Seattle Superbus
A northwest oasis is the main testing ground for hybrid mass transit
By Andrew Romano
Newsweek International
Sept. 6-13 issue - Jim Boon is a hybrid kind of guy. He drives a Toyota hybrid to work, a Honda hybrid on weekends, and as a manager for Seattle's public transportation system, he recently placed the world's largest order for hybrid electric buses.
Now, with the biggest hybrid bus fleet in the world, Seattle has become the main testing ground for a technology that claims it can drastically cut air pollution and fuel consumption. In the late 1990s, small demo fleets of 35 buses or less started cropping up in cities such as Tempe, Arizona. Sixteen of these early hybrids still service Genoa, Italy, where drivers switch from diesel to electric power when passing the city's downtown architectural treasures. But no city has gone as far as Seattle, which last year bought 235 GM hybrid buses at $645,000 a pop. When the final one hits the streets this December, the region's bus system will be 15 percent hybrid.
But why Seattle, and why now? The Pacific Northwest has long been a hotbed of both crunchy green politics and cutting-edge technology. Fourteen years ago, the Seattle area bought 236 Italian-made Breda buses to service a kilometer-long downtown tunnel. They were supposed to operate as clean and silent electric trolleys underground, but the switching mechanism often failed and "the bus drove through the tunnel as a diesel," says Boon. "It was pretty loud and smoky."
When the Bredas hit mandatory retirement age in 2002, Boon went shopping. He chose the GM model because it uses an automatic transmission and diesel boosts that provide the power needed to scale inclines without strain. In hilly Seattle, the prospect of a hybrid that could climb like a diesel but accelerate without belching black fumes helped justify its price, which is about $200,000 higher than a conventional bus. "The days of seeing a diesel pull away and pour out smoke are over," says Boon. "After we drove these hybrid buses across the country, I wiped a handkerchief inside the tailpipe. It came out spotless. I bet there are tables in your living room that are dirtier."
Experts say buses are critical to realizing the hybrid dream of greater efficiency and cleaner air. It would take thousands of hybrid cars to save as many liters of gas (3.4 million) as Boon expects his buses to save Seattle each year. GM claims that compared to conventional diesels, its hybrids also churn out 90 percent less particulate mattera known carcinogen. "Buses are a major source of pollution in any city," says Dave Kircher of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. "They operate where people are breathing this exhaust, so this is major step forward in terms of emissions."
And a major step forward in the marketplace: Philadelphia; Honolulu; Long Beach, California; and Albuquerque, New Mexico have all bought the GM buses in recent months. GM has launched an ad campaign called All Aboard the Magic Bus, touting itself as the top hybrid bus innovator. But the game is heating up: Siemens is among the global giants dueling GM for new business, and New York plans to deploy 325 BAE Systems hybrids by 2006. "There's room for competition," says James Cannon, editor of Hybrid Vehicles newsletter. Seems Seattle isn't the only city trying to leave grunge behind.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5829996/site/newsweek/
Healthy Homes
New building technologies and innovative add-ons are making nearly-zero-energy houses a real possibility
By William Underhill and Malcolm Beith
Newsweek International
Sept. 6-13 issue - Imagine a community for the deeply green. Walls half-a-meter thick keep temperatures comfortable year-round. Windows are triple-glazed. A wind-driven ventilation system feeds fresh air into each houseand grabs the heat from stale outgoing air. Outsize conservatories face south to trap the light and warmth of the sun. Most of the energy-saving technology isn't flashy, though solar panels do provide enough power to run the community's pool of electric cars. The architecture is modish and even the most modest apartment has its own garden. Of course, residents enjoy an organic-vegetable delivery service, too.
This might sound like a limousine-liberal fantasythe kind of high-tech oasis where the superrich can soothe their consciences deep in the woods. But it's actually an 84-home development, called BedZED, on the site of a disused sewage-treatment plant in an unfashionable patch of South London. Its residents aren't well-meaning ecozealots: many are tenants of a housing charity. But they are all at the forefront of a global trend toward reducing energy consumption in the home.
In Europe and America, buildings guzzle around 40 percent of all energyabout 10 percent more than transportand create the same proportion of carbon-dioxide emissions. As the world adjusts to life without cheap hydrocarbon fuels, improving energy efficiency across the board is going to be essential. BedZED and other initiatives show that trimming excess energy consumption needn't be difficult or even high techjust a matter of intelligent design. "People are sick and tired of environmental campaigners' presenting doom-and-gloom scenarios without offering solutions," says BedZED architect Bill Dunster.
The key is finding ways to maximize efficiency in the simplest ways possible: the "zed" in BedZED stands for "zero energy." Whatever little juice the London homes need after taking advantage of their built-in energy-savers comes from an on-site power plant, fueled by waste timber. Simple also means cheap; build 5,000 Zedhomes, says Dunster, and the economies of scale mean the cost is no more than that of constructing a normal home: the price of components tumbles as production numbers rise. It's no wonder such ideas are gaining admirers. Over the past two years, BedZED has attracted thousands of visitors from as far away as India and China. In the fall, Dunster's company, ZedFactory, begins work on two separate projects elsewhere in Britain. In the United States, zero-energy communities have been constructed from Elk Grove, California, to Loudoun County, Virginia, spurring interest among forward-thinking builders and homeowners alike. "Once people know about it, they want to live there," says David Meisegeier, an energy-efficiency specialist at Virginia-based ICF Consulting. "Who wouldn't?"
The technologies could already be used much more widely. Things like triple-glazing windows to add extra insulation, tightening duct systems and using structural insulated panels for floors and walls are easy and cost-effectiveand could cut the fuel consumption of the world's buildings by 20 percent by 2010. "You can accomplish a tremendous amount with the technologies that we have already," says Randall Bowie, a Swedish official working on energy efficiency for the European Commission in Brussels. Take today's domestic boilers, which are generally 30 percent more efficient than the previous generationor new refrigerators in the U.S. market that use 75 percent less electricity than those from the 1970s. Even simple gadgets like programmable thermostats or light timers noticeably decrease energy use and costs. "This is about doing a lot of unglamorous stuff," says Andrew Warren of the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings.
Major momentum for these ho-hum changes has come from European governments worried by threats to energy supplies and the need to meet energy-reduction goals agreed to under the Kyoto accords. They've started to issue grants and tax breaks for energy-efficient builders, as well as stricter regulations. The standards set by national building codes are ratcheting up, and an EU directive that takes effect at the end of next year will require house builders, landlords or sellers to show an energy-efficiency label, setting out how well a building performs. A similar EU decree on energy labeling for household appliances has boosted demand for the top-rated items.
The U.S. government, too, has been doing its part. Through the Energy Star program, it has set tough regulations on everything from home construction to major appliances and consumer electronics. "Energy Star is transforming the market so that energy-efficient technologies become standard practiceand a moneymaker for companies, too," says Jennifer Thorne-Amann of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Energy Star has also created brand recognition, prompting a flood of applications from companies. "Once you get one manufacturer onboard, everybody wants in," says Meisegeier. "And everyone wins because of the environmental impact."
There's also comfort to be taken in the growing cooperation between government, scientists and the environmental lobby. At the government-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Steve Selkowitz's windows-and-building-technology team has made incredible progress with such innovations as dimmable windows that can minimize hot sunlight while preserving the view; the windows could save homeowners thousands of dollars a year in air-conditioning costs. And in Europe, lavish grants from Austria's provincial governments have spurred interest in so-called Passive Houses, which aim to expend only minimal energy and are forecast to account for a quarter of the country's new building by 2010.
Even more gee-whiz developments are creeping onto the market. Solar power is becoming more affordable, as are tankless water heaters, composting toilets and biomass heating systems like corn stoves, which heat homes by burning corn instead of declining resources like wood. In India, Development Alternatives, a New Delhi-based nonprofit devoted to sustainable development, has helped supply mini power stationsfueled by weeds and agricultural wastes like rice husksto villages across the country. Beneath thousands of new homes in Sweden, a system of fluid-filled pipes taps the warmth of the surrounding earth and feeds it back to heat pumps inside the houses. And more and more houses are being built with microgeneratorshyperefficient power plants that can sit in the basement. A new mini-CHPa Combined Heat and Power plant that's no bigger than a dishwashercan double as a water heater and a generator with minimum wastage. Heat energy from the hot water is recaptured to power lights and run household appliances.
It's too early to know whether the public will embrace such measures fully. "From the marketing point of view, energy efficiency is still a very hard sell," says David Strong of Britain's Building Research Establishment. "Nobody makes television programs about insulating the loft, and people don't hold parties to show off their new boilers," adds the European Alliance's Warren. Although recent months have indeed seen some nasty price hikes, in real terms fuel prices have tumbled over recent decades. "Energy prices haven't quite reached a point where they hit the wallet," says ICF's Meisegeier.
Still, as governments, scientists and builders continue to provide the "market push" toward energy efficiency, says Meisegeier, the "consumer pull" will be stimulated. There won't be any one device that solves all the energy-consumption problems of homeowners. But each new development will push us closer to what one might call the hybrid home, in which energy is conserved through a combination of improved appliances and building techniques. "The technologies will be able to support each other," says the ACEEE's Thorne-Amann. "Solar panels, appliances, heat-pump water heatersthe synergy will improve the whole building." And our whole future.
With John Sparks in New York
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5830575/site/newsweek/