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The Renewable Energy City

By Peter Newman / On January 13th, 2009
The seven key innovations of resilient cities are set as city models, which will be detailed over the next several weeks here at "Eco-Compass." While no one city has shown innovation in all seven areas, some are quite advanced in one or two. The challenge for urban planners will be to apply all of these city characteristics together, to generate a sense of hope through a combination of new technology, city design and community-based innovation, which together will create the Resilient City. The first is city model is the Renewable Energy City. 1.
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The Crash, Peak Oil and Resilient Cities

By Peter Newman / On December 9th, 2008
How did the crash happen? Over-inflating the economic balloon with debt that was vulnerable to rises in oil price. What do we do about it? Use non-oil-based projects and approaches to generate economic growth or else we are going to make things worse. In detail.... Peak oil theorists have been squabbling about when the geological peak will happen but in economic terms it happened in 2005 when the production of conventional oil (cheap oil which can be produced under about $65/bbl) peaked.
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Solar, the benefits are big but the funding is not

By Walker Wells / On November 4th, 2008
In the green world, the "benefits of solar" is bandied about as dogma. But exactly what kind of benefits are we talking about? Economic? Environmental? Social?
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Building the Green Community Around the Green Building

By Walker Wells / On October 7th, 2008
So, you're approaching green as part of your mission, you're using the integrated design process, and you've tweaked the financing structure to cover the added costs. Voila! A solid green project, right? No quite. There's one more, often ignored, element needed to guarantee the long-term success of a green affordable housing project. Resident and operator behavior has great influence on the ultimate environmental performance of a project.