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From Green Right Now Reports City CarShare, a Bay Area nonprofit organization, today announced plans to provide shared electric cars to Bay Area residents and businesses. The car sharing electrification program, called “eFleet,” will provide vehicles, charging station infrastructure, and promotional programs as part of regional efforts to make the Bay Area the leader in electrified transportation. The initial stage of eFleet is budgeted at $2.5 million, largely funded by a $1.7 million Climate Innovation Grant through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is partnering with City CarShare to administer and implement the grant program. City CarShare officials said the initial 2-year phase of eFleet will make more than 30 electric-based vehicles available to City CarShare members, and will provide the charging station infrastructure to host CCS vehicles and provide station access to the public. Technology for managing an electric fleet will be provided, along with outreach programs designed to overcome concerns about EVs in order to promote adoption and usage. Based on experience-learned during this phase, City CarShare said it will work with other transit-oriented car share organizations to develop best practices for car sharing and other fleets. City CarShare estimates the Bay Area will see an eFleet usage rate of 20,000 unique trips in electric-based shared vehicles by year-end 2012. During the first two years, an estimated 12,000 tons of CO2 emission will be saved due to the use of CCS’s electric vehicles, the company said. Besides the MTC, organizations supporting City CarShare’s eFleet program include the SFCTA, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Bay Area Climate Collaborative, the Cities of Berkeley and San Francisco, and the University of California San Francisco, among others. City CarShare said its eFleet programs will initially focus on locations in Berkeley and San Francisco with plans to expand to Oakland and other Bay Area locations. The United States and other nations say they are committed to a greener future. That commitment has been helped in recent years with millions of dollars of investment in cleaner fuels technology – and as VOA’s Rebecca Ward reports – the investment seems to be paying off:  Aviation Week & Space Technology looks at the future of green technologies. From Green Right Now Reports Much progress has been made in recent years in the development of biofuels made from microalgae, animal fat and other non-petroleum-based substances, and they likely will be approved for use in aircraft by the middle of next year, according to a report in the new Aviation Week & Space Technology. This week’s Green double-issue of the trade journal examines biofuels and other environmental-related breakthroughs across the aviation industry, as it commits increasing resources to develop and utilize a range of advanced technologies that will allow airlines to operate much more efficiently and greatly reduce carbon emissions. Industry teams believe electric propulsion will be able to reduce fuel burn by 70-90 percent, although it is still 20-25 years away from use in commercial aviation. “We are seeing the aviation industry take a combination of critical steps necessary to achieve carbon-neutral growth by 2020, not just through biofuels but also operating smarter, modernizing their fleets and making significant infrastructure improvements,” Anthony L. Velocci Jr., editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology, said in a statement. “Faltering economies may have taken the heat off global warming as a political issue, but the pressure is still on aviation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions if it wants to grow and avoid onerous regulatory dictates.” The special report on Green aviation also notes that after decades of research, drag-reducing laminar flow has reached a turning point, with NASA hoping to achieve fuel-burn reductions of 5-12 percent, and with Boeing planning to apply hybrid laminar flow to the next 787 passenger jet. To upgrade facilities and make them more energy-efficient, airports and maintenance, repair and overhaul hangars are leveraging Green building practices and products, the journal reports. Certified Green buildings consume about 26 percent less energy, according to a U.S. General Services Administration survey. |
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