Solar-Powered Backpacks

Companies are starting to add solar panels to everything from portable electronics to the
bags we use to carry those gadgets around in. Brad Linder reports on the latest trend in
portable solar power:

Transcript

Companies are starting to add solar panels to everything from portable electronics to the
bags we use to carry those gadgets around in. Brad Linder reports on the latest trend in
portable solar power:


Voltaic Systems sells solar powered backpacks and messenger bags. Each bag has a solar
panel on the outside that can charge gadgets such as cell phones and MP3 players. It can
also charge an internal battery so you have electricity even when there’s no sun. But CEO
Shayne McQuade says the solar panels are often enough:


“We’ve got 4 watts of solar power on the outside of the bag, and it’s probably 3, 4 times
as much as most little solar chargers have. And what that means is you can basically just
plug it straight into the panel, stand in the sun, and make a phone call.”


Voltaic Systems’s bags cost between 200 and 250 dollars. The company admits that’s far
more than a typical backpack. Voltaic Systems is also preparing to launch its
first laptop case this spring.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Experimenting With a Global Warming Garden

  • Todd Forrest at the New York Botanical Garden's Ladies Border Garden. (Photo by Brad Linder)

When you think about global warming, you probably think about polar ice caps
melting and rising sea levels. But climate change is also having a more immediate
effect — on gardeners. As average temperatures rise, many gardeners are finding
they can grow non-native plants in their back yards. Brad Linder visited one public
garden that’s been nicknamed “the global warming garden”:

Transcript

When you think about global warming, you probably think about polar ice caps
melting and rising sea levels. But climate change is also having a more immediate
effect — on gardeners. As average temperatures rise, many gardeners are finding
they can grow non-native plants in their back yards. Brad Linder visited one public
garden that’s been nicknamed “the global warming garden”:


Most gardeners know there are some plants they’ll never be able to grow, because
of the climate where they live. But the Earth’s climate is changing, and that means
plants that normally grow in the southern United States are thriving as far north as
New York City:


“This Japanese Flowering Apricot, prunus mume. This is a plant that’s widely
grown further south. It’s actually native originally to China, but it’s beloved in Japan.”



Todd Forrest is vice president for horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden:


“And so what we’ve found with climate change is that this plant survives, because
the winter temperatures are on average warmer. But because there’s variability in
our local climate, it will often have its flowers burned by frost.”



Forrest is walking through the Ladies Border Garden, an experimental section of the
Botanical Garden designed to demonstrate the impact of climate change on plants.
Forrest sometimes calls the Ladies Border “the global warming garden,” because
most of the plants are species that couldn’t have grown in this area a few decades
ago.


Climate change probably has been affecting plants and gardeners for years. But
Forrest says it’s only recently that people have put two and two together and realized
that unpredictable weather patterns are affecting their herb gardens:


“Gardeners at times suffer the sort of head in the sand syndrome. They’re so
obsessed with and attuned to their individual garden and climate. And we’re all used
to being frustrated by the weather. I think for a long time we all just sort of ascribed
whatever change there was or variability to that darn weather again. Acting up.
Raining when it should be dry. Dry when it should be raining. Cold when it should be
warm.”


In some ways, the Ladies Border Garden shows how exciting global warming can
be for gardeners. You can grow all sorts of exotic plants in your backyard if you don’t
have to deal with the long cold winters you’re used to.


Forrest has been able to get dozens of unusual plants to grow in New York, including
Choysia and even a Himalayan Fan Palm. That’s right, a palm tree growing in New
York City.


But just because you can grow non-native plants doesn’t mean you should. Because
foreign plants can easily become invasive species, killing off local plants.
Marielle Anzelone is a botanist and garden designer. Her specialty is working with
local plants. Today she’s planting a native-species garden in a public park:



“All the plants are going to have little signs in front of them that say what they are,
because it’s meant to be educational. People should see a plant, say oh, it’s
gorgeous. Want it. Oh, it’s vibernum nutem. And then run out to their nursery
and get it.”


Anzelone says many people don’t realize how beautiful local plants are. For
example, she says people often buy wreaths made of Asiatic Bittersweet vines —
even though it’s an invasive species that’s been killing off American Bittersweet:


“And people maybe then who hang the wreath outside on their door. A bird comes
and eats the berries and poops it out in Prospect Park or Central Park. I mean, that
is how these things get around. So it’s not just your world in a vacuum and nothing
comes to your garden. I mean, birds travel, insects travel.”


That’s why, under normal circumstances, gardeners have to be careful what they
plant in their backyards. Because non-native plants have a way of spreading and
competing with local plants, and climate change complicates things by making it
easier for invasive species to spread:


“The thing that keeps me up at night is not global warming. It’s extinction crisis. And I
think people think a lot about extinction as being this big dramatic thing. It’s a fire, it’s
an oil spill. But actually it doesn’t work that way. Extinction happens on a small scale
all the time.”



As the climate changes, Anzelone says she understands that gardeners will want to
try new things. But she says they shouldn’t forget about native plants, which feed
native insects and animals.


The New York Botanical Garden’s Todd Forrest admits that the Ladies Border
Garden is both exciting and disturbing. While he can demonstrate that new plants
will grow in New York, he knows that global warming is also killing off plants that
have lived here for thousands of years.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Yellow Cabs Turning Green?

Taxi cabs represent only a small portion of the cars on city
streets. But they’re on the road for long periods of time. As Brad Linder
reports, that’s why some cities are looking at battery powered cabs as
a way to reduce vehicle emissions:

Transcript

Taxi cabs represent only a small portion of the cars on city
streets. But they’re on the road for long periods of time. As Brad Linder
reports, that’s why some cities are looking at battery powered cabs as
a way to reduce vehicle emissions:


The typical New York taxi cab is on the streets for 10 hours at a time.
Earlier this year, the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission wanted to
see if an electric vehicle could make it through an entire shift. But
the test cab from manufacturer Hybrid Technologies rarely made it
through half a shift before running out of juice.


Commission spokesman Allan Fromberg says that’s just not good enough:


“It was unfortunately not possible to do that. When
you’re getting 40 miles and you know, the average shift would probably
take a taxi cab about a hundred miles.”


Fromberg says there are more than 13,000 gasoline and hybrid electric
cabs in New York right now. He says the city would be interested in
approving a 100% battery-powered cab as long as it can
survive a regular taxi shift.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Discouraging Bottled Water

Over the last six years, bottled water consumption has gone up 60
percent in the United States. That means a lot of plastic bottles are
being thrown out. As Brad Linder reports, businesses and local
governments across the country are trying to encourage people to cut
back on bottled water:

Transcript

Over the last six years, bottled water consumption has gone up 60
percent in the United States. That means a lot of plastic bottles are
being thrown out. As Brad Linder reports, businesses and local
governments across the country are trying to encourage people to cut
back on bottled water:


Environmentally-conscious restaurants around the country have begun
removing bottled water from their menus. And the city of New York has
launched a new advertising campaign to convince citizens to drink tap
water. They tout it as “fat-free,” and “delicious.”


Susan Neely is the president of the American Beverage Association. She
says these campaigns miss the point:


“We need clean, accessible, safe tap water. But there’s great advantages
to bottled water, too. It’s portable, it’s convenient. And we can more
easily do what doctors and nutritionists are telling us to do, which is to drink more
water, particularly in these hot summer months.”


Neely says plastic bottles make up only one third of one percent of the
nation’s waste, and that’s not including the bottles that are recycled.


But not every bottle gets recycled. And it takes both energy and
petroleum to produce and distributed bottled water. That’s why cities
like New York are promoting tap water as an environmentally-friendly
alternative.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Oil Companies Serve Up Bio-Diesel

  • Tom Torre (pictured) is Chief Operating Officer at Metro Fuel Oil. (Photo by Brad Linder)

For years, environmental activists have been demonstrating that you don’t need gasoline to fuel a
car. Some people have been retrofitting cars with diesel engines that can be powered by
restaurant grease. But with the price of oil soaring in recent years bio-diesel’s been getting more
popular. Brad Linder reports that it’s moving from a fuel for hobbyists to an energy alternative
that’s even getting the attention of oil companies:

Transcript

For years, environmental activists have been demonstrating that you don’t need gasoline to fuel a
car. Some people have been retrofitting cars with diesel engines that can be powered by
restaurant grease. But with the price of oil soaring in recent years bio-diesel’s been getting more
popular. Brad Linder reports that it’s moving from a fuel for hobbyists to an energy alternative
that’s even getting the attention of oil companies:


From a distance, Metro Fuel Oil in Brooklyn, New York looks like an over-sized gas station. And
in a way, that’s what it is. Truckers pull up to a series of pumps, grab a hose and load their tanks
with oil. It’ll be distributed to heating oil and diesel customers throughout the area.


Tom Torre is Metro’s chief operating officer. He says starting next year, some of those trucks
will be topping off with a blend of oil and vegetable-based bio-diesel:


“Kind of like if you’ve ever seen a Sunoco gas station where they had the different octanes you
can buy, same thing with the bio. It’d be B5, B10, B20, B15s, whatever they might utilize.”


In other words, you can get a blend… For example, B20 is 80% diesel and 20% bio-diesel.


For more than six decades, Metro has provided oil to residential and commercial customers. A
few years ago, Metro began importing processed bio-diesel from nearby states to fuel its own
fleet of 40 trucks.


But next year, the oil company plans start taking in raw vegetable oil and processing it on-site.
Metro’s planned 110 million gallon bio-diesel processing facility will be one of the largest in the
country.


Torre says Metro doesn’t expect to get out of the oil business anytime soon. But the company
does see a future for domestically-produced fuels like corn-based ethanol and vegetable-based
bio-diesel:


“And it’s good for the economy as well. I mean, you know, the numbers are astounding as to
how much we spend a day, billions of dollars a day, that are being spent on foreign imported oils that are going back to the Arabs where… and
nothing against the Arabs, don’t get me wrong, but it’s money flowing out of the United States.”


When the processing plant opens, Metro will be able convert large quantities of soybean, palm,
and rapeseed oil into fuel. With a few modifications, the facility could also process restaurant
grease:


“I’ve been here, with the company, for 25, 26 years. Most exciting thing that’s happened in at
least the last 20, 25 years. We’re looking to push this thing going forward. And with our
association as well, the New York Oil Heat Association, to say, listen guys. We’d better start
thinking about this. We’d better be forward thinkers. Otherwise we’re going to be left behind.”


But as more and more facilities like Metro’s pop up around the country, what happens to the
nation’s food supply? Bill Holmberg heads the biomass division of the American Council on
Renewable Energy. As the demand for vegetable-based fuels rises, he says so could the price of
foods based on corn and soybeans.


“I think there will be an increase in price in those. But I think they’re beginning to level off now,
I think people are beginning to realize that you can find other resources to make those diesel- type
fuels.”


Holmberg says if you make bio-diesel out of soybean oil, there’ll be less soybeans available for
food processing. But that’s not the case if you use restaurant grease. And researchers are looking
at ways to cultivate algae as a fast-growing source of vegetable oil for bio-diesel.


If the economic impact of bio-diesel remains unclear, Holmberg says there’s no question it’s
more environmentally friendly than petroleum. Bio-diesel emits far less carbon monoxide, sulfur,
and particulate matter than petroleum-based diesel.


The U.S. bio-diesel industry is still young. Last year, it processed less than 300 million gallons
of fuel, which is just a drop in the 40 billion gallon transportation diesel market. Holmberg says
even large facilities like Metro’s aren’t going to change that overnight:


“We, in the world of bio-fuels, ethanol, and bio-diesel and other forms of bio-fuels, will be
making a major contribution if we just do not increase the amount of fuels used in the
transportation sector, which we’re doing now. If we can just keep that number steady for a few
more years, we’re providing a real service to the United States.”


Holmberg hopes that ten years from now, facilities will be in place to actually reduce the amount
of petroleum used. He says that could be from a combination of ethanol, bio-diesel, gas electric
hybrid vehicles, and other technologies that are just in their infancy.


Metro’s Tom Torre doesn’t think the oil industry is going away anytime soon. But he says the
company’s willing to invest 15 million dollars in its new processing plant to help the
environment and to get in on a growing industry.


It doesn’t hurt that Metro can sell bio-diesel for almost the same price as oil. The federal
government provides a tax incentive for bio-diesel producers like Metro, and the state of New
York offers a tax credit to residents who purchase bio-diesel. Currently, that means it’s cheaper
to heat your house with a bio-diesel blend than with 100% petroleum-based heating oil.


Without those incentives, Torre says Metro would still be opening a processing facility — just a
much smaller one:


“It would definitely not have been a 110 million gallon plant. You know, we could have started it
off with 5 million gallons, let’s say, and just utilize it for people that really wanted to be green.
But when we took a hard look at it and saw that it could be competitive, especially last year as
the price of petroleum just soared, is when we really started to say you know what? Instead of
doing the 5 million, let’s just go right to the 110 million.”


Metro’s new bio-diesel processing plant – one of the biggest in the country – is scheduled to open
next fall.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Pollution at Valley Forge

Waste from former industrial plants can pollute some of the nation’s
most natural areas, including state and national park land. Brad
Linder reports that even a treasured historic site made famous by George
Washington is at risk:

Transcript

Waste from former industrial plants can pollute some of the nation’s
most natural areas, including state and national park land. Brad
Linder reports that even a treasured historic site made famous by George
Washington is at risk:


General George Washington and his troops braved cold weather and
starvation for six months in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The site’s now
a national historic park. But for much of the 20th century, part of the
site was also home to an asbestos manufacturing plant.


Attorney Andy Hartzell is with the state of Pennsylvania, which recently
reached an agreement with the federal government to split the 11
million dollar cleanup cost. He says just because the site holds
historic significance doesn’t mean it was safe from industrial waste:


“Since the industrial revolution our country’s had an industrialized
society, and standards were different in the 1800s than they were in
the 1900s, than they are today. So, sometimes things like this happen.”


Much of the asbestos has already been buried on site, and removing it
would be more dangerous than leaving it in place. Only the asbestos on
the surface will be moved.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Water Intakes Kill Aquatic Life

Billions of fish and other aquatic organisms
are killed every year by industrial plants located on
waterways. Brad Linder reports that environmental
regulators are hoping to bring those numbers down:

Transcript

Billions of fish and other aquatic organisms
are killed every year by industrial plants located on
waterways. Brad Linder reports that environmental
regulators are hoping to bring those numbers down:


Power plants, oil refineries, and other industrial plants often have
cooling systems that rely on river water. But when water is sucked
into the cooling tanks, so are fish and other tiny organisms.


John Hughes is the state of Delaware’s environmental secretary. He says companies could use systems that recycle water but few want to spend the money:


“Every refinery in America looks up into the air and
worries about their emissions. That’s where the bulk of their
investments go in pollution controls. And when you bring up water, you
get that blank look, like ‘what now?'”


Hughes says federal rules let companies sidestep water regulations if
upgrading is considered too costly. But Hughes says
he is asking local companies to step up… and if that doesn’t work,
his state might pass tougher regulations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Hydrogen Powers Family’s Car and Home

  • Mike Strizki demonstrates how a balloon filled with hydrogen can run a fuel cell and power an electric fan for about 45 minutes.

Many homeowners have reduced their fossil fuel consumption by placing solar panels on their rooftops. But one man has gone to a whole new level. He’s created a homemade power plant that runs on solar power and hydrogen fuel cells. Brad Linder reports:

Transcript

Many homeowners have reduced their fossil fuel consumption by placing solar panels on their rooftops. But one man has gone to a whole new level. He’s created a homemade power plant that runs on solar power and hydrogen fuel cells. Brad Linder reports:


Mike Strizki’s been tinkering with cars his whole life. Over time the 49-year old engineer became convinced that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were the future of the auto industry. But during his 16 years with the New Jersey Department of Transportation, Strizki saw there was a problem with fuel cell cars: nobody was really building them.


“You had the auto makers and you had government pointing fingers. Well, you know, you build the fuel cell cars first and then we’ll provide the infrastructure. And they said, well you provide the infrastructure, and we’ll build the fuel cell cars. And I got tired of hearing that argument. And I said well, one way to solve the problem is to make your infrastructure your home.”


Five years and half a million dollars later, Strizki’s achieved his dream.


Here’s how it works. Strizki’s garage is covered with solar panels. They provide electricity for his house, and when there’s extra power, it’s routed to a device called an electrolizer, which breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen.


During the summer, the hydrogen is stored in fuel tanks on Strizki’s property. And in the winter, he runs the hydrogen through a 6 kilowatt fuel cell to make energy. Strizki, his wife, and three children, are the first family in the country to live in a house powered entirely by hydrogen fuel cells and solar power.


And there’s another benefit: Strizki can fuel up his hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at a gas pump near his garage.


(Car accelerating sound on pavement)


“The fuel cells have enough to run the vehicle at about 50mph on fuel cells alone. If you’re going faster than that you’re sipping off the battery pack at a very low rate.”


Strizki helped design this car for Rutgers University 7 years ago. It’s been running ever since. Now that he has a fueling station at his home, he plans to convert his other car, a Toyota Prius, to run on hydrogen as well.


Strizki pulls up to the hydrogen fueling station – a series of converted propane tanks out by his garage. Opening his car’s trunk, Strizki connects a hose from those tanks to a smaller tank in the car.


“That’s how it refuels.”


Strizki’s system runs like a well oiled machine, only without the oil. But it wasn’t always so simple. When he first decided to build his home power plant, Strizki sought government approval from his home town of East Amwell New Jersey.


“I said all right, I’m doing this like anybody else who’s getting a building permit. I walked into the town and I said here, I want to build a solar hydrogen fuel cell home… and well, that… you know, the first place I went was the zoning officer, and he told me it’s an uncustomary use in a residential zone, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I allow this.”


East Amwell Mayor Kurt Hoffman says the zoning officer was known as a stickler. The township had accidentally removed a line in a local zoning law allowing homeowners to use alternative energy.


“So we did an addendum to the zoning ordinance to allow alternative energy usages. These kinds of things, they have to be publicly noticed, you have to have public hearings. That brought out some people’s concern about hydrogen technology and the safety issue.


Hoffman says Strizki brought in a series of experts to testify that his house wasn’t going to blow up. The hydrogen was being stored at a safe pressure in the same type of tank normally used for propane.


Strizki says he’ll probably never make back the half-million dollars it costs to build his system. But he hopes to cut the costs by 90%, by mass producing and selling solar-hydrogen fuel cell systems to other homeowners. He says the future of the planet depends on renewable energy and not fossil fuels that have to be transported halfway across the world.


“At least the fact that I’m using the energy in the same place that I’ve created it, the energy is still zero carbon, and it’s still free, once you’ve paid for the equipment.


The Strizki’s don’t skimp on electricity. They have a big screen TV, a hot tub, and all modern appliances. And Strizki takes great pride in the fact that he can power everything, including his car, using renewable hydrogen power.


“There’s no shelf life, and that’s what powers the sun. When the sun stops shining, we’re all dead. So this is a much better solution than digging big holes in the ground, throwing sulfur up into the air. This is something that’s definitely sustainable. We just have to have the will to do it.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Promoting a New Biofuel Crop

Most efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil have been focused on alternative energy sources like solar, wind, or corn-based ethanol, but some conservationists have another crop in mind: grass. Brad Linder reports:

Transcript

Most efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil have been focused on alternative energy sources like solar, wind, or corn-based ethanol. But some conservationists have another crop in mind: grass. Brad Linder reports:


Scott Singer is on a mission to promote switchgrass as an alternative to fossil fuels. Singer’s a wildlife biologist with the US Department of Agriculture. He says the tall grass grows in most parts of the US, even in harsh conditions such as when there’s a drought.


Most importantly, Singer says switchgrass can easily be converted to fuel that’s cleaner to burn than coal. He says it’s a good crop to grow, because it takes less time to plant and harvest.


“You also reduce energy use for farmers out there, saving them money and basically saving energy which is generally fossil fuel driven in the field.”


Singer’s working on a pilot project to demonstrate the technology. He says fuel pellets made from switchgrass can be used in stoves that usually burn wood or power plants that usually burn coal.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Study Questions Nerve Gas Waste Dump in River

Plans to dump a chemical weapon by-product into a river have been put on hold. Brad Linder reports a group of lawmakers is calling for further study of those plans:

Transcript

Plans to dump a chemical weapon byproduct into a river have been put on hold. Brad Linder reports a group of lawmakers is calling for further study of those plans:


Under international law, the United States is obligated to neutralize its stockpile of VX Nerve agent. The Army has been destroying VX at a plant in Indiana. Then the plan was to ship the remains of the material to a facility in New Jersey for further treatment before dumping the waste into the Delaware River.


But New Jersey’s congressional delegation pushed for a complete study of the project. Representative Rob Andrews says the region relies on the Delaware River for commerce and drinking water.


“A quantity of VX that could fit on the head of a pin would kill you if it touched your skin. Any possibility that any residue of that VX would be put into the river is unacceptable, because the health consequences would be catastrophic.”


The Army says the VX would be completely neutralized before being dumped in the river, but Andrews isn’t convinced.


A government study should be complete early next year.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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