Architects vow to cut emissions

According to certain scientific calculations, buildings and the embedded energy within their interiors account for an estimated 48 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, far more than the 27 percent for transportation and 25 percent for industry. Additionally, 76 percent of all electricity generated by power plants goes toward operating buildings. If current trends continue, it is anticipated that annual energy consumption in the United States will increase by 37 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by 36 percent in the next 20 years.

The AIA (American Institute of Architects) and the U.S. Conference of Mayors seek to reverse this trend by setting a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030. The plan will reduce the use of fossil fuels in buildings by 60 percent in 2010, 70 percent in 2015, 80 percent in 2020, 90 percent in 2025, and full carbon neutrality by 2030.

At NWA - Landscape Architecture & Construction (www.NWAlandscape.com), we are committed to less emmisions and healing the environment. NWA is a petroleum-free firm with all employees using 100% biodiesel, in our relentless pursuit of always doing better.

SF Mayor Announces Citywide Biodiesel Plan

Last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Directive designed to increase the pace of municipal use of biodiesel. He issued a directive that requires virtually all city diesel vehicles to run on B20. The City uses about 8 million gallons of diesel a year.

Among other things, the directive states:

• Central Shops and individual department fleet managers shall identify, and prepare for, vehicle and equipment applications that can most quickly be transitioned to biodiesel.
• All diesel-using departments shall draft a report listing all diesel vehicles and diesel equipment and send it to Department of Environment by July 1, 2006.
• All diesel-using departments shall begin using a B20 biodiesel blend as soon as practicable in all diesel vehicles and other diesel equipment, with the following incremental goals in each department’s use of B20:

1. Initiate and complete biodiesel pilot project by December 31, 2006;
2. 25% by March 31, 2007; and
3. 100% by December 31, 2007.

Since 1999, the City’s Healthy Air and Smog Prevention ordinance has established requirements for City fleets to purchase vehicles using alternative fuels or energy-efficient vehicles with low emissions. San Francisco now has more than 800 alternative fuel vehicles in its fleets.

Several City departments and agencies have successfully used B20, including San Francisco Airport, Department of Public Works, MUNI buses, the San Francisco Zoo and ferries operating out of San Francisco.

Oregon Wineries switch to biodiesel

Excerpts from Wine Spectator: Would You Like Fries With That Pinot Noir? (Lynn AlleyOnline November 8th, 2005)

Talk about wine and food pairing. With gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon, threats increasing to the U.S. oil supply and concerns risingover global warming, several West Coast wineries are powering theirtractors, delivery vans and, in some cases, personal cars with recycled cooking oil.

So far, Oregon seems to be at the forefront of the biodiesel movement in the wine industry, with at least eight wineries having made the switch.

Jim Bernau, owner of Willamette Valley Vineyards (WVV), said he became interested in biodiesel more than 10 years ago when university researchers and fuel garagistes began fooling around with the idea. (In fact, the use of vegetable oil in vehicles dates to 1892, when the original diesel engine, invented by Rudolf Diesel in Germany, waspowered by peanut oil.) As an experiment, Bernau made biodiesel himself for use in his tractor, but he decided it was too much work for a sustained effort.

Things have gotten easier since then. Oregon now has its own major biodiesel producer, Portland-based SeQuential Biofuels, which got its start in 2002 and obtains cooking oil from local companies such as Kettle Foods, which makes potato chips and tortilla chips. The company delivers to a growing number of Oregon businesses and also provides self-service pumps along the I-5 corridor through the Willamette Valley so that vehicles can fuel up at regular gas stations.

In August, SeQuential installed a pump at WVV. Now the winery's tractors, the cars of its employee and the six delivery vans for its Bacchus Fine Wines distributorship can fill-up on site. Shelby Zadow, WVV's customer relations coordinator, said employees are being offered 50 gallons of free biodiesel per month for their personal vehicles as an incentive to switch over. Zadow, who recently purchased a VW Golf TDI, is now using biodiesel for her 100-mile round-trip commute from Portland to the winery.
Even using more expensive biofuel, we are saving money, Bernau said. With the more efficient diesel engine vehicles, we went from gas vans at 8 to 10 miles to the gallon to vans of greater capacity with 26 miles to the gallon.

Among the other Oregon wineries using biodiesel are Argyle, Belle Pente, Bethel Heights, Mahonia, Witness Tree and Lemelson, where owner Eric Lemelson is running seven tractors on b50 and says he is happy with their performance.

There are likely to be more converts in the near future, especially if Oregon enacts tax credits for consumers and producers of biofuel, as part of Gov. Ted Kulongoski's renewable energy plan. Ed King III, owner of certified organic King Estates, plans to investigate the use of biodiesel. He said, Eliminating the use of fossil fuels on the farm isthe missing piece of the puzzle in farm sustainability.

Bioremediation in New Orleans

Disasters often provide opportunities to test new technologies 1. because things are so badly off that the government foregoes the usual hoops that otherwise would price out small cutting-edge operations, and 2. because any help is appreciated to address long-term problems. That said, disaster areas provide a real-world lab in which to experiment and easy to identify results measured against other traditional remedies that are concurrently taking place to deal with the same general problems. In the case of New Orleans, the problem is a toxic gumbo adding to an area already referred to as "cancer alley" (the lower Mississippi from Baton Rouge to New Orleans).


"Bioremediation" means cleaning soil and water and restoring it to health using beneficial bacteria, plants and fungi. Restoration on the scale of New Orleans is an overwhelming project, but many techniques are applicable on a small scale. One group has been working on a proposal to fund and train a worker's cooperative that would be able to put them into practice.