shedding a little light: in case you were wondering

10,000 Little (micro) Ideas to Keep You Believing in Cleveland -- The prize-winning idea announced 11 days after the Galleria Gala event for 10,000 (((micro))) ideas has to do with improving lighting, and not many details of the suggestion appear. I wonder if improving lighting means reducing lighting, creating atmosphere, and conserving power?

We need to remember that automobiles, buses, and business establishments have their own lights, and street lighting is largely superfluous. At 3 in the morning, it's downright wasteful.

Tactically, the less artificial light there is at night, the safer we are. In the dark, you control your own domain.

A case in point: Since I took the overhead lighting, my own mercury-vapor streetlight, out of my back yard, I have had no further trouble with uninvited visitors. If I want to invite somebody, I'll turn the localized lighting on for them--the porch lights, the garage lights, the landscape lights. I don't use motion-sensor lighting because that, too, can be used by an intruder to his advantage, especially if you're not around.

Lights invite; they should be intentional, thoughtful, and voluntary. Businesses use lights to attract. Public lighting dilutes or negates that ambient effect.

I sincerely hope the prize-winning idea called for less, not more, in the way of the application of night-time lighting.

Bathing the streetscape with artificial night lighting merely sends the bad guys the message that we are afraid and makes it easier for the drug boys to make change.

cut the fares, increase the service

RTA leaders favor 25-cent fare increase, no drastic service cuts - Cleveland Metro News – The Latest Breaking News, Photos and Stories from The Plain Dealer -- Time to talk about RTA board composition and board pay. Why are we having people who did not do so well in their prior incarnations, like Jane Campbell, continuing to have a hand in things so critical to our productivity around here? What do we pay this board, and should we consider cutting back on that? How many on the board are serving just to have a crack at qualifying for PERS, and should that perquisite be eliminated, too? We need to examine these cosy, and ultimately costly, insider relationships.

We need a better board with better connections and with a better track record of getting difficult jobs done to get us the money it takes to cut fares back to nothing, and soon, and increase services to make this the best transit system in the nation. The basics are already there. An attractive transit system is a prime economic driver. Period.

Mass transit can make the world go 'round, all day and all night. We must get out of this 9 to 5 mentality and see a bigger picture. Also, we must consider that it's easier to retrofit a transit system to operate off electricity than it is to do the same with all the automobiles. See Andy Grove's recent piece on energy on Portfolio.com

"green" comes to the cleaners

D.O. Summers Cleaners-- I'm shopping around for another dry cleaner/shirt laundry today. DiMauro's downtown went out of business, and their successor isn't quite panning out. D.O. Summers has a green take on cleaning that might be worth experiencing, especially if by doing so I will begin to "enjoy the lack of malevolent odor."

The company uses an environmentally friendly process free of perchloroethylene – a widely used dry-cleaning solvent known to be hazardous to the environment and a suspected carcinogen.

In contrast, the Environmentally Friendly CleanCare System D.O. Summers Cleaners utilizes is composed of a non-chlorinated liquid that is safe for both clothes and people. Even better, the system reconditions garments, restoring them to their original state. Another side benefit: clothes don’t have that unpleasant dry-cleaning odor! D.O. Summers Cleaners prides itself on being pioneers in cutting-edge dry-cleaning technology. Along with 13 other dry-cleaning companies across the United States who have formed an association, D.O. Summers Cleaners debuted its CleanCare System, harnessing modern technology and machinery newly developed by European manufacturers.

The gentler and healthier system employs a process that is safe on all fabrics and dry-cleanable items. Best of all, the company maintains competitive pricing on all services, despite its superior cleaning system. While it is considerably more expensive – several times the cost of perchloroethylene-based chemicals – D.O. Summers Cleaners customers definitely appreciate the difference it makes. They vouch for the superior cleanliness and feel of their dry-cleaned garments, and enjoy the lack of malevolent odor.

the future of the Tango

This is the email I asked Rick Woodbury of Commuter Cars to be able to share with you. His comments are in boldface. He makes a lot of sense. BusinessWeek thinks so, too.

I'm thrilled--I saw your car on TV in Atlanta 2 or 3 years ago and thought it was THE solution--and, it was fast and kicked up a lot of dust and leaves.

My first word was "Buick" over 60 years ago. Cars are important.

Thanks for noticing.

In case you have time for it, here is my view of the future of the Tango:
I've heard that to innovate, you don't give people what they ask for, but rather watch what they do. I've been watching what they do for over 50 years and I find it interesting that people driving cars by themselves with 4 empty seats around them jam up all the freeways, streets, and parking spaces in cities throughout the world at an incredible waste of time and resources.

It's as if people in a crowded subway all wore back packs that were 4 times bigger than they are.

According to the Texas Transportation Institute, at Texas A&M University, there are 67-billion dollars wasted every year due to congestion in the US. There are 5.7-billion gallons of gasoline wasted. This would fill tank trucks lined up end-to-end, from NY City to Las Vegas and back. That's just the gasoline wasted due to congestion!

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics there are 118-million workers in the US. Of them, 92-million drive by themselves to work every day with 4 empty seats. That's roughly 90% of all of the cars and roughly 80% of all workers that are driving solo in a car 4 times larger than needed.

Unfortunately, small cars don't solve the problem. A Mini-Cooper takes relatively the same space on the freeway as the largest SUVs because they both use a full lane and both must have similar braking distance from the car in front.
Motorcycles could solve the problem as they can fit two-to-a-lane but are unsafe, offer no protection from the weather, and give little room to carry things. Because of that only 0.6% of workers use motorcycles and bicycles combined. Public transit is only 4.9% because it only works well in extremely dense cities or corridors.

A freeway lane is 12-feet wide by federal standard. A truck is 9' 4" from mirror to mirror. That leaves 16" of clearance on either side. In order to double a freeway lane's capacity, a car would have to be a maximum of 40" wide in order to have the same clearance in a 6' lane. The Tango is only 39" wide, so it easily fits in a half-lane. The University of California Transportation Dept. and Booze-Allen-Hamilton did a study on a narrow car of nearly the same dimensions as the Tango and found it would increase lane capacity from 2,000 cars per hour to 4,400 cars per hour.

For a car to be 40" wide, it would require one of two methods for stability. If it tilted like a motorcycle it would have to have either manual or electronically controlled tilting. Both could be problematic. If the system failed in a turn it could be fatal. To control the weight of a protective cage manually is not reasonable as you can imagine a bicycle with hundreds of lbs overhead and to the sides.

Battery-electric is the answer--and for many reasons. The lead-acid batteries provide just enough weight in the Tango to achieve the same rollover threshold as a Porsche 911. As you have seen in the video, they also provide plenty of power. This is because, using the same kind of motors that pull 100-car freight trains in one gear from 0 to 90 mph, fit nicely in the space between the rear wheels leaving the rest of the bottom of the car for batteries. The two Tango motors actually produce more than twice the torque of a Dodge Viper V-10 engine.

So, in order to get the Tango to the mainstream as quickly as possible, it will require overcoming the obvious objections--primarily rollover and safety. As I mentioned, we've achieved the static rollover threshold of a Porsche 911. Seeing videos of the Tango racing around corners and parked perpendicularly on a 30% grade with people trying but failing to push it over should eventually sink in and convince people that its looks are deceiving. Even I, who know the rollover chrematistics well, was trembling when I parked it on upper Stanyan St. in San Francisco. It's a 30% grade with a stairway for a sidewalk. After rocking it with my terrified stepsister inside, I was finally relieved of my fears. It just looked like it would fall over. I wish I could display the photo on my cell phone here.

For the Tango to get a foothold so that the doubling of lane capacity can be achieved, it must have immediate advantages over a standard car. In California, Europe, and the Orient, lane-splitting is allowed for motorcycles, some of which are 5" wider than the Tango. The Tango is actually 5" narrower than a Honda Gold Wing from mirror to mirror. I've noted situations where traffic jams were so bad coming off of the San Francisco Bay bridge that the motorcycles were traveling in 20 seconds the distance that it took cars to travel 20 minutes--a 60 to 1 advantage. The Tango could have done the same.

So in philanthropy, one can give the golden egg, or give the goose that lays the golden egg. I believe that funding commuter cars is like the latter. It is Commuter Cars' goal to put 150-million Tangos on the roads of the world within 30 years or hopefully as little as 15. I believe that when the average commuter sees the benefit, enjoys the freedom and excitement of driving a Tango, that they will naturally gravitate toward a tipping point just as the Model-T and the PC did, and people will wonder how we ever got along without them.

150-million Tangos, possibly $3-trillion in sales, may sound like a lot, but it's only about half of the SINGLE-occupant commuters in the world. In the US alone, roughly 1/3 of the world automotive market, it would have the following effect. There would be a savings of $39-billion in retail cost of gasoline to consumers which would be replaced by $5.2-billion dollars of electricity at retail based on $.10 a kWh. It would also probably save most of the $17-billion in wasted gasoline due to traffic congestion. The electricity used may not all be clean, however, it could be, and naturally will be, as clean sources like solar and wind become more commonplace and economically feasible.

Best wishes,

Rck

Tango in winter

A few years ago, I was in Atlanta killing time and saw a fascinating video of a tiny car tearing along, kicking up dust and leaves, racing motorcycles, and parking perpendicular to the curb. The Tango by Commuter Cars Corporation is that car. George Clooney is a fan, as well.

Rick Woodbury, the Commuter Car Guy, became one of my LinkedIn links, and has begun sharing some information with me. When I wondered how The Tango might do in our more inclement seasons here in the Midwest, here's his reply (the boldface text):

On Apr 8, 2008, at 4:19 PM, Tim Ferris wrote:
Good stuff--would it be appropriate to share it with others by sticking it up on a blog or two, like http://realneo.org and http://save-our-land.blogspot.com

Sure. Go for it. Thanks

I like the fact that the car is way safer than a bike and has all its weight down low. I think it can adapt to bad-weather conditions here and further north.

Our first prototype handled Quebec's ice and snow pretty much like any other car with rear wheel drive. The Tango weighs 3,050 lbs and being very small for its weight can therefore push proportionately more snow. It's virtually unaffected by crosswinds even on a snow-covered road because of its tiny profile to the wind in relation to it's weight and center of mass.

For lead acid batteries range per charge will depend on keeping the batteries warm. If they are allowed to cool off to 14 deg F, they will only deliver 80% of what they would at 77 deg F. The following table is taken from Hawkers data sheet available at:http://www.enersysreservepower.com/documents/US_GPL_SG_001_0303.pdf

Deg F. Deg. C % of capacity 77 deg F. (25 deg. C)
77 25 100%
50 10 95%
32 0 90%
14 -10 80%
-4 -20 70%
-22 -30 45%
-40 -40 30%

The battery box is insulated which will keep the thermal mass of the batteries warm for a considerable time. There will be battery heating too so that if plugged in to a charger the batteries will stay warm.

NiMH and Li-Ion batteries have much better properties when cold. We'll publish their specifications when they're available.

Thanks again for your continued interest.

Best wishes,

Rick

Rick Woodbury Phone: (509) 624-0762
President, Commuter Cars Corp. Fax: (509) 624-1466715
E. Sprague Ave., Suite 70 Cell: (509) 979-1815
Spokane, WA 99202

http://www.commutercars.com

this Saturday: Play Until Dark at Wendy Park

I just got this email:

Dan and I want you to know about the Wendy Park Foundation event, "Play Until Dark at Wendy Park: Get the Towpath to the Lake" happening this Saturday, June 30, 2007. At 10:00 AM the @ 12 mile roundtrip bike ride begins at Wendy Park with registration on site at 9:00 AM.

The bike ride will start at Wendy Park and will proceed through city streets to Steelyard Commons and on to the Canal Way Visitors Center and back. As you may recall, the funding for the Towpath to Steelyard Commons is already in place, and Wendy Park Foundation is committed to extending the Towpath to Wendy Park at Lake Erie.

The park site event begins at 11:00 AM and ends at 9:00 PM. – it will mark the first opening of the Coast Guard Station site to the public. The inside of the Coast Guard Station will not be open, but in the future we are hoping it will become an interpretive center for the Towpath Trail.

The day will be filled with all kinds of entertainment, including kayak rides; Harvey Webster's animal show, including live raptors; windsurfing; kitesurfing, fishing, archery, rockwall climbing, and eating delicious food; bungee trampolining; live music from Whiskey Island Ramblers, Will Bowen, Inner City Outlet and Carlos Jones; nature photography, bird watching, and wildlife identification; more food and drink.

The day will be FUN at Cleveland's only outdoor sports and recreation festival! You can get tickets in advance by going to www.playuntildark.org , then click "Get Tickets" ($5.00 per person -- children under 10 are free). Please note that the deadline for website ticket purchases is on Friday, June 29, 2007 at noon. You can also buy tickets at the door for $8.00 per person.

Would love to see you and your family at Wendy Park!

Marge and Dan Moore

from Bill MacDermott: running the electricity meter backwards

Building power into new home - cleveland.com Our friend Bill MacDermott called our attention to this piece in the PD--

Dear Friends,

Just in case you missed it, there was a very nice article on the front page of the Business section in yesterdays (6/12) Plain Dealer. It was on a local Uni-Solar solar shingle installation done by a friend, Al Frasz.

Here is a link to the on-line article, but they didn't include the wonderful photo that was in the printed version :-(

http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-2/1181637654195360.xml&coll=2

Cheers,

Bill MacDermott

Note the estimated numbers; we need to see more of this, if people are going to begin to adapt and retrofit:

The calculator (go through tinyurl.com/ywg7rv) shows that a solar array in Greater Cleveland can be expected to generate about 75 percent of what one in San Diego typically generates. The system, including the backup battery power addition, was expensive - about $30,000. But a state grant of nearly $10,000, a federal tax credit of 30 percent of the total cost and accelerated state and federal depreciation schedules made the net cost about $5,000.

"We did not add this and mark up the price. We discounted the solar in the [$295,900] price of the house," Kornell said.

Pointing to the neighboring homes that have sold for as much as $308,000, Kornell argues that "the actual cost of solar could disappear very easily when competing in the real estate market."

At today's electric rates, it will take more than a dozen years for the system to pay for itself in lower electric bills. But if the state deregulates rates as scheduled in 2009, allowing utilities to charge whatever the market will bear, the payback time should quickly shrink.
Whoever buys the Hambden house won't be able to cut the wire to CEI, however, no matter what the rates are.

The annual sun power will be enough to replace a quarter to a third of the average residential consumption here, which is about 750 to 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month or 9,000 to 12,000 a year.

But then this home is average in only one sense, its size: 2,150 square feet. All the appliances, the furnace, air conditioning and lighting meet federal Energy Star specs, said Kornell. Combine those efficiencies with solar output and you get electric bills that should be about half what the neighbors in similar homes are paying, he said.

good news about kudzu

In Tennessee, Goats Eat the ‘Vine That Ate the South’ - New York Times -- I never thought I'd see kudzu brought to heel. I've spent a lot of time in Columbus, Georgia, and in Atlanta. I've fallen asleep outside and had kudzu advance on me overnight. We still see more kudzu than we want to be seeing when we visit the kids in Knoxville. Now, there may be hope: goats.

Don't miss the part about the guard donkeys' being replaced by llamas.

We Yankees are faced with more formidable challenges than kudzu: What we have to do in Cleveland is to find something to eat all the McDonald's food-packaging detritus. It probably would be easier and quicker if we all just stopped buying and consuming McDonald's and their ilk. Not only would we have a quantum leap in public health, but we'd also experience a massive environmental cleansing.

"socially responsible" a hot issue; bandwagon gains momentum

The Global Roundtable on Climate Change -- One of our vendors, noted for being "socially responsible", has just directed us to this link. I also noticed this morning that John Kerry is trying to climb onto the same bandwagon Al Gore has had himself harnessed to for a few years now, and the whole situtation is getting interesting in how the bandwagon is picking up momentum.

On February 20, 2007, Calvert joined with nearly 100 organizations, including some of the world's largest auto, energy and insurance companies, in endorsing the Global Roundtable on Climate Change's groundbreaking joint statement: The Path to Climate Sustainability.

The statement, available in full online, advocates a broad-based approach to global climate change, including scientifically-informed targets for reduced greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions, a world-wide market for placement of a consistent international price on carbon emissions, energy conservation, use of non-fossil based fuels, and development of technologies for trapping and storing CO2.

The statement seeks a balance between climate conservation and economic growth, stating, "Confronting climate change depends, in many ways, on adopting new and sustainable energy strategies that can meet growing global energy needs while allowing for the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at safe levels." . . .

. . . Signatories of the joint statement beside Calvert include Air France, Alcoa, Allianz, American Electric Power, Bayer, China Renewable Energy Industry Association, Citigroup, DuPont, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, ENDESA, Eni, Eskom, FPL Group, General Electric, Iberdrola, ING, Interface, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Munich Re, NRG Energy, Patagonia, Ricoh, Rolls Royce, Stora Enso North America, Suntech Power, Swiss Re, Vattenfall, Volvo, World Council of Churches, World Petroleum Council, and many others.

If you'd like to endorse this statement as an individual, you can add your name to a list at NextGenerationEarth.org, a web site which gives people an opportunity to have their voices heard on issues of global well-being and environmental sustainability.

Celtic rock: ignition, illumination

Upcoming.org: Whiskey Island Ramblers at Sullivan's Irish Pub (Saturday, February 10, 2007)--I got this from Jeff Schuler over on Upcoming.org. Looks interesting. Might be something to do in conjunction with Jim Morana's opening tonight just down the street.

The Whiskey Island Ramblers have been on a tear since '04 from Cleveland to Europe and back again playing original Celtic Rock and "Ramblerized" traditional songs. Fueled by drink and Celtic Rock their audiences tend to ignite at some point during the performance. Joe and Ed Feighan have been performing Traditional Irish songs since they were kids. The Feighan Brothers formed the Whiskey Island Ramblers as a Celtic Rock band for their favorite traditional songs and their original material. Most of their own songs are about real people and real events. Occasionally they venture into the Irish "other world" where ghosts, sprites, wraiths and the like dwell. Whiskey Island, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, is where the Irish ancestors of the Feighans settled as immigrants from the famine and just in time for the industrial revolution. Cops, bus drivers, chimney sweeps, bartenders, gabbers, hot dog vendors, sailors, judges, mayors, parents, drinking buddies, girlfriends, lawyers, bumbling bureaucrats and musicians who drive around in junked up cars make their apearance on Whiskey Island and the surrounding industrial landscape. The Whiskey Island Ramblers illuminate these characters in song keeping in stride with the legacy of their storytelling ancestors who arrived on Whiskey Island nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. Check out the band at www.whiskeyislandramblers.com and www.erintel.com.

Homepage
http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.asp?...

An Inconvenient Truth: I'm three times gassier

An Inconvenient Truth > Carbon Calculator--Here's the way you can measure your "carbon footprint," as we learned from Jeff Friedman this past Thursday at the Midtown Brews event at Webtego. My personal, business and family footprint is 23.5 tons, which I guess is more like a sitzmark, since it makes me three times gassier than the 7.5-ton national average. Yes, I am an American! Jeff's session should be posted soon on Meet.The.Bloggers.

tonight, Jeff Friedman shows and tells what he learned in Nashville

Midtown Brews (Info here) connects innovative thinkers with global perspectives on our regional economy. Join us this week to learn about The Climate Project, a movement to educate and challenge citizens, and governments about the growing crisis of global warming.
The Climate Project brings education, community information, research and citizen action programs to communities across the country as a follow-up to the film, An Inconvient Truth. Learn more about climate change and how you can get involved. We include a healthy dose of good food and good beer.

Date: This Thursday, January 11, 2007
With Jeff Friedman, National spokesperson for An Inconvenient Truth and Meet The Bloggers
Time: 5:30 P.M - 7:30 P.M.
Place: Webtego, 2530 Superior Avenue, Suite 600 Cleveland, Ohio 44114
Phone: 216-348-8700

Participate.net is a growing community of film lovers and activists who are dedicated to engaging their minds, sharing their passions, and improving the world around them. If you are a blogger, teacher or eager to learn how you can connect to a sustainability-minded community, go here.
Listen and learn from last month's fascinating interview and discussion with Lawrence Krauss thoughtfully examining global climate change, missile defense, and science education here.

breaking wind power reports

Article on wind power from the New York TIMES. In my post title, where do I put the punctuation, the commas and hyphens? Oh, well.