Natural Resources | ModeShift

Flip: Finding A Heavy Breeze

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 18, 2007September 24, 20070

Â This entry in Mode Shift’s Flip category, which spotlights great online applications of multi-media technology,Â introduces a brand new mapping tool to help local government officials, utilities, and entrepreneurs identify suitable places to buildÂ commercial-scale wind turbines in Michigan. Developed by the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University, and dubbed the Michigan Prospecting Tool by itsÂ developers, Charles McKeown and Benjamin Calnin, the online toolÂ provides users an easy and elegant wayÂ to find the windiest places in …

An Energy Alliance to Watch in Michigan and Elsewhere

by Keith SchneiderAugust 8, 2007August 8, 20070

John Bebow, the executive director of The Center For Michigan and a former reporter for the Detroit News and Chicago Tribune, reports in his weekly update that M and M Energy, a Florida-based energy development company, has proposed building a multi-billion dollar “polygeneration” coal-fired electric generating stationÂ on the site of a shuttered oil refinery in Alma.Â The company presented its plan to the state Senate Energy Committee in mid-April and has been busy shopping the ideaÂ in …

Defending Lake Michigan Dunes

by Keith SchneiderAugust 1, 2007August 2, 20074

Â While visiting last month in New Buffalo, aÂ summering village along Lake Michigan’s southeastern coast, I learned that realtors and developers were preparing a campaign to significantly weaken or entirely repeal theÂ 31-year-old state law that protects Michigan’s magnificent fresh water sand dunes.Â The reason: the law was deemed to be an affront to “property rights” and an impediment to the development of some of the most compellingÂ maritime geography on the planet. Earlier this year, while researching …

Flip: Interactively Documenting Factory Farms

by Keith SchneiderJuly 31, 2007August 1, 20073

Â Among the priority hazards of joining capital and technology the way we doÂ in the 21st CenturyÂ is that it can blow upÂ the ordinary and familiar — a farm, for instance — into shapes and sizes that are extraordinary. That is what’s happening in Michigan and in many other states in animal agriculture. American meat, poultry, and milk, increasingly, are produced on immenseÂ sites that have come to be known as “factory farms.”Â For those who haven’t followed …

Green Neighborhood Grant Act in Illinois

by Keith SchneiderJuly 2, 2007October 31, 20073

Illinois, our neighbor to the west, has been doing a lot of things right of late for its residents, environment, and economy. It makes a Michigan resident a bit jealous.Â The Center for Neighborhood Technology and Bethel New Life, for example, convinced the Chicago Transit Authority to rebuild rather than tear down the elevated Green Line in the 1990s,Â helping to promote the revival of the city’s West Side. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley turned a tree-planting campaign …

Low Great Lake

by Keith SchneiderJune 28, 2007June 28, 20073

It’s an odd sight to venture to the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan’s upper peninsula and see dry dirt where there used to be water. Lake Superior, which holds 14 percent more water than the four other Great Lakes combined, is 18 inches below normal, lower than it’s been since 1926. We’re sort of used to low lake levels out here in the upper Midwest. Not long ago Lake Michigan was so low that …

Two Conversations on Energy in America; and Everything Else

by Keith SchneiderJune 27, 20072

You may have missed this little note out of Wall Street last week but many of the renewable and alternative energy funds are doing very well. The New Alternatives fund is up nearly 37 percent the last 12 months and 20 percent so far this year. The Guinness Atkinson fund is up 17 percent and 27 percent while the Wilder Hill funds, which launched last fall, are each up about 11 percent this year. By …

The Unforeseen: A Terrific Movie

by Keith SchneiderJune 21, 2007November 14, 20071

Earlier this month I attended the New York opening for The Unforeseen, Laura Dunn’s new documentary about the clash of values and struggle to protectÂ Barton Springs in Austin from the consequences of sprawling exurban development. I also met Laura and her husband, Jef Sewell, a well-known executive for anÂ entrepreneurial fulfilment companyÂ that serves entertainment Web sites.Â [youtube]24-6U5FK470[/youtube] David Brancaccio, the host of PBS’s Now program, also has taken an interest in Laura and the film and …

Public Opinion on Energy Bill: Conservation Trumps Production

by Keith SchneiderJune 19, 2007June 19, 20070

Ruy Teixeira, a journalist who does a very good job keeping track of public opinion at the Center For American Progress in Washington, published this analysis of where citizens think the energy bill being debated in Congress ought to go. The verdict: Towards green, efficient, conservation measures and not to new production.Â The money quote: “The public is also quite clear on its priorities when it comes to promoting energy conservation versus increasing the supply …

Toronto Transit City

by Keith SchneiderJune 18, 2007June 20, 20071

In 1954, the year that Detroit was busily completing the Lodge Freeway and starting construction on the city’s other major highways Toronto (see pix) opened 12 stations on the Yonge Street subway line, the city’s first. Since then Toronto has built three more regional rapid transit lines, 69 stations, and nearly 43 miles of subway and rapid transit track. The city’s subway and surface streetcar system carries 1.2 million passengers a day, many of whom …