Want to Go Futher on Hydrogen?

LBNL hydrogen storage project

Scientists at Berkeley Lab do. One DOE-funded project at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab takes Berkeley scientists and pairs them with expertise from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and General Motors (GM). The net result? A plan to develop a cost-effective hydrogen storage system for vehicles.

The basic idea is to make a material that can store large volumes of hydrogen at low pressures. This makes using hydrogen more cost-effective (less energy use for high-pressure pumping) and safer (lower pressure makes it safer). So, how does one make a container store more of something without high pressures? Simple, make the storage container’s material a sponge for hydrogen. (That’s the material in the image above.)

Read more about the project here.

MIT’s City Car Makes Debut in Spain

A few years ago, MIT’s Smart Cities project developed the idea for the City Car. You may remember the City Car – it’s the one that folds up into itself when parked, the one that opens from the front, and the one that takes up 1/3 the space of a normal-sized vehicle on the street. Back in 2006 it seemed so advanced that the Discovery Channel and the BBC both included it in programs depicting what the future will look like.

It’s certainly not the future any longer. The City Car can now be found in Spain. It looks a lot like the concept, and should help with traffic problems in some of Spain’s crowded urban areas. Read more about the car here!

Fuel Efficiency on Display in Detroit

FordFusionHybridNissanVan
Chevy ConceptHondaAccord

The Detroit Auto Show will continue for a few more days, but we wanted to share some of the fuel efficient models put on display from major car makers. Above you see the latest from Ford, Chevy, Nissan and Honda. All of these vehicles have fuel efficiency credentials – high 30s and low 40s MPG ratings as well as EV or hybrid options.

We’ve posted the press releases for these new models over at CEILeadership.org, so check them out!

Putting A Price Tag on Nature


Watch Pavan Sukhdev’s TED talk and find out how he and his team converted nature’s contribution to world economies into terms of dollars and cents. The moral of the talk: just because something isn’t priced doesn’t mean it lacks value.

Green Government News of the Week

Here is a brief list of some of the interesting sustainability news articles from this week:

Tax Policy Blowing in the Wind
Top 10 Unanswered Biofuels Questions for 2011
Case Set to Challenge EPA’s GHG Regs
State Department Partnership with 1E Slashes PC Energy Use

And you’ll find more headlines at CEILeadership.org!

The City 2.0 Wins 2012 TED Prize

The City 2.0

TED Prize winners are usually individuals. This year, though, TED has decided to award the $100,000 in prize money to an idea, The City 2.0. In TED’s own words, The City 2.0 is

the city of the future… a future in which more than ten billion people on planet Earth must somehow live sustainably.

While we may know where the prize money is going, TED is making us wait to learn more. The folks at TED Prize are organizing a group of “visionary individuals” to create one “wish” to promote on behalf the The City 2.0. The wish will be revealed at the TED conference on 2/29/12.

Does it all sound a bit confusing? Yeah, a bit. But we like that the folks at TED are bringing sustainable cities to the forefront of people’s minds. Everyone can play a part in developing the “wish” for The City 2.0. Simply visit the TED Prize site, and have your say.

Also, you can learn more about this and previous prize winners at the TED Prize site.

GSA, Metro to Coordinate on Locations

metro logoGSA logo

With all of the excitement of GOVgreen last week, we didn’t get to share a very interesting article from The Washington Post with you. As reported by the Post, the GSA and Metro are planning to coordinate Metro service and future federal facilities locations to provide federal employees with public transit options at the new locations.

It seems as though the GSA’s need for more space could be met using Metro-owned land and employees could benefit from convenient – and green – transit options.

Read the article at The Washington Post for more.