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Seriously: the Waxman-Markey bill is good

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:33:35 -0800

Despite the horsetrading, the bill gets the big things right

by Adam Stein

Thomas Friedman makes a bunch of very good points in his recent column on the Waxman Markey climate change bill that just passed in the House. But the opening comes on awfully strong:

There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.

Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.

I certainly understand the angst. There’s nothing more soul-crushing than watching legislators legislate, and the despair is magnified a thousand-fold when the horsetrading involves the fate of the planet. But I’ve read enough analyses of the legislation at this point to say with some confidence that the bill gets the major things right.

A recent Times article purports to detail the ways in which the bill “grew fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions and out-and-out gifts intended to win the votes of wavering lawmakers and the support of powerful industries.” Sounds juicy, but the article mainly lists a bunch of standard-issue industry handouts. Nothing to be glad about, but nothing world-ending either. Harvard economist Robert Stavins not long ago had an insightful post about how these sorts of giveaways are actually a feature, not a bug, of cap-and-trade; revenue from the program can be used to buy political support without undermining the environmental integrity of the cap. The process isn’t pretty, but — as we just witnessed — it works.

About a year and a half ago, I gave a broad overview of seven key features of a climate bill. Let’s see how Waxman-Markey stacks up:

1. Go deep

Waxman-Markey goes deep, calling for an 83% cut in carbon emissions by 2050. Think about it: in 40 years we’ll practically be a carbon-neutral society. The bill is a bit slow to get going though, pushing too many of the reductions toward the back end.

2. Go broad

The bill is impressively broad, capping 86% of emissions sources directly, and addressing a lot of the remaining emissions through other forms of regulation or incentive.

3. Go to the source

This is wonky detail, but the bill correctly caps emissions upstream, covering about 7,400 facilities. This relatively small number of regulated entities simplifies administration of the program.

4. Make polluters pay

Here the bill offers up a mixed bag, but it’s not nearly as bad as some critics have suggested. Out of the gate, the bill requires that 15% of permits be auctioned, rising to 70% in 2030. That 15% is low, but an additional 30% of permits are essentially rebated to consumers via their utility bills, and another 10% are given to states to fund renewable energy and efficiency programs. Basically, a fairly small and shrinking percentage of permits are actually being given to polluters for free.

5. Spend wisely

Again, this is a mixed bag, but there’s a lot of good in with the bad. Not only is quite a bit of money flowing back to consumers in the form of rebates, but sizable pools have been allocated for worthy programs like rainforest preservation, public transportation, energy efficiency and renewable energy, etc.

6. Be (a little) flexible

The bill contains thoughtful flexibility mechanisms, including clauses for banking and borrowing of permits, and a strategic permit reserve to guard against price swings.

7. Politics matter

Well, the bill passed, and we won’t know for some time how the compromises will affect the integrity of the cap. Most of the giveaways seem fairly harmless, but oversight and enforcement will be critical to the program’s success. One particular area of concern will be ensuring that giveaways to agricultural interests don’t undermine the cap.

Stepping back a bit: the bill for the first time ever places a strict carbon cap on the entire U.S. economy, putting us on a trajectory toward 83% emissions reductions in 40 years. It establishes a rising carbon price, providing financial incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy. And it scores passing to good marks on a wide set of criteria used to grade climate change legislation. Yes, there are hundreds of ways the bill could be improve. Yes, it has some lurking design issues that could cause problems down the road. But based on what we presently know and can foresee, it’s a fine start.

(I am deeply indebted to Sightline for providing some of the analysis underlying this post.)

Detroit Electric is reborn. Just not in Detroit.

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:42:03 -0800

For the future of the car, look west to Silicon Valley. And then further west, to China.

by Adam Stein

Are you a fan of cheap symbolism? Well then, feast on this: a popular and successful electric car used to be produced in the United States under the name Detroit Electric. Competition with conventional gasoline-powered cars finally shuttered the line — in 1939. Now the Detroit Electric brand is being revived by a British entrepreneur as a Netherlands-based company backed with Chinese money, marketing modern electric cars built by a Malaysian manufacturing company.

This is the part where we’re all supposed to gnash our teeth about the decline of the American automotive industry, but probably you should save your tears for a worthier cause. Fact is, this sort of thing is very good news for the environment. Detroit Electric plans to sell over a quarter million of the cars across the U.S., Europe, and Asia in 2012. I think it’s telling that Albert Lam, the Chairman and CEO of the new Detroit Electric, spent a significant portion of his career working at companies like Sun and Apple. The center of gravity in the automotive industry is shifting in a needed direction.

Meanwhile, Coulomb Technologies, maker of electric car charging infrastructure, is edging up to profitability, and says that the next three years will define the market. Three years isn’t a lot of time for such a young industry, but it also happens to be the deadline that London has set itself for installing 25,000 car charging points around the city. Heady days, indeed.

Windbelts: wind power without the turbine

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:03:14 -0800

Invention captures the energy in fluttering fabric

by Adam Stein

We’ve covered micro-wind a number of times here, but I think this may be the coolest innovation I’ve seen in a while: inventor Shawn Frayne has come up with a device that harnesses the power of wind without any rotating parts. Instead, his company’s Windbelts capture energy using fluttering fabric.

You can best understand the process by watching this short video, but basically as moving air passes over a taut membrane, it induces a vibration, somewhat akin to a violin bow. Magnets mounted on the membrane bounce back and forth between metal coils, inducing an electric current.

Like solar cells, the technology is modular and can scale up or down to fit numerous applications. At the micro end of the scale, a palm-sized version of the device can act as the equivalent of dozens of AA batteries. Such tiny generators can be used to power remote sensors or other distributed infrastructure that would otherwise require costly wires or regular battery changes.

Scaling up, Frayne’s company has arranged Windbelts into modular arrays that can be deployed like fencing. The technology could find use in urban environments, to capture the energy from air moving past buildings or bridges. Or the systems can be deployed in the developing world, to provide electricity in places that the grid doesn’t yet reach.

Because the materials involved aren’t exotic — the belts themselves are made of mylar-coated taffeta, which is basically kite fabric — the systems can be easily serviced in the field. Best of all, they’re cheap. At a cost of about $1 per watt of capacity, Windbelts are many times cheaper than today’s solar panels.

Check out the Worldchanging interview with Frayne here. Lots more info on the technology here.

Waxman-Markey passes the House

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:12:01 -0800

Take a moment to bask. Then, back to the barricades.

by Adam Stein

So, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 passed the House on Friday. First, to get the necessary throat-clearing out of the way: this is an historic moment that was both an extremely long time in coming and also a lot speedier than many dared hope. When Henry Waxman announced his intention of bring the bill to a floor vote by July 4, most in the environmental community thought the goal was admirably ambitious but probably unachievable. The passage of the bill, if nothing else, testifies to the parliamentary skill of the congressional leadership. Unfortunately, the Senate promises to be an even tougher battle.

Although congress has hardly covered itself in glory on the climate change issue, it’s worth noting that the vote is an example of politicians doing the right thing without any clear reward. There really isn’t much of a built-in political constituency for averting climate change disaster. It’s an esoteric subject that few Americans feel strongly about, and a deep bench of vested interests are prepared to go to the mat to maintain the status quo. In spite of the stiff organizational incentives to do nothing, congressional leaders managed to cajole a bill through. For anyone who does care about this issue, the process was fairly ghastly to behold, but the final outcome should be a source of cheer.

The bill itself is a pretty good one. It’s far from perfect, but the compromises generally kept intact the core goal of placing an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions, supported by a raft of efficiency standards and investments in clean energy. The bill needs to be strengthened, certainly, but I think observers tend to discount the extent to which reality, rather than legislation, will dictate our response to climate change. By “reality” I don’t mean political reality, but rather technological, economic, and scientific reality. That is, technology will improve at a given pace, fossil fuels and renewable energy will carry their given prices, and the effects of climate change will unfold along a given timeline. The policy environment is critical to coordinating our actions, but there are going to be countless adjustments to the legal framework made in ensuing years in response to facts on the ground. Obama seems to understand this, and puts a rosy spin on the situation:

I actually think that this is going to be similar to our efforts at controlling acid rain with the cap and trade. I think this is going to end up being much less costly, much more efficient; technology is going to move much more rapidly than people anticipate. And we are going to have — be able in this process to take a look at what kind of progress are we making five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. With the framework now in place we may find ourselves not only able, but eager to move on that even more ambitious program.

Whether you share Obama’s optimism about our ability to meet the challenge of climate change, I think the basic insight here is correct: politics will largely be driven by events, not vice versa.

Speaking of which, the political class is already chattering about the possible electoral consequences of the bill. And every analyst is dusting off the same historical analogy: Bill Clinton’s ill-fated B.T.U. tax. In 1993, the Clinton administration managed to get a fossil fuel tax through the House in a narrow vote, only to have it die in the Senate. Democrats then proceeded to get epically slaughtered in the 1994 mid-term election.

Republicans obviously saw the parallels between the 1993 vote and the one Friday. As the gavel came down on their failed push to derail the bill, Republicans chanted “B.T.U., B.T.U.” and seemed almost in a celebratory mood.

“On the floor, it felt like we won,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a party political strategist. “They put a lot of guys on the line.�

The votes were strikingly similar. In 1993, the legislation containing the Clinton energy tax was adopted on a 219-to-213 vote with 38 Democrats defecting. On Friday, the House bill was approved 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats defecting.

The problem with such historical analogies is that they’re invariably terrible. The comparison ignores the fact that 16 years have gone by. It ignores shifting opinions on climate change, the security implications of our energy mix, and the need to revitalize our manufacturing base. It ignores the fact that a whole lot of other stuff happened in 1994 that affected the electoral outcome.

The more honest and boring appraisal of the electoral situation is that no one knows how the climate bill will affect the mid-term elections, but given that its provisions won’t take effect for several years, it seems likely that the state of the economy will be the overriding electoral consideration in 2010.

Some cities shrink to survive

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:14:14 -0800

As populations shift, bulldozers help towns manage their own decline

by Adam Stein

I’ve written before about our urban future. The flip side of the increasing concentration of people in growing cities is that other areas have to shrink. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

This story about false fire alarms going off in the abandoned sprawl outside Phoenix, AZ has the eerie quality of that Ray Bradbury story about the slow death of an automated house after the end of civilization. It turns out firefighters aren’t allowed to enter homes if there’s no fire and the owners aren’t present, so there’s nothing for them to do but let the alarms wail for days until the batteries run out.

Somewhat more substantively, dozens of small American cities in economically depressed areas are considering ways to gracefully manage their decline. Flint, Michigan, for example, is bulldozing entire districts and letting the land return to nature. Such consolidation is necessary if the city is to maintain sufficient density to provide basic services.

Flint’s recovery efforts have been helped by a new state law passed a few years ago which allowed local governments to buy up empty properties very cheaply.

They could then knock them down or sell them on to owners who will occupy them. The city wants to specialise in health and education services, both areas which cannot easily be relocated abroad.

The local authority has restored the city’s attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas.

Mr Kildee estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city boundaries will remain the same.

Already, some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.

This isn’t a strictly American story. Japan has been facing a similar dynamic for years. Even as Japan’s economy grows overall, the hinterlands stagnate and young people flock to the more vibrant cities. Unsurprisingly, such dislocations lead to social unrest, as an older generation finds its way of life threatened.

Decline often evokes a viscerally negative reaction in people, even a sort of horror. But to the extent that such changes are inevitable, it makes sense to manage them as gracefully as possible. It certainly makes sense for the municipalities themselves. Hollowed out cities tend to be economically stagnant, and they often breed crime. Managed shrinkage can also make environmental sense, if the new town is denser and less reliant on cars.

Recipes: potatoes with dandelion greens, mustardy mustard greens

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:56:39 -0800

Weeds invade your neighborhood grocery

by Adam Stein

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article in the surging culinary interest in, well, weeds. Plants like chickweed, dandelion, purslane, and lamb’s quarters have gotten a lot of positive press lately for their nutritional properties and their flavor. They also happen to be abundant on suburban lawns.

It’s a shame that these plants are now considered yuppie fare. I have friends whose immigrant parents used to mortify them by harvesting these weeds from urban lots, and really it’s hard to imagine a less pretentious plant than the dandelion. (Even arugula, that most lampooned of leaves, is just considered a weed in its Mediterranean countries of origin.)

So in honor of America’s rekindled interest in dark, spicy greens, two recipes this week. The first is a mashed potato dish from Mark Bittman, who traces it to Italy, although many cultures have some version of this dish. It is, I can attest, somewhat addictive. The second is a recipe for mustardy mustard greens I made up after having something similar at Buttermilk Channel, a highly worthwhile restaurant in Brooklyn. If you like wasabi-style heat, you should find it agreeable.

Mashed potatoes with greens

Ingredients

1 lb potatoes (about 2 large), peeled and cut into quarters
1 lb greens (dandelion or other), with the thick stems trimmed
1/4 cup olive oil, or more
1 cup bread crumbs
Salt
Pepper

Directions

Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft, 15 to 30 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon.
Add greens to the boiling water and cook for about 1 minute. Rinse under cold water, drain, and chop.
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mash the potatoes with a fork or potato masher, adding enough olive oil to moisten them well. Mash in the greens and sprinkle with salt and lots of pepper.
Put mixture in an ovenproof dish and top with bread crumbs. Drizzle with more olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake until bread crumbs are golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Variations

Steep a smashed garlic clove in the olive oil before mashing it into the potatoes. Or sautee the greens with garlic.
Squeeze some lemon juice into the potatoes, or grate some lemon zest.
Replace the greens with roasted tomatoes.
Taking it in a very different direction: use mustard oil, fenugreek or methi, and cumin seeds for an indian version of the dish.

Mustardy mustard greens

Ingredients

1/8 lb thick cut bacon (or about two slices)
2 lb mustard greens, thick stems trimmed, leaves sliced into 3/4-inch ribbons
2 shallots, sliced thinly
1 tbsp coarse ground mustard
1 tbsp hot mustard powder
Salt

Directions

Slice the bacon into strips and cook over medium high heat until crisp.
Lower the heat to medium, add the shallots, and cook until soft.
Add the coarse mustard, the greens, and 1/4 cup of water. Cover and cook until the greens are tender, 10-15 minutes.
Stir the mustard powder into a tablespoon of water, so it forms a paste. Add the paste slowly to the greens until you reach the desired heat level. If you use it all, they will be quite spicy. Salt to taste.
Serve in a bowl with the cooking liquid.

Variations

To make this vegan, ditch the bacon.

Flying the more expensive skies

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:36:09 -0800

Including aviation in a carbon cap will cause ticket prices to rise -- as they should

by Adam Stein

The American Clean Energy and Security (née Waxman Markey) covers an impressive swath of the U.S. economy — nearly 85% of total carbon emissions, as compared to Europe’s 52%. One area it doesn’t cover, however, is aviation, at least not via the cap-and-trade mechanism that puts a hard limit on total emissions. Instead, the bill makes brief mention of creating efficiency standards for new aircraft engines based on the best technology available at the time. Of course, airlines are already highly motivated to employ the most efficient possible aircraft technology, because fuel is one of their biggest costs.

Fearing more punitive measures, a consortium of international airlines that includes Air France, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic has recently proposed that the airline industry be folded into the European emissions trading scheme. Although the proposal contains some industry-friendly terms — particularly the provision that most carbon permits be given away rather than auctioned — it strikes me overall as a surprisingly credible effort for something coming out of an industry group. The proposed emissions reductions aren’t hugely ambitious, but any reductions at all represent a considerable improvement over the status quo scenario, which projects rapid growth in airline emissions.

American airlines, naturally, are resisting. An industry spokesperson makes the point that American airlines have already invested heavily in efficiency. Without easy technological fixes to fall back on, airlines will be forced to buy carbon permits on the open market:

“Our low-hanging fruit has long been taken care of,” she said. “Our position is, we’ve sort of already paid, and we don’t really want to pay another industry to do what they could have done.”

This complaint misses the point entirely. Sure, efficiency is great. If airlines can fly the same number of miles on a smaller carbon footprint, then both the environment and the industry come out ahead. But if further efficiency improvements are hard to come by, then the cap will have the effect of raising fuel costs for the industry, which will then pass those higher costs on to consumers. Which is almost certainly what needs to happen to bring down airline emissions.

As an ardent traveler, I’d love for this not to be the case. But I also know that I can’t complain too much. Flying is incredibly cheap these days, truly a mass luxury, and one whose consumption is highly sensitive to price changes. So if carbon pricing eventually inspires the creation of an eco-friendly, biofuel-powered plane, that’s great. But in the near term, the main effect should be to inspire travelers to take the train.

Did Chicago get burned on parking reform?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:12:11 -0800

Looking for quick fix, city leaves cash on the table

by Adam Stein

Last year, I wrote about Chicago’s decision to lease its parking spaces to a private company. Although no vendor had yet been selected, the deal seemed like a good idea in principle.

Parking reform — which generally means raising the price of curbside spots to something approaching market rates, and perhaps even dynamically adjusting them based on time, location, and other conditions — offers a lot of benefits. Underpriced parking leads to increased tailpipe emissions, because drivers tend to circle looking for spots. The resulting congestion also has economic consequences for cities. Finally, a basic fairness issue comes into play: underpriced parking is effectively a subsidy paid by non-drivers to drivers.

(The list of parking-related social problems is actually much longer than this and takes some surprising turns. For example, parking regulations appear to be partially to blame for the low availability of healthy food in poor neighborhoods. Basically, on-street parking is insanely valuable real estate that we tend to take for granted. Giving it away to car owners carries heavy opportunity costs.)

Parking reform also poses a political problem: drivers loathe fee increases, and retail business owners are wrongly wedded to the notion that low parking prices increase access to their stores. So Chicago sought to sidestep the problem — while also plugging a huge gap in its budget — by leasing the city’s 36,000 parking spaces to a private entity in exchange for a lump sum payment. At the time of my last post, ten private consortia were bidding on rights. Eventually Morgan Stanley was granted a 75-year lease in exchange for an up-front payment of $1.15 billion.

Which appears to be a somewhat crappy deal for Chicagoans. Streetsblog highlights the fact that Chicago appears to have left about $974 million on the table, but that’s not really the worst of it. As described in a report from the Inspector General (pdf), the city failed to do even the most rudimentary analysis of the value of the public space it was auctioning off, and then gave the City Council only two days to evaluate the terms of a deal that would lock up possession of parking spaces for the next 75 years. I’ve got nothing against public-private partnerships, but Chicago’s process fails the most basic test of good governance.

All that said, the deal isn’t as bad as all that. The city raised a good chunk of cash, and parking reform will come to the streets of Chicago. Moreover, the visibility of the deal will no doubt inspire other cities who are looking for new sources of revenue. Let’s just hope they learn from Chicago’s mistakes.

Environmental leaders weigh in on Waxman-Markey

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:08:46 -0800

Most feel bill is good start, despite flaws

by Adam Stein

The online publication Yale Environment 360 recently asked eleven environmentalists and environmental groups for their reactions to the Waxman-Markey climate legislation, now that the bill has spent some time marinating in various congressional committees. The question takes on particular relevance as environmentalists wrestle with the issue of how far to compromise on various key issues. Here’s a round-up of the round-up:

Angela Ledford, U.S. Climate Action Network
In a nutshell: supports the bill even if it doesn’t go far enough.

Key quote: “We cannot blow this moment. But we shouldn�t think for a second our job is done once the bill is passed.”

Phil Radford, Greenpeace USA
In a nutshell: bill is too weak to do any good, and will trade away the president’s ability to regulate coal plants under the Clean Air Act

Key quote: “It’s like building a 4-foot levee in New Orleans as the waters rush in at 40 feet.”

Joseph Romm, Center for American Progress
In a nutshell: bill is good enough, and if it doesn’t pass, we’re doomed

Key quote: “Waxman-Markey is the only game in town. Let’s work hard to improve it, but killing it would be an act of environmental suicide.”

Denis Hayes, Bullitt Foundation
In a nutshell: Waxman and Markey have negotiated the best deal for the environment that this Congress is capable of passing

Key quote: “Waxman-Markey’s flaws are huge but discrete, and they can be addressed in the years ahead”

Brent Blackwelder, Friends of the Earth
In a nutshell: the bill is fatally compromised with special interest giveaways

Key quote: “Special interests — including Big Oil, Dirty Coal, and Wall Street — continue to hold too much sway in the Energy and Commerce Committee from which this bill emerged”

David Jenkins, Republicans for Environmental Protection
In a nutshell: not great, but better than doing nothing

Key quote: “Every year that we fail to enact legislation to reduce carbon emissions, climate change becomes more difficult and costly to address. The responsible, and conservative, course is to act now.”

Charles Drevna, National Petrochemical & Refiners Association
In a nutshell: this bill will hurt profits in my industry

Key quote: “U.S. refiners already face stiff foreign competition and would be severely disadvantaged with higher compliance costs under the Waxman-Markey scheme”

Liz Martin Perera, Union of Concerned Scientists
In a nutshell: not as strong as we’d like, but exactly what we need

Key quote: “it took many years to pass the Clean Air Act, which was later significantly strengthened through various amendments. This is probably the single best shot we�ll ever get at putting a cap on global warming pollution, and we need to take it.”

Michael Brune, Rainforest Action Network
In a nutshell: emissions reduction targets are too low, offset provisions are too high

Key quote: “Scientists state that an atmospheric concentration of 350 parts per million of CO2 is the upper limit for a stable climate; this bill aims for 450”

Paul Hawken, Environmentalist
In a nutshell: though it doesn’t go far enough, the bill sets us in the right direction

Key quote: “legislation is not actually written in Congress; it is assembled there. One detects the fine hand of environmental and climate experts in the bill, not just big utilities”

Michael Noble, Fresh Energy
In a nutshell: bill must not trade away the EPA’s ability to regulate coal plants

Key quote: “If that coal surge takes place, we will have to de-carbonize electricity at a much steeper rate from 2020 to 2050, and the hole we will have to dig out of will be much deeper.”

* * *

So the tally is:

6 statements of “we need to go further, but the bill is a good start, and passing something now is imperative”
3 statements of “bill is too weak, should be scrapped in favor of something better”
1 statement of “bill is OK if we retain ability of EPA to regulate coal plants”
1 statement of “please don’t regulate my industry”

Setting aside the delicate sensibilities of the Petrochemicals & Refiners Association, the overall impression given by the comments is that Waxman-Markey provides a solid foundation from which to start regulating carbon emissions, particularly given the set of political constraints facing congress and the urgent timing of the issue.

A couple of related observations:

The Rainforest Action Network’s objections to the bill seem based on a somewhat idiosyncratic reading of its offset provisions. They envision a scenario that no one actually thinks will come to pass.
If you’re wondering whether the support of a group called “Republicans for Environmental Protection” is actually a reason to oppose the bill, don’t: David Jenkins offers up solid policy analysis in his assessment of the bill.
Several groups mention the fact that the bill would strip the EPA of its ability to regulate coal plants under the Clean Air Act. I haven’t really heard much chatter about this issue, but it seems like a legitimate cause for concern. Waxman-Markey proposes to regulate coal plants directly, but does away with the more far-reaching regulatory powers of the CAA.

Via Worldchanging.

Unleash your inner Edison

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:55:47 -0800

Contest could put your green product idea on store shelves

by TerraPass

Yahoo! Green is running a contest for would-be inventors: submit your idea for a green product, and vie for the chance to see your creation on store shelves. The contest is open for one week more, and for the final week Yahoo! is waiving all submission fees.

The winner will receive $2,500, plus a share of the sales for 20 years. You might also be featured in an episode of the PBS show Everyday Edisons.

So far over 150 ideas submitted and the community has placed over 13,000 votes. Some of the leading ideas include:

Plant fiber diapers
Vampire power cure
Fridge-cam that lets you see inside your fridge when you�re at the store and forgot what�s in there
A stove that knows when to turn itself off

Technically, your idea doesn’t need to be “green” so much as “good” — that is, it should provide solid value to customers and somehow make the world a better place. Get to work!