The UK’s first people-powered VW Beetle has taken to the streets of Bristol in what has been hailed as a breakthrough in the drive to encourage sustainable power.

The Bio-Bug runs on methane gas generated during the sewage treatment process.

Waste flushed down the toilets of just 70 homes in Bristol is enough to power the Bio-Bug for a year, based on an annual mileage of 10,000 miles.

With support from the South West Regional Development Agency, GENeco, a Wessex Water-owned company, imported specialist equipment to treat gas generated at Bristol sewage treatment works in Avonmouth to power the VW Beetle in a way that doesn’t affect its performance.

Mohammed Saddiq, GENeco’s general manager, said he was confident that methane from sewage sludge could be used as an alternative energy source and was an innovative way of powering company vehicles.

He said: “Our site at Avonmouth has been producing biogas for many years which we use to generate electricity to power the site and export to the National Grid.

“With the surplus gas we had available we wanted to put it to good use in a sustainable and efficient way.

“We decided to power a vehicle on the gas offering a sustainable alternative to using fossil fuels which we so heavily rely on in the UK.

“If you were to drive the car you wouldn’t know it was powered by biogas as it performs just like any conventional car. It is probably the most sustainable car around.”

Countries including India and China use compressed natural gas (CNG) to power vehicles and a number of companies in the UK are now using CNG mainly to fuel buses and commercial vehicles. In Sweden, more than 11,500 vehicles already run on biomethane produced from sewage plants.

But using biogas from sewage sludge is yet to take off in the UK despite a significant amount being produced everyday at sewage plants around the country.

To use biogas as vehicle fuel without affecting vehicle performance or reliability the gas needs to be treated – a process called biogas upgrading. It involves carbon dioxide being separated from the biogas using specialist equipment.

If all the biogas produced at Avonmouth was converted to run cars it would avoid around 19,000 tonnes of CO₂.

GENeco believes that more gas will be produced at its Avonmouth site when the company embarks on its latest green venture to recycle food waste.

Mr Saddiq said: “Waste flushed down the toilets in homes in the city provides power for the Bio-Bug, but it won’t be long before further energy is produced when food waste is recycled at our sewage works.

“It will mean that both human waste and food waste will be put to good use in a sustainable way that diverts waste from going to landfill.”

Around 18 million cubic metres of biogas is produced at Bristol sewage treatment works a year.

It is generated through anaerobic digestion – a process in which bugs in the absence of oxygen break down biodegradable material to produce methane.

Bath-based Greenfuel Company converted the Beetle so it could run on biogas while bosses from GENeco ran a workshop at a University of Bath event for teenagers from schools in Bath and North East Somerset to come up with ideas for the car’s design.

Mr Saddiq added: “The choice of car was inspired by students who took part in a workshop. They thought it would be appropriate that the poo-powered car should be the classic VW Beetle Bug because bugs naturally breakdown waste at sewage works to start the treatment process which goes on to produce the energy.”

The Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA) said the launch of the Bio-Bug proved that biomethane from sewage sludge could be used as an alternative fuel for vehicles.

ADBA chairman Lord Rupert Redesdale said: “This is a very exciting and forward-thinking project demonstrating the myriad benefits of anaerobic digestion (AD).

“Biomethane cars could be just as important as electric cars, and the water regulator Ofwat should promote the generation of as much biogas as possible through sewage works in the fight against climate change.”

ADBA chief executive Charlotte Morton added: “We are delighted to see such ingenuity and commitment to maximising the potential of AD from the water industry.”

GENeco said if the trial involving the Bio-Bug proved successful it would look to convert some of the company’s fleet of vehicles to run on biogas.

Claire Gibson, director of sustainable resources at the South West RDA, said: “I am really pleased that we have been able to support GENeco to demonstrate this alternative transport fuel.

“We have invested in a range of emerging low carbon technologies and renewable energy fuel types such as this to ensure the South West is well positioned to take advantage of this growing market.

“It is vital that the knowledge from initiatives such as this biogas project is shared so we can move more quickly towards a low carbon, resource efficient economy. I look forward to continuing to work with GENeco to achieve this."

Bio-Bug is a modified Volkswagen Beetle that runs on human waste and is the UK’s first car to be powered by sewage byproducts. The car was made by Wessex Water, a sewage utility company based in Bristol, that used excess methane gas produced in one of its treatment plants as fuel for the car. The company claims that the Bio-Bug is extremely efficient and needs waste from just 70 local homes to keep it running for a year.

Quandary: You live in a place so beautifully sunny that you could probably power your home with solar-energy, but it is so beautifully sunny that you spend the whole day lazing in a hammock sipping iced-tea. The answer, my idle friend, is the Sunfish, solar-power that is literally plug-and-play. It’s so easy to install that even you could do it.

Sunfish works like this: You lay out a solar-panel and hook it up to the power-module. Plug this into any power-socket in your house. Then, plug in the accompanying circuit-monitor, a controller box which connects to the power-module via Wi-Fi and lets you keep an eye on things (via any web-connected device). That’s it. As long as the sun is shining, the setup pumps electricity into you mains circuit.

There are two models. The 200-watt version will power your lights (although why you would run lights with the sun shining outside is a mystery). The 1kW version will take care of washing machines and the like. If you need more power, you can just plug in more boxes.

It’s ingenious, and because its so easy to install it is pretty much portable: a boon for those in rented accommodation. The Sunfish will be available next year, at planned prices of $600 to $900 for the smaller model and $3,000 to $4,500 for the bigger one. Clarian, the company behind the device, says that a unit will pay for itself in a couple years.

I’m sold. I have been considering solar power ever since moving to Spain, but it has always seemed so complicated to set up. This plug-and-go option isn’t exactly cheap, but it sure is easy.

Sunfish: Revolutionizing Renewable Energy

Your local freezer aisle just got a lot cooler. Cool Hunting reports that Stahlbush Island Farms has introduced BioBags, biodegradable packaging for its line of frozen vegetables, and fruits. The company’s new bag does away with the widely used polyethylene-based material in favor of brown craft paper, and water-based ink. In turn, that substitution cuts down the breaking-down process from several centuries to just a few short months.

Cool Hunting has more about the long-time sustainable farming efforts of the company, whose products can be found at Whole Foods, Sunflower Farmers Market, and New Seasons Market. 

Located in Oregon's Willamette Valley, Stahlbush Island Farms has an outstanding reputation for sustainable agriculture, producing enough electricity from fruit and vegetable byproducts to power around 1,100 homes. The recent BioBags endeavor is the upshot of a collaboration with Michigan-based Cadillac Products Packaging Company, who helped design and manufacture the eco-friendly bags.

The BioBags follow a wave of efforts toward more sustainable food packaging, including the release of Frito-Lay Brand’s new 100-percent compostable SunChip bag.  [full disclosure: Frito-Lay Brand is a business unit of PepsiCo. GOOD is a partner on Pepsi's Refresh Everything project.] The bags—the first full packaging to be completely compostable—are made from corn-based polymer, and canbiodegrade in a backyard compost pile in a mere 14 weeks. 

For all its merits, London isn't one of United Kingdom's best cities for cycling. A recent poll ranked it 17th. But Mayor Boris Johnson is trying to change that. This morning he announced the opening of two new "cycle superhighways" in the city. Each is five feet wide, has two lanes so as to accommodate traffic in both directions, and is painted bright blue to "represent freedom." One stretches 8.5 miles from the southern suburb of Merton to the city center. The other runs into town from Barking, in eastern London. Eventually, 12 of these commuter routes will radiate out from the center of London like spokes.

London's cyclists are mostly happy with the new routes, though there are already reports that cars and trucks are encroaching on them, or simply driving in them. But Johnson hopes that his comprehensive plan to support cycling which, along with the superhighways, includes a hew bike-sharing program and a new bike police unit, will spur a city-wide "cycling revolution."

See a full-size map of London's "cycling superhighways"

Bionic Yarn is a New York-based textile manufacturing company that uses recycled plastic beverage bottles as a raw material to produce premium yarns and fabrics that are used in making backpacks, luggage, handbags and various kinds of apparel for some of the leading fashion houses such as Moncler, Gap and Mountain Hardware.

Buzz-Beast explains their process of producing the yarn from recycled plastic:

The Bionic yarn constructing is achieved by covering a PETE (recycled plastic) corespun yarn in a helix formation with two surface filament layers in opposite directions. This creates a counterforce on each component and there by binds them together, having an effect similar to a “Chinese finger trap.” This in turn creates an extremely durable fabric. The alternate fibers used in the core and the helix of bionic hlx yarn are nylon, high tenacity polyester, lycra, and cotton.

Here’s a video of Grammy winning producer and partner in the company, Pharrell Williams discussing Bionic Yarn and sustainability with Bill Clinton:

Bill Clinton and Pharrell discuss Bionic Yarn and Sustainability from Bionic Yarn on Vimeo.

Bionic Yarn

Buzz-Beast: “Pharrell Williams x Bionic Yarn | Eco Sustainable Clothing”

Think the trend of businesses making green office renovations is just a passing fad? Not according to the latest issue of EL Insights, which reports that the U.S. green building market value will balloon from $71.1 billion now to $173 billion by 2015. Commercial green building is expected to grow by 18.1% annually during the same time period from $35.6 billion to $81.8 billion. In this case, green building is defined as building with resource use and employee productivity in mind.

The explosive projected growth can be attributed both to a growing recognition of green building's potential cost-savings as well as incentives from the government (i.e. the multi-million dollar Sustainable Communities Challenge Planning Grant program and the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program). Green renovation will also comprise a significant portion of future green building, thanks in no small part to government projects like then Recovery through Retrofit initiative, which offers $80 billion energy and environmental retrofits for federal buildings.

The growth in green building will lead to a number of changes in the larger building market, according to EL Insights: Construction workers will increasingly seek out green training programs, companies will spend more cash on green building technology (GE is already doing with its ecomagination initiative), and homes touting green building features will do better on the real estate market. All of this will result in cost savings for building and home owners, who will reap the benefits of lower energy and heating bills.

So if you haven't been paying attention to the U.S. Green Building Council, now is the time to start--the non-profit offers virtually endless amounts of information on green building studies and LEED certification.

Earlier this week, we took another big step forward in the Obama Administration’s efforts to encourage more sustainable development as we announced $100 million for our new Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program to encourage regions to integrate economic development, land use, and transportation investments – which will help to tie the quality and location of housing to broader opportunities such as access to good jobs, quality schools, and safe streets. 

For all the implications of “sprawl”—from job loss, economic decline and segregation, to obesity, asthma rates, to climate change and our dangerous dependence on foreign oil—all of them share by one fundamental problem: the mismatch between where we live and where we work. Whatever else we do to address these problems, America must find a way to connect housing to jobs.

 And Americans are demanding it.  Today, the average household spends more than half of its budget on housing and transportation.  They have become American families’ two single biggest expenses.

During the housing boom, real estate agents suggested to families that couldn’t afford to live near job centers that they could find a more affordable home by living farther away.  Lenders bought into the “Drive to Qualify” myth as well – giving easy credit to homebuyers without accounting for how much it might cost families to live in these areas or the risk they could pose to the market.

And then, an odd thing happened when these families moved in – they found themselves driving dozens of miles to work, to school, to the movies, to the grocery store, spending hours in traffic and spending nearly as much to fill their gas tank as they were to pay their mortgage...and in some places, more.  In addition to adding to families’ budgets and time, it is also contributing to increased carbon emissions and pollution.  

In all, in the last century, transportation costs as a share of household expenditures have increased by a thousand percent.

In February, HUD launched our new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities – allowing us to work directly with communities to support innovative planning and practice at the local level and helping to coordinate our investments with other agencies at the federal level.

In particular, HUD formed a Sustainability Partnership with the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency.  When it comes to housing, environmental and transportation policy, the Federal government must speak with one voice. This is an example of how we’re changing the way we do business across the Administration – working not at cross purposes in our silos, but together, in common purpose
 
Of course, as critical as regional planning is, the hard work of implementing plans happens at the local level.

That’s why our $40 million Sustainable Communities Challenge Planning Grant program is targeted to cities and towns.  I announced this program earlier this week in conjunction with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a joint grant program that includes up to $35 million for its “TIGER II” planning grant program. 

Where the Transportation program will fund planning activities that relate directly to a future transportation capital investment, HUD’s program will fund land-use related planning activities and affordable housing strategies that will be linked to that investment. This funding will make it possible for communities to hire staff with the expertise needed to remove barriers communities face to sustainable development. 

The goal of each of these efforts—at the regional level, at the community level and at the neighborhood level—is the same: to advance our shared priorities and values as Americans for the decades to come.

Priorities like jobs for the 21st century – located closer to where we live, so businesses spend less money moving goods and services and people can spend less time commuting and more time with family.

Values like healthier, more inclusive communities – with neighborhoods where kids can play outside and breathe clean air. 

Communities where opportunities for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities are never determined by their zip code.

These are the kinds of communities we all want our children to grow up in. 

If, in this new century, we grow our communities and our economies out of this fundamental principle, then I have no doubt our America and our children’s America will be a strong, prosperous America infused with the same sense of purpose, opportunity and resolve that have always defined us.  

Shaun Donovan is the Secrecretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development

The beginning of a new year brings all kinds of interesting top ten lists, including the Earth Advantage Institute’s top ten green trends to watch in 2010.   Many of items to make the list aren’t too surprising – for example we should expect to see more net-zero buildings and more sustainable building education.   But I was happily surprised to see Earth Advantage’s prediction that we will see more efforts to understand the  environmental impacts of building materials is 2010.

“With buildings contributing roughly half the carbon emissions in the environment, the progressive elements in the building industry are looking at ways to document, measure, and reduce greenhouse gas creation in building materials and processes. Lifecycle analysis (LCA) of building products is underway by third party technical teams, while others are working with federal and state building authorities to educate staff, create monetized carbon credits, and develop effective carbon offset policies. This effort will be heightened once a federal cap-and-trade mechanism is launched in this country.”

While there’s been a lot of focus on green buildings in the last decade, most of that was directed to understanding how we can make buildings more efficient in their operation or location.  There hasn’t been nearly as much focus on understanding the environmental impacts of the materials used to construct or rehabilitate buildings.   Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) — that somewhat daunting sounding term —  is the process by which we can understand the environmental impacts of a product through all phases of its life, including extraction of natural materials, manufacturing, construction, use and disposal.  LCA evaluates several different aspects of products, such as  the carbon released and energy used by the product, as well as other factors such as toxic emissions released into our air, water and soil.

The Department of Energy funds and houses the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory Database, and is thankfully ramping up its efforts to expand the availability and quality of data for all kinds of materials – from those used in packaging to housing.   Organizations such as the USGBC – which is moving towards a life-cycle based rating system – also have a strong interest in improved understanding of the environmental impacts of materials.   And, as Earth Advantage notes, there’s increasing interest in this subject because of the potential to turn carbon savings into money under a federal cap-and-trade program.  All of this may seem kind of nerdy, and kind of wonky, but for those of us who really want to understand the environmental impacts created by constructing new stuff  – namely buildings –  this is great news.

We at the National Trust for Historic Preservation are also stepping up in 2010 and making our own contribution to understanding the environmental impacts of building materials and construction, thanks to a generous grant from the Summit Foundation. Last summer, we held a symposium on Life Cycle Assessment and historic preservation with experts on both subjects to  identify the research and tools needed to better understand the environmental value of reusing buildings.

After working through the recommendations from the symposium, the National Trust issued a Request for Qualifications for a research study to quantify the value of building reuse, and we’re now in the process of interviewing candidates to complete the study.  Our research will evaluate the environmental  impacts of building reuse compared to new construction using a number of typical scenarios, such as the demolition of a single family home and replacement with a new, green home.    We’re hopeful that we’ll have results to share by the end of the year, and that these results will help to shed light on why we should care about reusing buildings.