Moosewood Green

iGo, uGo, we all go for eGo

2009-09-28T05:26:00.000-07:00

The folks at eGo vehicles say they’re so much fun “you’ll be tempted to put cards in the spokes.”

That’s a smart statement that brings back childhood memories, describes the joy of the ride and at the same time clues you in to the quiet nature of the ride itself.

Launched in 2002 the eGo claims to be able to go up to 25 miles at 20 mph on a single charge – silently and pollution free.

”Ok,” so you say – “but then you have to recharge it.” Well, yes, but the eGO Cycle’s on-board charger allows "refueling" at any outlet for 10 cents worth of electricity.

"The eGO Cycle is the perfect product for the urban commuter, college student or gated community resident. It is dependable, fast, and emission free," said Andrew Kallfelz, President of eGO Vehicles. "We spent two years developing the eGO Cycle, and are now able to offer people the first street legal and safety compliant two-wheel personal electric vehicle."

The pedal-less cycle is unique, as its range is 36% greater than any other previously introduced electric scooter, bike or "transporter." The eGO Cycle gives anyone the opportunity to reconsider how they move around for fun or work," said Kallfelz.

The eGO Cycle can be ridden on any American street because it meets all National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) safety requirements, and with headlights, taillights, bicycle controls, large wheels and a low center of gravity it is safe and simple to operate for people of all ages.

Nearly 60 percent of all automobile trips are less than five miles, and 50% of trips are for personal (one passenger) transportation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "Today, Americans are thinking about new ways to get around. People want transportation convenience, young people want fun and everyone wants to find an alternative to oil and gas," said Kallfelz. In years to come the eGo, and other small personal transportation modalities may just be as commonplace as the automobile on local city and town streets.

eGO Vehicles, LLC
One Broadway, Suite 1400
Cambridge, MA 02142
USA
Phone: 800-979-4346 or 617-583-1379
Fax: 617-758-4101

Bretton Woods Panorama - Purchase prints, cards or posters

The Challenges of Going Green with Your Business

2009-09-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

“Finding products and components that are sustainably made is a combination of measuring “footprints” and exercising good judgment and common sense. Here are some things that you should understand when assessing the “ green creds” of any product.” - Wayne D. King

The term green is an unregulated term that can mean many things to many people, similar to "natural" with food products.

A products green credential can be measured in many ways because there are many steps in the manufacturing process. For example, one of our products MOP, Maximum Oil Pickup is – without a doubt – the most sustainable product on the market among oil absorbents. Yet there are a number of companies laying claim to the “green-space” in this multi-billion dollar industry. One competitor of MOP uses a very energy intensive mining process to mine a "natural" product which they label as a "green" product. Since the product itself is a naturally occurring item, it is fair to say that the raw material for manufacturing the sorbent (the term of an absorbent product) is green, but the manufacturing process is decidedly NOT green. Some customers who are looking to be able to claim that they are using a green product may find this sufficiently acceptable, particularly if they are seeking "window dressing" rather than a genuinely sustainable product. Customers who are sincerely seeking to reduce their carbon footprint will see through this immediately. Furthermore, organizations that make determinations about this will see immediately the shortcomings of products that are "greenwashing".

“Finding products and components that are sustainably made is a combination of measuring “footprints” and exercising good judgment and common sense. Here are some things that you should understand when assessing the “ green creds” of any product.”

Choosing a green product in today’s environment is a challenging task. It’s important for two major reasons:

1. If you are sincerely working to reduce your company’s carbon footprint, or working toward measuring your triple bottom line, you want to be able to choose a company that has a truly sustainable product and manufacturing process.
2. Consumers and watchdog organizations have an increasing level of sophistication when it comes to products that claim some level of green-ness and are savvy when it comes to companies that are employing greenwashing techniques to position themselves in the market, but not really achieving a level of sustainability that reflects well on people who use their products.

Having said this, it is important to say that some common sense and good judgement needs to be employed in this process as well. For example: Suburu of America is arguably the greenest automobile company in the US today, even though they do not manufacture a single hybrid vehicle. Why is this? Because the sum total of all their environmental efforts and products add up to an impressive environmental record. They have no hybrids but among companies building cars in the US they have one of the highest MPG ranking across their fleet. Add to this, just in time and regionalized manufacturing and inventory systems that reduce their shipping and the fact that every one of their facilities in the US has achieved a zero carbon footprint and you see a total picture emerge that is more sustainable than you might expect at first blush.

So how do you measure the sustainability profile of a company that you are considering as a vendor?

Products and Processes
To begin with, you want to examine both their products and their manufacturing processes. The degree of sustainability for any product can run the gamut from a product that is completely carbon intensive from start to finish to a cradle-to-cradle green product that is produced sustainably and is completely green itself - made from 100% recycled and natural products, organic or fully recyclable.

Furthermore, it is certainly worth considering other factors that are relevant. For example a quart of strawberries grown in your community may be grown using a carbon-based fertilizer making them ineligible for the claim of organic. However, their carbon footprint is surely smaller than the same quart of strawberries grown organically but shipped across the country.

Every product is going to have a different story to tell based on its component parts, its manufacturing process and its recycle-ability. The choices you make will need to be based on both the goals of your company and the profile of your clients/customers in the context of other obvious considerations such as price points for the products, shipping issues etc.

Returning to the MOP product addressed at the beginning of this article, we were attracted to the product from the beginning by its green power across the broad spectrum of product and production. Ultimately, MOP achieves the highest possible level of sustainability, a cradle-to-cradle level, by first utilizing only recycled and organic materials and employing a production process that uses green hydroelectric energy as its power source. Their claims regarding this can all be verified and validated allowing a business considering utilizing their product the confidence to know that they will not be subject to claims of greenwashing or individuals and advocates questioning the validity of the claims or splitting hairs over whether the sustainability of the product is counteracted by the production process. Assuming under these circumstances that you can make the other aspects work for your financial bottom line, a product like this covers the social and environmental bottom lines to achieve success in reaching goals in your triple bottom line.

Ten Tips for Improving Your Company’s Sustainability Profile

2009-09-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

Its all about the triple bottom line. Embracing the bottom line in terms of economics, environmental, and social values. Your Green offices will embrace all of these values and your boss will love you for it because in addition to making the company look good, it will save money too.

1. Work with a certified waste management company and ask them to provide you with advice for minimizing waste, and where possible gleaning some returns for your efforts. Many companies, notably Waste Management, Inc., have created special e-cycling programs for computers and electronic waste as well as

2. Buy post-consumer recycled content paper. Many of the big dogs in office supply are now offering recycled paper as an option including Staples, Office Depot, Quill, Target, as well as some of the specialty companies like Dolphin Blue, Monadnock Paper, The Green Office and others.

3. Use recyclable products in your bathrooms and kitchen areas.

4. Get an energy audit. In many cases the utility company that provides your electricity also provides programs for auditing your energy use. At the very least you can be sure that they can refer you to a professional in your area.

5. Institute programs to encourage carpooling among employees.

6. Institute programs to provide flex-time and telecommuting. Putting your company’s primary databases and working documents on the web using an intranet will allow your workers to work from any locale with broadband access. Several companies now provide low cost web-based intranet, conferencing and meeting software solutions: Webex, GoToMeeting, TalkPoint, Phase2 and others have some very affordable options.

7. Surge protectors do more than just preventing surges. If you have appliances plugged into surge protectors shutting off the surge protector or unplugging it entirely will prevent leakage that can really add up. At the very least, make it company policy to shut down computers, turn off lights and appliances after hours.

8. Look for EnergyStar rated appliances and office equipment.

9. Limit paper products in the kitchen and encourage employees to bring dishware from home.

10. Purchase renewable energy credits for your office, and offset your air travel, gas mileage and more.

Rowboats at Dusk, Newfound Lake, NH

Welcome to Moosewood Green

2009-09-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Moosewood Green! Our blog for highlighting the cutting edge technologies with whom Moosewood Communications is working to bring about a better world and a more sustainable planet.

You won't find run-of-the-mill products here. There are plenty of blogs and websites that feature great green products.

What you will find, however, are products that we have identified as capable of ushering in some pretty revolutionary changes to our planet and our economy. Its likely we have a financial interest of some sort, so bear that in mind as you browse through the blog. We're proud of the fact that people and businesses that have revolutionary products and ideas come to us to help them get the word out and we are often asked to help them on a shoestring so we carefully select those that we believe in and become a kind of intellectual equity investor or intellectual venture capitalists - bringing our ideas and contacts rather than capital to the cause.

Just what that should mean to you is that we are telling you about these products because we believe in them - not because we're being paid to make up nice things. Every product that you see here at Moosewood Green is something we believe is capable of changing the world in some way, large and small.

If you would like to speak with us about your green product, please email us.

Washday Book Benefits Project Laundry List

2009-03-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

There's something warm and comforting about a wash line on a beautiful day. It is a timeless image that speaks to us of days gone by and days to come. It is a metaphor for our connection to the earth and our shared humanity.

"Washday" is a photographic essay that captures those moments and puts them on your coffee table. More than a conversation piece, it is an invitation to engage one another in a dialog about saving the planet and about those rare moments when a small experience - the smell of fresh sheets, the warmth of the sun, the flapping of clothes in the breeze - can serve as a joyous bridge connecting each of us to one another through a shared experience and the hope that connection can inspire.

The Artist behind Washday is Wayne D. King, an accomplished photographer. King's images are a celebration of life, blending the real and the surreal to achieve a sense of place or time that reaches beyond the moment into a dreamlike quintessentialism designed to spark an emotional response. Using digital enhancement, handcrafting, painting, and sometimes even straight photography, King takes the viewer to a place that is beyond simple truth to where truth meets passion, hope and dreams.

King holds a BS Degree in Environmental Conservation and a Masters Degree in Earth Science Education from the University of New Hampshire, Durham.

A three term former State Senator from New Hampshire, Wayne King was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor. King is also the founder of The Electronic Community, a group of social entrepreneurs working on social and development issues in Africa under the non-profit umbrella of the MaxImpact Institute.

Maximum Oil Pickup - Cradle to Cradle Green Oil Spill Remediation

2009-03-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest challenges faced by green products is the common misperception that by creating a sustainable product you must, by necessity, leave something out that really makes it work. We call it the methyl-ethyl-bad-stuff argument - well we use a different word than stuff but not in a family environment.

Not so with Maximum Oil Pickup. In fact, we'd wager that MOP, and its compliment of deployment products, is the most effective, environmentally sound, invention to date for rapidly mitigating oil spills of any size from the Exxon Valdez to your garage.

From a sustainability perspective one of the things that makes it even more intriguing is that it is a cradle to cradle green product. Created by recycling an otherwise unrecycled fiber product created in the process of creating another fiber product, and other celluose based fibers in a plant operated by electricity generated by MOP's own hydoplant, the production of the Mop sorbent (the name for the oil spill cleanup product) is all created with green technology and green energy.

Certified in 2008 by the EPA for oil spill cleanup on both land and water, MOP is one of the few products capable of providing mitigation in both environments.

About the Sorbent
MOP comes in two different styles, one for use on land and the other on water. The MOP sorbent is treated with a secret patented process involving biodegradable materials that make the sorbent Oleophyllic (oil loving/absorbant) and hydrophobic (water hating/repelling). The moment that the sorbent is spread on the oil spill on land or water, it sucks up the oil and repels the water. This means that as the sorbent is cleaned up only oil is captured with it.

Using any one of several different processes, the oil can then be extracted for reuse from the sorbent and the sorbent can be burned as fuel. Extraction yields 95% of the usable oil. MOP environmental (the company name) is currently designing a carbon negative biomass energy system which will be able to burn the used sorbent. One 20lb bag of MOP will capture as much as 600 lbs of oil.

Just what does this mean for the company's that deploy the MOP system? To begin with it means that they can stress the sustainable nature of the oil recovery process. They can also recover the oil and use or sell it. For a recovery company, this means they add an entirely new profit center to their operations. They charge for the recovery and mitigation and then they are able to sell the recovered product. Its the best of all possible worlds.

For shippers, drillers, refineries and others in the oil drilling, moving or refininjg business, they have a mitigation system that offers rapid deployment, exceedingly effective cleanup, oil consumption for small amounts of oil missed in any cleanup and recovery of the product. Again, the best of all possible worlds.

Rapid Response Capabilities and Delivery Systems
Since development of the sorbent is only part of the solution, the folks at MOP Environmental have been working on a whole host of delivery systems for the sorbent, including: booms, pillows, loose material bag and the fabled MOP Canon. The MOP canon looks a little like the offspring of a vacuum cleaner and an artillery gun, but operates like an air canon, shooting the loose dry sorbent out as a speed of 150 MPH and spreading it evenly over a distance of 50 feet.

According to President Charles Diamond, "In a series of tests designed to evaluate the speed of deployment, the company found that one MOP canon could apply enough MOP to neutralize the harmful effects of an oil spill at a rate of at least 1,000 bbl/hr. “That’s a conservative estimate, and it can be as high as 1,500 bbl in one hour’s time,” Diamond confirms.

According to Diamond 10 MOP canons, placed on fast-moving boats, could completely neutralize an Exxon Valdez-sized spill in about 24 hours,” Diamond says.

Different deployment scenarios exist depending on the weather conditions. “We can spray MOP on top of a spill if the weather is cooperative,” says Diamond. "Where more difficult weather patterns exist, we have a deployment method that allows us to bring our product in underneath the spill, essentially bubbling it into the spill.”

Pickup onshore can be performed with shovels, heavy equipment and hand implements. Offshore pickup can be performed with skimmers dragged behind a boat. MOP sorbent also contains a fine grit additive that immediately restores traction and safe footing on hard, slippery surfaces.

Product Cost, Storage and other Factors.
Already competitive on a volume basis, the level of product efficiency and the ability to reuse the spent sorbent for fuel result in a significant reduction in remediation costs, according to Diamond. “There are savings both in the low cost of the product itself, and in the operation. Because MOP has a much higher pickup ratio than alternatives like clay, MOP uses one-tenth as much space for storage and is much easier to handle. Imagine one worker carrying two 20-lbm bags of MOP versus two workers unloading a ½-ton pickup truck loaded with 25 to 40 bags of clay for the same oil spill.”

MOP is also lightweight and has a unit cost that is less than one-third the cost of clay. “Arguably the most important feature of MOP is the option of 95% oil recovery for as little as USD 0.25 per gallon and subsequent elimination of hazmat disposal cost. What was formerly on the expense side of the ledge is transferred to the bottom line as profit instead. "according to Diamond.

MOP Environmental Solutions has several expansion plans in the works for MOP this year. The company plans to begin oil recovery and reclamation operations in the Caspian Sea region, and hopes to attract more domestic attention through a series of high-speed, full-scale deployment and recovery demonstrations in its Bath, New Hampshire facility.

Diamond is optimistic that the MOP technology’s holistic approach to oil remediation will be a positive draw for any operator facing the potential for oil spills in any process. “This technology could be seen as taking a very negative environmental event, an oil spill, and turning it into a positive.

In the first place, you’re intercepting a material [the cellulose-based starting material from a fiber-manufacturing process] that normally would not have a recycling path,” he continues. “You give it a recycling path by converting it to MOP, and then apply it in the field to solve an environmental problem without creating any additional waste streams and minimal by-products. Essentially, you’re taking a problem material and using it to solve a bigger problem.”

For more information about MOP and other remediation technologies, visit http://www.ecoscienceusa.com/.

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Moosewood Communications is an Intellectual Equity Investor in MOP. To learn more about Intellectual Venture Capitalism, click here.

Maximum Oil Pickup MOP Introductory Video

2009-03-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

Reversing Global Warming

2009-03-10T00:46:00.000-07:00

Negative Carbon Energy System Seeks Funding for Pilot

In a small rural US community in the northern reaches of the state of New Hampshire, inventor and entrepreneur Charles Diamond of Bath, is working to develop a pilot facility using a "bio-waste-stream based " energy system that is carbon negative - that is, it uses or sequesters more carbon than it produces within the entirety of its system.

This revolutionary concept has very important implications for stemming the tide of global warming and for providing renewable, clean power in New Hampshire.

Generally speaking, most technologies and processes that have a goal of sustainability as either their central theme or one component of the entire package, have a goal of carbon neutrality as the measure of achieving some level of sustainability.

The Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM concept is capable of using any form of biomass as the fuel source for a process that produces energy and a carbon based fertilizer that not only serves to sequester carbon from the biomass fuel but, when applied to land in sufficient quantity, creates an environment that will capture additional carbon from the atmosphere over time. All of this serves as the basis of energy production of the Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM.

Understanding the system requires looking at it in its totality for two reasons: First, because the system has dramatic and broad capabilities for energy production. The Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM system can be designed to convert bio-waste or pellets, to heat, electricity and fuel. The system can produce one or all three types of power based upon the needs of the community that will benefit from it.

Additionally, the system produces a Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM commonly referred to as biochar that has remarkable capabilities including its ability to enhance the fertility of any land to which it is applied between 200 – 400% and to act as a carbon sink.

Finally, an additional benefit of this system within the context of a Cap and Trade system would be the ability to sell carbon credits.

In a nutshell here's how the system works:

1. Using a low heat pyrolysis, stage one of Negative-Carbon Bio-EnergyTM system converts the initial (waste) fuel to its desired components: Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM.
and one or more of the three energy outputs: heat, electricity and hydrogen based bio-fuel.

A farm for example, may wish to generate all three products in order to have fuel to power its vehicles where a small village may choose only a CHP (combined heat and power) system, producing heat and electricity in addition to the Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM.

2. The Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM is then used as a soil amendment for area farmers, municipal parks, timberland, or any land chosen within the context of developing the system. It can also be developed into a marketable product, sold separately.

The Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM biochar creates a unique anaerobic environment that makes it the ideal host for microbes that feed on carbon dioxide, sequester (capture and hold) carbon and gives off oxygen. The microbial growth causes the expansion of the original area of the biochar, effectively creating a potting soil like environment where it become unnecessary to till the soil from year to year. Planting can be done by simply drawing a line in the earth into which the seeds are deposited. Ongoing research continues on use of biochar in various types of earth, but the technology on which Negative-Carbon FertilizerTM is based is thousands of years old and even today, pre-columbian soil beds are being “mined” for potting soil.

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Moosewood Communications is currently working with inventor and entrepreneur Charles Diamond of Bath, NH to develop a pilot facility using a "bio-waste-stream based " energy system. Moosewood is an Intellectual Venture Capital participant. To learn more about our "Intellectual Venture Capital" approach, click here.