4 from Denmark look at Juneau for cruise ship port development

By Sarah Day 

JUNEAU EMPIRE

Four representatives of Copenhagen, Denmark, were in Juneau on Friday learning more about Juneau’s cruise ship berths.

Copenhagen is in the process of constructing three new cruise ship berths, taking down others for urban development and reclaiming an area near the cruise terminals for shipping containers and cars. The construction will be a small expansion of the cruise ship capacity the port can handle.

The comprehensive project will cost 1.1 billion Danish krone, or approximately $250 million U.S. dollars.

The team is investigating the possibility of making shore power hookups at the planned cruise ship terminal mandatory — that includes what the investment would take, if the market would support it, and what the consequences of doing so would be.

Bengt-Olof Jansson, chief technical officer of the Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP) came with electrical consultant Dennis Huusfelt with Ramboll Buildings and Design and BY&HAVN representatives Kirsten Ledgaard, senior head of planning, and Hans Vasehuse Madsen, head of construction. BY&HAVN is the city of Copenhagen’s development corporation for both city and port.

“This trip is to end up with a paper for the politicians giving a recommendation what to do,” said Vasehuse Madsen.

Jansson said he works for both the Danish side of port operations, but also the metro of Malmö in Sweden. Malmö is across the Oresund Sea from Copenhagen and connected by a bridge.

The port is one of the largest Northern European cruise ship terminal operators and has a sizeable share of the car and oil transport market.

Ownership of the port, Ledgaard said, is 45 percent state and 55 percent city owned, and both must agree to the final plan. CMP is a joint venture company registered in Sweden and is half owned by the Copenhagen City and Port Development, 27 percent owned by the City of Malmö and 23 percent owned by private investors. Vasehuse Madsen said it took more than three years to get approval and funding for the project, which has a tight deadline of two years for construction.

That’s a rather short time frame considering the project will significantly transform the port. They have until 2014 to complete three terminal buildings along the new cruise ship berths because of a late change order. The initial draft had tent-like structures and they found it would be cheaper to just construct buildings.

This past season Copenhagen had 250 calls to port and they have 2.5 new ships coming into port every year — so their tourism niche is growing. In the entire global cruise industry, the Baltic Sea service is the third largest.

“We are close to fully occupied in the season to dates that are booked by the cruise managers,” Jansson said. “We haven’t said ‘no’ to date.”

Jansson said one component of looking at shore power is environmental. There is a benefit to having shore power for cruise ships because it means they aren’t burning diesel in port. One dilemma that may come with Copenhagen’s consideration is the amount of wind power available. If the cruise ships take their energy from the city’s second large source of power — coal — it negates the environmental benefit, Ledgaard said.

Choosing an energy source isn’t the only hurdle. Vasehuse Madsen said the cruise ships connect with 60 hertz, while the city is equipped for 50 hertz, so converters would be required.

Another challenge their studies have found is that the majority of cruise ships coming to their port are 20-30 years old and only about two ships per season are equipped with the capability of accessing shore power.

Jansson said it’s currently looking like a bad business case, but positive environmentally. It would cost about 6 million Euro (about $8.26 million) and take 15 years to pay off, based on current potential users.

But they are charged with finding out costs, benefits and challenges of developing shore power at all three new cruise ship berths. Construction includes conduit to run those lines to the berths, but actual connections will be further out once Copenhagen decides the best course.

Jansson said they are a little afraid of pushing forward as a solo port because ships are not easily converted and if the city were to make shore power hook ups mandatory that could push them out of the market. If the other ports along the route — Helsinki; St. Petersburg, Russia; Stockholm and Tallinn, Estonia — also developed shore power requirements, it could be more successful.

Jansson said their study also found the majority of energy spent by cruise ships is actually at sea, not at shore.

The study also investigated how many cruise ships can utilize shore power and found approximately 38 globally.

The group chose Juneau (along with Seattle, Vancouver and San Diego) because it was one of the first to install shore power at a cruise ship terminal and it’s environmentally friendly electricity provided by hydropower. The group wanted to get information on Juneau’s “best management practices” because of the environment aspect.

Kirby Day, who spoke for Princess Cruise Lines, told the contingent about Juneau’s unique situation. He said Juneau, at the time, had excess hydro power and the Lake Dorothy project was in progress. Day said part of the reason for considering the change was because cruise ships had a stigma of creating a smoggy-like atmosphere in a town like Juneau where the port is situated in a bowl.

“This was the one most impacted by visible emissions,” Day said. “Also having a local presence here, having cruises here for 40-50 years, we wanted to find a way to environmentally be a good neighbor and try to solve this issue with at least one of the berths. Back in 2001, people said that will never work. No one had ever tried this before. It’s not like plugging in a coffee pot.”

Day explained how power is now more limited and that if there is limited power for city operations, cruise ship power is cut off.

Day said that there were v80 calls to port at the Franklin Dock this past season and they hooked up to shore power about 70 times, but the 10 or so that had problems were related to software and other technical issues, not necessarily a lack of available hydropower. Day said that about 11 of Princess’ 17 cruise ships are shore-power capable, with the smaller ones generally not having the option.

Drew Green, of Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska told them in Alaska, ports have to grow with one another or they learn a hard lesson and get wedged out of the market.

Green said they’ve also been dealing with environmental issues regarding wastewater discharge. He said Alaska has the strictest rules in the world on it and CLA is working to find a balance by looking at the science behind the rules.

The group also heard from Bryan Farrel from Alaska Electric Light & Power, Jim Dorn about wastewater and from presenters on cruise ship tracking and the Ocean Rangers program.

For more information on the Copenhagen project see bit.ly/tKDmlY.

http://juneauempire.com/local/2011-11-06/4-denmark-look-juneau-cruise-ship-port-development#.TrcpfWCq3e4

Social Sites See Games as Key to Power Grid Savings

Written by Robert McGarvey

Internet Evolution

Can Vasillis Nikolopoulos do what Larry Page, Steve Ballmer, and John Chambers could not? That trio of tech titans has thrown in the towel when it comes to harnessing computer innovation to lower our energy consumption.

Meanwhile, Nikolopoulos, a spunky entrepreneur based in Greece and co-founder of the energy usage monitoring firm Intelen, believes differently.

“There is a huge opportunity here. In an Athens pilot, we drove energy savings of 35 percent,” says Nikolopoulos.

He just may know something the US CEOs don’t. So may Mark Zuckerberg (more on him later).

The core idea in Silicon Valley has been that by using powerful tools -- WiFi, RFID, and the like -- to build out a so-called smart grid, it will be easy to know how much energy a home or business uses and then to find ways to reduce it.

Just one problem: In a down economy, willingness to spring for energy-saving technologies -- such as solar panels or upgrades of attic insulation -- is challenged. And willingness to spend on energy monitoring tools is even scarcer. When you are struggling to pay a utility bill, spending more -- even when it's associated with a promise of eventual cost reductions -- is a tough sell. And this is not changing soon. (Witness the Google-Microsoft-Cisco surrenders.)

Execs on the front line admit as much. Honeywell Automation and Control Solution CEO Roger Fradin recently told India’s Economic Times: "In all honesty, I know smart grids make good press but I think it will take 10 years for it to become a meaningful part of my business... Everybody talks about it, but very few companies are actually doing anything about it."

Nikolopoulos gets that difficulty, but he thinks it will be easy to persuade us to play games where points are earned for cutting energy use. And it gets easier still when the game occurs on the social Web. Call this Energy Efficiency 2.0, says Nikolopoulos; previous efforts have gotten the order of things reversed.

Typically, the effort involved encouraging high-tech investment that would drive behavior change, he said, but that has not worked. What he preaches is using social networks -- at little or no cost -- to drive behavior change that may in turn trigger willingness to invest in greater energy reduction.

Think of this as Farmville, or Mafia Wars, except with positive social benefits involved.

This is where Mark Zuckerberg enters the fray: Facebook recently announced it has joined forces with a firm called Opower to unveil a new app that will turn energy savings into a game. The app is tentatively slated to launch in the first quarter of 2012.

Facebook won’t be the only player in the attempt to drive energy efficiencies via social nets. Nikolopoulos, for instance, says his company, Intelen, is busily developing similar games that he hopes soon to pilot in Boston and San Francisco.

Other players are on the horizon -- such as a startup aptly named Efficiency 2.0 -- because suddenly it seems a solution to this longstanding problem just may be within reach.

And it will be a solution implemented by consumers playing games. Not by technology giants.

Says Nikolopoulos, “In a social net, you will be able to compare your usage with your neighbors, with quick glances at graphs that we can update continuously. This will provide real motivation. People will want to save energy.”

Are there potential problems? Nikolopoulos acknowledges a hot button is privacy; just about anybody could tell if you are home or away, in the office or not, when energy use graphs are online. That needs to be addressed -- probably by camouflaging player identities -- but Nikolopoulos says those are nits that will be picked.

The exciting bottom line is that if these social gurus are right, we are on the cusp of seeing significant energy reductions -- just because of games people play. “When we harness the social network effect, we will see very good results,” says Nikolopoulos.

— Robert McGarvey has been online and writing about the Internet for nearly 25 years.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=852&doc_id=235127&f_src=internetevolution_gnews

Newark Housing Authority Inks Energy Performance Contract with Constellation Energy Guaranteeing $78 Million in Savings

CoGeneration and Onsite Power Production

Constellation Energy and the Newark Housing Authority (NHA) announced the signing of an energy performance contract (EPC) for approximately $50 million in energy conservation measures at 39 housing developments.

Under the terms of the EPC, the water and energy efficiency improvements provided by Constellation require no upfront capital from NHA and are guaranteed to provide more than $78 million in energy cost savings over a 15-year period.

According to a release, NHA will use the guaranteed cost savings to fund the installation of its energy conservation measures. The EPC with Constellation Energy's retail business is a first for NHA, and the third largest for a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) public housing authority.

"This EPC with Constellation Energy allows NHA to conduct another round of physical improvements at our properties while saving millions of dollars on energy costs," said Keith Kinard, executive director for Newark Housing Authority. "Additionally, these improvements will help to reduce NHA's carbon footprint and ensure a healthy and sustainable community for our more than 10,000 residents."

By implementing these energy and water conservation measures, NHA expects to conserve an estimated 102 million gallons of water and avoid the creation of 16,596 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Conservation measures include: energy efficient lighting; boiler controls to reuse waste heat and balance heating system input with outside air temperature; low-flow toilets, shower heads and faucet aerators; cogeneration equipment to produce heat and power; and the decentralization of heating and hot water systems to improve efficiency and resident comfort.

"NHA's actions are a positive step for our city in terms of the environment, the local economy and benefits to taxpayers," said Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker. "I applaud NHA for its continued commitment to energy conservation and to building and maintaining affordable housing for the people of Newark."

Constellation Energy will employ approximately 60 people in the Newark area during the design and construction of NHA's energy efficiency upgrades, and estimates that 200 individuals in total will be involved in providing materials and services for the scope of the project. In addition, Constellation Energy will employ two full-time associate site superintendents through HUD's Section 3 jobs program to assist in monitoring and maintaining energy conservation measures for the duration of the EPC. Energy efficiency work is scheduled for completion by fall 2013.

"During a time when many agencies are looking for ways to do more with less, energy performance contracting is a valuable resource for public entities to leverage their existing operational budget for needed capital improvements," said Michael D. Smith, senior vice president of green initiatives for Constellation Energy's retail business. "Constellation Energy looks forward to working with the Newark Housing Authority to help maximize energy savings and improve resident comfort."

In addition to energy and cost reductions under the EPC, Constellation Energy will support NHA's sustainability goals by providing energy and water conservation education programs to residents.

An NAESCO-accredited Energy Services Provider, Constellation Energy has worked with more than 40 housing authorities throughout the U.S. to implement HUD's Energy Performance Contracting programs.

Constellation Energy is also one of seven National Super Energy Savings Performance Contract suppliers chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to improve the efficiency of federal buildings through energy retrofit projects, energy saving performance contracts and deployment of renewable energy systems.

http://www.cospp.com/news/2011/11/1534243245/newark-housing-authority-inks-energy-performance-contract-with-constellation-energy-guaranteeing-78.html

China to phase out energy-inefficient light bulbs

November 4, 2011

BEIJING (AP) — China announced Friday it will phase out incandescent light bulbs within five years in an attempt to make the world's most polluting nation more energy efficient.

China will ban imports and sales of 100-watt and higher incandescent bulbs from Oct. 1, 2012, the country's main planning agency said.

It will extend the ban to 60-watt and higher bulbs on Oct. 1, 2014, and to 15-watt and higher bulbs on Oct. 1, 2016. The time frame for the last step may be adjusted according to an evaluation in September 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission said.

State-run Xinhua News Agency quoted Xie Ji, deputy director of the commission's environmental protection department, as saying China is the world's largest producer of both energy-saving and incandescent bulbs.

Last year, China produced 3.85 billion incandescent light bulbs, and 1.07 billion were sold domestically, the agency said. Lighting is estimated to account for about 12 percent of China's total electricity use, it said. Xie said the potential for energy savings and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is huge.

The planning agency said China will save 48 billion kilowatt hours of power per year and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 48 million tons annually once the bulbs are phased out.

Several countries plan to phase out traditional light bulbs. The United States is to ban the making and sale of incandescent light bulbs beginning in 2012. The 27-nation European Union agreed in 2008 to phase out the bulbs by 2012. The most common replacements are fluorescent and LED lights.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jYOCxJCUyqDW3ODBUQtjuB2qHPjw?docId=55963ab48a674ea2a73f40d9afd09743

Twin Cities to put urban heat island to the test

A University of Minnesota project will examine urban heat with dozens of sensors, possibly leading to ways to reduce it.

• Article by: BILL McAULIFFE , Star Tribune 
• Updated: November 4, 2011 - 11:35 PM

It's long been known that urban areas generate and hold heat. But now two University of Minnesota researchers are trying to uncover the devilish details about the phenomenon, to help develop ways to reduce energy use and protect human and animal health.

Atmospheric science professors Peter Snyder and Tracy Twine are looking to place 200 temperature sensors around the Twin Cities -- in grassy back yards and bricked-and-paved downtowns -- where the devices will measure temperature every few minutes for the next four years. Snyder and Twine hope their results will show in detail where the metro area's warmest and coolest spots are, and perhaps why. They also hope to reveal the dynamics of urban heat in ways only guessed at until now -- tracking, for example, the differences between the temperatures of surfaces and the temperatures of air, and the southeastward drift of urban heat on prevailing winds.

Beyond that, they envision their study as pushing city planners, architects and others to find ways to make urban areas cooler, particularly in warm-weather months.

"We have a fairly good idea what causes urban heat islands," Snyder said. "I think the interesting part comes when you put that together with the impacts, which are poorly understood, on the urban ecosystem, energy consumption and economics."

Costs of urban heat

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the annual mean air temperature of a city with 1 million people or more can be about 2 to 5 degrees warmer than its surroundings. In the evening, the difference can be as much as 22 degrees. That means higher energy demand and utility bills for air conditioning, greater threats to the health of people unable to escape the heat, and increased risks to aquatic life due to warmed-up runoff. More than 700 deaths were attributed to the effects of record heat in Chicago in July 1995.

Snyder and Twine, whose project is funded by the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, aren't limiting their research to the Twin Cities. They want to use satellite data to develop fine-grained pictures of heat in 100 cities around the world, in hopes of being able to determine the effects of landscape, land use, transportation, industry and other factors on temperature.

Cities occupy a small share of the landscape, "but we're concerned with them because that's where most people live," Twine said.

Heat waves and other phenomena "will continue to occur," Twine noted, "but when they occur in urban areas that already have higher temperatures, it can exacerbate the conditions."

The next step will be for policymakers and builders to figure out how to reduce urban heat. In the Twin Cities, vegetated "green" roofs at Target Center, Central Library and Minneapolis City Hall are major examples of efforts to convert what could be large, heat-absorbing surfaces into cooler ones. But there are other ideas out there that could change the way cities look.

White rooftops

Looking out the window of her Oakland, Calif., office recently, Lisa Gartland, a heat island mitigation consultant, could see white rooftops, now required under California law to reflect heat, rather than absorb it, ideally reducing air-conditioning needs. She has also been trying to persuade developers and even road builders that asphalt need not be black. With pigment, it can even be white, she said.

"Part of it is changing people's ideas of what a city should look like," Gartland said. "Lots of education is needed -- most of it at the level of contractors, municipalities and architects. "

The city of Sacramento realized a savings of $26 million in 1997 through cooling techniques -- mostly from tree planting, said city planner Erik DeKok. More recently the city has required that 50 percent of all parking lot surfaces be shaded. DeKok said developers have taken that requirement beyond trees and have been furnishing parking lots with carports, whose roofs in turn are covered with energy-generating solar cells.

Grass, trees and vines may be the simplest materials for reducing urban heat, Gartland said. Phoenix is one city that is cooler than its surroundings because people have planted so much greenery in what had been a desert, Gartland said. That isn't a panacea there, however, because the city also has water-use issues.

In the Twin Cities, residents might want to hang on to every degree they can in the winter, Snyder acknowledged. And Kathy Klink, a University of Minnesota geography professor who has studied urban heat in the winter, found in a recent study that Minneapolis in winter is already slightly more than 1 degree warmer than surrounding areas, because of a combination of heat from buildings and traffic, as well as plowed pavement.

But heat mitigation strategies would be unlikely to cool the cities in the winter, Klink said. Short days and reflective snow cover both limit the amount of radiation the Twin Cities might absorb and would probably overwhelm any heat-reduction efforts.

Urban American Gothic

Snyder and Klink are relying on volunteer property owners to accept a thermometer, from which students will periodically download data for the next four years. About 50 have been placed so far.

Snyder noted that a digital, urban temperature-reading network is likely to have different demographics from the far-flung collections of farmers and stay-at-homes in the standard picture of weather observers. In fact, the project's title, "Island in the Sun," was "loosely borrowed" from that of a song by the alternative rock group Weezer, Snyder noted. Twine added that being home to jot down numbers every day -- after milking cows, presumably -- won't be a requirement.

"People are busy. But this is easy. You just leave it alone," she said.

http://www.startribune.com/local/133280613.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

Seattle City Light's usage comparison report irks some

By Denise Whitaker Published: Nov 4, 2011


KOMO News


SEATTLE -- Some may say information is power. But some Seattle City Light customers don't like the utility's pilot program that compares their energy usage to their neighbors'. 


Seattle City Light spokesman Andrew Gibbs said the home electricity report was designed to inspire homeowners to think of new ways to conserve energy. 


"We've weatherized a lot of houses, helped people install a lot of efficient light bulbs. We needed to do something a little bit different," he said. 


The report lists how many kilowatt hours the customer is using, then compares the figure to that of the customer's neighbors. The report also ranks the customer in comparison with 99 others in the area. 


Some customers say the report is a waste of money, paper and resource. Others say it's just downright intrusive. But Gibb says it's just information, and the report includes tips on making the customer's home more efficient. 


"It's not trying to judge anyone," he said. "It's not trying to say you're a bad person (if) you're using more energy."


Consumer looking to identify the electricity vampires in their house can check out a kill-a-watt meter from the local library. The meter measures how much electricity each appliance uses. Consumers may then decide to switch to a more efficient model of appliance or change the settings on their computer. 


"And that's really the most powerful thing -- to give people information about actions they can take to make their home more efficient, save money," Gibb said, adding consumers can save $25 for every 300 kilowatt hours cut. 


Customers who do not want their energy use outlined in a home electricity report can choose to opt out. 


Puget Sound Energy also provides a home energy report to customers in East King County.


http://www.komonews.com/news/local/133282843.html

Boulder Votes for Municipal Utility

By STEPHANIE SIMON

Wall Street Journal

DENVER—Voters in Boulder, Colo., narrowly backed the creation of a municipal power authority to replace Xcel Energy Inc., the biggest electricity provider in Colorado.

In a related measure, voters on Tuesday also agreed to pay additional taxes, up to about $15 a household a year, to cover millions in expected legal and consulting costs.

The city can't cut all ties with Xcel right away. The shift to a municipal utility will take at least three years and could be derailed over issues such as how much Boulder will pay Xcel for its infrastructure.

The two sides enter negotiations far apart; Boulder officials have estimated the city could launch its own utility for less than $230 million, while Xcel suggests costs could top $1 billion. The final figure is likely to be settled in court.

"Although we are disappointed in the outcome, we know this is just the first step in a long process," said Ben Fowke, chairman and chief executive of Xcel. He said Boulder had underestimated its costs, and he expressed skepticism that the city would be able to match Xcel's rates.

Boulder city officials have said they would halt the switchover if costs grew too high.

Supporters of the move argue that a public utility would allow Boulder, a liberal college town, to embrace renewable energy and sharply reduce carbon emissions. Xcel relies heavily on coal-fired plants, though the company is converting some to natural gas and has committed to getting 30% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Xcel spent nearly $1 million to try to defeat the Boulder ballot measures, outspending supporters about 10 to 1.

"People like a David-and-Goliath story, and that's absolutely what this is," said Ken Regelson, who led a community group supporting a public utility.

Nationwide, 16 new public power authorities have been formed in the last decade, including 13 that have taken over from private utilities. Nearly all serve communities of less than 10,000, said Ursula Schryver, a vice president of the American Public Power Association, a trade group. Boulder's population is nearly 100,000. The last large-scale municipalization took place in 1998, on New York's Long Island.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904577014231689288216.html

U.S. Embassy air quality data undercut China's own assessments

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times

October 29, 2011,

Reporting from Beijing—

Perched atop the U.S. Embassy in Beijing is a device about the size of a microwave oven that spitsout hourly rebukes to the Chinese government.


It is a machine that monitors fine particulate matter, one of the most dangerous components of air pollution, and instantly posts the results to Twitter and a dedicated iPhone application, where it is frequently picked up by Chinese bloggers.


One day this month, the reading was so high compared with the standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it was listed as "beyond index." In other words, it had soared right off the chart.


"You couldn't get such a high level in the United States unless you were downwind from a forest fire," said Dane Westerdahl, an air quality expert from Cornell University.


But China's own assessment that day, Oct. 9, was that Beijing'sair was merely "slightly polluted."


Not even the most fervent propagandist would call the city's air clean, but the Chinese government made great efforts to improve air quality for the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. Beijing authorities moved huge steelworks out of the capital, switched city dwellers from coal to natural gas heating, raised emissions standards for trucks, and created new subway and bus lines. The cost of the cleanup was estimated at $10 billion, not including the investment in mass transit.


Three years later, the difference between the Americans and the Chinese is at least in part about what they're measuring. And it highlights the rapid growth in the number of cars in Beijing.


Chinese monitoring stations around the capital track large particulates of up to 10 micrometers. The number of those particles has dropped as a result of reforestation programs that lessen the dust storms that blew in from deserts. The Chinese have also been successful in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions by limiting coal heating and imposing stricter emissions standards.


The U.S. monitor tracks tinier particles — less than 2.5 micrometers — that physicians say are capable of penetrating human lungs and other organs. Car and truck exhaust is a major source of fine particulate pollution, a particular problem in Beijing, where the number of registered cars has skyrocketed from to 5 million from 3.5 million in 2008.

for the rest of the article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-air-quality-20111030,0,4899208.story?track=lat-pick

Making Bikes a Part of the Neighborhood

Tom Angotti

Gotham Gazette

The brouhaha in the press about bike lanes seems to have subsided for now and the buzz has turned to New York City’s plan to launch the largest bikeshare program in the country. Highly publicized efforts to erase new bike lanes, like the failed court case against the Prospect Park West bike lane in Brooklyn, may have run out of steam. But in the long run, the battles over street space are bound to move beyond downtown and City Hall to the city’s hundreds of neighborhoods where there are many cyclists and very few bicycle lanes, raising complex and long-neglected issues of transportation justice.

Next year New York City’s bikeshare program New York City’s bikeshare program will place 10,000 bicycles at 600 locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, so that for a minimal charge New Yorkers can get around the city – as an alternative and supplement to private cars, taxis, walking and mass transit. People will be able to pick up a bike at one station and leave it at another. Boston, Washington, DC, Paris and scores of other large cities around the world already have successful bikeshare programs that are expanding bicycle use and changing the way streets are shared.

For the remainder of the article: http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Transportation/20111025/16/3625

Speeding Up Denver Ski Season Traffic ... By Going Slower

• ERIC JAFFE
• OCT 26, 2011

The Atlantic CITIES

On a Sunday in late September, at about a quarter past 11 in the morning, a police car flicked on its emergency lights and raced ahead of traffic heading eastbound toward Denver on Interstate 70. No doubt one or two drivers near the front of the herd thought they were getting pulled over. But the officer driving didn't have speeding tickets in mind. Instead, the cruiser settled in front of the pack and immediately began to travel at exactly 55 mph.

The goal was to act as a pace car for the 2,000 or so drivers making the 27-mile trek from Silverthorne to Empire Junction, toward Colorado's big city. The officer's primary job was to make sure no eager lead foot burst out ahead of the others — in short, to keep everyone in the pack near 55 mph. The event was repeated every ten minutes or so until a quarter past 3 that afternoon. It was the second in a series of trial runs for a traffic management program called "rolling speed harmonization."

for the remainder of this article, http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/10/slowing-drivers-speed-roads-denver/352/

Pipeline Plan Stirs Debate on Both Sides of Hudson

By MIREYA NAVARRO

New York Times

Published: October 26, 2011

A debate that pits energy needs against safety risks is playing out in the New York region as federal officials weigh approval of a natural gas pipeline that would terminate in the West Village in Manhattan.

The $850 million project, developed by Spectra Energy of Houston, calls for 15 miles of new pipeline to run from Staten Island to Bayonne and Jersey City before crossing into Manhattan. Five miles of pipeline between Staten Island and Linden, N.J., would also be replaced.

The new pipeline, the first major one to be built in New York City in decades, has drawn firm support from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and barely a shrug from environmental groups. But with a decision by federal regulators expected early next year, an opposition campaign is gaining some heft. Critics of the natural gas drilling method known as fracking have also leapt into the fray, arguing that the pipeline would abet an environmental ill by carrying some gas extracted through fracking.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, whose approval is needed for the pipeline’s construction, is receiving public comment through Monday.

At a raucous public meeting it held last week in Greenwich Village, more than 300 antidrilling and Occupy Wall Street protesters joined forces to assail the project.

“You’re about to mainline an ecological disaster for the rest of the state,” the actor Mark Ruffalo, the celebrity face of the antifracking movement, said to a standing ovation. “I’m begging you people to stand up for something that’s bigger than our bureaucratic system.”

Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy of Jersey City has steadily denounced the project, saying it would threaten some prime development areas and jeopardize the safety of many of the city’s nearly 250,000 residents. He also asks why six miles of the pipeline would run through Jersey City but only graze Manhattan, given that New York City has greater fuel needs and would be the main beneficiary.

“We run all the risk, and our friends to the east get all the benefit,” Mr. Healy said in an interview on Tuesday.

In the West Village, residents only recently began mobilizing against the pipeline, citing accidental gas line explosions elsewhere, like the one that killed eight people and burned down dozens of homes last year in San Bruno, Calif.

Many seem incredulous that such a project could even skirt their upscale neighborhood, where the meatpacking district was recently gentrified, lush green spaces have been added and ground has been broken on a new Whitney Museum of American Art.

“Why would you develop Hudson River Park if you were going to do this?” Christy Robb, who lives on West Fourth Street, asked in an interview.

Spectra points out that the project has undergone several revisions to meet safety concerns and that it now exceeds federal requirements for pipeline safety. “We’re committed to building one of the safest pipelines in the country,” Marylee Henley, a spokeswoman for the company, said.

The federal energy commission has already concluded in an environmental review that any adverse impacts could be reduced “to less than significant” levels and has recommended approval.

Mayor Bloomberg supports the pipeline as a cleaner and greener alternative to dirty heating oil, which thousands of buildings are expected to phase out under tightened city regulations over the next few years. While some will simply switch to a cleaner oil, others are expected eventually to make the transition to natural gas, which creates fewer emissions than oil and is now at historically low prices.

“In terms of cleaning up the city’s energy supply, this is a great investment,” Mr. Bloomberg’s deputy for operations, Caswell F. Holloway, said of the pipeline.

New York City officials call the need for additional natural gas supplies critical, with two other interstate pipelines connecting to the city’s underground distribution grid already operating at or near full capacity.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey expressed “serious concerns” about the pipeline early this year but has not taken a public position on the project, which is expected to create 1,400 new construction jobs but will also pass by some highly populated residential neighborhoods, particularly in Jersey City.

The Spectra pipeline, up to 42 inches in diameter, would cross the Hudson River from Hoboken to the West Village, connecting with Consolidated Edison’s distribution system beneath West Street via the Gansevoort Peninsula. It will range from 6 to 200 feet below ground.

Spectra says the pipeline will be built in segments of 200 feet each. Construction will rip up roads and disrupt traffic for weeks at a time, the company said, but over 60 percent of the pipeline will be laid in areas where industrial infrastructure, like other pipelines and railroad tracks, already exists above and below ground.

The pipeline would transport up to 800 million cubic feet of gas a day. The company says that 20 percent of the gas has already been reserved by Con Edison to meet the demand in New York City and that the rest will be available to the metropolitan region as demand rises.

Gusti Bogok, a West Village neighbor and a member of the Sierra Club’s Atlantic chapter, said that natural gas posed dangers, including radon contamination, and that New York should be moving toward renewable energy sources rather than creating more demand for a fossil fuel.

“We need a comprehensive plan with different options — biofuels, energy reduction programs, retrofitting,” she said. “That’s where the effort needs to go.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/nyregion/gas-pipeline-to-manhattan-stirs-debate-in-2-states.html?nl=nyregion&emc=ura1