctrination. I never thought of myself particularly as an environmentalist, but we were there in the front lines of that sort of life that many environmentalists kind of dream about.

The other part is that at my time there people became a lot more aware of our impact on our surroundings. Originally boats just anchored wherever. But by the mid-80s or so, as a kid, we all learned that anchors had direct and sometimes irrevocable damage to reef systems. So we couldn’t anchor on reefs, but had to use preinstalled moorings. In the Virgin Islands, there were days when dust would fill the air and make it hazy, like L.A. hazy. Hell, we were on an island, what was it? It was dust picked up from the Sahara, borne by jetstream, and then deposited over the islands. It hit home that everything was interconnected, this world, and that if Saharans had poisoned that dust, we would have paid for it. That was profound. And then, later, we learned that one of the reasons some reefs were dying in the islands wasn’t man’s fault, but the fault of reef eating micro-organisms being carried from the Sahara to us in those storms. It’s a complex world!

That was where I got my gray look at this. Earlier we had been told reefs were dying off because of island chemicals and over snorkeling (You Fins is Causing Eco-Devestation! Which is actually slightly true) and so on. Turns out it was a combination of both bad anchoring, too much human interaction, and just nature’s fickleness.

EG: What piece of technology do you hope to see developed and widely available in the next 10-20 years?

TB: Pie in the sky is Nuclear Fusion. What I think is doable? I babbled on about the aircar, and I really am rooting for it. I think we could really do something cool with the air generator and aircar.

EG: What did you imagine the world would be like when you were a kid? Is it better or worse than your childhood fantasies?

TB: It’s far better. I know that’s a minority opinion, but here’s the thing. More people have access to clean water than before, or ever in history. There is less war now. There is more education, literacy, access to goods. That canard about most of Africa never having made a phone call? It’s actually not true. And a lot of them have cell phones, it’s a leap frog technology.

The problem is that we all have too much access to media, and that media can get our eyeballs by telling us something scary, and horrific. Blood leads, Blood sells. Anyone can get followers and eyeballs by saying the world is ending. It’s always been so. People who say ‘it’s not so bad, it’s getting better’ are trampled by people running over to listen to the dude in the camel shirt, long scraggly hair, and a placard saying it’s all over. I don’t think that this is done on purpose by the media, but because they need ratings to sell advertising money, they have to go with the story that gets your attention. And nothing gets our attention more than fear and doom. When I was a kid everyone worried about the nuclear apocalypse that Russia was sure to visit upon us, with millions/billions dying. Now everyone around me worries about terrorists killing thousands. Seems like a step forward, it’s just that we forget context.

Ten years ago as a teenager I visited my step-great grandmother in Florida. I noticed that as I walked into a room alone with her, she’d scurry out with what looked like fear on her face. I asked my stepdad what gave, and he said she’d spent twenty or thirty years in retirement, watching the TV news, venturing out very little, not at all for the last ten or so. She was scared I was going to rape her, or take her money, or beat her up, or kill her. Because thats what teenagers on the news did: commit acts of violence.

We’re all kind of like her, sitting in our rooms of reality created by what we see on TV. But the truth is that the world out there is getting better, and you can look at the stats and see that things are improving.

EcoGeek of the Week is a syndicated column from EcoGeek.org. If you are interested in publishing EcoGeek of the Week, please contact our chief editor at editor@ecogeek.org

Hi,
I’m considering purchasing a 2007 Mercedes Bluetec e320 Diesel. My question is "Is this car really green?"

My 04 Prius has 60k miles and is worse for wear and I’m too tall to comfortably drive it any longer. I can’t help but think the Bluetec is a step in reverse for me personally and that I really want to move forward with a Plug-in Hybrid or full EV, but no options exist. I’m tired of driving a constrictive tiny car built for the 95% of Japanese people, I’m not willing to accept a hybrid SUV, the notion is ridiculous. I want 50mpg+! and I want to stop BURNING fuel. What’s my next car?

Thanks! — Lex

Hey Lex,

Is the Mercedes Bluetec e320 Diesel green? Well, one thing’s for certain…it doesn’t feel as green as a Prius. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get both the green feeling and the headroom. Green cars aren’t small because they’re built for Japanese people, they’re small because to be efficient, cars need to be light, and present a low profile to the 70 mph winds that constantly buffet highway cars.

Of course, that’s one reason why diesels are an intriguing option. They may not seem green, but they do provide more power while producing less CO2. The e320 Diesel is a great car, and while you might not look green, you will look good while getting almost 40 mpg. The carbon savings are there, but, you’re absolutely right, it’s a step backwards from a Prius.

The real question is, what are the options for folks who want efficiency as well as comfort. Unfortunately, for a real choice, you’re going to have to go small or wait. I seriously would suggest halving your budget and going to your Honda and Toyota dealerships to check out the Fit, the Yaris, the Civic, the Altima and even the Corolla. These cars aren’t really built for the same markets as a $50,000 BluTec Benz, but while your friends might think you’re crazy, they won’t when you tell them how much you spend on gas.

If the second option, waiting, sounds more pleasant, then you might very well have some nice options coming down the pipe. The 2008 Prius will have a different body, so you might find it more comfortable than the ‘04. Additionally, the 2009 Prius might very well offer a plug-in version that will allow you realize your dream of not burning fuel anymore. At least until you hit 40 mph. Also, I should mention that the new body is absolutely beautiful.

Into the 2010s I promise you’ll start seeing vehicles that will not only burn less (or no) fuel, they will also have folks drooling at the sweetness of your style. Plug-in and hybrid options will start popping onto the market in all shapes and sizes and full EV cars might not be too far away.
I’m afraid those are your options. The ultra-efficient BluTec diesel engines allow for big beautiful cars to get pretty decent gas mileage. I understand wanting to lay your cash down there, if you’ve got it. But if you really want to look, feel and be green…go small…or wait.

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