Carl Boyd graduated from UIC’s Industrial Design program and has worked professionally in exhibit and product design. He interned at Prairie Fish, one of the nation’s first retail design firms committed to green design. As an initial member of the Foresight Design Initiative, he launched Chicago Green Drinks, organized Chicago’s first Eco-Transportation Show, and designed exhibits for the Chicago Department of Environment.
He’s served as a judge of green design for the 2008 International Housewares Show, and Chicago’s Greenworks Awards.
Carl Boyd co-pilots an ongoing project called Normal - started in 2003 - designing modern, practical products that are locally-made using sustainably-preferable materials and processes. Normal products are sold across North America, have been featured in Wallpaper, TIME, New City, Chicago Tribune, Time Out and in several TV spots. They have been selected for Museum exhibits nationwide and abroad.
Carl currently teaches product design, focusing on sustainability issues, at Columbia College, as well as at the Art Institute this coming Spring.
Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
A freelance writer specializing in environmental and health topics, Linda recently was part of a core team of writers who developed content for GreenYour, a website devoted to greener living.
She wrote an environmental column for five years for Good Housekeeping magazine called Green Watch. You can find her articles in Plenty Magazine’s online newsletter, Fit Pregnancy, Good Housekeeping, Arthritis Today, Profiles (Continental Airline’s in-flight magazine), and Microsoft’s Encarta.
She served on her town’s environmental commission for 15 years and remains an active volunteer. Her personal essay column for the local newspaper offers her take on the natural world and on environmental topics in her neck of the woods.
Dayanti Karunaratne is a freelance journalist based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Since graduating from Carleton University's journalism program in 2006, Karunaratne has worked on the news desk at the Port Hope Evening Guide, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Molokai Times. Karunaratne's writing appears in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, the Globe and Mail, and other lifestyle publications.
Christie Nash is currently a Projects Coordinator at the Trent Centre for Community-Based Education whose mandate is to bring local organizations and academic resources together to create community- inspired research projects. She has recently completed her M.Ed in Education and Community Development and Comparative International Development Education at OISE/UT. Her professional experience has taken her around the world, including Thailand, India, Nunavut, and other parts of Canada.
She currently resides in Omemee, Ontario (where Neil Young spent his formative years!) in an 1861 log cabin with her boyfriend, Mark, and cat, Fergus.
Marie Oser is a best-selling author, columnist, and host/producer of VEG TV. A vegan lifestyle expert, and environmental advocate with a focus on nutrition and its role in disease prevention, Oser specializes in creating original gourmet recipes with a solid nutritional bottom line.
Many prominent medical and nutrition professionals endorse her work, including Dr. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and principal researcher of the groundbreaking CHINA STUDY, and Neal Barnard, M.D. founder and president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC.
Marie is president of VEGTV, Inc., a video production company producing content for TV and new media. VEGTV streams hundreds of lifestyle videos to more than 1,000 sites globally. In her role as Director of Product Development at Smart Planet Kitchen, she has created, Marie Oser’s Lean & Green, a new line of vegan and Fair Trade Certified products. Marie has appeared on CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, QVC, WUSA, WNBC, KCAL, KOVR, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), FINE LIVING, TECH TV, and Discovery Channel.
Vegetarian since 1971; vegan since 1990, Marie left a career in TV advertising to pursue her interest in food, health, and nutrition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University. Marie is a gourmet cook and organic gardener living in California, writing her 5th book and hiking every day with Travis, her Yellow Lab companion.
Electric vehicles (EVs) have been anointed as the green cars of the future, gaining support from the federal government, auto industry, and Silicon Valley. Some EV and PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) models are already available, with many more set to launch in the coming years.
However, EVs and PHEVs are not expected to overtake the internal combustion engine in the short-term. Part of this is due to the fact that it’s hard to change the status quo. Part of it, though, is related to price and manufacturing costs. And around half of an EVs manufacturing cost comes from its lithium ion battery. Mass adoption of EVs depends largely on improving the competitiveness of their batteries.
The demand for lithium is rising as the number of battery applications for the material rises. It is used in cell phone batteries and other electronics, and now increasingly in vehicles. As demand rises faster than supply, price increases.
The supply of lithium is limited by both geological and political factors. Lithium is a finite natural resource: only so much of it exists in the world. It is unclear whether increasing demand for the metal will exhaust the world’s lithium reserves or lead to new discoveries (as was the case with oil).
If peak lithium throws a wrench in the burgeoning lithium economy, there is still hope for the EV. (Other fuel sources, such as biofuels, oil, and even hydrogen will of course be competing for market share with EVs in the meantime.)
PHEVs
PHEVs rely on smaller batteries with less storage capacity. This limits how far they can travel on electricity (the Chevy Volt, for example, will go a meager 40 miles on electricity alone), but allows for an unlimited range by complimenting the electric battery with a traditional internal combustion engine.
If PHEVs gain mass market acceptance before pure EVs, as many auto industry insiders believe, this will limit the pressure on lithium somewhat compared to pure EVs.
Leasing
One school of thought is to sell EVs, but only lease their batteries. This will decouple the cost of the vehicle from its energy cost: consumers can compare the cost of the battery (plus the electricity used to charge it, which costs little) to the price of gasoline, instead of just looking at the higher price tag of EVs compared to traditional models.
Another advantage of this approach is that 80% of a lithium ion car battery’s useful life comes after it is no longer strong enough to be used in a vehicle. Car makers can find profitable ways to use the batteries after their leases expire. A few companies experimenting with battery leasing include Think Car, Project Better Place, and Nissan.
Alternatives to lithium
A simple answer to the problem of lithium scarcity: don’t use lithium. Using a more abundant metal in EV batteries would sidestep the issue completely. Toyota has invested in researching zinc-air batteries. However, these batteries are not rechargeable. At the moment there is no substitute to lithium that can compete as both rechargeable and light weight.
I’m fully convinced that the Next Big Thing in auto technology will be either cellulosic ethanol (maybe biomass, whatever) or hydrogen. As battery chemistries rely on rare, expensive materials I think EVs are an interim technology that won’t last too long.
Discover the latest developments in improving technologies, tightening auto standards, fuel alternatives and how to make your current car eco-friendly. Find out which companies are investing in energy efficient vehicles.
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I’m fully convinced that the Next Big Thing in auto technology will be either cellulosic ethanol (maybe biomass, whatever) or hydrogen. As battery chemistries rely on rare, expensive materials I think EVs are an interim technology that won’t last too long.
unless we get fusion power first, that is.