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."

State Energy Law Gets Lukewarm Review

State energy law gets lukewarm review

Utilities slow to meet standards toward goal of reducing reliance on coal, researchers say.

September 17, 2010 

By Dan Gearino

Signed in 2008 by Gov. Ted Strickland, Senate Bill 221 requires investor-owned electric companies such as American Electric Power to generate 25 percent of their electricity from advanced or renewable sources by 2025.

Two years after it was enacted, a state energy law has led to more jobs and cleaner air.

But the law is too easy to flout and isn't ambitious enough in its goals, according to a report from Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit research group.

"This is a great law, and we have to make sure to enforce it," said Amanda Woodrum, a researcher in the group's Cleveland office. "It's critical to make sure utility companies follow through."

Signed in 2008 by Gov. Ted Strickland, Senate Bill 221 requires investor-owned electric companies such as American Electric Power to generate 25 percent of their electricity from advanced or renewable sources by 2025.

Of that total, 12.5 percent must come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. The companies have rising benchmarks each year for renewable and solar energy.

Supporters of the law hoped to reduce the state's reliance on coal and attract jobs related to renewable energy. In exchange for meeting the requirements, utilities gained greater freedom to raise prices.

Policy Matters lists statistics from other sources about the reduction in pollution and the likelihood of new jobs.

For example, the authors cite a 2008 study by the Center for American Progress that predicted the creation of 3,600 direct and indirect jobs this year related to the law. The report also cites several examples of job growth, such as DuPont's continuing expansion in Circleville to make solar-power components, leading to 70 new jobs.

For all the enthusiasm tied to the law, its supporters have had their share of disappointments.

One of the greatest is the failure of any utility to meet last year's solar standard, the first annual benchmark. The companies faced no penalty because they convinced regulators that they didn't have enough time to meet the standard and that Ohio didn't have enough solar power available.

Since then, AEP has come on line with the state's largest solar farm, a 12 megawatt installation in Wyandot County. The company is now poised to meet benchmarks for the next few years.

"I think we are making strides, and that's what you need to look at - the total picture," said Terri Flora, spokeswoman for AEP Ohio. At the same time, AEP continues to rely heavily on coal.

Other utilities have not been as decisive with solar power, and Policy Matters wants regulators to take a firm hand when deciding whether to issue fines, which is the penalty allowed by the law.

Among the other recommendations:

• Expand the energy standards to require greater efficiency by natural gas utilities.

• Convene a state panel to study biomass power and determine whether that source of energy, from burning plant matter, is truly renewable and efficient.

• Simplify the utilities' reporting of compliance, requiring each company to issue a five-page summary about the programs, costs and results.

Flora said Policy Matters' recommendations might have merit, but they also likely will lead to higher costs for customers. "When you're looking at anything, you need to have a balance between the rate impact and the requirements," she said.

CertainTeed® Corp Recycling 100% Manufacturing Waste

CertainTeed's Shreveport Roofing Plant Paves the Way to Greener Operations, Recycling Nearly 100 Percent of Manufacturing Waste

Valley Forge, PA
August 9, 2010
By: Miller Brooks

CertainTeed Corporation's roofing plant in Shreveport, La., is teaming up with a Texas paving company to recycle nearly 100 percent of manufacturing waste. Paving the way with greener operations, CertainTeed® is helping to divert approximately 15,000 tons of material from landfills each year. The waste is used by RK Hall of Texarkana to produce asphalt pavement used for highways and bridges.

"By finding an eco-friendly solution for disposing of scrap materials, the Shreveport plant is significantly reducing its environmental impact," says John Hardy, operational excellence leader for CertainTeed® Roofing. "As a result of the partnership with RK Hall of Texarkana, the plant has also reduced transportation costs; a testament that going green has both environmental and economic benefits."

A part of the community since 1930, the roofing plant has 73 employees and produces several asphalt shingle product lines including XT(TM) 25, XT(TM) 30 and CT 20 as well as the popular Landmark(TM) Series shingles. In 2009, the plant received an award for Excellence in Energy Efficiency for reducing its annual energy consumption by more than 10 percent. The plant is also an active participant in the Saint-Gobain International Environment, Health and Safety Day, an annual event dedicated to environmental awareness, emergency preparedness, healthy living and workplace safety.

Using sustainable manufacturing practices, CertainTeed® roofing offers a portfolio of 50 ENERGY STAR® rated products, many of which contribute to LEED certification and are eligible for energy efficiency tax credits through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. CertainTeed® is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, plays an active role in the green building movement. For the second consecutive year, CertainTeed® has been named ENERGY STAR® partner of the year.

For more information on CertainTeed's environmentally friendly products and sustainable operations, visit www.certainteed.com.

About CertainTeed

Through the responsible development of innovative and sustainable building products, CertainTeed® has helped shape the building products industry for more than 100 years. Founded in 1904 as General Roofing Manufacturing Company, the firm's slogan "Quality Made Certain, Satisfaction Guaranteed," quickly inspired the name CertainTeed®. Today, CertainTeed® is North America's leading brand of exterior and interior building products, including roofing, siding, windows, fence, decking, railing, trim, foundations, pipe, insulation, gypsum, ceilings and access covers.

A subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, the world's largest building products company, CertainTeed® and its affiliates have more than 6,000 employees and more than 65 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and Canada. In 2009 and 2010, CertainTeed®, which is headquartered in Valley Forge, Pa., was named ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a national award that recognizes environmentally responsible corporations. The group had total sales of approximately $3 billion in 2009.

International Data Bank Forecasting?

This Week UK Climate Change Meeting To Ask Google & Galaxy Zoo For Help

Sept. 6, 2010
Justmeans.com


An exciting gathering of leading climate scientists will meet this week in the UK to finalize plans for a planet changing initiative that will transform their ability to predict world meteorological disasters. They want to create an international databank that would generate forecasts of exceptional precision and we need only think of recent global disasters this year - Russia's blanket of smog; Pakistan's floods and over the weekend New Zealand's earth-quake, that this data would have made a difference to. Scientists believe that as climate change continues to affect the planet, we will need to learn how to predict these potential disasters and will need to take a different approach to tackle this. This is where digital comes in - Google and Galaxy Zoo will play a key part in helping meteorologists to forecast long term weather and climate pattern.

Recent developments on the web will help in the decoding and digitizing of old sea logs from some of Britain's renowned sea voyages. Daily weather information recorded in Britain's navy sea logs during 19th and 20th will reveal climate patterns for these decades. The problem is that the data is stored in old logbooks and it will be a long process to turn this data into a digital format, but this is where Galaxy Zoo and Google will play a role.

Galaxy Zoo is a website set up three years ago by Chris Lintott, an Oxford physicist. It's a site that engages with the public, asking them to help classify photographs of a million galaxies and it has been an outstanding success and one of the biggest citizen-science experiments on the web. Members of the public log on and classify galaxies, and occasionally their classifications have been better than, professional astronomers! There's a hope that Galaxy Zoo will be able to provide a model that will now engage the public to help in the huge task of digitising the weather logs left by sailors. Information from major Antarctic expeditions is being digitised by the Met Office.

The other plans for this week's meeting are - persuading the many countries that currently refuse to provide meteorological information to the rest of the world to do so, as to make accurate forecasts scientists need daily temperature readings; and creating a global network of weather stations that would provide daily temperature readings for any spot on the planet. Currently, only monthly readings are generated for the US and Europe. There is virtually no data for much of Africa, the Amazon and Antarctica.

Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK Met Office, says, "It is now very clear that humanity is changing the climate through the greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere. We need to answer key questions such as whether the onset of the monsoon in India will be delayed, how the frequency of droughts in the Horn of Africa is changing, or whether Europe will experience more severe heat-waves in future."