Fighting Oil Addiction: North Carolina 18th Most Vulnerable State

Natural Resources Defense Council, August 11, 2009

America's addiction to oil continues to threaten not only our national security and global environmental health, but also our economic viability. NRDC analyzed how heavily drivers in each state are affected by increases in oil prices and ranked states on their adoption of solutions to reduce their oil dependence -- measures they are taking to lessen their vulnerability and to bolster America's security. NRDC found that rising gas prices, combined with economic downturn, are making people more vulnerable to changes in oil prices. But many states are taking significant steps to reduce oil dependence through smart clean-transportation policies.

Our analysis shows that:

• Oil dependence affects all states, but some drivers are hit harder economically than others.
• The trends in states' vulnerability to oil price increases over the past couple of years are not encouraging -- drivers in every state were more vulnerable in 2008 than they were in 2006.
• While some states are pioneering solutions and many are taking some action, a fair number of states re still taking few (if any) of the steps needed to reduce their oil dependence.
  

By promoting clean vehicle and fuel technologies as well as transportation alternatives, states can reduce oil dependence. These measures can, in turn, create clean energy jobs, reduce vulnerability to fuel price hikes, and lessen air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

North Carolina drivers spend 5.93% of their income on gasoline, or approximately $2041.98, making it the 18th most vulnerable state.

You can read the entire study here: http://www.nrdc.org/energy/states/files/states.pdf

NC company to make 500 hybrid buses for Seattle

Seattle pi, Associated Press, August 7, 2009

A North Carolina manufacturer is building 500 hybrid transit buses for Seattle - an order that will make the company the largest hybrid bus maker in the world.
Greensboro-based Daimler Buses North America said Friday that King County Metro in Seattle ordered 500 of the diesel-electric buses, with options to buy 200 more. The first batch of 93 buses to be delivered in 2010 will cos tnearly $46 million.
When the new order is filled, there will be nearly 3,000 hybrid Daimler buses in use in North America.
Daimler Buses manufactures transit buses, motorcoaches and shuttle buses.

North Carolina awards $950,000 in "Green Business" grants to 14 firms

Local Tech Wire, August 7, 2009

North Carolina awarded $950,000 in "Green Business Fund" grants to 14 companies Friday as Gov. Bev Perdue signed legislation that moved the State Energy Office to the Department of Commerce from the Department of Administration.
Firms working on biofuel, battery solar energy and a variety of other so-called green technologies were selected.
The biggest grant of $99,486 went to Semprius, a startup focused on solar cells. Semprius is based in Durham.
In 2008 in the first year of hte program, the state awarded 13 grants worth nearly $1 million. Grants ranged in size from $18,000 to $100,000. The grants with detailed description of each program as provided by the governor's office:

• Aerofab Manufacturing Corp., Apex - $45,435
• Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, Lenoir - $81,000
• Centralina Council of Governments, Charlotte - $85,000 - Greater Charlotte Region Biofuel Facility: "Brown" grease is waste oil from food preparation. It often is responsible for clogging sewers, causing overflows. In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region, brown grease contributes to more than 55% of sewer overflows. The grant will help develop a Greater Charlotte Region Biofuel Facility that will turn brown grease from the region into bioful that can be used by consumers.
• Clean Marine Solutions, Wilmington - $84,602
• CPS biofuels Inc., Raleigh - $50,000 High Performance Biofuel Product Dervice from Biodiesel Waste: This project develops a fuel additive made from glycerol, a waste product of biodiesel production. The additive improves fuel economy in gasoline and diesel engines by increasing octane.
  
• EnSolve Biosystems, Inc., Raleigh - $50,000
• FLS Energy Finance LLC, Black Mountain - $60,000
• Innova Homes LLC, Asheville - $51,160
• InnovaTech Inc., Research Triangle Park - $53,317 Cost Effective Harvesting of Algae in Phytobioreactor Bio-fuel Systems: The grant funds development of a prototype phytobioreactor - a large tank for growing algae - to harvest algae for use in biofuel production. This project will increase the efficiency of algae-to-biofuels conversion.
• Microcell Corp. Raleigh - $80,000
• NC State University Solar Center, Raleigh $95,000
• Semprius Inc., Durham - $99,486
• Vesture Corp., Asheboro - $75,000
• Visible Energy Inc., Durham - $40,000

North Carolina State Senate Moves Ahead on Local Sales Taxes

Transport Politic, August 6, 2009

Following an April vote in the House, the Senate appears to be close to allowing the Triangle and Triad to fund new transit systems.
After years of controversy revolving around the regressive nature of sales tax increases, the North Carolina State Senate yesterday tentatively approved a measure that would allow citizens in the Triangle and Triad metropolitan areas the right to vote to increase their local sales taxes by $0.005 on every dollar to pay for transit improvements. Mecklenburg County, which includes the state's largest city (Charlotte), has been taxing itself a similar amount since 1998 after the legislature allowed it and it alone to expand its tax base. The bill, if approved later this week as expected, will also allow less urban areas in the state to push sales taxes by $0.0025 to fund transportation.
The measure passed the state house in April and will let the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill in the Triangle and Greensboro and Winston-Salem in the Triad construct ambitious transit networks, but only if the citizenry of their surrounding counties can be cajoled into voting for tax increases. The state will require all counties wishing to fund transit to conduct local referenda before the sales taxes can be implemented. Votes are expected in 2010 if the economy improves sufficiently.
A DMU regional rail system connecting Raleigh and Durham came close to receiving federal funds in the early 2000s, but it was shot down because of Washington's strenuous cost-efficiency regulations. A new regional advisory commission released a report in 2008 proposing an even more ambitious project, with lines reaching 50 miles through the Triangle region. New streetcars could serve the downtowns of the two inner cities, and many more buses would extend through what is one of America's fastest growing regions. A $0.005 sales tax would be an efficient way of funding the new network.
Meanwhile, Greensboro and Winston-Salem have been planning a new light rail connector between each downtown, though their project is not as far advanced. The new tax, if approved, would allow planning and construction to go ahead.
Each region, however, is sprawling and will have a hard time meeting the cost-effectiveness guidelines required by the Feds because of likely low ridership compared to proposed lines in other cities. This barrier could be insurmountable unless they significantly reform their land use policy to encourage dense, station-oriented growth. Without money from Washington, both the Triangle and the Triad will be doomed to smaller and less effective transit lines.

Duke Energy seeks federal funds for "smart grid"

Business First of Louisville, August 6, 2009

Duke Energy Corp. Thursday applied for $200 million in federal infrastructure funds to develop a "smart grid" in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
The company also has sought $14 million in federal funds for smart grid transmission lines in North Carolina and South Carolina.
The smart grid allows utilities, such as Duke, to send signals to specially equipped appliances over transmission lines. The signals allow the utilities to tell the appliances to operate using less power during peak consumption times.
The U.S. Department of Energy will award $4.5 billion in smart grid grants nationwide, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke (NYSE: DUK) intends to transform its entire electricity-delivery infrastructure into a smart grid system, the company said in a news release.
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U.S. Pumps $2.4 Billion in Creating a Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Base & Thousands of Jobs

MYGreen Education and Career, August 5, 2009

Further accelerating the manufacturing and deployment of electric vehicles, batteries, and components here in America, and creating tens of thousands of new jobs, President Obama today announced 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
These projects, selected through a highly competitive process by the Department of Energy, will accelerate the development of U.S. manufacturing capacity for batteries and electric drive components as well as the deployment of electric drive vehicles, helping to establish American leadership in creating the next generation of advanced vehicles.
....
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, whose Department selected the 48 winners, visited Celgard, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to announce a $49 million grant for the company to expand its separator production capacity to serve the expected increased demand for lithium-ion batteries from manufacturing facilities in the United States. Celgard will be expanding its manufacturing capacity in Charlotte, North Carolina, and nearby Aiken, South Carolina, and the company expects the new separator production to come online in 2010. Celgard expects that approximately hundreds of jobs could be created, with the first of those jobs beginning as early as fall 2009.
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Public Transportation Bill One Step Closer to Law

The Progressive Pulse, August 4, 2009
Stephen Jackson

A bill granting local governments the option of placing a public transportation sales tax referenda before votes sailed through Senate Finance today.
H148 allows Triad and Triangle counties to place a half cent sales tax referendum on the ballot as Charlotte has on two occasions in the past decade, with the remaining 94 counties granted a quarter cent local option referendum. The bill also allows all counties in North Carolina, providing they operate or have within their boundaries a public transportation system, to levy a $7 local vehicle registration fee to be used for public transportation. The bill also establishes a non-highway equivalent of the Highway Trust Fund to be used to match local (and federal) public transportation monies, as well as provide grants to ports and rail operations. The fund will be (no surprise given the economy) initially un-funded.
After a build-up of some months, the vote on H148 was anti-climatic. After the House easily passed the bill in April, budget difficulties and several false alarms when the bill was pulled from the Senate Finance Committee agenda at the last minute, promoted doubts that the bill would get a hearing on the Senate side this year.
Thanks to the perserverance of the bill sponsors and key advocates, a hearing of a little over 10 minutes with just two questions was all it took for the bill to leap to the Senate Finance hurdle. It now goes before the full Senate possibly as early as tomorrow as legislators struggle to pass the budget and get out of Raleigh before next week.
The vote came as a pleasant surprise to advocates for the bill who spent hours leading up to the vote shoring up support and worrying about possible opposition from influential Senators and opposed to local option sales taxation. That oppoisition did not materialize in the face of a broad, bi-partisan and well-organied coalition of supports and legislators. Those sick of waiting for the bus or train are hoping that the Senate floor vote is as clear cut.

Perdue Appoints Transportation Board Members

Politics.MyNC.com, August 4, 2009
Jennifer Wig
NBC17

Gov. Bev Perdue today appointed John Collett, Leigh Harvey McNairy, Major General Hugh R. Overholt, Wanda J. Proffitt, Charles D. Watts Jr. and Ralph Womble to the N.C. Board of Transportation.
Read More about the new board members

North Carolina State Releases First Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Campus Technology, August 4, 2009
Dian Schaffhauser

North Carolina State University has released its first greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory -- about 14 months after initially signing onto the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. Compiling the GHG inventory is the first step in developing a Climate Action Plan (CAP), as laid out by the Climate Commitment. Signatories are given about nine months after their start date to submit their first greenhouse gas report, a deadline missed by the university, which committed on May 15, 2008.
The inventory, which measures emissions for 2008 on multiple campuses and satellite offices, serves as a benchmark against which future emission reduction efforts will be measured. The major sources of emissions include electricity (53 percent), natural gas (22.5 percent), community (12 percent), and refrigerants (6 percent).
Among peer institutions, the inventory found that North Carolina State's emissions were comparable with some of the environmentally conscious East Coast schools and are in line with current trends.
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2010 Nissan Leaf electric car: In person, in depth - and U.S. bound

AutoBlogGreen, August 1, 2009
Chris Paukert

It would be easy to paint Nissan as late to the burgeoning U.S. green party, as the company essentially only counts the Altima Hybrid to sell among its alt-fuel offerings - and that sedan utilized technology borrowed from Toyota, and it's only sold in a few states in small volumes. While that may be the case, Nissan says their near-term prospects are really quite different. While the company has admittedly been cautious in marketing alt-fuel vehicles in North America, they have been hard at work developing electric vehicles - as well as the advanced lithium-ion batteries to support them - since 1992. What's more, officials say they are now singularly well-placed to leapfrog "transitional" powertrain solutions like gas-electric hybrids in favor of genuine zero-emissions vehicles, and they are promising that their first pure-electric car will reach U.S. shores late next year.
That car, the Nissan Leaf, is the reason we find ourselves in the company's brand-new Yokohama headquarters today. Designed as a four-to-five seat, front-drive C-segment hatchback, Nissan says the Leaf is not just for use as a specialty urban ranabout, but rather, it was designed as an everyday vehicle - a "real car" whose 160-kilometer+ (100 mile) range meets the needs of 70% of the world's motorists. In the case of U.S. consumers, Nissan says that fully 80% of drivers travel less than 100km per day (62 miles) making the Leaf a solid fit for America's motoring majority, even taking into account power-sapping external factors like hilly terrain, accessory draw, and extreme temperatures.
...
Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?
While Nissan promise to deliver the Leaf to its first American customers in late 2010, it isn't immediately clear where it wil be made available, to whom, and how. By that we mean the zero-emissions vehicle will likely be marketed in selected stateside cities that have already committed to building some of the necessary infrastructure to support electric vehicles, and the Leaf likely won't be available for purchase, it will probably be a lease-only proposition - at least initially.
Officials are still working out the speicifics on a global market-by-market basis, but in the U.S., at least, they are aiming for a cost similar to their midsize Altima offering - persumable after all local and federal government incentives for ZEV are factored in. Initial allotments of the Leaf will probably be leased, with the batteries also being a leased proposition, minimizing consumers' up-front risks for adopting this new style of vehicle and allowing for easier, more cost-effective upgrades as technology improves. As has been done with other automakers' alternative energy pilot programs in the past, the Leaf will probably be distributed to fleets and very select customers at first - a more widespread commercial push isn't expected until 2012.
As stated earlier, the Leaf will probably be initially marketed in those U.S. cities that have committed to building the necessary infrastructure to support EVs - places like Phoenix and Tuscon in Arizona; San Diego and Sonoma County in California; Raleigh, North Carolina; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Seattle, Washington. Nissan says it has established 27 partnerships with local governments around the world, and more are on the way. If you're outside such areas, Nissan says it won't discourage you from becoming an owner/lessee, but obviously home charging will need to be sufficient.
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Congress scrambles to fund "cash for clunkers" program

Citizen Times, August 1, 2009
Jon Ostendorff

Car dealers in Western North Carolina waited Friday for word on whether the government would pour an additional $2 billion into the popular "cash for clunkers" car purchase program.
Called the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS, the program offers owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle, in exchange for scrapping their old vehicle.
The program was rescheduled to last through Nov. 1 or until the money ran out, but few predicted the fund would run out so quickly. The original $1 billion in funding was expected to generate up to 250,000 new car sales.
The U.S. House passed a bill Friday that shifted $2 billion from an energy loan program that was part of the economic stimulus plan passed earlier this year. The bill was approved on a vote of 316-109.
Getting Senate approval could be a bigger challenge.
Manger dealers didn't start selling under the program until Monday because of a lag in getting the rules from the federal government.
Within a week, the money was gone.
"We had a good time with it," said Tommy Waigand, manager of Hunter Nissan Lincoln Mercury in Hendersonville. "It has gotten a lot of people in off the street that wouldn't have come in to buy a car."
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Triangle left out of latest NCDOT awards

Triangle Business Journal, July 31, 2009

There won't be any new transportation stimulus love for the Triangle this month.
Gov. Bev Purdue's office said Friday that the North Carolina Department of Transportation had awarded 15 contracts - including seven new stimulus projects - totaling $29.3 million for highway and bridge projects across the state. But none of hte contracts were for work in the Triangle.
The seven recovery projects awarded are located in Anson, Ashe, Avery, Caldwell, Dare, Forsyth and Hyde counties. The eight other projects awarded are in Brunswick, Cherokee, Cumberland, Iredell, McDowell, Pitt, Rowan and Rutherford counties.
Five additional projects were let to contract in July. NCDOT said that four of them will be awarded if the low bidder demonstrates that it has met "good faith effort" requirements in attempting to reach the disadvantaged business enterprise goals set forth in the contracts. None of those projects are in the Triangle, however.
The bids on the fifth project - which is for the resurfacing work in Haywood and Jackson counties - exceeded the NCDOT engineer's estimate by more than 21 percent. The bids were refected, and the project will be rebid at a later date, NCDOT said.
The bids received on all 20 projects advertised came in more than 15 percent - or about $6.5 million - below NCDOT estimates.

Car dealers hope Cash for Clunkers drives up sales

News 14 Carolina, July 24th 2009
By Miracle King

The government's new Cash for Clunkers incentive program has buyers driving off car lots in droves. The program - formally called the Car Allowance Rebate System - encourages car buyers to trade in older, gas-guzzling vehicles for brand new fuel-efficient ones.
The program started Friday and is not only meant to help the environment, but also car dealers, buyers and North Carolina's economy.
"We have about 600 dealerships in North Caorlina, every one of which is ready to sell a new car and get that old clunker off the road," Bob Glaser, president of the North Carolina Auto Dealers Association, said.
The program helps shoppers buy or lease a more environmentally-friendly vehicle when they trade in a less fuel-efficient car or truck. But not all trade-ins will qualify.
"If it's [an improvement of] at least four miles to the gallon, they get $3,500. If they pick a car ou that gets [an improvement of] 10 milers to the gallon or more, they get $4,500," Todd Holmes, general manager at Leith Honda in Raleigh, said.
And there are more stipulations. The car has to be drivable with at least a years worth of insurance history. It can't be more than 25 years old. You have to purchase a new car when you trade, and the retail price of your new car can't exceed $45,000.
Though the ride may be a little bumpy for buyers, dealerships have finally gotten their safety belt to help them from flying off this crashing economy.
"Our average sales in North Carolina were about 33,000 to 35,000 a month, and with the economic downturn in the fourth quarter of 2008, our vehicle sales have dropped at about 20,000 units per month," Bob Glaser, with the North Carolina Auto Dealers Association, said. "That's about a 40 percent decrease in the state of North Carolina, so we are very pleased to have the Cash for Clunkers program in effect."