Green Washing Gas

Image: bp.com

The Helio House is BP attempt at marketing a green gas station. Though they don't offer any type of alternative fuel, they did manage to create a building with LEED certification. The building has recycled this and that, education materials, LED lighting....cell phone recycling. But as many have argued...its still gas, its still harmful no matter what container you put in it.

These stations out of Oregon, SeQuential, might have the better idea. Not as flashy to make national headlines, they do offer a variety of alternate fuels ... and a green roof.












So what are the opportunities for "fueling stations" in our urban environments? How will the station evolve when real alternatives to fueling becomes more mainstream? How can a gas station really engage the community, the environment, watershed, energy system, transportation systems? How is energy distributed, consumed within nature?

additional resources:
NPR Report

Station Infrastructure

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2002, there were 117,100 gas service stations in the U.S., of which 84,700 had convenience stores. That is just a bit lower than the number of grocery stores in the US (169,414 - http://www.manta.com/mb_34_B619B_000/grocery_stores).

As we enter peak oil, and the already decreasing use of automobiles (In March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles on public roads than in the same month the previous year, a 4.3 percent decrease — the sharpest one-month drop since the Federal Highway Administration began keeping records in 1942. from NYC see April 24th blog post below). What will become of our gas stations? Or what is the new infrastructure of energy going to look like, or how could it utilized the existing grid of our antiquated service stations? Hydrogen, solar....electric?

Outside of depots for transportation, how can this matrix of "energy centers" provide human energy? Growing stations? Water stations? fruit and vegetables? greenhouses?

Convenience stores for calories and not CO2!