Aptly named the “Rooftop Revolution,” Sungevity’s solar powered popsicle truck will be hitting up farmers’ markets, festivals, and other public events in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Delaware, hoping to seize up business that’s moved far beyond their humble start in Oakland, Calif. Sungevity has made their mark by offering customers a low budget way into the solar market with zero money down solar leases. Sungevity also offers online quotes so that customers know immediately how much they can save through installation. In fact, their ice pop truck is equipped with iPads so that iQuotes can be done at no charge onsite.

Photo: Mat McDermott

“Sungevity’s ‘Rooftop Revolution’ is a true first in the solar industry and drives directly to what we believe – that going solar is a lifestyle choice that makes dollars and sense,” said Patrick Crane, Chief Marketing Officer at Sungevity.

Solar Poised for Expansion
According to Huffington Post, solar power lease agreements are growing in popularity because the solar company assumes much of the upfront costs of installation and ownership making it a more realistic endeavor for a host of customers that once found it too pricey. While some of their business does come from full solar installations, the boom is born out of their solar lease programs. USA Today reports that high electricity bills across the board are motivating those who have never before thought solar to jump right in.

“We’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the price of solar power over the past year,” said the Solar Energy Industries Association’s Tom Kimbis to USA Today. “That has helped residential and commercial use of solar.”

According to a Sungevity press release, a Harris Interactive poll found that 71 percent of U.S. adults are “overwhelmed” by rising energy costs and an “estimated 9.4 million expected to consider solar power in the next five years.”

State Solar Incentives
Incentives for solar are increasing as well. It’s no coincidence that Sungevity chose expansion where they did. According to Clean Technica, Maryland has started to increase solar rebates and so has New Jersey and Massachusetts. In fact, Massachusetts will offset $68 million for the cost of PV systems, especially in schools and government buildings.

Even in a struggling economy there’s a clear opening for a less expensive solar market and Sungevity isn’t the first to make the move. Big competitors SunRun and SolarCity have also begun eastward expansion. But Sungevity hopes to make a dent in the market with the help of its delicious strawberry, mango and hibiscus mint popsicles on a hot summer day. It’s cool treat with a host of incentives.

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More on Solar Leasing
Lowe’s Buys Into Sungevity, Will Offer Solar Quotes in Stores
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Solar City Offering No Money Down, Residential Solar Panel Leases In California

Studio Swine is using human hair as the main ingredient in their chic eyeglasses instead of petroleum-based, energy-intensive wire and plastic frames.

According to Eccouterre:

Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves’ aptly named “hair glasses,” however, tap into a readily available and renewable resource: the millions of pounds of hair cuttings that salons across the United Kingdom throw away each year.

The glasses contain hair and bioresin and are 100 percent biodegradable at the end of their life. The glasses are currently on exhibit at RCA in London.

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More on Eyeglasses
Ask Pablo: What Is More Sustainable: Eyeglasses Or Contact Lenses?
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According to the Guardian, the UK-based Co-operative Group—which is a member-owned mega cooperative running supermarkets, banks, pharmacies, car dealerships, travel agencies and more—is setting out on a corporate journey that it hopes will provide a “benchmark for corporate responsibility”. As Tom Bawden explains, the idea is to tackle every possible angle of greener, fairer business:

“The group, which employs 120,000 staff, also plans to increase its membership from 6 million to 20 million and double its support for green energy to £1bn. In addition, it will increase its involvement with schools and create 2,000 apprenticeships in the next few years, as well as invest £5m a year to tackle poverty around its stores and branches.”

As a democratically controlled, member owned cooperative, The Coop has always had a strong ethical angle to everything it does. But this is clearly a move intended to regain the “ethical” momentum from other high street retailers and I for one am all for it. Competition, as we know, is a great motivator—and what better thing to compete over than who can do the least damage and the most good at the same time.

So who’s next?

More on Sustainable Business Initiatives
Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Initiatives Explained
Marks & Spencer Reveals Plan A
Tesco Turns Meat into Electricity

Wind Turbine inefficient and Expensive?
According to Britain’s tabloid Daily Mail, the Green Park turbine is producing woefully inefficient electricity. It has, says the Mail, been working at “15 per cent of its capacity” last year, producing GB£100,000 worth of electricity, but using up GB£130,000 worth of Government subsidies to do so.

Is Wind Power “Efficiency” Relevant?
Unsurprisingly, the turbine owners Ecotricity say that this is a load of anti-wind-power, anti-green spin (pun intended). They claim the estimates of revenue generated are wrong (although they do not give a figure for the right amount), but more importantly when it comes to the wider wind-power debate, they claim that the incessant focus from wind critics on load factors, and efficiency measured by percentage of actual output versus maximum output, is a deceptive and pointless statistical trick.

This from Dale Vince’s response to The Daily Mail:

“Opponents of wind energy often refer to their load factor or the % of their maximum output that they produce in a year. It’s a statistical nonsense to use this figure as a measure of the value or merit of any device or machine. Take the average car – it runs at less than 1% of it’s maximum capacity in any given year. A mobile phone, even a heavy user will struggle to rack up more than low single figure percentages. Are these devices inefficient or worthless….?”

Yes, this is the same Dale Vince making headlines by banning red meat from an entire soccer stadium. Outspoken, no?

More on Wind Power and Opposition to Wind
Ecotricity: 20 More Urban Wind Projects Planned
Stunning Urban Wind Turbines Circumvent NIMBYs
Residents Demand More Wind Turbines
NIMBYs in Minority? Many Residents Welcome Wind Turbines
Cape Wind Faces Spiritual Opposition from Native Americans
Earth First! in Anti Wind-Power Protests

Rocket Stove Science
NPR has a great piece covering both the principles and the politics of the rocket stove. The article is a useful starting point for anyone wondering why rocket stoves are quite so efficient:

“The stove is made from a steel 55-gallon drum, but that belies the precision engineering of what’s inside. A well-insulated combustion chamber made out of a special steel alloy concentrates the fire of just a few sticks of wood. The combustion is more complete than what you’d get in an open fire, burning the particles that usually become smoke. The hot gases are directed around the cookpot. As the water boils, the stove’s metal skin and stovepipe barely get warm, an indication of how little heat is wasted.”

Rocket Stove Politics
Besides the mechanics of the stove though, there is also a philosophical debate underway. On the one hand we find traditionalist NGOs like Aprovecho which have championed open-source, locally-built cook stoves, with the idea that by seeding micro-entrepreneurs around the Globe you can both hone the efficiency of stoves, and also create economic development in the process.

On the other hand, however, are people who argue that the need is too urgent, and progress too slow, not to opt for a more commercial solution:

“There have been thousands of stoves programs; I’m familiar with hundreds of them,” says Bryan Willson, a professor of mechanical engineering at Colorado State University. “And it’s hard to identify programs that have been successful.” Willson says it’s time to bring 21st century capitalism to bear. “There’s a global need for 500 or 600 million cookstoves,” he says. “And nobody is willing to write a big enough check to donate our way to that solution. So we really need to be able to develop products that people will want to buy.”

Willson and his team started a company called Envirofit which manufactures clean-burning cookstoves for the developing world—and even Aprovecho has developed a stove-manufacturing arm.

False Choice?
Ultimately, as with so many things, it seems to be a false choice between the open-source, grass-roots approach of teaching people to build their own stove, versus the centralized, commercial yet efficient approach. Most likely both will serve their purpose in different communities, and with over half the world still cooking with solid fuels, the main thing is to get moving.

More on Efficient Cook Stoves
Envirofit & Shell Create Efficient Cook Stoves for India
Rocket Stoives: Build Your Own Ultra-Efficient Cook Stove (Video)
Rocket Stoves Aid Relief Effort in Haiti
The New Yorker on Efforts to Hone Efficient Cook Stove Design