Green

Environmentally friendly, green ways of living

There are 363 posts filed in Green (this is page 15 of 37).

Amtrak through NC hits highest percentage of growth in nation

Rail travel is hugely popular in North Carolina!

Raleigh, N.C. — Amtrak’s Piedmont route, which runs from Raleigh to Charlotte, grew by a higher percentage of riders than any other route in the nation during the last fiscal year, according to the latest data from the rail service.

The route set a new record of more than 162,000 riders and had the best percentage increase of all Amtrak routes, with a jump of 16.2 percent over the previous year, Amtrak said. The 2012 fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

It sure makes me wish the USDOT had awarded our state something more than the paltry $1.5 million from the billions in stimulus rail funding that were awarded two years ago:
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Holding China back

During a recent visit to the wonderful Quail Ridge Books (boy how we need more local bookstores), I picked up a copy of the latest Foreign Affairs magazine. I used to subscribe to Foreign Affairs as an enlisted sailor in the Navy, trying to learn more about why the military was doing the things it was doing. It’s a wonderful (if pricey) magazine. Anyhow, the latest issue has an essay that says China sees America as a bully out to block its rise.

I don’t think that’s an accurate view of America-China relations. If America really wanted to thwart China, however, here’s how it would be done:

  • Keep selling Buicks to Chinese as fast as we can make them. The goal is to make China so car-dependent that its already notoriously-overcrowded streets become permanently gridlocked and the country becomes ever more dependent on oil. Chinese were once happy using bikes and scooters to get around but Buicks and Mercedes are the new hotness. It’s hard to live large on two wheels, right?
  • Export movies to China reinforcing the car-centric culture. See above. It’s all about face and keeping up with the Joneses.
  • Encourage China to build up an oil-dependent military, building a fleet of gas-guzzling ships and aircraft.

With the rest of the world going green by reducing car dependency and building greener military fleets, this strategy should set China back for decades.

“Net-zero” homes coming to East Raleigh?

One of KB Home’s net-zero homes in Tampa, FL


Wow. I’m stunned. I just figured out what KB Home means by the “environmental features” that they hope to build on the Weatherford property next door. KB Home builds “net-zero” homes: that is, homes that produce as much energy as they consume. They call their hyper-energy-efficient home the “ZeroHouse 2.0.” The company describes it this way:

Imagine a home that can save nearly 50,000 gallons of water a year, has an electric bill that could be next to nothing and can be monitored and controlled from your iPhone. No need to just imagine this home of the future, you can now purchase one of your very own . . .

In addition to being designed as a net-zero energy home, the home is ENERGY STAR qualified and WaterSense labeled. By combining an efficient building envelope, energy-conserving lighting, appliances and fixtures with a renewable energy source in the form of solar power system, the home is designed to produce as much energy as it consumes, allowing for a homeowner’s electric bill to be nearly zero. As such, it is estimated to save homeowners’ nearly $6,000 in energy costs annually, when compared to a typical resale home.

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Closing in

The Weatherford property as seen in Raleigh iMAPS, 2012-09-12.


I should’ve known it was too good to last. Word is that the Weatherford property, the 10 acre property across the street from my home, is under contract. I also learned yesterday that the wooded lot behind my home was sold last week.

As for the Weatherford property, the surveyors left marking tape on Monday and Kelly and I talked with executives with the buyer (presumably KB Homes) Tuesday. Their plans include single-family homes around 2500-3000 square feet. They’re said to include “environmental features” that sounded intriguing but weren’t elaborated upon. The lot sizes will be smaller than the 1/3 acre lots that my neighborhood, Bennett Woods, enjoys. This was due to the rising cost of land.

The rep who we spoke with said that our street, Tonsler Drive, made the property “especially appealing.” That means our days of being the last home on the street are probably numbered, though I assume we’ll be the last home on Tonsler proper (due to the existing street numbering) and a new street will begin at the end of Tonsler.
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Why High-Tech Companies Are Moving to the City – WSJ.com

Downtown’s where it’s at. Just ask Red Hat and Citrix!

For as long as many of us can remember, high-tech industries have flourished in the suburban office parks that are so ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and other "nerdistans." But in recent years, high-tech has been taking a decidedly urban turn.

Silicon Valley remains the world’s pre-eminent center of high-tech industry, of course. But even in the Valley, denser, more mixed-use and walkable places, like downtown Palo Alto, are becoming the preferred locations for start-ups and smaller firms. And many other start-ups—Pinterest, Zynga, Yelp, Square and Salesforce.com, to name just a notable few—are taking up residence in downtown San Francisco.

via Why High-Tech Companies Are Moving to the City – WSJ.com.

My local urban woods to become subdivision

Urban deer


I received confirmation yesterday that the Weatherford property, the beautiful 10+ acre woods beside my neighborhood, is under contract by KB Homes. I believe their plans call for a 40-home subdivision with upscale homes similar to the ones in my neighborhood.

Checking KB Homes’s map of its other subdivisions in the Triangle area, this will be the first to be positioned so close to a downtown. That makes me wonder if we’ll see smaller, fancier, less car-centric homes to appeal to the new generation of homebuyers.

I will miss the nearby woods, though. I’ve grown used to mornings quiet enough to hear the call of barred owls, and the occasional encounter with urban deer grazing near my yard. I’m also expecting increased traffic as the dead-end street I live on gets extended to the new neighborhood, bringing more traffic through my neighborhood.
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Bringing a rooftop garden to East Raleigh

I read this interesting tidbit in yesterday’s N&O about a company that builds rooftop gardens for grocery stores and thought my neighborhood would be perfect for this.

  • There are relatively few choices for good, healthy food in my area (a.k.a, a food desert).
  • An often-heard complaint about my local grocery store is the quality of its produce.
  • Said grocery store has lots of rooftop space and a large, southern-facing, sunlit, vacant outparcel nearby.
  • The Brooklyn-based owner of my local shopping center has rooftop gardens on the Brooklyn warehouses she owns.
  • This should be a slam dunk, shouldn’t it? We’ll see!

A New York company has developed a hyper local way to get fresh produce to grocery stores: grow it on the store’s own rooftop – or at least one very close by.

BrightFarms builds hydroponic greenhouses on top of buildings and then sells the lettuce, tomatoes and herbs to local supermarkets. So far, the company’s partners include A&P in Brooklyn, Whole Foods in New Jersey, and Homeland Stores in Oklahoma. Now BrightFarms wants to come to the Triangle.

P.S. The link in the N&O blog entry is broken. The contest URL is http://brightfarms.com/projects/north-carolina-envision-us-here-contest

via .biz – Company seeks roof garden sites | newsobserver.com blogs.

Great coverage of the Duke Energy – Progress coup

I’ve really been impressed with the coverage of the Duke Energy merger fiasco done by the N&O’s John Murawski, such as today’s story on Jim Rogers’s talk with Progress employees. Murawski’s been churning out story after story on this and has even managed to write an especially colorful feature on the Eno River festival in between.

I also enjoyed today’s commentary by N&O editor Dan Barkin, who all-but-laughs at the lame excuses Duke CEO Jim Rogers gave to the N.C. Utilities Commission on Tuesday. If after all the merger’s due diligence Duke was somehow surprised by Bill Johnson’s leadership style and the sad shape of the Crystal River plant then it ain’t Johnson who needs to needs to be shown the door. No, the only ones who got taken for a ride here are the ratepayers and the justifiably-angry commissioners at the NCUC.

This is why I still subscribe to newspapers. Keep it up, boys!

Worlds apart

I was pondering how this weekend’s freak storm knocked power out for over a million people, leaving them temporarily without the comforts of the modern world. I thought about how it’s now 100° outside yet I’m comfortable in my air-conditioned home. I’ve got a refrigerator full of fresh fruit, a comfortable bed, and more fresh water than I know what to do with.

The I thought about Liberia and how less than 1% has electricity. Water is also scarce. Compared to those poor souls, I live like an absolute king. So do 99.9% of Americans.

We are extraordinarily blessed to live in this country. In the grand scheme of things, the things Americans complain about are really insignificant by comparison.

Progress CEO is out as Duke, Progress complete merger

Wow, I didn’t see this coming. Progress CEO Bill Johnson takes whatever golden parachute he was offered and bails. Feels like a bait and switch. If I didn’t have reason to suspect this deal wasn’t a good one for the public, now my suspicions are on high alert.

It makes me all the more curious as to why the public wasn’t privy to the backroom deals that were made to ram this merger through. I sure hope the N&O and other news organizations are successful in dragging these private deals into the light. There’s smoke: now go find the fire.

Duke Chairman and CEO Jim Rogers had been scheduled to serve as chairman and [Bill] Johnson as president and CEO when the two utilities merged to create the nation’s largest electric utility.

However, in the announcement early Tuesday of the formal merger closing and the formation of a new board of directors, the new Duke Energy said Rogers was staying and Johnson was out.

Johnson “resigned” through “mutual agreement” Duke said. He had been a strong advocate for the merger.

via Progress CEO is out as Duke, Progress complete merger :: WRAL.com.