The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently announced their list of the greenest cities in the United States and have released their findings on a new web site, called Smarter Cities. The survey includes all cities in the United States with populations larger than 50,000. Smarter Cities is considered to be one of the nation’s most comprehensive and robust database of U.S. urban progress toward sustainability. Seattle ranked number one and San Francisco ranked number 2 among the 67 large cities that were evaluated. Madison, Wisconsin placed firstand Santa Rosa, California came in second among the 176 medium cities that were surveyed. Among the 402 cities that were evaluated, Bellingham, Washington came in first place and Mountain View, California came in second.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the 1.0 version of the Energy Star for Servers specification. This first release only covers standalone servers with one to four processor sockets; it does not yet cover servers with more than four processor sockets, or blade servers of any size. Three criteria are being weighted by the specification: power supply efficiency, virtualization functionality, and energy-efficiency benchmarks and standards for measuring and reporting energy use.
This, the second article in our three part series on green parking lots continues by looking at some of the green parking lot design techniques and materials and how they help make parking surfaces more environmentally friendly and improve the urban space most of us live in. It suggests how smaller lots and smaller parking stall sizes, both acting to reduce the overall size of the parking lot is the very first thing to consider when designing a green parking lot. It then goes on to discuss in some detail the subject of alternate pavers that can absorb rain, allowing it to infiltrate into the ground below and thus substantially reduce runoff.
Take even a passing glance at an aerial picture of any urbanized area and it is amazing how much of it is paved over to provide for the various highways, arterials, feeder roads, alleys, drive ways, parking lots and roadside parking spaces that our car clogged cities require. Look more closely and one quickly discovers that a significant portion of this paved over space devoted to the car and getting around is comprised of parking lots as well as the ubiquitous curbside parking strips so common in almost all urban settings. This two part series looks at the problems that parking lots, curbside parking strips and other non road paved areas exacerbate; it then goes on to illustrates various ways in which we can make these facilities greener and how doing so can improve the urban environment; lessen its impact on waterways and beautify the urban spaces all at the same time. Promoting the adoption of green parking lots and roadside parking strips is win-win scenario.
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The GREEN CLOUD UPDATE, a regular feature that covers current news in the green cloud computing space looks at the following stories: The Environmental Protection Agency will announce Energy Star performance rating for data centers; Advanced Micro Devices introduces new Energy Efficient processor, designed for very dense data center environments; SAS to build USD 70 million cloud computing facility built according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for water and energy conservation.
EPA today released a list of the nation’s top green power purchasers. These organizations are all participants in the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with purchased electricity use. The Partnership currently has hundreds of Partner organizations voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, small and medium sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, and colleges and universities. The list this year’s top green power purchasers is led by Intel Corporation, PepsiCo, Kohl’s Department Stores, Dell Inc., Whole Foods Market, The Pepsi Bottling Group, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, U.S. Air Force, Cisco Systems, Inc. and the City of Houston.
As part of its Earth Month outreach efforts, EPA today launched “Pick 5 for the Environment,” encouraging the public to commit to taking at least five actions to protect the environment. Pick 5 helps people identify ways they can protect their environment and makes use of social media sites to allow them to share their tips and stories. Since April 1, EPA has issued daily green tips via podcasts and email subscription. EPA is asking the public to pick 5 of the 10 actions listed below and then to share their own thoughts by using a variety of social media sites.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that after a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, it has issued a proposed finding that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare. While briefing members of Congress in advance of issuing this ruling the agency said that it had found the science supporting the so-called endangerment finding “compelling and overwhelming.”
