Keith Rockmael

With the recent “storm watch” as the local news stations like to dramatically call it, an onslaught of much needed snow hit the Lake Tahoe region and the ski resorts. Of course, we had to be on hand to check the falling beauty. So, it appears for now that Mother Nature got a late start in cooperating with the ski resorts. The questions remains, so what are the ski resorts doing on their end? How are they helping green cause and Mother Earth?

One of the most notable resorts of South Lake Tahoe remains Heavenly Lake Tahoe so we checked out their Green progress. One of their strongest aspects can be seen in transportation. The B20 or CNG powered BlueGo buses transport people from the resort and though the South Lake Tahoe region. This bus system (free for Heavenly employees and others) keeps 400,000-500,000 people per year out of their cars, while promoting use of alt fuels. Although the Heavenly snow cats don’t exactly count as transportation the resort started using an experimental B5 fuel snow cat to groom the slopes. Yes, B5 doesn’t exactly knock our mittens off but B5 is better than B0. We can always look for B10 or 20 or better in the near future.

The resort also remains fairly militant when it comes to watershed protection, soil erosion control and water conservation. They should, if they want to “Keep Tahoe Blue.” We saw specific instances where they maintain soil control, replace their poor past practices with best practices, and have instituted remedial programs and water quality protection. In one case, Heavenly completed a comprehensive Stream Environment Zone Restoration project on Edgewood Creek which lead to enhanced sediment retention.

Of course, we couldn’t live on riding and skiing alone, so we stepped onto the Sky Deck for some chow and rays. The resort has made a conscious effort to dump most of their overprocessed, unhealthy junk food. We appreciate that Heavenly started their Appetite for Life menu, where they serve natural, hormone-free meats and poultry and organic dairy products in its seven on-mountain restaurants. We’d like to see them, like everyone, do their due diligence when it comes to food product partnering. They proudly serve Horizon Farms for their milk and cheese products but maybe they should not be so proud as Horizon has come under fire for its “organic” practices and authenticity. Beyond the grub, we like that the Sky Deck, as well as the other mountain eateries, serves up their meals in reusable baskets and use reusable silverware, which helps decrease waste and saves energy and water.

With all of the new condos and commercial structures, we’d like to say that they have LEED buildings or the equivalent already in place but alas nothing yet. The resort does have plans for four new on-mountain lodges and restaurants to be built to LEED standards. It looks like we’ll need to plan another snow day to check out those new green buildings, see if they have made any halftime adjustments to their menu, transportation, alt energy and any other green developments.

What do get when you mix four of the Bay Area’s top green stars, a LEED certified location, lunch and corporate sponsor wanting to spread its green wings? The spirited Sustainable Symposium sponsored by Ace here in glorious San Francisco. The symposium, in short, brought some energetic and often useful ideas from the knowledgeable and spry panel (not to mention moderator and Chicago Ace Hardware store owner Lou Manfredini) and created solid dialogue in what could have been one of another “How to green this and that discussion.”

Held at the LEED certified Bentley Reserve (always a good start) the panel consisted of organic architect, writer, teacher, and the always amusing Eric Corey Freed, stylishly ecofab Zem Joaquin, the reserved but passionate Matt Golden and writer Sophie Uliano. The symposium focused mostly about green building (we weren’t exactly surprised with Ace as the sponsor) but contained various snippets of other sustainable elements as well.

One of the initial items that caused some debate circulated around water and specifically the tankless hot water heater. We love a good debate – especially about tankless water heaters. It’s not that anyone was so much against them but rather, like photovoltaic panels, there might be alternatives to address first when spending money to build or improve the sustainability of a house. Golden mentioned that people should concentrate on more cost effective, less glamorous problems (zero-VOC caulk anyone?) rather than luxe items such as tankless water heaters.

The talk moved toward the marketing or in some cases greenwashing of not only building materials but products. Manfredini called it a “gray movement” rather than “green” for obvious reasons. With all the confusion or outright greenwashing (or would it be graywashing) Freed thinks that it’s about time that someone create an FDA for products to place “ingredients” on labels. Maybe it’s time for companies to adapt the Pharos Project.

Much of the later part of the discussion circled around Clorox and their new best selling line Green Works and greenwashing. In the case Freed paraphrased the words of T.S. Elliot when referring to Clorox (and other companies) “Doing the right thing for the wrong reason”. We agree with Golden’s philosophy is that it comes down to intent. Is Clorox as a whole really looking to go green or just to make a quick green buck?

Even upon exiting the symposium, attendees received a reusable Ace schwag bag full of Fresh Wave odor spray and crystals, energy smart light bulb, a linen spiral notebook and a clothespin showing how much CO2 could saved if households air dried their clothes (250,000 tons of CO2 could saved if every household air dried one load of laundry). One thing that seemed out of place though – we don’t expect organic meals at every conference but they could at least have offered a veggie plate for the poor starving vegetarian/vegan attendees.

In another case of put your money where your hybrid is, San Francisco via Mayor Newsom just launched a green hybrid car rental program at San Francisco International Airport. So, after flying in with a heavy carbon footprint, car renters will be able lighten their footprint and fatten their wallet somewhat by taking advantage of this new hybrid program. Customers who rent hybrid cars that get an EPA rating of at least 18 will receive a $15 discount at the counter. Cars in this category include the Honda Civic Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid or Toyota Prius. Fifteen bones won’t go so far in this City but the discount will bring hybrid rental prices down closer to normally fully polluting cars as well as some green awareness.

This program will save those green corporate bean counters money as airport rental car companies will qualify for a 20 percent reduction of their airport rent fees if they achieve a goal of increasing the percentage of their overall transactions to 15 percent for rentals of hybrid cars or high mileage vehicles – those with an EPA rating of 17 or higher. Cars in this category include the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Ford Focus, as well as the hybrid cars.

SFO hopes that these incentives will increase the total number of high mileage and hybrid cars in the rental fleet to more than 15 percent.

We’re not going to say that this hybrid discount calls for a rousing ovation. Hybrids might be better than conventional vehicles but the idea is to get people out of their cars (hybrids or not). We’d rather see the airport promote BART to and from the airport. It’s an economical ($5.35), fast and convenient ride to SF proper. Maybe the City can reward travelers with a mass transit discount?

Last week we posted about the Emirates Airlines Green flight which offers some degree of green protocol but still the darn plane runs on pure petroleum. It looks like someone in the airline industry woke up because just a couple days ago Continental Airlines made a test run of a plane that runs on sustainable biofuel.

This commercial demo flight represents a first for North America airspace. It also marks the first sustainable biofuel demonstration flight by a commercial carrier using a two-engine aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines.

We know your thinking that we’ll have to sacrifice our GMO, herbicide infested corn to create the fuel for us jet setters. These airline peeps got it right by the fact that the biofuel blend includes components derived from algae and jatropha plants, both sustainable, second-generation sources that do not impact food crops or water resources or contribute to deforestation. The algae oil comes via Sapphire Energy, and the jatropha oil by Terasol Energy. This flight signifies the first time a commercial carrier will power a flight using fuel derived in part from algae. This biofuel blend consist of consists of 50 percent biologically-derived fuel and 50 percent traditional jet fuel, in the No. 2 engine. The aircraft's No. 1 engine will operate on 100 percent traditional jet fuel, allowing Continental to compare performance between the biofuel blend and traditional fuel. So, think of it as B50 for planes. We can only hope for B100 for planes in the near future.

Even with a 50-50 blend, this biofuel will result in a significant net decrease in carbon emissions in comparison to traditional jet fuel, as both jatropha and algae consume carbon during their lifecycles.

Don’t be pestering your travel agent to book you on a Green Continental flight just yet. This test flight out of Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport lasted about two hours but carried no passengers. We would even sit in the middle seat in economy class between a soon-to-be-divorced couple for the chance to fly in this puppy. Sure, some airlines talk about selling carbon offsets, recycling on-board and decreasing taxiing time in terms of Green transportation, which we of course support to varying degrees. But here Continental, Boeing, GE Aviation/CFM and UOP have created something tangible with good old American know how (like we used to) with this sustainable biofuel airline flight.

Now if they can only do something about the on-board air quality.

At first we had to laugh when we got wind (a tailwind no doubt) of how Emirates Airlines Launches San Francisco Service With World’s Longest Green Flight Trial. Even in their posh business class that’s a long flight and lot of CO2 going into the air. But what’s with the Green aspect? Are they going to sell us carbon credits during the in-flight service? We’ll have two organic gin martinis and 20,000 carbon credits please.

Before we totally write this off as greenwashing, we took a look at their green flight. Emirates created what they call “the most environmentally-sophisticated route and trip possible to help save an estimated 2,000 gallons of fuel and 30,000 pounds of carbon emissions on the 16-hour non-stop service.” The airlines worked with various countries to create a route that heads over Dubai, Russia, Iceland, Canada and the United States and other countries. Maybe these guys should work for the UN. We’ll buy the distance thing. Shorter distance, less fuel, less CO2.

Besides the flight route, Emirates has created several fuel and emission-saving measures such as the new 777-200LR will be specially washed beforehand to minimize drag.

We’re not aerodynamics experts but does washing a plane make that much of a difference toward fuel economy? Think of the precious water use (unless they use graywater) necessary to clean the jet.

The new 777-200LR operates at a 20% better clip when compared to the Air Bus 340-500, so that represents an immediate and tangible green plus.

Emirates also collects all on-board glass, newspapers, aluminum and paper for recycling. Commendable. It’s what happens after the flight that worries us. We have heard but have not yet confirmed that one US carrier that flies international routes collects recycling while in-flight but then the recyclables get burned because the cans and bottles came via an international flight. We wouldn’t want to recycle those cans from Mexico or Canada would we? Maybe the bottles didn't have there visas?

A lot of the other green factors have to do with routing, wind currents and air traffic management. That all makes sense but don’t all carriers do this? Maybe they don’t. Maybe some airline pilots fly directly into headwinds just for kicks.

Because the flight just kicked off a couple weeks ago, we’ll give it chance to see what the green savings are. It’s going to be difficult to convince us that jumping on a plane and flying half way around the world even remotely resembles anything green but if you gotta go you gotta go.