January 16th, 2019 by Nicolas Zart on Clean Technica The air taxi space is crowded — if not on paper, then with prototypes and flying demos. Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company, is a global helicopter leader and no stranger to the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) world. It announced the Bell Nexus, a hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft a few …
Viewing Victoria’s Passive Houses
August 31st, 2017 by Roy L Hales Originally published on the ECOreport. When I first interviewed Rob Bernhardt in 2014, you could count the number of British Columbia’s passive houses on your fingers. The Bernhardts built the first certified passive house in the Victoria region. Rob went on to become the CEO of Passive House Canada. I recently interviewed him again, during a quick peek at …
Growing cycling and walking adds to Vancouver’s downtown and business income
By Roy L Hales, on the ECOreport. 26 June 2017 Contrary to what some urban business owners expected, the global shift to alternate transportation has not adversely effected their revenue streams. A study from Portland, Oregon, found that “cyclists spent less than drivers on grocery trips, but more at restaurants, bars, and convenience stores.” The average pedestrian or cyclist in Manhattan’s East Village spends …
Will the US miss out on a trillion dollar deal?
December 20th, 2016 by Roy L Hales Originally published on the ECOreport. The incoming President boasts about his ability to recognize and make deals. But does Donald Trump recognize the value of initiatives like fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, appliance standards, and the Clean Power Plan? Will Trump miss out on a trillion dollar deal? The United States is already recouping about $30 billion a …
Fast charging (by solar and wind) rolls out in The Hague, Netherlands
December 2nd, 2016 by Roy L Hales Originally published on the ECOreport. Billions of euros are being invested into Europe’s EV market. Most of the industry’s best known vehicles are available. The race to build the infrastructure, which can help make them the vehicle of choice, lags behind. Ford, Volkswagen Group, BMW Group, and Daimlerare entering into the race with joint plans to develop 400 sites …
Modelling the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Hamburg
September 30th, 2016 by Roy L Hales. Originally published on the ECOreport. Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein have achieved Germany’s renewable target for 2025. They already obtain 40% of their energy from renewables on an annual basis. A technological breakthrough, the digitization of industry, will be required to go further. This region of 4.5 million people expects to obtain 70% of its energy from renewables by 2025 and …
Kids may go back to court to fight Washington State’s minimalist response to judge’s orders
The state of Washington has a legal obligation to protect its citizens from the negative impacts of climate change. Eight Seattle high school students have already established this in court, three times. After their last victory, on May 16, 2016, King County Superior Court Judge Hollis R. Hill ordered the state to adopt “a rule to limit the state’s greenhouse gas …
The World’s first “100% renewable” grid
Originally published by the ECOreport. March 15th, 2016 by Roy L Hales Younicos has just announced that construction of the world’s first “100% renewable” grid is underway. The battery storage comes from Leclanché’s lithium-ion technology and manufacturing plant in Germany. According to Leclanché CEO Anil Srivastava, this will be the first time “a one megawatt-scale power system is being stabilized using batteries – without …
These companies are trying to predict what climate change will do to real estate investments
By Diana Olick, CNBC, Aug 8, 2019 WATCH NOW VIDEO 03:56 The race is on to predict climate risk, and these tech start-ups are in the lead Investors are turning to a new breed of high-tech start-ups that can measure the risk climate change poses to real estate — from an hour to decades into the future. And these firms …
One in four U.S. homes is all electric. Share of houses with heat pumps instead of gas heating rose from 8% to 12% between 2005-2015.
MAY 1, 2019 One in four U.S. homes is all electric USEIA Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration; 2005, 2009, and 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Surveys A growing number of homes in the United States are all electric, with 25% of homes nationwide using only electricity according to EIA’s 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS). The share of all-electric homes has risen in each census …