The Biggest Green Power Purchasers

Greenbiz.com in their article has posted, “Intel, PepsiCo, and Whole Foods Market ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 3, respectively, on the EPA’s list of top green power purchasers among the Fortune 500. They received the same rankings in the category of 50 U.S. companies that purchase the most green power.”

The Biggest Green Power Purchasers combined purchases equaled 3,318,162,121 kwh annual green power usage. Cisco, Johnson&Johnson, and Walmart is included on the list of the Biggest Green Power Purchasers that rated highly. The combined green power purchases of the corporations in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership amounts to more than 8 billion kwh of green power annually, which is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power more than 805,000 average American homes.

Corporations Powered By Renewable Resources

The first, second, and third spots in terms of corporations that get 100 percent of the power they use in the United States from renewable resources are PepsiCo, Whole Foods, and Dell. The topped list of retailers that purchase the most renewable energy is Whole Foods. Kohl’s Department Stores ranked second and Walmart came in third.

When voting with your dollars, it’s good to know who’s making an effort.

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Ford Fusion Design, Plug-in Hybrid, Hybrids SUV, Hybrid Cars List, How Green is My Car, and Obama and Hybrid.

~The Biggest Green Power Purchasers~

Source: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/green-power-purchasers.html

Every American is demanding for vehicles with the ability to improve its efficiency as well as increase its gas mileage, especially with the rising of gas prices. The invention of hybrid vehicles is an ultimate answer or such demand.

A hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that is combining two forms of power sources as its generator. A research on hybrid gas mileage is being done continuously to get the best result. Many car manufacturers develop newer and newest design of hybrid vehicles with excellent hybrid gas mileage. Toyota Prius has become the best hybrid gas mileage now. But the developing technology on hybrid vehicles, there might be a replacement in the near future.

hybrid gas mileage

Recently the ratings of hybrid gas mileage looks like impressing compared to the majority of conventional vehicles on the current market. However, there is still a lot more things to do. This is quite significant upon studying hybrid gas mileage’s historical chart.

Car manufacturer promises that a hybrid car will only had 100 mile per gallon (MPG). Such number is achievable now with such technology we have today. This will lessen our dependant on petroleum derivatives. Moreover, we are actively involved in keeping our world green for our future and also for our descendants.

Check out my other pages on battery electric vehicles and electric vehicle association.

• United State cars and light trucks together guzzle 8.2 million barrels of oil every day. This translates to over 300 million metric tons of carbon that comes from our trucks and cars every year.
• Our transportation CO2 emissions are the largest source (about one-third) of our CO2 emissions, more than homes, factories, and all other sources.
• Over the previous decade and a half, all auto companies have enlarged their carbon burden by some degree or another. General Motor is the biggest global warmer, but Prius-producing Toyota has increased its output at an even higher rate – according to Environmental Defense.

Global Warming Effect on the Earth

We can pay attention to these warning signs and alarming forecasts-or we can wait until the problems become even more difficult to control. Here some global warming effect on the Earth.

• Spring comes earlier, fall later, and the growing season has become warmer and longer; agricultural output in poorer countries could be significantly reduced, putting 80 – 90 million poor people at risk of hunger and malnutrition later in the 21st century.
• Arctic ice is thinning and Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up faster. Sea levels are going up. Global warming could augment the number of people affected by flooding by 20 – 50 million people.
• Temperature changes have caused declines in the range and survival of some plant and animal species; entire ecosystems may be lost and others severely impacted.
• Ranges of disease-carrying mosquitoes have spread, carrying dengue fever, malaria, and other diseases.
• Large cities in the United State may experience, on average, several hundred extra deaths per summer.
• Rapid global climate change could bring the planet to the boundary of anarchy as countries fight to defend and secure decreasing water, food, and energy supplies – according to a 2004 Pentagon report.

So, when American consumers can increase their fuel economy about 5 mpg, they would save about 1.5 million barrels of oil every day. Moving the world’s drivers to more fuel-efficient automotive technology, such as green cars with their other alternative fuel vehicles, could be one part of a comprehensive strategy to diminish global warming and its effects.

Beside Global Warming Effect, there are other articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Carbon Offsets, BMW X5, Honda Hybrid Cars, and GM Hybrid Cars.

Source:Hybridcars.com

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One of these is carbon offsets. CO2 or carbon dioxide, a significant greenhouse gas, is the result of human intensive use of fossil fuels like coal and oil. In simplistic terms this is ‘not good’ for human life. One means of doing ‘good’ is by giving attention to offset the equation, by funding projects that lessen our carbon emissions and other greenhouse effect. And carbon offsets is one of the solutions for our living now.

Carbon Offsets: The Definition

A carbon offset is a financial instrument expected to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. Measured of the carbon offsets are in metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂e). One carbon offset denotes the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

Carbon offsets have two markets. In the larger, companies, governments, compliance, or other entities purchase carbon offsets in order to comply with caps on the total amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. In 2006 the compliance market were purchased about $5.5 billion of carbon offsets – representing about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO₂e reductions.

Individuals, voluntary market, companies, or governments buy carbon offsets to diminish their own greenhouse gases from electricity use, transportation, and other sources are the smaller market. For instance, many companies offer carbon offsets as an up-sell during the sales process so that consumers can diminish the carbon emissions related with their service purchase or product – such as offsetting emissions related to a car rental, hotel stay, vacation flight, etc. As individual, purchase carbon offsets to give back for the greenhouse gases caused by personal air travel. In 2008, voluntary markets were purchased more than $705 million of carbon offsets – equivalent with 123.4 million metric tons of CO₂e reductions.

Renewable energy, such as biomass energy, wind farms, and hydroelectric dams are the most common project of carbon offsets to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in the short or long term. Other projects are energy efficiency projects, agricultural byproducts, forestry projects, destruction of landfill methane, etc. Wind turbine projects and energy efficiency are another most popular carbon offset projects.

Western countries’ people, who have become aware and concerned about the negative potential of carbon emissions in human lifestyles and economies, give more attention about carbon offsetting. The Kyoto Protocol – agreement ratified by over than 160 countries – has sanctioned offsets as a way for private companies or governments to invest in carbon offsets which can be traded on a marketplace. Kyoto Protocol also established the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM as its part, which measures and validates projects to ensure the produce authentic benefits. In addition, if the organizations that are unable to meet their emissions quota can purchasing Certified Emissions Reductions to offset their emissions.

Carbon Offsets’ Video

For further information: Kyoto Protocol.

Another articles you may interest in reading: Hybrid Car Market, Expanding the Prius Lead in Hybrids, and Audi A3 The Most Fuel Efficient and Cleanest Cars.

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In 1970s, the actual amount of miles driven has rising significantly since the oil crisis, when the US made admiral movement in reducing carbon emissions in general. Until the 1990s, that is-that’s when they in progress to rise again. Meanwhile, automakers continued to prevent attempts to raise fuel efficiency values. Thus, from the late 80s onward, miles driven increased and fuel efficiency dropped. The result? The problem of carbon emissions increased.

It’s a ‘toxic combo’—more and larger vehicles with higher amounts of miles driven partnered with reduced fuel efficiency—one that equals an increasing of the carbon emissions burden.

But don’t worry. While we cannot surrender our pleasure and dependence of our vehicles, as an individual you can take action to reduce your vehicle’s greenhouse gases, as well to helping to reduce dependence upon imported oil, save your wallet and cleaning the atmosphere we all breathe. Sound good? Very good. Keep reading this information to help make it happen:

1. Go Green: Learn about green vehicle fuels and use these alternative fuel vehicles. Or you can check out the fuel economy and emission information of your vehicle. Begin with the Fuel Economy Guide and Green Vehicle Guide to see how your 4-wheels shape up. Check if you have a FFV or flex fuel vehicle—with over five million flex fuel vehicles on the road recently—your vehicle might just be a ‘FFV sleeper’. Is yours on this list?
2. Go Easy & Maintain . . .: There are many factors shape your vehicle’s fuel economy—and one of the most important is a regular maintenance and easy driving habit. If you use a lighter foot on the gas pedal and brakes, avoid putting the pedal to the metal for rapid accelerations, and lessen idling time, fuel economy of your vehicle will get better and reduce greenhouse effect. The correct of tire pressure will also help in fuel economy.
3. Buddy up: Whether you desire to carpool with your friends, grab the bus, jump on your bike or locomote with your legs, they’re all habits to put your car parked in the garage-and reduce your contribution to the carbon emissions. Let your car in garage and choosing one of these alternatives just two or three times per week, and you can cut 1,590 pounds gas emissions in a year.
4. Plan first: When heading out to ensure of errands, try to combine your trips. When your car’s engine is cold, its consume twice as much fuel in addition to producing double as many gas emissions. So, try to combine your short trips with multipurpose trip with a warm engine and you’ll not only save time, but also your money and reduce your contribution to the carbon emissions.

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Hybrid Pickup Trucks, Hybrid Car Rental, Eco Driving, Porsche Hybrid, Hybrid Car Manufacturers, and Hybrid Cars for Sale.

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This consumer awareness program was met with ‘cynicism’ by environmentalists, who emphasize that the campaign throws a smoke screen over the industry’s slow move toward fuel-saving vehicles. In an interview with hybridcars.com, Jim Kleisch, senior engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists said, “Providing drivers tips on how to improve their fuel economy is helpful, but the industry needs to be doing a lot more than this. Consumers need cleaner and substantially more fuel-efficient vehicles on the showroom floors and until that happen, our economy and our environment are going to suffer.”

The ‘Eco Driving’ program teaches each American driver a set of best practices for driving and maintenance, allowing a typical car owner to ‘augment’ fuel economy about 15 percent. Driving and operation practices consist of: driving at optimum speeds, making the best use of synchronized traffic lights, utilizing proper braking techniques, and deciding when it makes sense to use air conditioning. On the maintenance side, the guidance tackles issues such as choosing which motor oil to use, as well as knowledge the effects of tire pressure.

Much of the information provided is ‘familiar’ sense. The idea is for motorists to start decrease their carbon footprint ASAP without having to purchase a new fuel-efficient vehicle, or wait years on the development of advance technology.

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: BMW Vision, Best Selling Hybrid-4, Hybrid Pickup Trucks, and Hybrid Car Rental.

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But I’ll give some tips and guides, skip buying a new car-save your money-but you can reduce carbon emissions.

Here are four things you can do to reduce carbon emissions which cost a heck of a lot less than buying the most fuel efficient car out there right now, the Toyota Prius.

1. Reduce Carbon Emissions with Switch To Green Power

Green power program is the greatest thing you can do to reduce carbon emissions. Generally, it takes only a few minutes to enroll and costs a few cents more per kilowatt hour. So, when you switching to green power you can reduce carbon emissions about 14,000 pounds (compare with switching to Prius – 5,000 pounds), and it costs just $200 per year.

2. Reduce Carbon Emissions with Eat More Local Food

You need a lot of carbon emissions to distribute your meal from where they were grown to get to your plate (Average United State meal travel about 1,200 miles). But, when you decide to eat more local food, you can reduce carbon emissions about 8,000 pounds and save more than 1.5 times the emission savings of buying a most fuel efficient car. Moreover, with this small a change in spending patterns, will be minimal your monthly budget (some local food may cost more than imported ones while others may be less expensive.)

3. Reduce Carbon Emissions with Simple Steps Do Add Up

There are many ways to reduce carbon emissions. From buying most fuel efficient car, eat more local food, or with green power program. And now, there are simple steps we can do in terms of reducing carbon emissions.

Here some tips and guides you can do to reduce carbon emission (about 5,350 pounds carbon emissions) and save the same amount as buying the most fuel efficient car (cost of under $300 for the year)

• Three days a week take carpool or public transit to work.

• Keep the tires on your car properly inflated.

• Wash your clothes in cold water and then air dry all of them, all the time.

• Install ten compact fluorescent lightbulbs to replace incandescent bulbs.

• Turn down your water heater to 120 degrees.

• Properly insulate your water heater.

4. Reduce Carbon Emissions with Adopt a Vegetarian Diet

Vegetarian habit has great benefits in terms of reducing carbon emissions. When you decide to adopt a vegetarian diet you can avoid the emissions of a bit more than 5,000 pounds of carbon emissions per year. Beside that, you can save about 20% on your monthly food costs.

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Mercedes-Benz ML 450 Hybrid, EPA Gas Mileage, 2009 Lexus GS 450h, BMW Accessories, Lexus Hybrid Car, and BMW Hybrid Car.

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President Barack Obama, has a huge concern about our environmental and reduces our dependence on oil. In Elkhart, Indiana, Barack Obama says, “If we want to reduce our dependence on oil, put Americans back to work and reassert our manufacturing sector as one of the greatest in the world, we must produce the advanced, efficient vehicles of the future.”

And Obama administration announced 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 in Grants for Next-Generation of Batteries and Electric Vehicles. These projects, selected through a highly competitive process by the Department of Energy (DOE), are intended to accelerate the development of US manufacturing to build next generation of batteries and electric vehicles.

The spending is the US government’s bet on battery-powered vehicles—an attempt to overcome the challenges of creating small, reliable, lightweight, and affordable rechargeable hybrid and electric car batteries, as well as the infrastructure to allow drivers to bypass gas stations and charge their cars from the electric grid.

The new awards for next generation of batteries and electric vehicles cover;

• $1.5 billion in grants to US-based manufacturers to produce batteries and their components and to expand battery recycling capacity;
• $500 million in grants to US-based manufacturers to produce electric drive components for vehicles, including power electronics, electric motors, and other drive train components; and
• $400 million in grants to purchase thousands of plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles for test demonstrations in several dozen locations; to deploy and evaluate their performance; to install electric charging infrastructure; and to provide education and workforce training to support the transition to advanced electric transportation systems.

Here a list of the Recovery Act awards for electric drive vehicle battery and component manufacturing are, by category:

Cell, Battery, and Materials Manufacturing Facilities: $1,247 million

Advanced Battery Supplier Manufacturing Facilities: $235 million

Advanced Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Facilities: $9.5 million

Electric Drive Component Manufacturing Facilities: $465.1 million

Electric Drive Subcomponent Manufacturing Facilities: $32.3 million

The Recovery Act awards for transportation electrification are, by category:

Advanced Vehicle Electrification: $215.2 million

Transportation Sector Electrification: $22.2 million

Advanced Vehicle Electrification + Transportation Sector Electrification: $70.5 million

Advanced Electric Drive Vehicle Education Program: $39.1 million

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Ford Fusion Design, Plug-in Hybrid, Hybrids SUV, Hybrid Cars List, and How Green is My Car

Source: GreenCarCongress.com

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We’ve gotten accustomed to taking our reusable bags to the grocery store, but we still haven’t seen a strong shift towards reducing the packaging on the items we place in that reusable bag. And all that cardboard and plastic add up to quite a carbon footprint. How much of a carbon footprint and what impact if we were to cut back on packaging?

Carbon footprint of Packaging: Mystery to Many

Unfortunately, average person lack of knowledge to answer these types of questions. Part of this has to do with poor measurement by manufacturers and a lack of life cycle analysis that measure the carbon footprint of packaging. Groups like the Sustainable Packaging Coalition with their COMPASS are working to change this, helps designers and companies weigh the environmental impacts of their packaging. As the eco-saying goes, what gets measured gets managed. If companies aren’t taking the time to measure more than the price point of their packaging, then the bigger picture, and bigger long-term cost of that packaging is being missed.

In addition, part of the reason numbers are MIA has to do with the lack of transparency in our marketplace. When it comes to the manufacturing of goods, transparency is needed so that consumers can more fully understand the impact of their purchases. That’s one of the reasons for the push for carbon footprint labels on products that look and work similarly to nutrition labels on food products. Packaging—especially excessive and non-recyclable packaging—contributes to a product’s carbon footprint, and consumers, just like manufacturers, need to know by how much when they’re making purchasing decisions. Without this kind of knowledge, it’s near impossible to make improvements.

Carbon footprint of Packaging: the Big Impact

How Much Waste Packaging Generates

• 38 billion water bottles enter U.S. landfills every year—Fast Company
• Of the 66 million tons of solid waste generated by Californians each year, approximately one third is packaging—California Integrated Waste Management Board
• Our landfills contain thirty percent paperboard—American Chemistry
• Over 6.4 billion cardboard boxes were used to ship items via ground or air in 2007 alone—Rapioli
• Containers and packaging account for 31.6 percent by weight and 29.6 percent by volume of the municipal solid waste (MSW) in the United States—US EPA

Our Role in Cutting Our Carbon footprints of Packaging

With average American has a carbon footprint of 20 tons per year and the average carbon footprint of each human needs to be around 2 tons per year, that means we have many homework of reducing to do. There are some easy but very impact ways to cutting our carbon footprints and minimizing and eliminating packaging.

9 Ways You Can Cut Back on Packaging’s Carbon footprint;

1. Buy in bulk whenever possible and store goods in refillable containers.
2. When ordering from Amazon, see if your product comes with “Frustration-Free Packaging“
3. Buy used, since many used items come with far less packaging than new.
4. Choose items with packaging that is reusable in some way, and get creative in how you can reuse, instead of recycle, packaging.
5. Reuse glass containers for storing foods, rather than plastic wrap or foil.
6. Take your own reusable materials out with you, such as a stainless steel coffee thermos, To-Go Ware, reusable bags and so on, to help cut down on consumption of disposables wherever possible.
7. When ordering products online, ask for them to come in one shipment.
8. Avoid anything you don’t really need, and that comes in packaging, such as convenience foods, bottled drinks, and individually wrapped items.
9. Contact the makers of products you buy that have excessive packaging or packaging made of non-recycled materials and give them your two cents. Hearing feedback from customers facilitates change. Get a sample letter here.

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Volkswagen Hybrid, Hybrid Automobiles, Electric Hybrid Car, Saturn Vue Hybrid, and Carbon Emissions.

Adopt from By Jaymi Heimbuch, Read the full story here

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You’ve almost certainly heard the phrase “carbon emissions”, “global warming”, and “climate change” in the same breath, and most everybody has at least a pretty basic idea about where they come from.

And now let us give a little time at this ubiquitous term for these ubiquitous emissions.

Carbon emissions: The basic

Carbon emissions is come from burning fossil fuels which contributes to global warming. Each time when you turn on your car, watching television, travel to work or shopping, clothes washing or board an airplane, you are producing carbon emissions.

Technically, carbon emissions should be called carbon dioxide emissions or you shortened it, carbon emissions = carbon dioxide emissions = contribution to global warming.

Carbon emissions: Who cares?

Who cares about carbon emissions? Carbon dioxide creates the largest contribution to the greenhouse effect, which is what is slowly, yet persistenly, warming our globe. That makes it the most important greenhouse gas out there; it’s currently responsible for about 10 – 25 percent of the greenhouse effect. The next two on the list is methane and ozone, incidentally, do not crack the double digits, so carbon emissions are in the lead, in a bad way, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

All this is to say, really, that we live not only in a carbon-based world, but a carbon emission-based society and economy, and the scope of activities that produce carbon emissions is just huge. Anything involving coal, natural gas, petroleum has a carbon emission ticket attached; that includes all transportation and a whole lot of home heating systems and even barbeques, just as a small snapshot.

Carbon emissions: The science

Here’s a quick tour of the science of carbon emissions. Fossil fuels have ultimately been created of fossil aged feedstocks (think dinosaurs) have been throughout millions of years of Earth’s cycles, and now discover themselves under oceans, in the ground, and other places not often directly in our backyards.They’ve had a long time to “stew,” for lack of a better word, and have a high concentration of energy, which is why someone a few hundred years ago had the idea to use them for fuel.

So, these super-old, carbon-based, previous dinosaurs are dug up and, in one way or another, lit on fire. They have high concentrations of carbon, which, when mixed with oxygen through combustion, create carbon dioxide (or CO2). So, what was formerly interred in the Earth’s crust is now out, and the carbon that was sequestered with it comes, too.

Carbon emissions: Beyond fossil fuels

So carbon emissions are created when we burn fossil fuels, but that’s not the whole story. Activities that are often less prescient to many of us on a day-to-day basis have huge emissions, too. Land use changes – mainly deforestation in the Amazon, Borneo and many other tropic areas – account for almost 10 percent of global greenhouse gases. It’s sort of a matter of addition by subtraction; more carbon emissions stay in the atmosphere as deforestation occurs, since trees and other plant life absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.

Livestock are also becoming a larger player in greenhouse gas consideration; though they tend to supply more methane than anything, they still merit mention here. How do cows play in to this, you ask? Two words: Enteric fermentation. This is the process like cows that takes place in the digestive systems of ruminants; without getting too deep into the microbiology behind it (you can learn more from Wikipedia), basically, it results in an excess of methane being debarred from the animal. That’s right: Cow burps and farts, as well as the decomposition of their poo, are serious contributors to greenhouse gases. Agricultural by products essentially account for more than 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions — and that’s more than results from residential sources.

Carbon emissions: Reducing

Finally, how to reduce your carbon emissions? As an Americans your carbon footprint – the measurement used to estimate your personal carbon emissions – is about 20 tons. If you want to cut that number in half, follow my next posting about how to reduce carbon emissions and you will have lost 10 tons in what seems like no time flat.

Another articles by Johan Young you may interest in reading: Volkswagen Hybrid, Hybrid Automobiles, Electric Hybrid Car, and Saturn Vue Hybrid.

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