Re: Work Outs Will Soon Create Energy and Burn Fat

Gyms Now Producing "Healthy Clean Energy"

Tags: Alternative Energyclean energy fitness centersConservation & Recreationfitness centersGreen BusinessGreen RevolutionHealth & Nutritionhealthy clean energySustainability

November 30, 2010 by Nathanael Baker

"Healthy clean energy" may soon become a catch-phrase used around the world.  Businesses spanning multiple sectors and countries have begun to integrate exercise equipment as a means of generating electricity into their business plans.

As Time magazine reports, fitness centers and gym across North America are using energy converters on equipment such as stationary bikes and ellipticals to generate electricity for the gym.  According to Time, there are over 80 locations in North America that generate electric power from the sweat of their customers. 

Adam Boesel, the owner of Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon says an average workout produces 37.5 watt hours, which is enough to power a phone for one week.  Although this may not seem like a lot of energy, when one considers some gyms house hundreds of individuals at the same time, the figure grows exponentially.

Boesel says that his gym (a 3,000 square foot space) cannot produce enough electricity to make the facility carbon neutral, but if all his cardio machines are used at the same time, more than 10 times the amount of energy needed to run the gym at any one moment can be produced.

The idea of capturing the wasted energy generated from a spinning bike wheel or moving elliptical foot pads was first introduced in a fitness center in Hong Kong in 2007.  It has taken some time for the idea to cross the ocean and catch hold in America, though.  But, as Mike Curnyn, co-founder of the Green Revolution, a company that wires stationary bikes into batteries that store energy, explains, "We have seen a significant increase in interest in the past six months, which is a good sign that fitness centers are ready to invest in green technologies."  Adam Boesel can attest to this.  Green Microgym has become so popular that he is franchising it.

Fitness centers are ready to make the switch and so are gym-goers, many of whom take serious pride in the fact their workout generates clean power.  Gyms, however, are not the only businesses incorporating innovative energy producing schemes into their business plan.  Some bars are now offering pitchers of beer in exchange for generating power from a stationary bike.  And hotels have jumped into the game as well.

As Boesel says, someday businesses like these will not be seen as "green," but rather, as the norm.

About the Author

Nathanael Baker is the Managing Editor of EnergyBoom. He has been immersed in the areas of renewable energy and climate change for two years. Before joining EnergyBoom, Nathanael was the Director of Research for the DeSmog Blog. In this role his services included providing research to the New York Times and The Economist. A resident of Vancouver, BC, Nathanael has previously written and performed research for the British Columbia Provincial Government. Nathanael holds a B.A. in History from the University of Victoria.

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Re: Green by Necessity is China's New National Plan

China's New National Plan: Green by Necessity

Tags: Alternative EnergyBest PracticesCase Studieschinalow carbon economyPolicySustainabilityTransportationUrban EconomicsWater

November 29, 2010 by Warren Karlenzig

China's new national 2011-2015 economic plan--essentially also its green blueprint--is now starting to be unveiled, then will be finalized by the People's Congress in March. China is aiming at reforming the world's second largest economy by optimizing it for low-carbon, resource efficient and urban climate change-adapted performance, as it takes on 400 to 700 million more people in its teeming cities as part of the world's most ambitious socio-economic transformation.

"China is the earliest developing country in the world to map out its plan for ecological growth," said Wang Ronghua, President of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, at the Fourth World Forum on China Studies, held earlier in November. "It will be a daunting task to restructure. There is a huge amount of funding available for this effort. This is being done because in the next three decades China will not be able to support 1.3 billion or more people." (China currently has more than 1.33 billion people.)

The new national "12^th Five-Year Plan" (twelfth, that is, since formation as the People's Republic in 1949), covers its industrial, economic and social development. The gist of the new plan:  a new focus on quality of development rather than on quantity only. China wants to strengthen the nation's low-carbon economy while trying to repair the extensive environmental and human health damage it has sustained during its 30-year race to lead global industrial production.

The 11^th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) included goals of lowering energy consumption per unit of GDP. For China's provincial and city governments that means energy consumption per unit of GDP must decrease by 20 percent in 2010 compared to 2005.

With its new national plan, China is now building on the goal of energy efficiency with a more full-scale sustainability agenda, featuring reduced carbon intensity (cutting carbon emissions per every unit of economic output, or GDP) combined with overall environmental restoration and management practices. This focus will increase investments in renewables, information and communications technologies, advanced transportation and materials, water supply and treatment technologies (including using plants for bioremediation), and air and water quality. In other words, China is trying to improve its quality of life, which would benefit investment, tourism, and ecosystem services, not to mention the health of humans, along with animal and marine species.

Part of this strategy rests upon moving the nation from being "factory to the world" to becoming a provider of services such as information and communications technologies, financial services, and other less-polluting business sectors, while also maintaining a global lead in manufacturing clean energy and other "value-added" technologies for export.

Draft language from the new Plan that was read to me during my recent visit to China includes the directive for government officials to comprehensively, "Use technology and administration to transform mode of development to an eco-friendly and low-carbon lifestyle. Ensure that economic development confirms with environmental protection." It was announced last week that the nation is also preparing to comprehensively monitor chemical and organic pollutants in both the air and water: currently only 200 pollutants are monitored versus 1,200 in the United States.  Ambitious goals, yes, but China appears to be willing to attempt to back them on the ground.

The country began this summer a national low-carbon pilot program focused on five provinces and eight cities. Through the pilot programs, it is attempting to leverage best-of-breed strategies and tactics from localized sustainability plans, projects and methods. This simultaneous top-down (12^th Five Year Plan) and regional approach (pilots) will likely make China even more competitive in the development of new clean energy technologies and services.

China has already surpassed all other nations in the production of PV solar and wind technologies: one showcase city is the renewable production center of Baoding, a city of one million near Beijing with more than 20,000 new clean energy jobs in three years. Baoding is the smallest of China's eight pilot low carbon cities. The largest pilot is almost-megacity Shenzhen, with a population of nine million. In all, the pilot provinces and cities comprise 27 percent of the nation's population and 36 percent of China's national Gross Domestic Product. China is providing incentives for its cleantech companies through subsidies to manufacturers of solar film, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, and it is offering subsidies to consumers to purchase electric cars.

My observations and findings are fresh from a visit in October and earlier this month. I was a UN delegate to a one-day summit on "Urban Innovation and Sustainable Development," which was held as part of the closing ceremonies of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai ("Better City, Better Life"), the largest world expo ever in terms of size, attendance, global participation and investment. The development of low carbon and green technologies, along with public education on moving toward more sustainable behaviors, was the key theme in the four pavilions sponsored by China and visited by tens of millions of Chinese citizens.

At the headquarters of its all-powerful State Council in Beijing, I met with national government and academic sector experts about development of China's green economic research and planning. Other representatives from the US and China-based Institute for Strategic Resilience and I were briefed at the State Council by economic, eco-city and low-carbon experts from the China Center for International Educational Exchanges, a top national think tank affiliated with the State Council. My itinerary included a visit with government officials in a medium-sized city for a glimpse of how local governments in China are already attempting to balance sustainability management with economic development. More about the local angle in my next post.

During the excellent Fourth World Forum on China Studies in Shanghai, I was invited to present along with 20 academic, corporate and government experts on "Green Development." (More than 300 China experts participated in the overall forum, most of them from China.)

At the opening of the Green Development Sub Forum, Professor Wang Ronghua, a well-known editor on Deng Xiaoping's theories, ticked down a list of the nation's current state, making it obvious why China is moving toward comprehensive sustainability planning, measurement and management:

Water and Wastewater:

"Fresh water supply is in danger because of rapid depletion--heavy industrial growth has caused the consumption of too much water." Wang Ronghua said. "China is one the most water scarce countries in the world. Lakes and rivers are viewed as sinks in which to discharge wastewater. Hebei province's lakes were once beautiful. Now they are highly lethal, the same with the Yellow and other rivers. Fresh water will become more scarce than oil in China, which is an inconceivable future."

Resource and Energy Use:

"The consumption of mineral resources is occurring faster than production because of crude modes of production rather than making better uses of natural resources. China uses 17 percent of the world's total energy supply: it used 2.8 billion tons of coal in 2009, which will rise to 10 billion tons by 2030, which means China will rely on imported energy as it only produces four tons per year." (From 2007 to 2009, China's moved to being a net coal importer for the first time in its history. Oil imports also reached 52 percent in 2009, while its new car sales surpassed those of the US for the first time the same year. National car ownership will multiply by a factor of three or more between now and 2020.)

Land Use and Planning: "There are dilemmas about how to protect and make better use of land resources. Too much land is consigned for development and conceded, especially in coastal and eastern China. In Shanghai, five years' supply of land planned for new development has been used up in one year."

Waste: "Ninety percent of urban waste is landfilled. Garbage is increasing at 10 percent annually--out of six hundred big cities, one third are besieged by garbage and waste."

Air Pollution and Climate Change: "Acid rain and CO2 emissions will double by 2020.  High-polluting industries are also pillar industries."  (Beijing's air pollution recently was said to be at a "crazy bad" level on Twitter by the US Embassy, which was later deleted and changed to "beyond index." ) The Asian Development Bank estimated in 2008 that more than half of the world's increase in greenhouse gases through 2027 will come from Asian cities, a majority of that increase from the cities of China.

The most urgent challenge will be getting changes made at local levels. Ronghua said that the "costs of breaking the law are too low, there is not enough enforcement or enforcement is uneven with the same violation receiving different punishment."

Through its State Council and its operational arm, the National Development Reform Commission (NDRC), China is actively considering how it can develop models and indicators that will guide ecological restoration and green economic development in conjunction with traditional economic measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As part of its low carbon pilot province and city programs, regional and local governments are pledging to reduce carbon intensity, or carbon emissions per unit of GDP economic output, by up to 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. (See today's advertising supplement from China Daily, which also appeared on p. A12 of the New York Times).

There is a growing acknowledgment in China that economic growth cannot be an all-consuming goal. For 30 years, with an average annual national growth rate of 10 percent , China's GDP has for many years surpassed growth of other nations, but at what cost?

Zhou Fengqi, Director of the Center for Eco-Economy and Sustainable Development at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, spoke of the need for systemic change in China: "China needs to change from the consumption of products to consumption of services."

Exactly how China will achieve its ambitious goals for a greener national economy now will emerge from numerous releases and announcements surrounding the new 12^th Five Year Plan. Key to its success will be how systemically national leadership can help develop objective measures for provincial and city leaders that provide clear and consistent goals for industries, business and citizens.

It's time for China to look at its cities, communities and centers of expertise for leadership and scalable solutions to help reverse the degradation of nature and quality of human life--along with the damage to its economy--that has occurred (or will occur) because of air, water and soil pollution, and global climate change. While many restorative activities will help bring new economic growth opportunities, they will also ensure that China has a base of natural resources for its cities that can sustain a viable quality of life.

The country must now decouple its economic growth from manufacturing while incorporating a more diversified (and less material intensive) base, in order to remain economically viable in the future. Said Wang Ronghua, "Instead of only focusing on GDP measurements, the government needs to provide more parameters on ecology and living standards, including improvement of culture."

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active consultancy based in San Anselmo, California. He is a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and co-author of a forthcoming United Nations manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

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Re: GLOBE Alliance Will Advocate for Sustainability

GLOBE Alliance Will Advocate for Sustainability Worldwide

The Global Leadership in Our Built Environment Alliance has issued a call for partners to help fight climate change by advancing sustainable design.

By:Stephani L. Miller

 

The U.S. Green Building Council and the World Green Building Council (WGBC) announced during Greenbuild 2010 a call for partners to join a new international alliance that will advocate sustainable design and building as a critical strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fighting climate change.

The newly formed Global Leadership in Our Built Environment (GLOBE) Alliance will work globally to raise awareness among policymakers, financial institutions, and United Nations bodies of the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through sustainable design, construction, and energy-efficient building operations and to increase support for cost-effective investment in sustainable building practices. According to GLOBE, the building sector represents the greatest and most cost-effective potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions out of all the other industrial or manufacturing sectors in the world.

"There's tremendous growth in the developing world and in those countries' building sectors," says Jason Hartke, vice president of national policy for the USGBC, who was deeply involved in the development of GLOBE. "What we don't want is for these developing countries—who will represent 97 percent of the projected increase in greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030—to lock in the current inefficiencies in their building sectors."

GLOBE will seek to influence national and international policies to increase green building activity; to promote strategies for overcoming the technical, regulatory, and financial barriers to advancing green building; and to educate policymakers and thought leaders so they can advance the cause within their realms.

"Forty-six green building councils, representing over half of our membership, are in developing nations," says WGBC CEO Jane Henley. "We believe the inclusion of the built environment in financial tools geared toward lowering emissions, like carbon trading, will support local economic development in these countries while helping solve this important global issue."

While to date 40 organizations and companies from diverse industries around the world have joined GLOBE as partners, the alliance is calling for additional supporters. All GLOBE members are equal partners in achieving the organization's goals, according to Hartke. "Everybody is coming together to help shape, refine, and strengthen our message and its delivery to global policymakers and international financial institutions," he says.

Partner organizations currently include the American Institute of Architects, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Urban Land Institute, Johnson Controls, Ingersoll Rand, Romania Green Building Council, Center for American Progress, China Urban Realty Association Green Building Committee, National Institute of Building Sciences, and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, among many others.

To learn more about the GLOBE Alliance, visit www.globealliance.org.

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Re: Analysts say ignoring global warming will cost the nation

	Nov 19, 2010	Portsmouth Herald
	Deborah McDermott Nov. 19, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a three-part look at the conference, "Sustainable Future: How Can our Nation Turn the Corner on the Economy and the Environment, and can N.H. Lead the Way?" MANCHESTER -- Economists and political strategists attending an economic summit Thursday said it is critical for New Hampshire, New England and the country to understand that climate change has to be part of the equation in forging a solution to the current fiscal and monetary crisis. The speakers were among a number of national and state analysts attending a conference on the economy at the University of New Hampshire-Manchester and sponsored by the Concord Coalition and the UNH Whittemore School of Business. "This intersection of environment and the economy in the state and the country is of critical importance," said UNH economics professor Ross Gittell. "They are a package for both environmental and fiscal sustainability." Speaking with Gittell were Charles Colgan, economics professor from the University of Southern Maine; Ken Colburn, environmental policy director at Stonyfield Farms; and Richard Ober, president of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. All said climate change is a reality, and if Granite-Staters and Americans continue to deny that, the problem will get much more expensive to address, and quickly. "If you think reducing emissions is expensive, try adapting to a world in which climate change" is the norm, Colburn said. A good way to deal with the problem is by carbon taxing, said Colgan and Colburn. "If you want less of something, tax it," Colburn said. "Taxes are a disincentive. Let's tax things we don't want rather than desirable activities." Colburn conducted a study analyzing the amount of revenue the state of New Hampshire could generate if it instituted a carbon tax. According to his calculations, if the state priced carbon at $10 per ton, paid for through a gas tax hike of 9 cents, the state could raise between $300,000 and $500,000 a year. He said the money could be used to reduce the state's budget shortfall or to invest in businesses. He admitted that, over time, as carbon dioxide was reduced, the revenue stream would shrink, but that's the whole idea. Colburn said a number of countries have adopted carbon taxes, and China, which he just visited, is considering them. He said of his visit, "We here in America pride ourselves on our 'can-do attitude,' but I see a lot more of it there. They're playing a really good game of chess, and we're, at best, checkers players." Colgan said he believes it's important to come at the current fiscal challeges with more of a scalpel approach. "Reductions in public spending can't be about just dealing with less," he said. "We're faced with some things we have to do more of, even as we do less with others. If we don't, our chances of getting through the next couple of decades is greatly diminished. The basic idea is how do we set up incentives between fiscal capital and natural capital?" He said northern New England and the country as a whole need to deal with sprawl -- "low density, single family residences, reliance on automobiles, allowing the private housing market to provide affordable housing. We have created a very expensive way to live, and it's distributed among local, state and federal governments. How much more of this are we going to continue to do?" Another important factor for New England, he said, is "this huge problem that is going to be imposed upon us by nature." Colgan said, even if global warming were to stop tomorrow, the sea level is still expected to rise five to eight inches in the next 30 years. This is going to translate into costs for storm damage, road deterioration and stormwater problems. "Whether we're borrowing money to repair storm damage or roads, we're going to have to deal with these things," he said. Ober said New Hampshire, in particular, has to put its efforts into "tightening up" the estimated 500,000 buildings in the state, to put people to work and to reduce dependence on foreign oil. He said the effort should start with public buildings, which would save taxpayer money over the long run. "If we can't get it right with public buildings, can we have a chance of getting it right in the broader free market?" Gittell asked why more people in the state and nation haven't been convinced of the reality of climate change. "The stresses of the last couple of years has gone a great distance in undermining confidence in authoritative comments by anyone," Colgan said. "That makes it very difficult to get to the discussions we need to have." "Another piece of this is, 'Will we allow this to happen to us?' If oil continues to climb and heating oil is $4, $4.50 a gallon and stays there, what will that do to us and are we really going to allow that to happen?" Ober said. "There's a pretty concerted effort to keep climate change from raising its head in Washington," said Colburn. "We wonder why businesses don't go to Washington and say, 'It's OK to do this (a carbon tax).' But it's not their job. Winners go to market. Losers go to Washington." Newstex ID: KRTB-1543-50922891

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