The sweeping legislation unveiled in the U.S. Senate today aims to curb climate change, arguably one of the biggest tasks ever undertaken on this planet. But it’s a bill that runs to more than 800 pages, and hidden in its folds is a provision that could turn a noted symbol of New York City — the yellow taxicab — green.

And it wouldn’t just be in New York. Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and other major U.S. cities would be able to create taxi fleets made up entirely of hybrid vehicles under the proposed Green Taxis Act of 2009.

Offered by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who now fills Hillary Clinton’s former seat in the Senate, the measure aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 296,000 tons in New York City alone, which its sponsors say would be like taking some 35,000 cars off the road and save drivers $4,500 annually in gas costs.

“By creating an all hybrid taxi fleet, we can improve air quality and lower carbon emissions,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “As a mother with an asthmatic child, I believe this is a win-win for our children and our efforts to combat climate change.”

That has to be a good thing, and it’s not exactly unheard of. A quick search for “green taxi” turns up nearly 70,000 hits. But will New Yorkers say “Fuhgeddaboutit”? Will the Taxi and Limousine Commission oppose it? WIll preservationists balk at changing what has become a durable talisman of life in the Big Apple? Or will New York residents (and other residents of other cities where this law could apply) embrace their inner environmentalists?

Let the debate begin!

Photo credits: REUTERS/Eric Thayer (Taxis drive past carbon counting sign on Deutsche Bank building in Manhattan, June 18, 2009)

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (New York City skyline, Sept 2, 2009)

Electric cars can be smooth, quiet and environmentally friendly. But they still need fuel.

Many have asked — and invested according to their answer — whether that fuel will come from batteries, utility grids, curb-side charging stations or some other technology.

Drivers in California have a new option, if they drive a Tesla electric vehicle. And it’s extra environmentally friendly.

SolarCity, which installs residential solar systems, is building a charging corridor between Los Angeles and San Francisco. There will be five 240-volt stations along the highly traveled Highway 101 that will juice up electric vehicles in one third the time of other charging stations. One of the chargers — in Santa Maria — is solar-powered.

SolarCity is working with the U.S. branch of Holland’s Rabobank to install more solar power systems at the stations, which would make the corridor the first to be entirely solar-powered.

We wanted to know if readers think this is how electric cars will roll across the country — with solar power? Or are your bets with battery technology or another type of charging station?

California may be the Golden State, but it’s New Jersey where U.S. residents get the best deal on their solar power systems, new research shows.

A survey by Global Solar Centertried to give an “apples to apples” comparison for the cost of solar power in all 50 states, the center’s chairman Jack Hidary told Reuters.

The common denominator turned out to be the cash payback, or how many years it would take a residential or commercial customer to recoup their investment and start seeing real savings, Hidary said.
“That takes into account the cost of the system, the sun at that spot, the incentives of that region, utility rates. It blends in everything all together,” Hidary said.

The center analyzed the date using new software and found that New Jersey had the fastest payback — 1.5 years — for residential systems, followed by New York and Delaware with paybacks of three and six years, respectively. California tied for fourth place with Maryland, Massachusetts and Wisconsin, all with payback hitting seven years.

Rankings changed when the center looked at commercial solar power systems.

For commercial projects, Colorado, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Ohio and Oregon all share the top spot, with a 1.5 year payback time, according to the survey.

The center also found that solar hot water systems have a one-year payback in sourthern Texas and Florida.

“To put this all in context, five years ago you couldn’t find a state with less than a 10 or 15 year payback,” said Hidary, who also is a board member of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He said the steep fall in solar panel prices and more government incentives have helped speed up the return on investing in a solar power system.

Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners and Tom Werner, Chief Executive of solar power company SunPower, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco and shared their views on global warming, investment and cleantech.

Dolezalek sees industrialization in developing countries as a more predictable impetus for investment than global warming.

Werner sees global warming as a stimulus for new business and a tool for adaptation.

What are your thoughts?  Is global warming an economic stimulus, an unreliable driver for investment, neither or both?

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman, pictures by Kim White)

Scientists may face an uphill battle in trying to warn the world about the looming perils of global warming, but one of Britain's top academics wouldn't trade places with the politicians tasked with negotiating a new global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"Although the science (of climate change) is difficult and still uncertain, it's a doddle compared to the politics," said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, Britain's science academy.

Thousands of international delegates will convene at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December. All early indications suggest those talks, seen as critical to agreeing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012, will be anything but a cake walk.

That said, Rees thinks UK policymakers have done a good job so far.

"We must give (the UK) government credit for its leadership in this area, going back to the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005 when climate change was pushed up the agenda," Rees said at the Reuters Climate and Alternative Energy Summit this week.

"The UK punches above its weight in the debate on climate change even though we only produce 2% of the world's emissions," said Rees, likening Britain to some sort of environmental boxer.

Rees thinks that because the UK has the high-tech know-how, it should strive to provide more than 2% of the solution to the climate problem by upping investment technologies to help replace fossil fuel burning.

"The level of research and development into new energy technologies is far lower than the scale of the challenge demands ... The R&D on renewable energy should be closer to what we spend on health or medicine, but it's tiny, tiny compared to that."

"Without new technologies, we'll never meet out 2050 targets," he said, referring to Britain's goal of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by mid-century.

Should the UK assume a larger climate role relative to its size or greenhouse gas contribution? Should it spend as much on researching renewable energy as it does developing cures for disease?

To listen to an excerpt of our interview with Rees, click here

To read the Reuters Climate Summit interview with Rees, click here

(Reuters photo - British boxer Amir Khan)

Scott Lang, the Chief Executive of Silver Spring Networks, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to talk about building and expanding within green tech sector.

Here Lang discusses how his company's technology for reporting power consumption to utilities also finds problems quickly.

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

John Woolard, the chief executive of solar thermal energy company BrightSource, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to talk about energy efficiency, project financing and the future  of carbon-free power.

His advice: build fast!

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

(Photo: Procession with Ganesha statue in Mumbai, 15 Aug, 2009/Punit Paranjpe)

Few events can rival the ancient rituals and riotous color of India's religious festivals. This year, the months-long celebration season is also becoming eco-friendly.  Alarmed by the high levels of pollution caused by firecrackers, toxic paints and idols made of non-recyclable material, schools, environmentalists and some states are encouraging "greener" celebrations.

In Mumbai, where the 10-day festival for the elephant-headed Ganesha (the Hindu deity of prosperity) is underway with giant, colored idols and noisy street parties, radio and TV stations are airing environmental messages and school children are learning to make eco-friendly idols.

The statues, made of brightly painted plaster of Paris, are usually immersed in the sea or a lake after a lively procession that can sometimes take half a day to navigate the choked streets, and which ultimately leaves dismembered idols strewn along the shore.

But a growing number of Indians are opting for smaller clay idols which they immerse in water at home.

"An idol that doesn't dissolve in the sea is just a tragic end for something you have worshipped for so many days," said Abhijit Karandikar, a creative director at an advertising agency. "More people are realizing they can be more eco-friendly in our festivals. It's something that's in our control."

Read the whole story here.

(Photo: Devotees touch the feet of Ganesha statie in Hyderabad, 23 Aug 2009/Krishnendu Halder)

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By Madelyn Fairbanks

U.S.-based company Doe Run Peru and the government of President Alan Garcia are locked in a dispute over how to balance environmental health with saving thousands of jobs at the company’s La Oroya metals smelter.
La Oroya, high in the Andes east of Lima, has been called one of the most contaminated places in the world by the Blacksmith Institute, but it is a top 10 metals exporter in Peru and the economic engine of the central region of the country.

The smelter has been shut down since June after banks worried about plunging metal prices cut credit lines, strangling not only the plant’s ability to buy mineral concentrates for its refinery, but cutting off its ability to pay back other debts. Workers are restless and environmentalists are worried.

Doe Run’s parent company, U.S.-based Renco Group, bought the smelter from Peru in a 1997 privatization auction. The smelter opened in 1922. At the time of the privatization, Doe Run said it would scrub the smelter, while the government said it would mitigate decades of pollution that dusted the town’s hills before Doe Run came to town.

Renco’s CEO Ira Rennert, also owns refineries in the U.S. His company is now arguing with the government about extending an October deadline to finish the smelter cleanup. Getting an extension would allow it to tap loans again.
A 2005 study from St. Louis University indicated that 97 percent of children between 6 months and 6 years of age in the town of La Oroya have toxic levels of lead in their blood. The smelter is the town’s main source of employment.
Critics say the company should have done more to cut air and water pollution before the global financial crisis, when Doe Run Peru and its American parent company had robust profits.
In the meantime, workers at Doe Run threaten to block off area roads starting August 31 if a cleanup extension from Garcia is not given.

In an age of angst about security and Arctic sovereignty, it’s no mean feat piecing together an oceanographic expedition involving scientists from the United States, Russia and elsewhere and launching the whole affair from a northern U.S. port.

In the choppy waters of the Bering Sea just off Nome, Alaska, the Russian research ship Professor Khromov is waiting to come in to port, where strict security protocols will be adhered to under the watchful eye of U.S. authorities.

As many as 50 scientists are teaming up for two legs of study in the Bering Strait and northward in August and September, and those without special U.S. Transportation Security Administration clearance cards will be escorted aboard by people designated to do so. No exceptions.

The mission is called RUSALCA, or Russian-American Long Term Census of the Arctic. During the voyage, the multinational team will gather data on water, air and lifeforms in the only place where the Arctic and Pacific oceans meet. It’s a follow up to the initial RUSALCA expedition in 2004 and the data will be gathered and compared to help gauge the impact of climate change in the region where the former Cold War foes previously studied each other’s movements.

But before any of that happens, last-minute preparations are taking place in Nome, the town best known as the finish line for the Iditarod dogsled race. The town’s no-nonsense harbor master, Joy Baker, must be sure that all security issues and logistics are dealt with for the passengers and their thousands of pounds of high-tech gear.

Also, conditions on the Alaskan Coast — the region is being hit with wind, rain, rough water — have to improve for the Khromov’s safe loading.

That’s much less regulated.

(Picture - Nome, Alaska’s damp main drag on August 21, 2009. Nome is the starting point for a joint U.S.-Russian scientific expedition in the Bering Sea in August and September. REUTERS/Jeffrey Jones.)