let me know when we hit bottom

Slate summarizes:

...unexpectedly grim unemployment numbers released yesterday. While the rate increased only slightly to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, from 9.4 percent, the raw numbers led many to warn that economic recovery isn't on the horizon. The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June, marking the first time the monthly losses increased after they had been steadily shrinking from the January peak of 741,000.

...

In addition to the basic unemployment rate, everyone points to worrying signs from the so-called underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who can't find full-time work and those who have given up looking, that has increased to 16.5 percent.

Let's not hold our breath for a market rally to the good ol' overinflated days, shall we?

solar cells tuned to their location

The new Quantasol gallium arsenide solar cells are more efficient than the common silicon solar cells but do so at specific light frequencies. The cells have been engineered to allow them to be tuned to the light conditions at their location. From the New Scientist article:

That may only be one-tenth of a percentage point higher than the previous world-record holder, but it's the first advance in 21 years. Commercial silicon solar cells are much cheaper than GaAs, but have an efficiency of just 10 to 12 per cent and are also bulkier. The Quantasol device can cope with much brighter light without becoming overloaded, making it possible to use a very small solar cell to absorb light collected by a system of cheap lenses and mirrors.

Gallium is a by-product of aluminum or zinc refinement, and arsenic from copper or gold refinement. I wish I knew more about the energy debt incurred in making a solar cell, and more about the pollution, etc. involved with making these versus silicon chips.

the resilience of hydrocarbon culture

From a recent Globe and Mail interview, Another perspective on peak oil, by Karl Moore of Adam Waterous, global head of investment banking for Scotia Capital and president of Scotia Waterous, a leading firm in mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas business.

Waterous comments on the growing presence of alternative energy in the global energy supply with some conclusions I find very concerning:

If you make some assumptions that alternative energy, wind, solar, grows at a compound annual rate of 15 per cent a year, which is a fantastically successful business – if you have a 15-per-cent compound annual growth rate, that would be stunningly fantastic – I think the number is, by 2030, so, 21 years from now, alternative energy is still less than 5 per cent of total energy consumed in the world [emphasis mine]. Meaning you'd have to have fantastic, fantastic growth rates in alternative energy to ever replace, in any meaningful way, other major sources – primarily hydrocarbons, coal, oil and gas.

Ignoring for a moment the ecological ramifications of that, the sovereingty and security issues with this scenario alone would seem to me to overwhelmingly recommend a more aggressive push to alternatives.

new streetcars for toronto

$355 million from City of Toronto

$416 million from Province of Ontario (416? HA!)

$438 million from Federal Government

------

$1.2 billion Total Cost

From the article

According to Bombardier, manufacturing the streetcars would create more than 5,000 direct jobs and 10,300 indirect jobs in Ontario.

Prototype streetcars will be delivered in 2011 and new cars will be in service by 2012. The cars replace Toronto's aging fleet and will be more energy efficient, larger and more comfortable.

The new streetcars are larger and more comfortable - they can carry up to 50 per cent more transit riders than the older streetcars.

On May 15, 2009, the McGuinty government announced funding for the Sheppard East Light Rail Transit (LRT) project, which will generate about 9,500 jobs.

The McGuinty government also recently announced $8.6 billion in funding for regional transit projects, including the Finch West LRT, Scarborough RT upgrade and extension, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, York Viva BRT, and planning for rapid transit in Hamilton.

Now we just need the newly rejected Federal funding and it's a done deal.

[Infrastructure Minister John Baird] continued to insist that the city's pitch to replace 204 aging streetcars does not qualify for his government's $4-billion federal Infrastructure Stimulus Fund.

“It's a fantastic project,” he said of the streetcar initiative. “It's just not eligible for this program. And [that's] not just a technicality.”

He said the federal stimulus funds are intended for projects that create local jobs over the next two years. By contrast, jobs for the streetcar project would be mostly in a Bombardier assembly plant in Thunder Bay, not in Toronto.

[Baird] offered the city a way it could indirectly tap the stimulus fund: Move up construction projects that can be completed in two years and use the savings to pay the federal share of the $1.2-billion streetcar contract.

[T]he deal with Bombardier Inc. of Montreal is set to expire June 27 if all the funding isn't in place.

That date is also key because, without a deal on streetcars, the city cannot exercise an option to purchase up to 400 light-rail vehicles for “Transit City,” the mayor's ambitious plan to install new streetcar lines across Toronto's inner suburbs over the next decade.

greening toronto

Lots of interesting green roof coverage for Toronto lately.

First - a proposal to turn the Gardiner Expressway into an overhead park.

[The proposed "Green Ribbon"] calls for the addition of a new level about 8 metres above the highway's elevated section from Dufferin St. to the Don Valley Parkway. Columns would be added to the side to anchor a new level, which would become a linear park stretching for 7 kilometres. The estimated costs range from $500 million to $600 million.

It's bold and visionary and I'd love to see this idea explored in more detail and connected to the Don River and waterfront rejuvenation.

Next, the Toronto Green Roof Bylaw

New Green Roof Bylaw Passed By Council

On May 26, 2009 Toronto became the first City in North America to adopt a bylaw to require and govern the construction of green roofs on new development.

The bylaw will apply to all new building permit applications made after January 31, 2010 (residential, commercial and institutional) and January 31, 2011 for all new industrial development.

The new bylaw will be required on all new development above 2,000m² of Gross Floor Area and have a graduated coverage requirement ranging from 20-60%.

There's also the EcoRoof Incentive Program

Toronto’s Eco-Roof Incentive Program is now available for green and cool roofs on Toronto’s commercial, industrial and institutional buildings. There will be funding rounds in the spring and fall 2009. The application deadline is May 1, 2009 for spring funding and the decision is to be made on May 15. Visit the LiveGreen Toronto website for more program details.

I'm ready! Let's do this thing.

Canada's hidden sub-prime problem

The Globe and Mail did a bit of investigative reporting and have come up with a sobering view of Canada's sub-prime exposure. Apparently we're no where near as well-off as we've been led to believe, and we have very few official tools to keep us apprised of the actual situation. What a blind-spot!

In light of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's recent assault on CNBC's financial "reporting", this is a stellar example of the integral value of the fourth estate in keeping democracy and markets functioning properly by keeping public opinion informed with excellent research and challenging questions.

I'm calling it

GM is dead. Their auditors, Deloitte and Touche, have "substantial doubt" about whether they are viable. The taxpayer may even inject that additional $22B "loan" they are asking for to add to the pile of burning capital and the $13B "loan" they already received but i think it's time for us to start expecting the world to be without GM sometime in the next two years.

Understatement of the year: "consumers could be reluctant to buy bankrupt carmakers' vehicles, GM said."

No. Consumers could be reluctant to buy a bankrupt Toyota's vehicles. They were already reluctant to buy a GM vehicle. To anticipate consumer purchasing frequency for a bankrupt GM's vehicle you would have to consult weather forecasts for Hell. 

More vertical farming...

"...the building itself is an organic looking thing."

Yes, indeed. Very reminiscent of these natural structures:

http://images.google.ca/images?ndsp=18&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMG_enCA291CA303&q=venus+flowerbasket&start=90&sa=N

Here is a fascinating document (actually the overhead teleconferenc presentation) by Amory Lovins, Head of the Rocky Mountain Institute:

Negawatts for Fabs

Advanced Energy Productivity for Fun and Profit.

http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E98-03_NegawattsForFabs.pdf

Though the document is specific to semiconductor manufacturing, the concepts, I believe, are transferable to different types of urban infrastructure.

Yet another presentation:

https://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E01-07_ECEEE8FoldWay.pdf

RMI has a wealth of great documents on sustainability.

More vertical farming

This concept recently won an award at the Evolvo Skyscraper competition. Called Dystopian Farm, the building itself is an organic looking thing (see poster).

I'm excited about vertical farms because they envision a partial solution to getting urban populations more involved in the chain of infrastructure that supports urban existance. And anything that can shorten supply chains, build redundancy and enhance diversity is something I am always interested in exploring.

More on vertical farms at wikipedia.

Previous post on sky farming

visibility and power management

Hot on the heels of my last post where I ranted about better use of existing power I noticed this article in the IHT regarding Google's tool "PowerMeter". From the article:

Google is one of a number of companies devising ways to control the demand for electric power as an alternative to building more power plants. The company has developed a free Web service called PowerMeter that consumers can use to track energy use in their house or business as it is consumed.

Google says: "Studies show that access to your household's personal energy information is likely to save you between 5–15% on your monthly bill" (and provides sources and calculations). 

Compare this with this statement from the US Energy Information Administration regarding projected global energy consumption (this is a great read, btw):

World marketed energy consumption is projected to increase by 50 percent from 2005 to 2030.Total energy demand in the non-OECD countries increases by 85 percent, compared with an increase of 19 percent in the OECD countries. 

This suggests that in North America, with increased visibility of consumption patterns alone, we can absorb the next 20 years of economic growth on our existing power infrastructure. If we grow our energy consumption on off-peak hours, we don't need to build new plants; we can focus exclusively on shifting to renewable resources.  

What this says to me is that we're not desperate for new capacity. We need clean, reliable, efficient sources. We need to drop our carbon footprint, but we also need to build a more robust and self-healing system. If we're going to sink $60B into infrastructure, let's build a system that can't be knocked out with a single point of failure. That means we need to invest heavily in innovative research and planning now. We need legislation and taxes that reduce power consumption in all devices and their lifecycles. This is an opportunity to look not just at energy consumption but at design methodology and gear our economy to reward the creation of more desirable technologies. We need to consider power, resource, social and human use of the technologies. Just swapping the battery without looking at the machine is missing the point.

wind power

So Fast Company has an article on a "rural renaissance" from investment in wind power. I'm wary about all this alternative energy source hype; I think it's a money play. Until I see some real commitment to reduced consumption, I will keep thinking this is mostly a bunch of goons dying to get their hands into the public coffers. Yes, we need alternative energy. No, I don't want to see wind farms covering every square inch of the countryside and huge power corridors carrying electricity to the cities at our current rate of energy consumption.

The best solution lies in taxing the hell out of low energy efficiency machines, incentivizing off-peak power use, and investing in truly distributed, decentralized, and pluralized power sources. This secures our power source against any individual point of failure, and prevents the need for excessive numbers of new power corridors. 

In my ideal world, I'd love to see every home produce what they need from a mix of small, clean, and unobtrusive technologies, with a slight surplus they can feed back to the grid. We've got any number of avenues we could be investigating - wind and solar being the two obvious ones but that still leaves any number of clean waste burning techs, piezoelectrics, geothermals. We're not being sufficiently innovative here. Electricity is an atomic level phenomenon. With the right micro- or nanoscale harvesting techniques, we could be capturing power from water running over rooftops or down drains, vibrations from people walking on floors, the sway of tall buildings in the wind. There are opportunties. We're not even trying. Instead we're getting all frothy at the vision of macro-industrialists who can't wait to sink $60B of public money into a 19th Century infrastructure plan. 

the Now happens on Twitter

Israeli troops just rolled on Gaza. Twitter is exploding as the way to get real time information, an aggregate of data bursts and commentary from around the globe.  And, due to it's rapidly increasing popularity for just this type of use, it is apparently unable to cope with the flash mobs of something like a Gaza Strip invasion. 

Doves and a white whale?