Dominion Energy to build electric car power stations along the I-95 & I-81 corridors in Washington, DC, plus the BBC produces the world’s first emissions-free outdoor broadcast. You can plant trees just by surfing the Internet with the Ecosia search engine, and the Global Forest Watch implements new technology to see clearly the forest and the trees on cloudy days.
Power company Dominion Energy is partnering with other electric companies to provide more charging stations for electric cars nationwide. The stations will run through interstate highways throughout the country, including the Washington, DC. As reported recently by The Climate Daily, Dominion Energy partnered this year with Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax County, VA to bring electric buses to that suburban Washington, DC school district.
Dominion Energy said it wants to capitalize on the new push for electric vehicles. The first new charging stations should be along the I-95 corridor and I-81 by the end of the year. According to the Edison Electric Institute, there were about a million electric vehicles in the U.S. in 2018. But by 2025, that number is expected to explode to more than 18 million. To put that into context, 18 million EVs is the equivalent of how many new vehicles are sold annually in the United States.
The British Broadcasting Corporation makes television history, completing an entire episode of the BBC Studios Natural History Unit’s Winterwatch powered entirely by green hydrogen and energy saving batteries. Announced in a press release, the 60-minute episode was produced in partnership with GeoPura™ and Siemens Energy, which supplied emissions-free electrical power to BBC Bristol’s broadcast unit.
Instead of using traditional diesel generators to produce the live outdoor broadcasts, the partnership used hydrogen gas made by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity generated by solar and wind power. In a press release, Head of BBC Studios Natural History Unit Julian Hector said, “Everyone at Winterwatch and the BBC Studios Natural History Unit is punching the air at the prospect of finding a way to make our productions more sustainable. This is a superb development for us and the environment, and exactly the kind of thing we want to do more of.”
Looking towards the future, the partnership hopes to power the Winterwatch program for two consecutive weeks, setting a new standard for television around the world.
DEEPER DIVE: BBC
Hey Grace, ever head of Ecosia? Ecosia is the search engine that plants trees. Ecosia invests at least 80% of its monthly surplus income in tree planting programs all over the world. It was founded in 2009 by Christian Knoll, who traveled the world and ended up studying tree forestation projects in Argentina and Brazil. It taught him a lot about the connection between globalization and climate change and how planting new trees could actually neutralize CO2 emissions on a big scale. This is when Christian realized he wanted to engage in forest preservation to help the environment. He came up with the idea of a search engine that helped finance planting and restoration projects. In late 2009, the idea for Ecosia.org was born and the tree planting search engine launched in December of that year.
Every time someone clicks on an advertisement located next to search results, Ecosia makes a few cents, and 80% of that money gets donated to tree-planting projects around the world. It takes about 45 searches to plant a tree. Examples of projects include: planting mangrove trees along the coast in Madagascar, fruit and nut trees in northern Ghana, and native acacia trees near the Golbo Kubis valley in Ethiopia. Nearly 65 million of them have been planted as of 2021. There are currently 20 tree-planting projects in 15 countries being funded by the searches from Ecosia’s 8 million users.
But planting trees is not the only reason Ecosia matters to us because it is an example of a successful, Class B, socially responsible organization. SRO’s are made up of four basic tenets:
· Corporate Environmental Responsibility
· Corporate Human Rights Responsibility
· Corporate Philanthropic Responsibility
· Corporate Economic Responsibility
Or put another way, planet first, people second, profits third. Since its inception, Ecosia has inspired a raft of other SROs.
DEEPER DIVE: Ecosia
The Global Forest Watch is a tracking system used around the world to help scientists and conservationists monitor illegal deforestation, forest fires and unsustainable activities in real-time. The online platform provides essential data for people, organizations and policy makers to track how forests are changing over time.
However, there has been one flaw with tracking forests from a satellite: what do you do on a cloudy day? Reported by NPR, the Global Forest Watch announced the tracking system upgraded to a new cutting-edge radar that allows satellites to monitor forests through the clouds. Operated by the European Space Agency, the technology delivers higher quality photographs of the forests.
In an interview with NPR, site administrator Mikaela Weisse explained the satellites send radio waves to Earth and collect the response. “If we can detect deforestation and other changes as soon as they’re happening, then there’s the possibility to send in law enforcement or what have you, to stop it before it goes further.” It’s new technology like the Global Forest Watch that helps us see beyond what is possible and create for the better of the planet.
DEEPER DIVE: NPR, The Global Forest Watch
