Payton Chung’s Posts

• Get ready for the summer driving season

  Build your stockpile of gas now! 15

  Posted 2 years, 6 months ago

  Gasoline supplies right now are plumbing historic lows, just as May and the "summer driving season" are about to roll around. This fact has the industry types at the WSJ's Energy Roundup abuzz with predictions of $4/gallon gasoline, should the inevitable disruption (refinery fire, hurricane, Iran war) occur. As in years past, areas with higher cost gasoline, mostly the blue states along the oceans and Great Lakes, will see the highest prices.

• On the floor of GreenBuild Expo

  Green building convention is abuzz 1

  Posted 2 years, 11 months ago

  I'm currently attending GreenBuild, the U.S. Green Building Council's big annual convention. This is just the fifth iteration, but already it's a behemoth. Last year it drew over 10,000 attendees, and this year it's expected to best that record.

  The vast trade show floor (over 700 exhibitors) testifies to the big business of green building. The show places leviathan bridge-builders next door to some guy selling composting toilets. An entire aisle is lined with suppliers of modular green roofs.

  What I find interesting, though, is less the breadth of exhibitors than the depth.

• Carbon fad diet

  Slate and TH challenge readers to lose 2.5 tons apiece 7

  Posted 3 years ago

  Slate and fellow green blog TreeHugger have just launched an eight-week Green Challenge carbon diet. The goal: to get readers to cut their carbon emissions 20 percent through the usual variety of actions. The kicker: an interactive "my emissions" evaluation tool that friends can use to challenge one another. Nothing like a little competition to spice things up.

  (I'd love to share my results, especially since this week's theme is transportation, but it's not yet working for me. Anyone else?)

• Green Bean counting 2

  Posted 3 years, 2 months ago

  Chicago, like several other cities, has a Green Permit Program (PDF) that grants faster building permits for green buildings. Erik Olsen, the program's administrator, gets to scrutinize every single green building in the entire city. Luckily for us, Erik recently started GreenBean, a blog profiling the blueprints that cross his desk.

  So far, he's posted eight building profiles, including two single-family houses (both in my neighborhood -- must be my aura), high-rise offices, and the rehab of a YMCA into subsidized housing. For each, he notes the level of green-ness, unusual green techniques used, and… Read More

• Where does your gas come from? 0

  Posted 3 years, 3 months ago

  Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek spent the last year on "an energy safari," working backwards from the customers and night-shift clerks at a single Marathon gas station in exurban Chicago (and the downstate refinery that supplies it) to the exact fields where the oil first left the ground. Last September, for instance, 71% of its gas came from the U.S., 20% from Africa, and 10% from Saudi Arabia.

  The eight stories and related multimedia (photos from Iraq, Louisiana, Nigeria, and Venezuela, and a 12-part video documentary) neatly tie together the disparate lives on both ends of the petroleum… Read More

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Payton Chung’s Recent Comments

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  hacks vs. wonks

  the description of Carrion above reminds me of someone else who will shape urban policy within the administration: Valerie Jarrett, whom Mayor Daley appointed to chair the Chicago Transit Authority and sit on the the Chicago Plan Commission -- despite have no formal training in either of these crucial, complicated, and vitally important fields.On What Obama's picks signal for urban policy posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago 5 Responses

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  I agree

  with David and with JMG. it appears that the stimulus proposal that's being advanced is heavy on showering state DOTs with funds - and very, very few state DOTs (indeed, I can't think of a single one) sees transit, placemaking, bicycling, etc. as being anything more than incidental to their primary mission of Moving Lots of Cars Really Fast.

  I'm with JMG on disliking videos. I don't get why video is so wonderful - I read much faster than I can listen.On New CEQ head Nancy Sutley on transit and green jobs posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 3 Responses

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  one caveat

  right now, federal transit funding requires that local governments at least match the federal funds 50-50 (whereas highway projects get matched 80-20). however, most states are not exactly flush with cash at this time, so one common-sense proposal from a new infrastructure program might be to increase that match -- up to 100% if necessary to get a high-priority project off the ground.On How investing in transit could save Obama's butt posted 11 months, 4 weeks ago 7 Responses

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  whoops!

  These "microwave" power plants were an option in SimCity many years ago. They worked swell, if you had the cash, although they introduced a disaster scenario: the microwave misfires and toasts your city instead.

  (Just being a little silly here.)On Can we shoot concentrated solar power down from space? posted 1 year, 4 months ago 18 Responses

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  Wheee!

  CMS changes are so much fun. Looking forward to breaking down the -mill wall!

  The most elegant solution I've seen to the "edited after the fact" problem is the way Flickr (and phpbb, I think) does it: it adds a little "last edited at XYZ time" note to the end if said edits were made more than a few minutes after posting. That subtly lets people know that something might have changed in the aftermath.

  Two things I really like about Slashcode's CMS which haven't quite trickled into the mainstream: comments threaded by nesting, and user moderation. I think the latter might work pretty well around here, from the interactions I've seen.On Grist is cooking up a new site; what do you want to see in it? posted 1 year, 4 months ago 32 Responses