The growing buzz around electric vehicles has some saying they will be the next great product migration in the automobile market. To date, one of the largest impasses for the fledgling technology is the batteries and their expense. Advanced battery systems, like lithium-ion, required for larger capacities and quicker recharging times are the high cost element for these new cars. But some car companies are now exploring a way to help offset those costs and materials by trying to survey out a second life for these batteries after they leave cars to serve as renewable power storage. Before electric vehicles have even hit the production lines their lifecycle costs could be drastically reduced by capitalizing on interconnections with other sustainable industries.
Archives For May 2010
I can just hear people looking around sporting a big shrug and palms pointed upward with a questioning look on their faces. “What’s the problem? Things are fine, we’re on a decline!” The Energy Information Administration recently released analysis that carbon emissions decreased by a record 7% in 2009. Undeniably, this is great news. Since we began measuring releases of CO2, never has the country declined so much within a single year. The danger is for some to mistake this event as reason to slack off instead of the impetus to push harder. As economic recovery in the U.S. begins to take hold, more than ever, now is the time to tighten our belts so that economic expansion happens as sustainability as possible.
In the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a hop, skip and jump away from Harvard University, presiding over the restored Joan Lorentz Park, the Cambridge Public Library now stands with a new image of modern grace. Attached to the existing library designed in 1887 by Van Brunt & Howe, the new work of metal and glass offers us a model for sustainable, public projects. Designed by William Rawn Associates, the building is not only a case study of integrating sustainability into a house of knowledge, but moreover, the product of diligent research by a team that is interested in sharing that knowledge and progress with the profession at large.