EcoLocalizer

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Tuesday saw Seattle residents given the opportunity to voice their opinion on Mayor Greg Nickel’s proposal to ban Styrofoam containers, and impose a fee on plastic and paper bags at the checkout at supermarkets and local stores. And from what is slowly sliding out over the internets, the idea has been met with a warm reception.

The proposal was be enacted in a two stage process. Beginning in January of 2009, all foam products would be banned, but restraints and grocery stores would be allowed to switch to plastic products if they hadn’t found a biodegradable replacement. The second stage would go in to effect by 2010, at which time all plastics would be banned, leaving only biodegradables.

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Why have gas prices risen to nearly $4 a gallon (or more) in the U.S.? Is it oil speculation? Rising demand? Or the first signs of peak oil?

Whatever the cause (and there’s good reason to blame all three to some degree), most so-called experts these days aren’t expecting oil prices to drop anytime soon. In fact, Newsweek this week features a sobering article titled, “The Coming Energy Wars,” that predicts we’ll soon see oil prices top $200 a barrel. When that happens, the authors warn, we can expect everything about our daily lives to change.

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Across the U.S., researchers, startup companies and investors are exploring the potential of creating large amounts of green, renewable fuel from the humblest of sources: algae.

If you think the energy/food potential for hemp is underutilized, wait’ll you get a gander at algae. This little microorganism really packs a punch.

According to The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know is Wrong (2006, Harmony Books) (I highly recommend it, by the way — it’s packed with fascinating information and weird insights), algae breathes out more oxygen than all the world’s land-based plants and trees combined. Certain types of algae also deliver a whopping amount of protein and nutrients per farmed acre (20 times more than soy beans, in the case of spirulina).

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Every now and again, something really cool crosses my desk, and I think, “Wow, that’s really cool!” Just such an occasion happened this week, when a friend who works in PR sent over some information from The Reuse People of America, or TRP.

Based in Oakland, TRP is a nonprofit organization that works to reduce the amount of useable construction materials that go into landfills. Since its founding in 1993, TRP has salvaged over 200,000 tons of reusable building materials. The resulting resources are sold to the public, or are donated to a variety of worthy causes, including Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill Industries.

Though the materials can come from a variety of sources, over 90% come from TRP’s own demolition services. In demolition projects, TRP acts like any other contractor, except that they sell or donate the resulting “waste”. Homowners who use TRP for demolition get a bonus - tax deductions, based on the value of the materials salvaged. These deductions can be large, in some cases covering the cost of the demolition itself.

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If you think the virtual, online world helps reduce energy consumption in the real world (a topic we’ve touched on before here at Green Options Media), think again: a new study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company provides scary insights into how Internet computing is devouring more and more power and spewing out more and more greenhouse gases.

Based on data from the Uptime Institute, a technology consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the McKinsey report finds that, between 2000 and 2006, the amount of energy needed to power data centers doubled, and that consumption is likely to double again by 2012. In the U.S. alone, we would need to build 10 new power plants by 2010 just to meet the growing energy needs of this country’s data centers.

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Over the next few months, Seattle-based Nordstrom Inc. plans to phase out its non-recyclable shopping bags in favor of paper bags with recyclable cotton handles.

The switch is expected to take place between April and September, as the retailer runs out of supplies of its current propylene-handled shopping bags.

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Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels thinks the city’s taxicabs are guzzling too much gas. So he’s proposing a switch to taxis that get at least 30 miles per gallon by 2013.

According to a report in the Seattle Times, most of the city’s taxis are now Ford Crown Victorias that get less than 20 mpg.

Many cab drivers aren’t thrilled with the proposal, which would still have to be approved by the Seattle City Council. And a proposal similar to Seattle’s is also sparking cabbie criticism in San Francisco.

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A standard car that got 376.59 mpg? In 1973? Where has it been hiding all these years?

Well, the record-breaking 1959 Opel T-1 wasn’t exactly tucked into a crate among millions of other crates in a giant warehouse a la “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (”We have top men working on it right now.” “Who?” “Top men.”)

But it did spend years, all but forgotten, at the Talladega, Alabama-based International Motorsports Hall of Fame until it was discovered — and purchased by — Evan McMullen, who owns Cosmopolitan Motors in Seattle.

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