Energy

The Living Building Challenge is a new environmental rating system that focuses on required environmental design elements, diverging dramatically from the credit-based approach of the built environment's dominant rating system, LEED.

Last month saw the debut of one of the world's longest footbridges, which also happens to be 100% solar-powered. 36,500 people are projected to walk across the bridge each week.

The Feds have given the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) $151 million to look at some highly unusual ways of creating energy. Are they so crazy they just might work -- or just plain crazy?

The motherlode of wind energy up, up in the air, say scientists. A handful of new technologies are being developed to harvest it at the source, roughly six miles up.

Ford Motor Co. is reporting almost $1b in profits in the third quarter. CEO Alan Mulally credits the Cash for Clunkers program and cost cutting for their success.

A proposed plan from Gensler and 4240 Architecture would turn an abandoned rail line in Chicago into an energy-generating, food-growing powerhouse. Oh, and a park too.

In this short radio broadcast, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer welcomes the support of influential land use planner Mike McKeever of Sacramento, who testifies in support of the bill that incorporates smart growth strategies first employed by his MPO.

Earlier this week, the Obama Administration announced a significant investment in smart grid infrastructure like improved transmission lines and smart meters in homes.

The National Academy of Science has released a report showing that health effects from burning fossil fuels cost the economy about $120 billion a year. Global warming was not included due to uncertainty, so it's focused mostly on air pollution.

A new report claims that the way the global warming impact of biofuels is measured leaves out the land use component of clearing land and growing crops.

PG&E CEO Peter Darbee says that it wouldn't take very many all-electric cars to create a serious drain on local power generators.

The Danish island of Samso is the poster child of clean energy. Its residents generate more energy than they consume. Now the Danish government wants to export that model back to the mainland.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has announced a ten-point plan to turn his city in the greenest in the world by 2020.

Bicycle commuting increased 43% in the U.S. from 2000 to 2008. And as commuters get used to having their trusty bike to get around, more business travelers are taking their ride with them.

Ultracapacitor batteries are a poor fit for domestic cars, but are a unique fit for transit. Michael Graham Richard looks at how this technology is working on electric buses in China.

A photography show in 1975 is credited with changing the way artists looked at landscape, shifting towards looking at the built environment with a less romantic viewpoint. The original show is back on tour and opens at the LA County Museum of Art.

The White House is pushing for more solar power projects nationwide, but environmental concerns are stalling the progress of plans to build solar projects in the California desert.

A small village founded in Colombia in the 1960s as an experiment in sustainable agriculture is still thriving. Experts like Amory Lovins are paying Gaviotas a visit to learn their secrets.

Three-wheeled, alternative energy vehicles like the Aptera may soon qualify for funding from the Dept. of Energy.

Foreclosed homes in Phoenix are a new goldmine for one developer, who is buying up land near the city's mass transit lines and marketing properties as transit oriented development.