Frankly Green

PiCycle - The Electric Bicycle

Check out this LA Times video review of the PiCycle. The PiCycle is made by a company called PiMobility, based in Sausalito, Ca. Marcus, the founder, was kind enough to let me take the PiCycle for a spin one evening when we met at an event. In addition to the super cool design, the bike is rock solid, handles well and is quick! Very cool bike!! Check out the video.

 

World's First Sun-Powered City

Australian Town First to Ban Bottled Water

Kudos to Bundanoon for banning bottled water! Let's hope many more follow!

Link to Article

An Australian town pulled all bottled water from its shelves Saturday and replaced it with refillable bottles in what is believed to be a world-first ban.

Hundreds of people marched through the picturesque rural town of Bundanoon to mark the first day of its bottled water ban by unveiling a series of new public drinking fountains, said campaign spokesman John Dee. Shopkeepers ceremoniously removed the last bottles of water from their shelves and replaced them with reusable bottles that can be filled from fountains inside the town's shops or at water stations in the street.

"Every bottle today was taken off the shelf and out of the fridges so you can only now buy refillable bottles in shops in Bundanoon," Dee told AFP.

Pacific Garbage Patch Expitition Finds Plastic, Plastic Everywhere

Thanks to Eleanor P. for this article!

By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News
Link to Article

Scientists who returned to the Bay Area this week after an expedition to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" brought piles of plastic debris they pulled out of the ocean — soda bottles, cracked patio chairs, Styrofoam chunks, old toys, discarded fishing floats and tangled nets.

But what alarmed them most, they said Tuesday, was the nearly inconceivable amount of tiny, confetti like pieces of broken plastic. They took hundreds of water samples between the Farallon Islands near San Francisco and the notorious garbage patch 1,000 miles west of California, and every one had tiny bits of plastic floating in it. And the closer they sailed to the garbage patch, which some researchers have estimated to be twice the size of Texas, the more plastic pieces per gallon they found.

Casco Bay Islanders Embrace Bottle Return Program

Thanks to my friend Bill H., who helped start the CLYNK program, for sending this. Word is that CLYNK is looking to expand to Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon!

Portland, ME - A returnable bottle program called CLYNK is making it easier for islanders to recycle. Many people on Casco Bay islands who might have wanted to recycle bottles and cans often tossed them in the trash instead. But the Casco Bay Ferry crews now pick up the special green plastic bags filled with returnables. CLYNK is in nearly two dozen Hannaford Supermarkets in Maine. People sign up for an account, buy the special bags, fill them up, drop them off at the stores and get their deposit refunds from their account. Island residents leave the bags at the end of their driveways and they are collected with the trash on Monday mornings. By making it easier for islanders to recycle it's expected that the waste stream on the islands will be reduced by at least 15 percent.

Link to Article

World's Ocean Temps Warmest Recorded

At 62.6 degrees in July, that's a full degree above 20th Century average

Link to Article

WASHINGTON - Steve Kramer spent an hour and a half swimming in the ocean Sunday — in Maine.

The water temperature was 72 degrees — more like Ocean City, Md., this time of year. And Ocean City's water temp hit 88 degrees this week, toasty even by Miami Beach standards.

Kramer, 26, who lives in the seaside town of Scarborough, said it was the first time he's ever swam so long in Maine's coastal waters. "Usually, you're in five minutes and you're out," he said.

It's not just the ocean off the Northeast coast that is super-warm this summer. July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping.

We're Ready!

Ship of Plastic Bottles to Send Eco-Message

Trek across Pacific will be atop 10,000 empties and dome with shower
Link to Article

SAN FRANCISCO - You've heard of a ship in a bottle. How about a ship made of plastic bottles? That would be the Plastiki, designed to sail the Pacific on an 11,000-mile voyage highlighting the dangers of living in a throwaway world.

"Waste is fundamentally a design flaw. We wanted to design a vessel that would epitomize waste being used as a resource," said expedition leader David de Rothschild.

The boat is named in honor of the 1947 Kon-Tiki raft sailed across the Pacific by explorer Thor Heyerdahl, an ocean adventure that inspired de Rothschild.

There's a bit more of a tie-in. One of the Plastiki team members is Josian Heyerdahl, the explorer's granddaughter.

California to Require Climate Friendly Car Windows

While I support the idea of reducing emissions, I think there are better ways to do it than to make mandates like this. Rather, I would prefer to see incentives for the automakers to address all aspects of emissions (not just glass). How about simply tightening overall emission requirements and let the auto makers figure out how to accomplish it. Glass may be one approach but there are certainly others. Sad thing is that most automakers, especially U.S. automakers, have been reactive, not proactive. Companies like Toyota have eaten their lunch. And companies like Tesla have gained real traction. Innovate or die!

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Carmakers, cell phone firms complained about sun-reflecting glass
Link to Article

California air regulators voted unanimously Thursday for a mandate requiring auto manufacturers to include sun-reflecting glass on all vehicles sold within the state by 2014.

The move by the California Air Resources Board was intended to keep cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles cooler during hot weather, reducing the use of air conditioning.

That was expected to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"The end result of it is the customer gets a car that's more comfortable to ride in, air conditioners don't have to work as hard, and the atmosphere will be happier because we won't be emitting as much carbon dioxide," said board chairwoman Mary Nichols.

Toyota's Plug-in Hybrid

  -- we may start seeing them by the end of the year.
Link to Article

More than 10 years ago, Toyota took a look at the alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles -- battery electrics, fuel cell, hybrids, diesel -- and made a decision that, for now, at least, hybrids was the way to go.

They built the Prius, now in its third generation, and we know the wild success that car has had. But it's still not enough. Even though the 2010 Prius is rated at 50 mpg on the highway, the nascent plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) industry has shown that you can get the equivalent of 100 mpg.

Now Toyota says it's making its own PHEV and it will available for lease by the end of 2009.