Amtrak Spends $466 Million on Electric Locomotives

Amtrak Spends $466 Million on Electric Locomotives


By: Beth Buczynski
October 30, 2010

Transportation company's six-year contract with Siemens will create 250 jobs in California, Ohio and Georgia.

In an effort to modernize its fleet and provide improved performance and reliability for U.S. passengers in the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak has commissioned the German manufacturing giant, Siemens (NYSE: SI), to build 70 Cities Sprinter ACS-64 electric locomotives, the first of which will be operational in 2013.

According to Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman, the new locomotives will operate at speeds up to 125 mph (201 kph) on the Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C. to Boston and up to 110 mph (177 kph) on the Keystone Corridor from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, Pa. They will replace locomotives in service between 20 and 30 years with an average mileage of 3.5 million miles traveled.

The Federal Railroad Administration applauded the decision, which it says supports the Department of Transportation’s strategy to use transportation to build strong, modern infrastructure, while also making cities more livable, protecting the environment and reducing dependence on foreign oil.

The ACS-64 locomotives will be capable of operating on 25 kV, 12.5 kV, and 12 kV power supplies and will feature regenerative braking systems that can automatically return electricity to the power grid. Additional features include crash energy management components like anti-climbing technology and push-back couplers designed to keep the train upright, inline and on the tracks in the event of a collision. Amtrak claims the design will also allow for easier maintenance leading to faster turn around times and increased availability.

The contract with Amtrak represents Siemens' latest attempt to take advantage of the $80 million in grants for high-speed rail projects provided to several U.S. states this year. Earlier this month, Florida announced that it would make transportation history as the first state to build a high-speed rail corridor, with Siemens Velaro ICE trains soon to connect Tampa to Orlando and then Miami in a second phase.

Siemens will manufacture the locomotives primarily at the Siemens Mobility plant in Sacramento, California, creating 200 new jobs for that facility alone.

Smart Grid's Long Road Ahead

Smart Grid’s Long Road Ahead

Oct 29, 2010
By: Amy Hsuan

The nation’s electric power industry, dating back to the 19th century, is in the early phases of an unprecedented change. With new, renewable resources coming online and commercial users searching for new modes of efficiency, the underlying infrastructure that has served the power needs of the United States for the better part of the last 150 years is about to undergo a historic transformation.

Borrowing from the lessons learned in telecommunications and information technology, the “Smart Grid” will one day be an agile, responsive and “intelligent” network — nearly the exact opposite of what it is today. It will have new hardware and software and stand to become the innovation of the 21st century.

The question is when and at what cost? To get there, political boundaries need to be redefined at the federal and state levels, old infrastructure needs to be replaced and a new system needs to go from a mere vision to reality.

That’s where Katherine Hamilton, president of the GridWise Alliance, comes in. Hamilton, a moderator at the Wharton Energy Conference in Philadelphia this Friday, is no oracle when it comes to foretelling the future of Smart Grid, but she has spearheaded legislative and policy efforts, developed language for the energy and climate bills and secured critical funding for the grid.

I caught up with Hamilton to hear her perspective on what’s in store for Smart Grid as it emerges as one of the hot topics at Wharton Business School’s conference in Philadelphia.

In your view, how will the evolution of the Grid unfold over the coming years? Where to begin and what does the roll-out look like?

This is an evolution that will take place over time and in very different ways depending on the nature of the utility and the community it serves. For example, rural cooperatives have been installing remote meter-reading technology so that they can cut back on long truck trips over miles of territory. Urban utilities are focusing on demand management since their stressors are meeting peak loads during the hottest days of the year. Municipalities have to consider interoperation of all systems—gas, water, transportation, electricity—and are planning projects that consider these holistically.

What do you personally define as success in the Smart Grid arena? What will it take to get there?

The stimulus funding has really uncorked a bottleneck of projects which will prove the value of Smart Grid to consumers and regulators. We will learn a great deal from these 100+ projects that will help us quantify benefits and make the case for an additional roll-out—without stimulus. We hope to see tax incentives, such as accelerated depreciation for meters and credits for energy storage, to encourage Smart Grid development. We want sustained research to spur innovation and creative financing mechanisms to promote investment.

Is there any country, municipality or town that you feel could serve as a model for the U.S.?

Many municipalities — Austin, TX and Boulder and Fort Collins, CO — are a few early adopters, but there are many more in the works. They are forging ahead with Smart Grid and designing their roll-outs to include all of the stakeholders impacted by the energy system. Vermont even developed their project as a state initiative, bringing dozens of utilities into the mix to apply for stimulus funding. We are also watching communities all over the world in their implementation strategies so that we can learn from global Smart Grid programs.

There are some skeptics who say that even with Smart Grid and growing energy efficiency, energy usage will continue to grow because of the digital nature of our society. Do you believe energy efficiency means reduced energy usage?

It is absolutely true that we are moving to an ever more electrified existence. This promises to grow even more with plug in electric vehicles. If you believe that energy efficiency means using energy smarter, Smart Grid can greatly enhance efficiency by providing measurable data and feedback to track energy and carbon savings. ACEEE recently issued a report that found that Smart Grid significantly strengthened energy efficiency if implemented with consumer engagement. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory calculated that Smart Grid could enable efficiency and renewable and reduce carbon emissions directly by 12%, indirectly by up to 18%. A more efficient economy is a more prosperous one; all of our forecasts and experiences to date have shown that Smart Grid will grow the economy and create higher paying, sustainable jobs.

What do you see as the biggest obstacles to what the GridWise Alliance is trying to achieve?

Some of our barriers are in the rules we have put into place. I think we will see an evolution not only of technology over the next decade but of our regulatory policies as well. Once we get the rules right—whether that means a cost on carbon or standards for renewables or simply internalizing externalities into the process—the development of Smart Grid and all that it enables will follow. Remember, Smart Grid is simply a means to an end; the end goals are what we will set to determine our energy future. The GridWise Alliance takes our collective knowledge to inform our policymakers so we can begin to see some of those rules evolve.

Author Amy Hsuan is an MBA candidate at the Wharton Business School and marketing coordinator for the school’s 2010 energy conference “Bridging the Gap”. Prior to attending Wharton, Hsuan was an energy reporter based in Portland, Ore.

The "Windstalk Concept"

Wind Energy Beyond Wind Turbines

By: Marta Iglesias
Oct. 18, 2010

“Our project takes clues from the way the wind caresses a field of wheat, or reeds in a marsh; our hair on a gusty afternoon”.

With these words, the team that presented the “Windstalk Concept” at the 2010 Land Art Generator Initiative competition described the aesthetics of a project that gave them the second place mention from the jury.

The “Windstalk Concept” consists of 1203 stalks made of carbon fiber reinforced resin poles that generate kinetic energy when moved by the wind. Each stalk is anchored to the ground using concrete bases that contain a chamber with a generator. A series of piezoelectric ceramic discs surrounded by electrodes are located in each hollow pole, and cables connect even and odd electrodes separately. When wind blows, the movement generated in the poles forces the compression of the ceramic discs, hence generating a current through the electrodes. The generator placed at the base of each pole converts the kinetic energy into electricity.

Since the wind does not always blow, the team has designed two chambers located under the area covered by the poles that play the role of batteries. These chambers are used to store the energy produced and a series of pumps move water from the lower chamber to the upper one. When wind stops blowing, water flows down from the upper chamber, turning the pumps into generators. The owners of the concept estimate that the overall output of the project is the same of a wind turbine array.

The beauty of the project is completed by the LED lights placed at the top of every pole (stalks are 55 meters high). The lights glow and dim depending on wind strength, and poles look dark when wind does not blow. Vegetation grows wild among the bases of the stalks, watered by the scarce rain that flows down the bases and concentrates within these green spaces.

The “Windstalk Concept” was presented by New York based Atelier DNA, a studio started in 2008 with the aim of reaching equilibrium between humans and the world we live in, and designed for Masdar city, the clean technology cluster in Abu Dhabi.

Living Inside The Box

Living Inside the Box – Cargo Containers Repurposed as Sustainable Buildings

August 12th, 2010
By: Chuck Colgan, CA Center for Sustainable Energy

The image of living in a steel cargo container usually conjures up scenes of poor, third-world communities, but Los Angeles architect Peter DeMaria sees their conversion into modern urban homes as an environmentally sustainable idea that will fit into most any neighborhood. While designer Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for his “destroy the box” philosophy, DeMaria simply says “live in the box.”

DeMaria is among a small, but growing, number of architects, designers and homeowners who are generating interest in steel shipping containers as building blocks for homes, apartments and commercial buildings. He likes them because they are extremely durable, easily transported, stackable, relatively cheap, readily available, rust and pest resistant and, best of all, a fully repurposed construction material.

DeMaria explained how cargo containers are used in home and building construction and outlined his strategy to distribute a variety of pre-fabricated container homes during a presentation at the California Center for Sustainable Energy in San Diego.

Why cargo containers?

Estimates place 35-40 million cargo containers in the United States, most of them stacked up to eight high (about 75 feet) in storage areas near commercial ports nationwide. That’s because it is cheaper to let them sit rather than ship them back overseas empty to be refilled. The practice is to just make new ones, adding about four million units a year to the U.S. surplus.

Uniformly manufactured to international standards, the “high cube” shipping containers that DeMaria uses are 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9.5 feet high. In 2006, he built the nation’s first official two-story cargo container home out of nine modified boxes in Redondo Beach, Calif. Since then he has built nearly a dozen more custom container homes and several commercial buildings in Southern California and has plans for a small hotel. The biggest difficulty he has faced is dealing with meeting all guidelines of California’s building code and satisfying the demands of municipal building inspectors who are usually looking at such plans for the first time.

Cargo containers have been used worldwide as offices, shopping malls, public buildings, vacation getaways and more. The biggest marketplace in Europe is made up of alleys formed by stacked containers on 170 acres in Odessa, Ukraine; and in Stuttgart, Germany, they are constructing a skyscraper comprised of 55 containers. Still, the integration of cargo container homes into urban and suburban neighborhoods is rare.

How does it work?

Shipping containers are made of heavy-gauge Corten steel, one of the “weathering” alloys that form a stable rust-like appearance when exposed over time, but don’t actually rust unless they are continually moist. Weighing in at about 9,000 pounds, their frames are formed by heavy steel beams that bear the load of stacking in the four corners. Purchases of cargo containers are made through brokers, who inspect and usually guarantee their quality before shipping. Used containers cost about $2,500 to $3,000.

Prior to construction, the boxes are sand-blasted and coated with several layers of primer and rust-resistant and heat-reflective paint. Windows, doors, vents and other openings are cut out of the corrugated metal walls.

Construction begins by setting the containers in place, on a raised floor, slab or basement, and welding them together to create the desired form of the structure. Wood, or preferably, steel studs, beams and trusses can be used to create any imaginable exterior or interior spaces (between containers) and roof coverings. Then insulation and electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems are added as well as windows, doors and other finishing. Exterior and interior walls, floors and ceilings can be left as is or covered with any building material. Options are limitless for outfitting, decorating and adding sustainable attributes to the structure.

The cost of a custom-designed container home, according to DeMaria, averages around $135 per square foot, depending on finishings, which is about 35 percent less than conventional construction.

DeMaria’s Vision:

In addition to building custom container homes, DeMaria unveiled a line of prefabricated designs in 2009 that range from one to five bedrooms with interiors from 160 to 3,580 square feet. His company, Logical Homes, assembles the homes in Los Angeles and then serves as the general contractors on site. Almost everything is included, from foundation to countertops, (except appliances and permits) for prices ranging from $100 to $135 per square foot.

“Our homes are not high-tech. We like to think of them as appropriate-tech,” DeMaria said. “We believe that the options available to progressive homebuyers are limited; and we have chosen to do something about it with a respect for the scarcity of resources our planet faces.”

The Greening of NASCAR

The Greening of NASCAR


October 19th, 2010
By: Environmental News Network


NASCAR, the National Association for Auto Stock Car Racing, the world’s largest motor sports association, is trying to green its image. Under chairman and CEO, Brian France, NASCAR is seeking to become a true environmental leader. This may seem like a paradox for a sport where the goal is to drive the fastest and thus burn more fossil fuels. However, the league has taken some big steps to green their image in the last few years, which deserve to be acknowledged.

Auto racing would be the last industry — and an industry, it is — to adopt environmentally friendly practices. Races can be up to 500 miles long and involve fifty vehicles driving at extremely fast speeds. Each track is different, but the fastest is the Talledega Superspeedway with an average speed of 188 miles per hour (303 km/hr)! These racecars are not exactly fuel-sipping either; the average fuel economy is a dismal five miles per gallon! Do the math: fifty cars, 500 miles each at five mpg.

That is just one race. There are three major racing series: Sprint, Nationwide, and Camping World Truck. Each racing series has between 25 and 36 races each. Altogether, there are 95 races scheduled for 2011, and that does not include time trials, all-star races, duels, showdowns, and the many smaller racing series which the league sanctions. Then of course, there are the millions of fans who travel to the races in their cars, trucks, and RVs.

NASCAR is a sport that certainly burns a lot of fuel. Realizing this, management of the association, under France, is making efforts to offset their carbon emissions. They have joined forces with sponsors to set up the world’s largest recycling program. They maintain the world’s largest solar-powered sports facility at the Pocono Raceway. They have also done a massive tree-planting which NASCAR claims neutralized all carbon emissions produced by the Sprint Cup Series racecars.

Their most recent step is to change the fuel used in all three major national series to Sunoco Green E15, a 15 percent ethanol blend made from domestic corn. While the benefits of corn-based ethanol are debatable, they will help NASCAR lower carbon emissions while not affecting engine performance, the sport’s biggest concern.

One of the biggest concerns for the fans will be that the new fuel will decrease vehicle’s miles per gallon, leading to more frequent pit stops. However, after extensive testing, the new fuel has no measurable impacts on NASCAR’s high performance engines. If this is the case, it will be a significant net reduction of 15 percent for fossil fuel consumption (not counting fuel required for ethanol production).

NASCAR is not exactly a model for environmental friendliness, but the new fuel is a significant step in the right direction. The next move which the league is considering is the introduction of electronic fuel-injection which could greatly improve miles per gallon. Hopefully they will continually adopt new fuel-efficiency technologies as they emerge. In the grand scheme of things, it is interesting to know that even a sport as gas-guzzling as NASCAR is trying to green their image. Just another sign of the times.

Is The Advertising Industry To Blame?

Is the advertising industry to blame for consumers’ slow adoption of energy efficiency?

May 4, 2010
Director of Insight Karen Barnes turns the mirror on our own industry and asks the tough questions.

As we travel around the country talking with ordinary Americans about energy efficiency, it’s common to hear them express confusion about why, all of a sudden, their power company is asking them to use less energy after decades of encouraging them to use more. For many folks, this seems like a dramatic turn of events that just doesn’t make any sense. It seems like a contradiction.

And so it is with advertising that encourages folks to exercise some self-control and conserve energy. Let’s be honest here: for decades, it’s been our job to tell people they don’t have to sacrifice anything if they do what we say. Simply by owning product X, they will be happier, skinnier, sexier, healthier, more popular, a better parent, a more responsible person. We’ve built a culture of consumption. Heck, we don’t even refer to people as people, we call them consumers instead, measuring their lifetime worth by the amount of money they spend on our products.

And when it comes to energy, we know that most Americans would choose their comfort or convenience over the environment, and many times comfort and convenience require additional energy use, like keeping your thermostat set at 72 degrees year round. Americans simply aren’t good at using self-control when it comes to energy conservation.

Here’s the kicker. Psychologists now know that self-control is a finite resource. There’s only so much self-control a person can exercise before they run out, reach for the Cheetos, dial their ex-boyfriend, light up a forbidden cigarette or reset their thermostat to a more comfortable temperature.

I’m afraid, as marketers, we’ve helped exhaust Americans’ limited supply of self-control. And now, as a country, we need some. Okay, we need a lot. We’ve got an obesity epidemic, an energy addiction and a financial crisis to deal with.

So how do we turn it around? We can’t do what we’ve always done. We have to look at things from a different perspective – we have to now celebrate conservation instead of consumption. We have to make keeping up with the Joneses less appealing (which is tough since we love, love, love instant gratification) and we have to break down these huge goals and calls to action (“Save energy” “Live a healthier lifestyle”) into digestible steps and concrete tasks people can take (“Set your thermostat at 68 degrees” “Buy 1% milk instead of whole milk”).

It’s time for a new set of emotional strategies that will help build self-control rather than break it down. And it’s time for us to help repair what we’ve broken.

American's Energy Attitudes and Behaviors

The low hanging fruit is officially picked!


October 14, 2010
By: Karen Barnes, Director of Insight

We’re wrapping up our analysis on 'Energy Pulse 2010', the sixth year we’ve tracked Americans’ energy attitudes and behaviors, and I wanted to give you a sneak peek.

Overall, Americans have stepped up to the call to be more energy efficient. The increase this year in reported activities is nothing short of astonishing – and it’s not just for the inexpensive, easy to do measures.

• 9 of 10 say they’ve changed their habits at home

• 3 of 4 say they’ve replaced incandescent light bulbs with CFLs or LEDs

• 64% have caulked or weatherstripped

• 60% have purchased an energy efficient appliance

• 56% say they now unplug small electronics and appliances when not in use

• 56% say they’ve installed a programmable thermostat

• 51% have installed a more efficient heating or cooling system

• 49% have added extra insulation

• 49% have installed more efficient windows

These numbers point to the need for a new targeting strategy for many energy efficient product manufacturers. Now that many energy efficient improvements are nearing a reported saturation points among early adopters (we’ll talk another time about whether or not they’ve actually done as much as they say), it’s time to start targeting those who haven’t embraced energy efficiency as a personal value, those who have less interest in the topic, and those who have serious barriers to overcome to be able to act.

These people are the ones who are not intrinsically motivated to make energy efficient changes – instead, they are extrinsically motivated and different strategies will need to be employed to engage with them. We must identify their barriers – financial ones are still the biggest challenge – and what may be needed is zero-interest financing, larger rebates and greater discounts. They’re also not necessarily interested in saving money – so a different message will need to be identified. In 'Energy Pulse 2010', we see some potential for a new comfort message for the holdouts.

Now, instead of identifying people who have already completed energy efficient improvements and finding more people like them, marketers must spend more time, more energy, and ultimately more money communicating with the holdouts if any long-term progress is to be achieved.

Striving For '0'

Striving for 0

Family works to squeeze best energy rating from their Cape Cod

October 17, 2010

By: Jim Weiker

Jeff and Sherri Wilson hope their Athens home will produce more energy than it consumes when they finish its "deep energy retrofit."

The Wilsons plan to finish the first phase of the project this fall. The Wilsons put a new layer of insulation and siding on their home, creating 10-inch exterior walls. Jeff Wilson is documenting the renovation on HGTVPro.com. The Wilsons have done much of the work themselves.

ATHENS, Ohio - The most remarkable thing about Jeff and Sherri Wilson's house is its unremarkable appearance. The two-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot 1940 Cape Cod sits inconspicuously in a neighborhood of similarly modest homes on the east side of Athens.

A year ago, the Wilsons began converting the home into something rare: a house that consumes less energy than it produces. They aren't there yet, but they're close. Their highest electric bill this year has been $20; their lowest: a $9 credit from AEP. Their highest gas bill last winter was $58, and they expect the upcoming winter bills to be far lower.

The transformation, which former TV host Jeff Wilson is documenting on www.HGTVPro.com, is still under way. But Wilson, who can rattle off green phrases with the force of a true believer, already sees his house as a model for much of the United States. "Ninety-six million homes in the U.S. are more than 20 years old," Wilson said. "What we really need is a way to attack energy efficiency in these homes in a different way."

A close look at the Wilsons' home reveals the different - and radical - way the couple approached energy efficiency. The home features unusually deep window sills, the product of the Wilsons' decision to wrap the home with another skin.

The couple did not come to the decision lightly. When they moved to the home nine years ago, they expected the move to be temporary while they planned their dream home, an ecological tour de force. But as the couple's two girls, now 12 and 9, grew up, the family discovered the value of living within walking distance to schools, libraries and stores.

"We always figured we would live off the grid someplace," Jeff Wilson said. "This was a big change for us. We realized our perfect home is here. But we were stuck with this drafty old house - cold in winter and hot and humid in the summer." Wilson's research into retrofitting an older home led to a revelation: There's more value in making older homes energy-efficient than in building super-efficient homes on green fields.

"When you look at the cost of energy in building a new home, it's far more cost-efficient to retrofit older homes," said Wilson, a video producer whose Hollywood looks have landed him hosting jobs on HGTV and the DIY Network. Instead of building new, the couple decided to perform what Jeff Wilson calls a "deep energy retrofit" on their house.

Their first step was to find out just how inefficient the home was. The Wilsons hired Andrew Frowine, owner of SaveGreenUSA in Peebles, Ohio, to do a Home Energy Rating Service analysis on the house. The home scored an 87, better than a standard home score of 100 because of some replacement windows and insulation the Wilsons added a few years ago.

But the score was far from the 0 the Wilsons want.

"Jeff was a very energy-aware homeowner, and they had done a lot of little things to seal up the leaks in the home," Frowine said. "But his home would not be considered a tight home."

With the results in hand, the couple started renovations last fall. The project included tearing down an old single-car garage and building a new one-and-and-half-car garage with a 350-square-foot second floor that will serve as a master suite. Framers were hired for the addition, but otherwise, the Wilsons did most of the work themselves.

After the addition was erected, the couple started wrapping the original part of the home in a new envelope. They tore off the aluminum siding and nailed 2-by-3 studs onto the original redwood siding. Between the studs, the couple blew foam insulation, which Jeff Wilson prefers to fiberglass insulation because it forms an air seal when it hardens. (For their addition, the couple used both foam and fiberglass insulation in the exterior walls.) After layers of oriented strand board and building sheathing paper, the couple completed the wrap with engineered wood siding.

The couple laid a similar skin on the roof, nailing 2-by-4s directly over the roof shingles and spraying foam between the new studs. On top of the studs, they placed oriented strand board with reflective sheeting on the underside, which keeps heat from building in the attic. The new building envelope is the most dramatic step the couple took, but it's not the only one or even the most expensive.

A solar-energy system, with roof panels linked to the AEP grid, initially cost $32,000. But, the couple got $11,000 back from a state grant and will get $7,000 back in a federal tax credit. In addition, they expect to earn $1,000 to $1,250 a year selling solar renewable energy certificates.

Otherwise, the project involved several other energy-saving steps:

• Replacing the original single-pane wood windows with triple-pane vinyl windows filled with krypton gas

• Using white rubber reflecting surface on the roof of the addition

• Replacing an old wooden front door with an insulated fiberglass door

• Adding a whole-house ventilation system to keep fresh air circulating through the home

• Replacing a hot-water tank with a tankless system that heats water as it is being used

Despite the Wilsons' dramatic steps, they know they could have done more. For starters, they made at least one concession to aesthetics. They used a rubber roofing shingle meant to resemble slate instead of more efficient white shingles. They also considered a geothermal heating and cooling system but backed off because of the $20,000 to $30,000 cost. They likewise passed on structural insulated panels for the addition because of the cost.

Even with those compromises, the project wasn't cheap. They estimate the cost at $100,000: $45,000 for the addition; $35,000 for the retrofit; and $20,000 for the solar system (before the federal tax credit). About half the cost was offset by sponsors who donated products.

"Most people might not think spending that much on a $150,000 house is a good idea," Jeff Wilson said. "But we thought: What can we do to make this house last another 70 years?" Frowine agrees that most people will find the Wilsons' expense excessive. But he admires the couple for energetically demonstrating what can be done with an older home.

"With Jeff, part of his mission is he wants to establish a bar, a standard to which people can strive toward," Frowine said. "He's not saying, 'You have to get to this level.' He and his wife and their family are trying to set an example of what can be done with an older home, with a regular family with kids."

The Wilsons will be done with this phase of their renovation when they finish the shell above the garage this fall. The next phase: Insulate and finish the basement. But even with those phases completed, they won't reach their goal of producing more energy than they are consuming until they replace their gas appliances with electric that can draw on their solar-power system.

"The perfect goal would be to make the house energy neutral tomorrow," Jeff Wilson said. "But the good goal is to work toward that."