Greener Gotham Gets Energy Efficient
Thanks to Michael at the GroovyGreen blog for pointing out a great article from Sunday’s New York Times on the lengths that the great city of Gotham (New York City) is going to to get green and energy efficient.
Despite its reputation for being the city that never sleeps, NYC is now considered one of the most energy efficient cities in the US, at least in terms of what the municipal levels of government are doing. Enough so that officials in such eco-minded locales as Seattle and Portland are sitting up and taking notice.
Among the achievements and on-going initatives outlined in the NYT piece…
- More than 11.000 traffic lights and ‘Don’t Walk’ signals have been switched to LED with a projected savings of $6 million a year in energy and maintenance.
- 180.000 old refridgerators throughout the city’s public housing properties have been replaced with new energy efficient ones that use just 25% of the juice.
- City government departments are now legislated to purchase only the most efficient cars, air-conditioners and copy machines, and come 2008, computers will be added to the this list.
- NYC is already operating the largest hybrid bus fleet in the US and has recently seen the initial rollout of the first hybrid taxi’s.
While the energy savings of these projects will only represent a drop in the bucket of the 5 billion kWh’s of juice that the entire city sucks up in a year, they don’t have any other choice. Despite their conservation efforts, NYC’s demand for electricity is increasing at 1.5% per year with no new supply on the horizon. It’s either start saving, and do it by example, or start running short.
Here’s the link to the article in the NY Times.
[via GroovyGreen]
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POSTED IN: Conservation, General, News
2 opinions for Greener Gotham Gets Energy Efficient
Blaine Moore (Run to Win)
Dec 13, 2005 at 7:55 am
It figures that they meant Portland in the west instead of Portland in the east. Oh well.
Kevin Humphrey
Dec 13, 2005 at 6:55 pm
Blaine - I always thought Portland, ME was a fairly progressive city. Not so?
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