Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Exploration Is Cool.So, last week I left the house like this: The grand plan was to meet Josh, drive the fat-tire bikes up to the Peak to Peak, ride down on singletrack/dirt roads, then ride the skinny tire bikes back up for the car. You know, a little something-different adventure. We got off to a rocky start, […]
- Sometimes Gadgets MatterIt’s not often that I credit an improvement in my riding to equipment. In fact, I’m willing to bet that a lot of issues with most folks are operator error rather than the need for some expensive toy. But this time, I’ve got a few exceptions. Sunglasses, for me, are a tough purchase. Not only […]
- Exploration Is Cool.
- Edgy Veggie
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Xcel plans to give more solar rebates that are worth less
Matt Rip,right, of Bella Energy, and Benjamin Jacobs work to mount solar panels in Boulder County last February.
Xcel Energy wants to change the way they give out incentives for customers to add solar power.
The new Solar Rewards program would give out more rebates, but the amounts will shrink over time.
Xcel Energy wants to add another 257 megawatts of solar power to the grid from on-site sources such as customer rooftops in the next decade, according to the company’s new renewable energy plan.
Last year, Xcel announced its intention to cut the Solar Rewards program — which gives rebates to customers who put photovoltaic panels on their property — by about 50 percent from 2009 to 2010. After an outcry from solar advocates, Xcel worked with the Colorado Solar Energy Industry Association and the Governor’s Energy Office to revise its plan. Read more
So many bikes, so few parking spaces. Biking numbers blow up in Boulder.
Jason and Shelby Magen lock their bicycles up outside the Boulder Bookstore | Mark Leffingwell
Bike use is up in Boulder — again.
The number of bikes being ridden downtown has grown 14 percent in the last year and 47 percent since 2007. This has environmentalists, lovers of public transportation and city officials all excited. But there’s just one problem: Where to park all those bikes?
Along with the increase in riders, comes a shortage of legal parking, and the number of bikes locked to things other than designated racks has risen 76 percent since 2007.
“In many areas, the demand for bicycle parking exceeds the supply,” according to a city memo on the findings of the annual bicycle count.
The count found that of the 4,088 bicycles that were tallied during a four-day period in August, the number of bikes left unattended downtown ranged from a low of 825 on a Thursday morning to a high of 1,315 on a Friday evening.
About three-quarters were parked on permanent bicycle racks, while the rest were tied to parking meters, trees, railings or fences. About 6 percent of the bikes were left standing without locks.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com, or learn about local bike paths at BigGreenBoulder.com.
Agriburbia (noun): Like suburbia, but with lawns you can eat
Matthew "Quint" Redmond walks a lettuce field in Lakewood. Redmond sees a future where homes are engulfed by farms that feed them — and make income by also selling to local restaurants. His 944-home project in Milliken is ready to break ground. (Craig F. Walker | The Denver Post)
A new suburbia is coming to the Front Range.
Except instead of homes surrounded by perfectly coiffed lawns and precisely manicured golf courses, these housing developments would exist in the midst of a working farm.
Now a visionary urban planner is bringing his “agriburbia” concept to the Denver-metro area, including one possibility in Boulder.
From this weekend’s Denver Post:
Six years ago, Matthew “Quint” Redmond suggested to Milliken planners that a corn farm north of Denver could increase its agricultural value and still anchor nearly a thousand homes.
“I got laughed out of the room,” Redmond said.
Today, Milliken’s 618-acre Platte River Village is ready for construction, with 944 planned homes surrounded by 108 acres of backyard farms and 152 acres of drip- irrigated community farms. The plan is for the farms to feed local residents and supply restaurants while paying for community upkeep. And Redmond, a 47-year-old planner-farmer, has 13 other Front Range projects mulling his “agriburbia” concept. Read more
Hundreds turn out for “Power Past Coal” bike ride in Boulder
Hundreds of folks turned out this weekend on their bikes and rode from downtwon Boulder to the Valmont coal plant as part of the “Power Past Coal” rally.
The event was one of more than 4,500 organized across the world as part of the 350.org global campaign.
Eric Robbins rode to Boulder’s Central Park on Saturday with a battery-powered amplifier strapped to the back of his Schwinn bicycle. The Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love” blared from his speaker into a crowd of more than 200 cyclists busy chanting “power beyond coal.”
“We need to put an end to coal and promote the use of renewable energy,” Robbins said, preparing to ride to the Valmont power plant in east Boulder to raise awareness of global climate change and voice support for the plant’s closing. “It would be nice if this plant became a wind farm or a solar installation.” Read more
Join the world: Get your 350 on in Boulder
Two kids show their support for lowering carbon dioxide concentrations below 350 ppm at the Great Barrier Reef | 350.org
People all over the world are getting worked up about the number 350.
Here’s the deal: Scientists are say that atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions must stay below 350 ppm. Or we’re screwed. Now, carbon dioxide concentratoins are around 390. So, climate activists are saying, something’s gotta change.
Hundreds of students at "Tiger Fest" in India call for 350 in order to protect endangered species like the tiger | 350.org
This weekend, people in Boulder will join communities around the world by rallying around a number: 350.
There are more than 4,000 events planned for Saturday across 170 countries — including 300 events in China, 500-plus in Central and South America, and 1,500 across the United States — to call attention to the number, which stands for a concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in parts per million.
Many scientists believe that the carbon dioxide concentration must stay below 350 ppm in order to keep the most traumatic consequences of global warming at bay. The carbon dioxide concentration hasn’t been that low since the late 1980s. Today, it’s at 387 ppm. Read more
Neighborhood Eco Pass progam gets rolling again
A man walks to one of the waiting buses at the Boulder Transit Center in Boulder. Photo by Mark Leffingwell.
Public transportation fans in Boulder are rejoicing.
The program that allowed neighbors in Boulder to band together and qualify for the Eco Pass — the little card that allows you to Jump, Skip, Hop and Dash all over town for no additional costs – is being resurrected.
Boulder Bus Routes
Beginning Jan. 1, Boulder neighborhoods will once again be invited to sign up for the popular Eco Pass program.
The Regional Transportation District board of directors voted Tuesday night to lift a yearlong moratorium on the discounted annual bus passes. RTD officials voted last October to freeze the program at its current numbers and not to allow new neighborhoods to sign up — or existing ones to expand — amid concerns that the passes were too cheap.
John Tayer, Boulder’s representative on the RTD board who spearheaded the effort to re-open the program, called the decision a “huge achievement.”
“I know that people are still interested in forming neighborhood Eco Pass groups,” Tayer said.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com, or check out the public transportation resource page on BigGreenBoulder.
Boulder County workers are coming to your door, and they’re armed (with low-flow showerheads and CFL light bulbs)
If you want to save energy (and water), you probably know what you should do. But maybe, you just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
A CFL bulb | Associated Press
Boulder County is taking that kind of good intention (but lack of action) to task. The county is launching the Energy Corps, which will pay young adults to go door to door, educating those who need it, and then doing what needs to be done (in the energy sense, of course) right then and there.
The new program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will work with community groups such as homeowners’ associations to target willing neighborhoods.
“The goal is to do a new neighborhood every Saturday,” said county spokesman Dan Rowland. “If your HOA contacts us and says, ‘OK we’re going to do this,’ we’ll have the whole team out in the neighborhood. They’ll crank through 15 or 20 houses that are already signed up.”
Individual houses will be scheduled for two-hour energy assessments, during which corps members will install compact fluorescent light bulbs, low-flow showerheads, programmable thermostats, weather stripping and clotheslines free of charge. Energy Corps members will also help homeowners save energy by adjusting thermostats, refrigerators, freezers, water heaters and furnaces.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com, or to get your neighborhood on Energy Corps’ to-do list, contact Beth Beckel at bbeckel@bouldercounty.org or 303-441-3502.
Retro solar technology stages a comeback in Boulder
When this Wal-Mart store in Aurora got on board with using a solar wall (the metallic-looking part of the wall) it may have signaled the re-cooling of the technology.
In the world of solar, it’s just not that sexy.
It doesn’t make electricity like photovoltaic panels. It doesn’t warm water like solar thermal. It can’t run a giant steam turbine like concentrating solar power.
It’s just a big metal wall that relies on a ridiculously simple principle to harness the sun’s warming rays, massively reducing the building’s heating bills. And it’s coming to Boulder.
You might ask, if this “solar wall” technology is so simple, why didn’t anyone think of it before? And you’d be right — because it was thought of before. Solar walls have been around since the early 1980s when the energy crises of the 70s spurred a first solar boom. But they fell out of favor when fossil fuels got cheap again.
But retro solar walls are cool again. And oddly, it may have taken Wal-Mart jumping on the solar wall bandwagon to resurrect the technology. The mega-retailer slapped solar walls on its new supercenter in Aurora a few years back, bringing attention to the elegant technology (which can pay for itself in half a dozen years without rebates, tax breaks or other incentives). Read more
Kyle Orton, Broncos quarterback, drives a hybrid into the end zone
Undefeated Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton not only has what it takes to drive the ball down the field, he has the environmental conscience to drive a hybrid vehicle to the stadium–a fact touted in an article in the Denver Post.
Orton has a history of green choices. As a Chicago Bear, he offered a “Kyle’s Go Green Tip of the Week” on the Kid Zone at ChicagoBears.com. He also visited elementary schools to speak to students about ways they can be more environmentally friendly.
As Klis points out, while other NFL players roll around in gas-guzzlers, Orton gets 44 miles per gallon in his Honda Insight.
Wade Norris, writing on Huffingtonpost.com, said that Orton’s green choices may suggest a ‘change in the air’ for the Broncos and the NFL.
How ’bout them Broncos!
Balloon boy environmental debrief: choke on that, whales
We do aim to answer the hard questions here, but we also aim to pose the goofy questions (and then kinda-sorta answer them).
Like everybody else in Colorado, my day yesterday was half-consumed by appreciating a beautiful day (and a nice ride to and from work) and half-consumed by HIDING-IN-THE-ATTIC BOY (née Balloon Boy).
Pretty quick with the merchandising, eh, internet?
I was horrified for the poor child I thought to be trapped inside that tinfoil flying contraption.
In retrospect, it’s easier to think about the other elements of that story, like:
- why are we building experimental, inflatable aircraft in our yards?
- why are we sporting bowl haircuts?
- what is the environmental impact of balloons that get turned loose? Read more
