Eco-News on the Net

From A To Green

     

What can China teach us about electric bikes?
by Alan Durning

In part 2, I described the extraordinary growth of electric bikes in China, which grew from novelty items in 1998 to almost one e-bike per ten people today. What caused this growth? What can we learn from China about overcoming the Northwest’s four barriers to e-bikes?

The economic context of e-bikes is radically different in China than in the Northwest. In China, most buyers of electric bikes are stepping up in vehicular speed and comfort from heavy, low-performance bicycles. They are opting for electric bikes not in place of cars but in place of bicycles, motorcycles, or scooters. In the North America, e-bike buyers are stepping down in vehicular speed and comfort from the automobile. (Actually, they’re mostly buying an additional vehicle, to use in place of their car some of the time.)

Chi-Jen Yang, a policy analyst at Duke University, has examined Chinese experience with electric bikes in detail. He argues that their proliferation over the last decade has been “a policy accident.” Overrun with noisy, dangerous, fast, polluting motorcycles, more than 90 major Chinese cities have cracked down by banning or limiting new licenses for motorcycles. But they haven’t regulated electric bikes—even electric bikes (like many in China) that are essentially motor scooters with decorative pedals. So motorcycle demand, burgeoning with China’s economic miracle of the last decade, has switched to electric bikes.

Yang’s research suggests that technological advances and market forces had little to do with China’s e-bike miracle, which helps explain why electric bikes are still outmatched by other technology in North America as well. He strengthens his case by demonstrating that across the Formosa Straits, Taiwan launched massive national subsidies for electric bikes and electric scooters in 1998, intending to trim urban motorcycle pollution and speed as Chinese cities were doing. Taiwan spent tens of millions of dollars making electric two wheelers cost competitive with gasoline-powered ones, but it abandoned the program four years later as futile. Not only were consumers reluctant to buy electric vehicles, many retailers refused to sell them. Yang quotes one scooter retailer as saying, “for every ten consumers who purchased an electric scooter, ten of them would come back to complain.” Unlike China, Taiwan did not ban or restrict motorcycles, and no amount of subsidy could flip the market toward electric vehicles.

A decade has passed since Taiwan’s failure, and electric-bike (and scooter) technology has improved, but Yang’s point remains:

Subsidies resulting in comparable price and superior environmental performance may be insufficient to make electric vehicles a commercial success, while limiting the fossil fueled alternatives could be highly effective in forcing the market penetration of electric vehicles. These market dynamics may also apply to the wider electric vehicle market.

Electric bikes, as the forerunners of electric cars and trucks, have tremendous potential, but they’re unlikely to win more than a toe-hold in a marketplace long dominated by petroleum-powered vehicles. Unless public policy makes petroleum-powered vehicles far less attractive, as China did for motorcycles. Petroleum is just too phenomenally effective and (still) cheap. Electric bikes will inch upward in market share in the Northwest, becoming less like novelties and more like regular bikes in their prevalence. But they will not sweep through the population as they have in China, unless we act through public policy to make their fossil-fueled competitors less competitive and cycling in general much more attractive. Specifically, we can:

Enact climate policies that put a price on carbon through a carbon tax or a fair cap-and-trade system. A shielded bikeway.Make dramatic progress in threading a complete network of continuous, separate, named, signed, and lighted bikeways through our communities, so that cyclists (pedal and electric) are shielded from auto traffic, as shown in this photo from Copenhagen. Progress such as that envisioned in Portland’s bold new bike plan. Grow our cities up rather than out, constructing compact communities where walking, cycling, and transit are better alternatives than driving for many trips. Density, not infrastructure, is the main determinant of cycling.

Electric bikes are promising. They deserve our respect. Their champions, manufacturers, and retailers deserve our encouragement. But the biggest favor we can do for them is not to subsidize them but to change the price of fossil fuels, the layout of our streets, and the design of our cities—creating the kinds of places in which cars become less necessary and bikes become more normal.

The hope that electric vehicles, perhaps led by electric bikes, will displace petroleum-fueled vehicles rapidly, simply by out-competing conventional vehicles on cost and performance is wishful. On the 40-year timeline we have to effect a near phaseout of carbon emissions, it is dangerous thinking—magical thinking. The only way the electrification of transportation will work is if we do what China did: write laws that make the alternatives—fossil fuels, in this case—accountable for their ecological consequences.

That’s not a welcome observation, I realize. We’ve met with setbacks and disappointments on the path to strong climate policy in the past year, first in the Oregon and Washington legislatures, then in Copenhagen at international climate negotiations, and more recently in Washington, D.C. There’s something appealing right now about the notion of sidestepping politics entirely and instead inventing our way to an economy beyond carbon. I do not believe that’s possible.

I do not believe it because, over 25 years of studying issues like these, I’ve observed again and again the same patterns evident in this “Parable of the Electric Bike.” Clean technology has enormous potential, but it rarely sweeps a market unless laws make prices tell the ecological truth or otherwise constrain unsustainable practices. Carrots alone don’t usually work—even lots and lots of carrots; we also need sticks. Voluntary, market-based strategies rarely suffice, though they do demonstrate what’s possible and create momentum for changing the rules. Technology cannot solve problems created by bad public policy, but good public policy can unleash the potential of technology, leading to better solutions than we previously imagined.

So, go ahead and buy an electric bike—or an electric car—if you like. Surge up hills. Haul bigger loads. Replace some more car trips in your own life. Sing the body electric. I might do the same.

But let’s not get distracted from the real work before us, which is to change the rules by which we get and sell fossil energy, and by which we build our streets, neighborhoods, and cities.

Electric vehicles aren’t the answer to our prayers. We are.

This post is part of the series The Parable of the Electric Bike on Sightline’s Daily Score blog.

Related Links:

Four obstacles facing electric bike popularity

Should electric bike sales be subsidized?

Bike Curious in Rhode Island (video)




Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on Bruce Willis
by Umbra Fisk

Dearest readers,

Do you know what today is? Why, yes, smarty pants, it is Friday, March 19, but more to the point, do you know what momentous occasion occurred on this date 55 years ago? Indeed, my speedy Googlers, Bruce Willis’ birth! And to honor the day that brought us the star of such gems as Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, and the now-in-development Die Hard 5, I’ve combed the archives to find some words of wisdom related to my pal and yours, Bruce Willis. I may have had to stretch just a smidge to make some of them work for the theme, but in the end, I do believe BW would be proud. Want to share your favorite Bruce Willis moment in history? Hit me up in the comments section.

Live Free or Die HardAh, nothing says Fourth of July more than Det. John McClane blowing up terrorists and Americans blowing up fireworks. Although fireworks do give off carbon dioxide, they aren’t egregious greenhouse-gas offenders. The more serious pollutant is potassium perchlorate, used as an oxidant in fireworks. Perchlorate, which messes with our thyroid glands, falls to the ground as the firework fades, and often into water. Is it toxic enough to stop once-yearly use? Meh, it’s your call. Get the full Ask Umbra answer. The Sixth SenseOh man, Haley Joel Osment scared the bejeezus out of me in this flick, with his, “I see dead people” stuff. I’m all like, can you see me?! Does that mean…? Nooo! The time will come when, yes, Haley Joel Osment will be able to see us all. And when it does, you don’t want to leave your carbon footprint hanging around. Traditional cremation is less polluting than modern burial. I know, you’re as surprised as I was. Modern burial involves formaldehyde-y embalming fluid, concrete vaults, and lots of lawn mowing and pesticides. Cremation is just the burning with no ensuing cemetery maintenance. However, if burial’s your thing, there is a Green Burial Council to aid in planning, and there are also pretty, green graveyards. Get the full Ask Umbra answer. Over the HedgeRemember the sweet little cartoon in which BW voiced that wily raccoon RJ, who ventured into human territory with his other woodland creature pals? Ah, happy memories. So here’s a word on deer hunting (smooth transition, no?). Deer no longer have many predators, because we’ve killed most of them off through habitat loss and fragmentation, as well as hunting. Without human interference, deer would keep reproducing and stay healthy as long as food and space were plentiful. Starvation and disease would eventually slow their reproduction; then food would become plentiful again, reproduction would pick up, and the cycle would continue. But that’s hard for humans to watch and even harder for the starving deer, I imagine. Hunting is used by state fish and wildlife agencies to manage deer herds. Am I in favor of hunting? For food by people who can use the meat, yes. For fun to help “manage deer herds”? Sport hunting is in many ways a necessary outcome of the artificial habitat in which deer now roam. Wildlife managers are looking into sterilization as an alternative in communities where hunting is impossible (dense suburbia) or has been voted out of existence. Might I suggest deer condoms? Get the full Ask Umbra answer. Garden StateOK, fine, you movie buffs, Bruce wasn’t in Garden State. However, he did grow up mostly in the Garden State. He’s a Jersey boy! Thusly, I bring you a lovely letter from a fellow New Jersey reader, Patricia from North Plainfield, N.J., who wanted to know how to recycle a Color Me Badd tape (told you I might be stretching a bit). So here goes: Donate it to a thrift store or library, posse up with your friends in the same sitch and ship all the goods to a biz like GreenDisk, or head over to Earth911 and type in “cassette tapes” and your area code to see if there are any places to recycle tapes in your own ‘hood. Get the full Ask Umbra answer.

Yippee-ki-yayly,Umbra

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on paint that’s better for the planet [VIDEO]

Ask Umbra on keyboard cleaners, automatic composters, and book club

Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on sleeping




Why environmentalists should get involved in immigration reform
by Sudha Nandagopal

How many enviros can you spot in this picture?Photo: Salina CanizalesI grew up in a family that sorted recyclables, reused containers until they were no longer reusable, and walked whenever and wherever we could. We turned off our lights and carefully monitored our energy consumption. We made sure that we didn’t leave the water running, and my sisters and I competed to take the shortest showers possible. Our travel often took us to nature preserves and national parks, where we learned about the importance of wildlife and conservation.

Sounds like a typical childhood for a kid in an environmentally conscious family, right?

It was typical—except that my parents spoke Tamil at home and had only just emigrated from India a few years before my oldest sister was born, while my friends and neighbors spoke English at home and had families that had lived in Spokane, Wash., for generations.

Mine was and continues to be a classic immigrant family, blending the best of the American dream with traditional values and beliefs from India. It never struck me as odd to be an immigrant and an environmentalist.

So after I began working in the environmental community, I was disturbed to find that when friends and respected colleagues talked about immigration and the environment, it was often (albeit unintentionally) from an anti-immigrant perspective.

Much of this seems to stem from large anti-immigrant organizations “greenwashing”—using environmental messaging to cloak anti-immigrant sentiments. Publicly, the mainstream environmental community has largely remained silent on immigration issues (with the exception of a couple of contentious debates in 2004 and 2005 that sprang up around Sierra Club board elections). In this silence, anti-immigrant groups have co-opted the green messaging and started gaining public support from those who generally ascribe to environmental values. These groups suggest that limiting immigration would be a good way to slow the population growth of the U.S.—and without any prominent environmental voices countering them, they’ve had plenty of room to make the case that immigration is a main driver of environmental degradation.

While their argument might sound green at first, it is far from it. The argument blames individuals rather than focusing on the main causes of degradation—polluting industries, bad policies, and rampant consumption. Author Betsy Hartmann calls this “the greening of hate—blaming environmental degradation on poor populations of color.”

There are good reasons for environmentalists to be pro–immigrant rights:

First, people who are invested in and connected to their communities are more likely to value things that will impact them and their families over the long term: clean water, clean air, parks and open spaces. When our broken immigration system keeps families split apart for years—children without parents, spouses without partners—their lives are marked by impermanence and uncertainty. It’s hard to raise your children to be good environmental stewards when your family is always wondering if they will still be in the same place tomorrow. If we care about healthy environments, then we need to care about making sure that families stay together, investing themselves in their communities and building stable futures.  

Second, most environmental protections are funded by tax dollars, and immigrants contribute a lot of those dollars.  The 14 percent of U.S. residents who are foreign-born and the additional U.S. citizens who live in mixed-status families foster environmental protection every day, by paying their taxes and contributing to economic growth that generates still more tax revenue.

Third, the demographics of our country are changing. We have a president who is the son of an immigrant. In recent elections, the votes of new Americans have been tipping outcomes—electoral power that will only continue to grow. If the environmental movement were forward-thinking, we would be strategizing—like both the Republicans and Democrats—about how to court immigrant voters. For environmentalism to be relevant to the future voters of America, we need to proactively seek to diversify our movement and connect with new Americans who could support pro-environment candidates and sustainable policies.

Fourth, in the coming years, immigration pressures are likely to increase as climate change disproportionately affects people living in developing countries.  Environmentalists should help poorer nations adapt to the effects of climate change and work to develop compassionate immigration policies so those who must leave their homelands have a decent chance to rebuild their lives.  To be effective, we must build partnerships within immigrant communities now so that we can address this future challenge. If we turn our backs on immigration reform, we are not just enabling but creating a future in which climate refugees become one more forgotten byproduct of an unjust political, social, and environmental system.

Finally, our global challenges are big enough that we need everyone working together to solve them. Our movement should be about taking care of each other while taking care of the environment; we must act on these values and advocate for the rights of our immigrant friends and neighbors.

Immigration reform and climate change are both poised to get attention in Congress over the coming months. Is the environmental community going to engage in one debate and completely ignore the other? 

I believe we environmentalists must take action on immigration reform. If we truly want to build a long-term movement reflective of the entire United States, we need to understand that immigrants are an essential part of the future. Unless we recognize the changing demographics of the country, support immigrant integration that helps people build stable and connected lives, and take an active role in promoting a more just immigration system, the relevance of the environmental community—and our ability to affect real change—will never reach its full potential. 

I have three young nieces whose parents are raising them with strong environmental values. I hope when they are older, they won’t find a divide between being pro-immigrant and pro-environment. Instead, I hope they find an environmental movement that promotes equity and justice for all and embraces the pro-immigrant culture on which this country was built.

Related Links:

Old growth, slow gain

Tech startup’s pollution detector aids enviro justice group

New cases of water pollution documented at U.S. coal ash dumps




A Happy Meal still looks ‘fresh’ on its first birthday
by Ashley Braun

A newborn Happy Meal.Joann BrusoHappy birthday to you, you look just like new. A year later you can’t tell, and the fries still don’t smell. Happy birthday, dear Happy Meal, happy birthday to you!

This is what a Happy Meal looks like before—and after—Joann Bruso put it on her shelf for one year.

This is what she had to say after staring at Ol’ McDonald’s little box of joy for so long:

NOPE, no worries at all. My Happy Meal is one year old today and it looks pretty good. It NEVER smelled bad. The food did NOT decompose. It did NOT get moldy, at all. ...

I think ants, mice and flies are smarter than people, because they weren’t fooled. They never touched the Happy Meal. Children shouldn’t either.

The little tyke at one year!Joann BrusoTurns out the only slow thing about fast food is how long it takes to decompose.

Via BoingBoing.

Related Links:

Performance issues in Chicago men’s room reek havoc on water conservation

New York City gets big reaction to new sex symbol

Chanel gives global warming the cold shoulder in Paris fashion show




Four obstacles facing electric bike popularity
by Alan Durning

In part 3, I promised to describe the obstacles that are keeping electric bikes from taking hold in the Pacific Northwest in the way they have in China. Here are four.

1. Immature technology

As BikeHugger’s master blogger (and e-biker) DL Byron points out, electric bikes may be past the garage-tinkerer phase of development, but they’re still complicated, imperfect devices, plagued with breakdowns and performance issues. Battery care, for example, is still challenging, though it’s vastly simpler than it used to be.

2. Bike culture

Photo courtesy Looking Glass via FlickrIn Asian and northern Europe cycling cities, bicycles are ubiquitous utilitarian objects like appliances. In the Pacific Northwest, as throughout North America, cycling is uncommon as anything but a form of recreation and exercise. Among sport cyclists, a major purpose of cycling is to get a good workout, and electric bikes destroy the workout. So sports cycling is no friend of the electric bike.

Meanwhile, the small share of northwesterners who cycle for urban transportation are such a visible minority that they have developed a bike culture, which defines itself against automotive culture. Among other things, urban bike culture revels in muscle power. Case in point: among urban cyclists, the coolest bike on the streets these days is the fixie—a one-gear minimalist cycle like the one pictured above. Riding one is cool in part because fixies are hard work. Another case in point: the flourishing Portland bike-only house-moving scene (portrayed in the video below from StreetFilms), which may be the pinnacle of bike culture: it proves muscle power can replace a moving van.

Among transportation cyclists, as among recreational cyclists, being human powered—not electric or gas-powered—is a point of pride. As Loren Mooney, editor-in-chief of Bicycling magazine, told the New York Times about the electric bike, “to the core cyclist, it’s cheating.”

As I’ve learned over four car-less years, in the individualism of North American culture, our vehicles come to define our identities—something auto marketers understand well. What we drive, or ride, is a tribe marker, and we all know the meanings: Hummer, Prius, Mustang, Volvo. (Among cyclists, too: Bianchi, Campie, Gary Fisher, homemade fixie.)

Consequently, for North Americans, buying an electric bike is not simply a choice of cost, convenience, and functionality. For better or worse, it’s also a statement of who you are. E-bikes are a product for a somewhat different market than regular bikes. But their spread isn’t helped at all by the fact that existing bike culture among both sport and transport cyclists is antithetical to e-bikes. This barrier is substantial, because bike culture affects not only individual attitudes but also access to and support for e-bikes.

3. Closed distribution channels

Throughout North America, as VoltWagon entrepreneur Max Dunn noted in a recent paper, “The bike industry consists of two relatively independent segments: the low end sold through mass merchants and the high end sold through specialty bicycle retailers.” Mass merchants such as big-box retailers and sporting goods stores account for 75 percent of bicycle sales, but most of the bikes they sell are used rarely. Many are toys for children. Most bikes that get regular use are sold through bike shops.

Unfortunately, neither mass retailers nor bike shops work at present for distributing e-bikes. Mass merchants reach noncyclists including the affluent baby boomers at the heart of the potential e-bike market, but they lack the expertise and maintenance facilities to support a growing e-bike trend. Bike shops, on the other hand, are dominated by the prevailing bike culture to which e-bikes do not make sense. Their regular customers do not want electric bikes any more than the members of athletic clubs want electric-assisted weight-lifting machines. Almost no bike shops sell e-bikes.

Market analysts at Pike Research describe distribution challenges as among the biggest barriers to e-bikes: “Many manufacturers are trying to find a combination of independent dealers, mass retailers, and online sales that will effectively deliver the vehicles and after-sales service to customers.”

Photo: Heidi NeffThe shortage of e-bike retailers is exacerbated by an even more severe shortage of e-bike repair shops. It’s hard to find a bike repair shop that knows how to fix an e-bike. And electric bikes are finicky and need regular maintenance (see #1 above). Brynnen Ford, the carpool-riding e-biker from pictured at right, put it this way: “I’m not a bike mechanic and my mechanic is kind of learning as he goes with the electric piece, so I’m never sure if it’s really getting the right care.”

At present, the best e-bike sales-and-service in Cascadia comes from one specialized e-bike store in Seattle, two in Portland, and two others in Vancouver, BC. One promising sign is that about one quarter of Trek’s independent dealers, which are typically the leading bike shops in each city, will stock Trek’s new Ride+ line of e-bikes. As these shops master servicing e-bikes, the maintenance shortfall may diminish.

4. Safety

Electric bikes promise to make cycling a better option for many people, including those whose weight, health, fitness, clothing needs, or hauling demands make regular bikes impractical. But they do nothing to lower the principal barrier to cycling: the perception that cycling in city streets is unsafe. (It’s actually much safer than most people think. In fact, not pedaling is the larger menace.) Fear of street riding is also the biggest barrier to electrified cycling. If you don’t feel safe on a pedal-powered bicycle at 10 miles an hour, you will probably feel even less safe on an electric bicycle at 15 miles an hour. As Jonathan Maus of BikePortland, Oregon’s definitive cycling blog, wrote in January, “Our current lack of a connected, separated, and comfortable bike network makes many people afraid to even try biking—and simply giving them motors won’t change their minds.”

In North America, the future of electric bikes depends on finding a market that wants their particular combination of lightness, gentle power, and modest range. To date, they have found adherents whose needs they closely match, such as Brynnen Ford and her carpool or Matt Leber and his injured knee. They have yet to find a larger market, I believe, because they are neither fish nor fowl. They make bad bicycles, because they remain imperfect in execution while they’re also heavy and hard to pedal without the power turned on. They also make bad motorcycles. Imagine a manufacturer introducing a motorcycle with a top speed of 20 miles per hour and a one-quart fuel tank that takes several hours to refuel every 25 miles. Not many sales would ensue.

But electric bikes do hold great promise. They could open cycling to huge numbers of additional people, to hillier places, and to heavier loads. Besides, even if their potential market is only one urban trip in twenty, that would still outstrip regular bikes’ current share. And getting to that point would mark an encouraging advance against climate change, oil addiction, and lack of exercise. It would also help strengthen local economies by replacing imported oil with local electricity—plus skilled jobs in electric bike maintenance.

Besides, if electric bikes are proliferating in China, these obstacles must be surmountable, right? They are. China’s lessons are worth understanding, and I’ll cover them in my next (and final) post on the Parable of the Electric Bike. I’ll even reveal why this is a parable. Promise!

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this series, “The Body Electric,” tomorrow.

This post originally appeared at Sightline’s Daily Score blog.

Related Links:

What can China teach us about electric bikes?

Should electric bike sales be subsidized?

Bike Curious in Rhode Island (video)




Performance issues in Chicago men’s room reek havoc on water conservation
by Ashley Braun

Sustainable Sanitation via FlickrThe backup in the bathrooms of Chicago’s City Hall is so foul that no amount of Pepto Bismol is going to help.

Well-meaning politicians installed waterless urinals in the public men’s room to save a little water, but they were pissed to learn about the stinky flood of urine building up behind the bathroom walls.

Corroding copper pipes are taking a leak all over the Windy City’s efforts at holding its water use down. Apparently the ratio of water-saved-to-wafting-stink became too much for the politicians, who have been forced to work with their own stench for a change.

I think we can all read the pee on the wall here: these waterless urinals have got to go.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Like what you see? Sign up to receive our email roundup of pun-usual green news just like this—we call it “The Grist List”—every Friday.

Related Links:

Greenpeace won’t give Nestle a break from palm oil candy bars

A Happy Meal still looks ‘fresh’ on its first birthday

New York City gets big reaction to new sex symbol




New York City gets big reaction to new sex symbol
by Ashley Braun

When the Big Apple’s health department tried putting out free condoms, it found the recipients were less than stimulated by the wrapper’s appearance. To sex it up, the city held an online contest to design a new package, 15,000 voters got in on the action, and of course, one hot symbol nailed it.

The condom design that came out on top? The international sign for the power button. Six million of these limited-edition rubbers will hit the roads of New York City, turning on sex lives and (hopefully) powering down overpopulation.

After all, New Yorkers are all about power: power shopping, power trips, and now ... power condoms. But if the city runs out of these rubbers, will the residents pitch tents outside city hall in protest? That’s the kind of news we hope won’t break.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Like what you see? Sign up to receive our email roundup of pun-usual green news just like this—we call it “The Grist List”—every Friday.

Related Links:

A Happy Meal still looks ‘fresh’ on its first birthday

Performance issues in Chicago men’s room reek havoc on water conservation

Chanel gives global warming the cold shoulder in Paris fashion show




Should electric bike sales be subsidized?
by Alan Durning

Photo: Flickr via Imnop88aAs I argued in part 2, electric bikes could be forerunners for electrifying the whole transportation sector. They’re sweeping into urban areas in China by the tens of millions. New technologies are improving e-bike performance. And powerful institutions are aligning to speed battery innovations.

Many observers now believe e-bikes will grow rapidly in North America, including in the Pacific Northwest. Colorado-based market analysts Pike Research, for example, predict that U.S. sales will quadruple from 250,000 e-bikes in 2010 to more than 1 million in 2016, as shown in the chart below. (Asia is left off the chart, because it’s on a different scale. Some 98 percent of e-bike sales worldwide have been in China.)

To speed this process, one common approach—evident in the bevy of tax credits available for purchasers of hybrid and electric cars—would be to subsidize e-bike sales. That’s what Santa Cruz, California did early in the 2000s decade. Coupons from local authorities helped sell as many as 1,000 e-bikes there, making it briefly the e-bike capital of North America. Similarly, rebates from Swiss localities have boosted e-bike sales in Switzerland. Some 16,000 sold there in the first half of 2009, according to one report.

The implicit assumption behind underwriting new products with public funds is that once they are adequately established in the marketplace, they will spread contagiously without continued public support. The public investment is justified by the subsequent flipping of a market, in which cleaner, greener products push out dirtier products and yield large benefits for society.

This assumption may be reasonable for green products that are new and unfamiliar, such as ground-source heat pumps and green roofs, or that are not produced on a large enough scale to bring down manufacturing costs. But electric bikes are neither new nor unfamiliar: half a million have sold in the United States over the years. And they’re a variation on the ubiquitous bicycle, which is found in a majority of homes. What’s more, we should have already benefited from the economies of scale, insofar as they’re rolling out of Chinese factories at a pace of 20 million a year, far in excess of the scale of U.S. auto manufacturing before the recession. Furthermore, the notion that there is a tipping point for sales of e-bikes is speculative at best. In fact, a look at electric bikes’ progress in North America and abroad leads to the conclusion that they confront a formidable set of barriers to growth—barriers that public sales rebates are unlikely to overcome. I’ll describe these barriers in my next post.

Stay tuned for part four of this five-part series tomorrow.

This post originally appeared at Sightline’s Daily Score blog.

Related Links:

What can China teach us about electric bikes?

Blanche Lincoln’s dismal school-lunch bill

Four obstacles facing electric bike popularity




The secret mall gardens of Cleveland
by Lisa Selin Davis

Photo: Gardens Under GlassThe shopping mall is not dead. In Cleveland, in fact, it’s growing green: cucumbers, lettuce, herbs and even flowers.  

In the former Galleria at Erieview mall, a project called Gardens Under Glass is taking root, part of a grand plan to transform malls into greenhouses. It’s just one of many Cleveland-based projects, suggesting that this rust belt city might have a few sustainabilty tricks to teach urban centers everywhere.

Vicky Poole, who heads up marketing for the Galleria, conceived this project after looking at a photograph of plants growing in a cafe window. Hmmm, she thought, imagining a retooled version of the food court. The mall was already scrambling to find innovative uses for itself in a flagging economy, primarily as a wedding hall, but also as a farmers market. A greenhouse, she discovered, could thrive in the building’s climate controlled environment under the tremendous glassed-in atrium that runs like a spine down its emtpy center.

Poole and her partner-in-green Jack Hamilton (who manages Artist Review Today magazine and gallery, located in the Galleria) won a $30,000 grant to set up the greenhouse project. The money came from Cleveland’s Civic Innovation Lab, which funds ideas for growing the local economy (other projects include a recycled glassware company and a renewable energy group).

In February, spinach, tomatoes, and strawberries were started in a composted soil system produced by a local company. This week, a hydroponic system was delivered that will exponentially increase output. They also added artificial light to supplement the daylight streaming through the glass ceiling.

Poole’s vision for the mall is both a master marketing tool—this one, like so many of its mid-80s brethren, was in dire straights not long ago, with dozens of vacancies in its 200 stores—and an inventive way to promote sustainability in what has proven to be a largely unsustainable architectural dinosaur. It’s pretty hard to find alternate uses for 100,000-plus square feet of mostly windowless space. “I don’t look at us as a mall anymore,” she says. “We really serve the downtown business community.”

Already, the farmers market is growing in popularity. The grander plan calls for the entire mall to become a retail ecovillage: vegetarian restaurants, health food stores, garden supply outlets, more farmers’ stalls and shops selling recycled goods. There are other ecovillages in Cleveland and a whole slew of green initiatives that we detailed in 2008.

What’s great about this mall project, though, is that it comes from the private sector, from one woman with a big idea and a big enough space to realize it. “I hope it’ll bring this building back,” she says.

In the meantime, malls are struggling to find new uses. Perhaps dead malls will become centers of local live produce?

 

 

 

 

 

Related Links:

Garden Girl TV: Healthy soil equals healthy plants and people

Colbert grows a ‘crisis herb garden’

Garden Girl TV: Raised beds in the city




Bike Curious in Rhode Island (video)
by Frank Sesno

Bike Curious?  You’re not alone. Between 2000 and 2009 there was a 43% increase in bicycle commuting in the US.  But in Amsterdam they’re doing it more. More than 85% of Amsterdam residents ride their bikes at least once a week.*

Are we missing out?  Watch Professor Chris Menton as he travels his morning commute to work in Rhode Island.  It looks cold, there’s snow on the ground, but he manages to ride his bike to work at least four times a week.

The Department of Transportation has made a real commitment to bicycling as a means of everyday transportation.  Through their TIGER grants program, it is spending $1.5 billion on improving “multimodal” transportation, including bicycling infrastructure in major cities.  It’s a “Field of Dreams” strategy.  Build the bike trails, give cyclists a designated area on the roads, give them parking, and they will come.

Find more videos like this on Planet Forward *Data from the League of American Bicyclists and Bikes Belong

.

Related Links:

What can China teach us about electric bikes?

Four obstacles facing electric bike popularity

Should electric bike sales be subsidized?