Green Tech

Coulomb Technologies charging stations keep the cord with a plug for an electric car locked behind a door for safety and theft prevention. An RFID reader signals the door to unlock when met with a recognized key fob or smart card.

(Credit: Coulumb Technologies)

The city of San Francisco is installing three EV (electric vehicle) charging stations across the street from city hall as part of a two-year pilot project to promote electric vehicle use, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday at a press conference.

The Smartlet Networked Charging Stations supplied by Coulomb Technologies will serve hybrid electric plug-in vehicles from Zipcar, City CarShare, and the city's municipal fleet, according to a statement from the mayor's office.

Because the EVs will be readily available for daily rental, skeptics and enthusiasts alike will have a chance to see what it's like to drive an electric car for a day.

"Electric vehicles are the future of transportation and the Bay Area is the testing ground for the technology," Mayor Newsom said in a statement to the press.

"Now, for the first time, the public can plug-in to the next generation of cars through car sharing organizations and take them for a drive in San Francisco," he said.

As part of the two-year pilot project, the Coulomb Technologies networked car charging system will include a "Fleet Management Portal," which texts drivers to inform them when their car needs charging and when it's fully charged and can be unplugged.

The installation of the three networked charging stations are part of San Francisco's nine-step plan for making electric vehicles popular in the Bay Area.

Along with Mayor Ron Dellums of Oakland, Calif., and Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose, Calif., Newsom pledged last November to make the Bay Area the "EV Capital of the United States."

San Jose became the first city to test Coulomb Technologies' charging stations last June.

Better Place aims to bring its electric-car charging network to the Bay Area, where plans are afoot to promote battery-powered vehicles.

(Credit: Better Place)

Better Place aims by 2012 to bring a $1 billion electric-car infrastructure system to the California Bay Area, whose leaders unveiled policies Thursday to fast-track the adoption of electric cars.

The Palo Alto, Calif., start-up will apply its unique business model, followed in Israel, Denmark, and Australia, of providing the public stations to charge vehicles and swap out leased batteries.

Shai Agassi, Better Place founder and CEO, said he hopes to wrap up permitting in the Bay Area within the next year, roll out the infrastructure in 2010, and fine-tune its technology over the next several years as more electric cars come to market.

"We need to stop the conversation of whether this is Detroit versus Silicon Valley, whether this is Michigan versus California, and we need to start talking about this as the next generation of the car," he said. "We hope that by the time we deploy, we'll see our friends from Renault and Nissan but also the three U.S. manufacturers developing cars that have a plug, and have the ability to drive around the city and charge as they go."

Mayors Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, Chuck Reed of San Jose, and Ron Dellums of Oakland joined Agassi at San Francisco City Hall, promising to launch policies in December to support companies and consumers adopting electric cars. (The event was broadcast online via Webcast.)

Among their plans are expedited permitting for car-charging outlets with incentives for businesses and garages installing them or providing battery-swapping. The mayors also pledged to standardize regulations across the region, working with clean-air and transit programs.

"I believe the big game changer is electric vehicles and plug-in technology," said Newsom, explaining that transportation accounts for 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in California and exceeds 54 percent in San Francisco.

Widespread usage of electric vehicles over two decades would save consumers $175 billion in fuel costs and bring a $120 billion boon for battery makers, according to early results of a study by the Venture Lab at the University of California at Berkeley.

"Look what happened when we built ARPANET in 1979," said Robert Kennedy Jr., describing the rise of the personal computer. "The reason for that is we created the infrastructure that made it easy for manufacturers and consumers to take advantage of the technology." Kennedy is partner and senior adviser of VantagePoint Venture Partners, the biggest investor in Better Place.

In statements, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi praised the electric vehicle announcements for the potential to boost the economy and reduce pollution.

If you are a San Francisco resident considering solar panels, now is the time for action, says Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity, a start-up that leases panels to homeowners.

Since the city solar-incentive program came into effect in July, it has become financially viable for even small energy consumers to install solar-power systems.

(Credit: SolarCity)

The San Francisco incentive covers between $3,000 to $6,000 for homeowners to install solar panels, as well as $10,000 for businesses and nonprofits, and $30,000 for nonprofit affordable housing. The program runs for a decade.

This initiative, together with a state rebate program of $1.90 per installed watt and the 30 percent federal investment tax credit (ITC) for solar energy, adds up to be a good deal, even for the city's smaller households.

Most energy customers in San Francisco pay an electricity rate that depends on how much power they use--the higher the usage, the steeper the bill, according to Rive. The rates vary from 12 cents per kilowatt-hour to 36 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Most of SolarCity's customers have paid 23 cents to 31 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity, prior to going solar. But with the addition of the city incentive program, even consumers paying 12 cents per kilowatt-hour today can reduce their electricity bill by installing solar cells, Rive claims.

"For as low as $25 per month, you can get a 2.4-kilowatt capacity system," he said.

Doing the math
Chris Clark, a resident of the Inner Sunset, a foggy neighborhood in San Francisco, is just finalizing his leasing deal with SolarCity. "It's going to reduce our bill significantly with the city rebate, probably 40 percent," he said. The roughly $120 that Clark currently pays for electricity per month is predicted to fall to about $70 per month when his system gets installed in August.

John Stubblebine in Cupertino, Calif., had SolarCity panels installed on his roof a month ago. He chose to pay for 8 percent of the $35,000, 6-kilowatt solar panel system up front.

"You can choose to pay zero, 8, or 16 percent of the system. Since I chose to put in a slightly more expensive system, there would be a slightly higher rate without a down payment," he said.

Stubblebine cut his monthly electricity bill from $158 to $116. But he also noted that he still needs to pay a residual bill to Pacific Gas and Electric for meter readings. And his electricity rates have changed from a set rate to being demand-based, with a midday peak price.

"You settle your bill with PG&E by the end of the year. If you've used more electricity than you produced, you pay all that. If you've used less, you don't get money back," he explained.

Stubblebine likes the monitoring program included in the lease with SolarCity, providing service for the initial 15 years for which customers sign up. Thereafter, customers can choose whether they want to renew the lease, buy the system, upgrade it, or take it off the roof.

SolarCity, which started operations in earnest in 2007, has grown from two employees to nearly 300, and it hopes to at least double its $30 million revenue this year. Initially, the company started out by cutting installation costs by 20 percent to 30 percent by persuading communities to do aggregated purchases of solar systems.

"But the largest barrier to adoption was the up-front cost. Even $20,000 was difficult," Rive concluded.

So he started a solar-leasing program, similar to the power purchase agreements that have become popular with larger corporations. SolarCity has expanded to Arizona and Oregon, with plans for the East Coast in 2009.

Competitors include Bay Area start-up Sun Run, Clean Power Finance and GroSolar.

Rive argues that now is a good time to go solar, since the federal ITC incentive will expire by the end of 2008, unless renewed by Congress. And the city incentive program has a limited pot of $3 million, only enough to cover 500 to 1,000 households.

San Francisco will offer up to $6,000 for homeowners installing solar panels.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)

Aggressive plans to expand renewable energy in San Francisco moved ahead Tuesday as the city's lawmakers approved grants to help homeowners, businesses, and nonprofits add solar panels to their buildings. Solar power companies are gearing up to meet an anticipated jump in demand in the city.

Over the next decade, between $3,000 to $6,000 will be available to each homeowner to cover the installation of solar panels, as well as $10,000 for businesses and nonprofits, and $30,000 for nonprofit affordable housing.

"This rebate program further establishes San Francisco as America's solar energy leader and symbolizes the commitment of the city to make affordable solar power available to those who want it," Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

He hopes the incentives will launch in July with some $3 million in annual funding, and touts their potential for attracting more businesses and green jobs.

However, the city has a long way to go before becoming a solar capital, regionally or nationally. The San Francisco Solar Task Force ranked the city last in the Bay Area for the number of solar installations, with panels on only 744 of 195,000 rooftops.

The subsidies would support some 50 megawatts of solar power across 10,000 buildings within a decade, if the mayor has his way. Political wrangling had delayed his planned April launch for solar incentives.

Lyndon Rive, CEO of installer SolarCity, joined others in the solar industry in praising the city's program.

"It's simple, easy to understand, and easy to implement," said Rive, who anticipates the number of solar panels to triple in San Francisco, where SolarCity is the largest solar installer, with 40 employees. It's also developing a "green" job training academy in a low-income neighborhood.

Rive noted that until now, his company's solar panel-leasing program was too pricey for the majority of San Francisco residents.

With the city incentives added to federal tax credits and state rebates, costs for a homeowner who might otherwise spend $30,000 to install solar panels would drop to near $6,000.

This map marking rooftops with solar panels is likely to get more crowded in the coming years.

(Credit: San Francisco Solar Map)

"This is just gonna spur the industry," said Kevin Gage, sales director for San Diego-based installer Borrego Solar. "The market was essentially shut down in San Francisco. Now a lot of companies like ours are gonna move into San Francisco."

Solar installers and equipment makers are increasingly pitching their services to people seeking to escape or offset rising energy costs. San Francisco utility Pacific Gas & Electric on Tuesday announced a proposed 6.5 percent electricity price hike.

The city incentives are bright news to San Franciscan Sylvia Ventura, whose condominium has 2.5 kilowatts of rooftop photovoltaics. However, she foresees a "feeding frenzy" among solar installers and start-ups that could confuse consumers.

"This business was done for a long time in the shadows and some installers took advantage of people being intimidated by the data, not understanding metering, wattage, and what to pay," she said.

Ventura wants communities to harness collective bargaining power to further lower residential solar setup costs. She and husband, Dan Barahona, launched One Block Off the Grid, a grassroots effort aiming to coordinate additional, privately funded subsidies for enough homeowners to make up the equivalent of a city block.

They plan to secure free solar installation for the first 50 San Francisco homeowners who sign up. The list is more than half full.

Ventura and Barahona hope that high-tech companies will volunteer to provide the funds, and they're talking with banks about setting up unique financing plans. However, the fledgling effort hasn't at this point secured corporate partners.

A plan designed to help make San Francisco the nation's solar power capital hit a budget snag last week.

The largest residential solar rebates from a U.S. city would have offered up to $5,000 to homeowners who install photovoltaic panels. But the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has halted launching the solar program, pending the S.F. Board of Supervisors' decision to review funding. Supervisor Jake McGoldrick introduced a proposal Tuesday to freeze $3 million needed for the rebates.

"It's troubling that what appears to be a political debate has gotten in the way of what would help San Francisco maintain its status as a very attractive place for green businesses," said Nat Kreamer, president of Sun Run, which launched last fall in San Francisco as the country's first residential solar-energy provider.

The San Francisco solar incentive was designed to provide $3,000 to $4,000 in rebates to homeowners, plus another $1,000 for those in low-income neighborhoods, as well as up to $10,000 to businesses installing solar power.

Landlords can also apply for discounts through the California Solar Initiative as well as receive a 30 percent federal tax credit.

Adding solar panels to a single-family home usually costs close to $30,000.

Sun Run had projected that the city's rebate program, dubbed GoSolarSF, would potentially double its number of solar installations, Kreamer said. San Francisco counts just 744 sets of solar panels out of 195,000 rooftops.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission aims for 15,000 rooftops to be solar-equipped by 2010.

"The incentive levels the playing field for people to do residential installations in the city," Kreamer said. "Definitely there's a lot of support from consumers and people in the industry."

If necessary, Mayor Gavin Newsom hopes to re-introduce solar rebates on the ballot for June and expects overwhelming support from the public, according to his office.

Newsom has been heavily touting the potential to reduce San Francisco's carbon footprint and dependence on foreign oil by expanding renewable energy from solar, wind, and wave and tidal sources.

He accuses politicians of "playing in the margins" with efforts to slow global warming. City supervisors and newspaper writers, meanwhile, have pounced on Newsom for allegedly bloating the budget with climate-change programs.

Although San Francisco's solar rebates may have suffered a local political setback, elsewhere in California efforts have accelerated supporting the state's mandate to derive 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

On Thursday Southern California Edison launched an $875 million plan to build a virtual, 250-megawatt, inland power "plant" of thousands of solar panels across the rooftops of businesses. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger backs the effort.

Last year, demand for help with installing solar power via the California Solar Incentives outstripped the state's current number of solar installations, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

San Francisco may have shaken some flowers from its hair since hosting the first Earth Day 38 years ago, but the city continues to be named one of America's greenest. Satirists mock its politically correct "smug cloud" of eco-hipness, but many other regions tend to follow the city's environmental lead. For instance, more than a handful of U.S. cities are now mulling a ban on plastic grocery bags, first passed in San Francisco last March.

Fresh into his second term, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newson in January set goals for the city to become carbon-neutral by 2020 by retooling laws and taxes related to energy, transportation, buildings, wildlife, waste, and environmental justice. He has come under fire for dedicating more than two dozen city jobs to fighting climate change. However, the mayor maintains that government can't be aggressive enough in cleaning up its part of the planet. Newsom discussed the promises and pitfalls of green technology with CNET at City Hall on Friday.

Don't believe politicians' environmental numbers, Newsom says.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

Q: You talked at the Cleantech Forum (last week) about how much work remains to be done, that we're "playing in the margins."
I was just down in L.A. talking to an environmental crowd and Indiana Jones, Harrison (Ford) was there. He was sort of the original celebrity on environment. Now everyone's trying to get on the cover of Vanity Fair. Right now we're almost seeing the movement increasingly trivialized by everything turning green...every single magazine and newspaper and TV program.

It's important and powerful because it raises awareness, but it misses the point that needs to be raised, one of accountability, transparency and measurement, the hard work that needs to be done. And it's not just buying organic cereal with a recycled tote bag. So when I talk in terms of (San Francisco's) 70 percent recycling rates, the highest in the nation, I feel good about that but not great.

When I talk about how we have the most aggressive green building standards of any city in the United States of America I feel good but not great.

When we think about what we've done a day or two ago, the solar incentives we just passed--it's really landmark--I feel good but not great.

When we do what we've done with plug-in hybrids or alternative fuel and biodiesel and hybrid buses--and partnerships with information communications and technology with Cisco--and all the things we've done on hybrid taxis and congestion pricing that we've been fancying, it just feels still in the margins.

I get a little nervous when I show up at these conferences and everyone's jumping all over me to give me their plans and talk in global terms. The 'what' is never measured, the 'how-to' is never measured. Everyone's got a plan. Who cares about these damn plans? What are you doing and how did you get there? How did you really roll back your (carbon dioxide) emissions?

It's great to have green building standards but how do you get (them) into those older buildings? It's more than just lights and tailpipes of the car. It is about deforestation, which is potentially 20 percent of the CO2 problem in the world. That's pretty profound, as much as the automobile and plane and travel CO2 problem.

A big study came out about (carbon emissions of raising) cattle and meat. At all these environmental events they're all eating meat and drinking bottled water.

Not at the Cleantech Forum.
Last night--I don't want to say which bottled water because they'll get offended, but it traveled a long way. How are we environmentalists when a billion of these go into our waste stream and they last 10,000 years? Plus, there's the environmental footprint of packaging this stuff, all the oil consumption of producing the bottled water, let alone transport it.

We say we have offsets and then I find out maybe that tree was never planted...That's why we're creating a local offset thing.

Shai Agassi is an old friend. He used to be at SAP and he's doing this incredible thing. He raised a couple hundred million bucks to take the entire country of Israel and take every single automobile out of the country, converting an entire country's fleet to electric vehicles. Now we're having a conversation about real change.

We're starting to make bolder advances on (tidal and wave energy). The plug-in hybrid commitment in terms of open orders, saying. "Look, we'll commit 250 vehicles. What will you commit Oakland, San Jose, Larkspur, Corte Madera, Greenbrae, Novato and Sonoma?" And how do we get the U.S. Congress of Mayors to say, "We'll (order) 100,000 plug-in hybrids to create a market?"

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has been pushing green building and manufacturing incentives.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel)

What other regions or cities in the United States or around the world are getting it right? If San Francisco's a leader, who are you looking to?
Look what Berlin's done on solar. I never see the sun in Berlin but Germany has leapfrogged us. With congestion pricing in Singapore, they're getting it right. Portland's doing some progressive things. In Chicago Mayor Daley's done a lot of wonderful things, like work on green roofs, really raising the bar, taking an old industrial city and really increasing awareness.

Austin's done some exciting things, and New York. What Mayor Bloomerg's offering is real exciting. Mayor Nickels in Seattle, what he's trying to do is connect the dots with our local climate plans.

What kinds of "green" things do you do in your life?
My last car was an electric car, I was one of those EV-1 sad souls. We watched it get stolen, or taken back, or returned to its owner GM, and destroyed.

My next new car is the Tesla, the new green one. I can't believe I spent that much money on a car. I did it purely for the technology, out of appreciation...I'm not sure if I want to be seen driving it.

The house is energy-efficient. I got rid of water bottles not just for the city--and plastic bags--but I do that at home...I buy offsets and couldn't figure out where they were going so we set up a local offset plan, to give it back to the city.

There have been so many efforts by mayors and other regional leaders to pick up where Washington has left off. What do you hope to see with the next administration (in Washington)?
I'd like to see a prolific foreign policy that goes like this: That we are going to be energy-independent in five years. That would be the most profound foreign policy commitment that would dominantly change the face of our planet.

How likely is that?
I don't think it is. I don't care who we've got. You could have Nader or Obama or whoever you want, I'm not convinced they can do that.

Look, Democrats were jumping up and down...on CAFE standards that get our miles per gallon up to where China has been in a few years, and that's great progress and historic? We've got some problems here. You've got to be kidding me. We're talking 30, 35 miles per gallon. Technology can get us to 125 miles per gallon on these plug-in hybrids today. It's real.

We've got the biggest plug-in hybrid fleet in America, by on--a whopping three vehicles. Three. That's embarrassing. To me the big game changer will be plug-in, if you can get on the grid. We have 65,000 vehicles a year the federal government purchases. As president, open order: all plug-in hybrids.

Do an executive order: We want all LEED Gold (ratings), not Silver, on every municipal building in the United States of America. We want a carbon tax to replace the payroll tax in this country.

That's fundamental today. You get serious about a massive investment, not $5 billion--although Hillary has been specific about (that), more than others--but even more massive R&D in green tech. Get serious about subsidies in solar, wind, tidal, geothermal exploration expansion.

That's how you start. Require every gas station in the United States to offer a menu of alternatives. A gas tax, ladies and gentlemen, yes a gas tax. There's the end of my political future. Now you're getting serious.

With the Bay Area being the epicenter of clean-tech start-ups, do you see any danger of a clean-tech bubble?
It's the third largest venture capital market. It's exciting, the promise, but I don't know if we've caught up to where the money is. I'm not sure if there's a bubble per se, but we might be overexuberant in all things green.

With new technologies there may come unanticipated side effects.
You're seeing that (with the growth of biofuels)--corn's gone up by X percent and we're hurting poor people.

What new technologies might give you pause and concern that down the road there may be harmful side effects?
We should encourage failure because that's how we learn.

Now we're talking about cellulosic ethanols, switchgrass. We're getting a little smarter about it so it's not corn-based. We may not have gotten there if we hadn't made a big mistake and gotten a little crazy on corn subsidies.

I love the debate. Five years ago, we had Gov. Schwarzenegger saying, "I want to do a hydrogen highway." I went out and drank out of the tailpipe. It didn't taste that great but it was trying to make the point that hydrogen's the future. That doesn't look like it makes any sense now. But it was exciting.

Environmental justice was one of the key items on your roadmap last month. The Bay Area is an extremely expensive place to live. What kinds of things could be done here?
The key is workforce training. As we spend all this VC money, we have billions of dollars, disproportionate up here in Northern California. Where's that money going? Who's the beneficiary? Who are the folks on the frontlines? Green-collar could replace that blue-collar job that's outsourced. Someone's got to install it, someone's got to install it here.

We're doing it with our City Build Academy, with our partners in community colleges really focusing on clean tech.

I want to create new tax incentives for businesses that hire folks coming out in these green-tech fields, not just a payroll tax incentive if you're a green-tech company, but specific credits...with heavy recruitment, emphasis, heavy focus, getting it in the high schools....I work with Van Jones, he's just the best on these things.

Four out of five toxic waste dumps are in African-American neighborhoods in this country. Even in San Francisco, where's our sewage treatment plant, our power plant? Where is the shipyard and all the contaminants?...It's an outrage.

The fact that you go (out) to dinner tonight, the meal has traveled 1,800 miles to get to your plate, is ridiculous in agriculture-rich northern California. We've got to create a narrative of health and well-being, you know, with edible schoolyards, and getting our kids good salad bars this year.

Mayor Will Wynn of Austin, Tex., is also recognized for policies to curb carbons.

(Credit: Gregory Wenzel)

What do you wish reporters would ask more about? You talk about running the numbers.
Even people like me, I don't believe some of my own numbers. It's not as if it's intentional. It's not as if my folks are just making it up--they're not.

We had this whole focus on cap and trade. You can't have a cap-and-trade system unless you have measured what you're going to trade and cap, and how you independently determine with veracity what you're admitting. There are a lot of fits and starts but how do you aggregate it?

There's the California Climate (Action) Registry and we're the first city to participate. It's not perfect but it's a great start.

(You should) say, look: "I'm impressed that you came up with a global climate action plan in 2008. Now show me the implementation plan."

We've got to walk our talk and support these emerging economies in leapfrog technologies so they don't make the same mistakes we did. But we can't do it with a straight face unless we demonstrate leadership, and this country has not.

(China is) building these green cities that are completely 100 percent net neutral carbon, hell, with some generating energy. They've still got too many power plants, too many cars now but in many respects they are leading.

With threats looming of stagflation and global recession, what role could Silicon Valley play?
What's the primary force of inflation right now? It's gas, oil. I mean, jeez, if you want to deal with stagflation, get back to the energy independence thing and not $102 dollars per gallon.

You want to deal with stagflation, then let's get serious around sustainability, about building homes where energy costs are not higher, they're lower, so people can stay in their homes even when their mortgage goes up.

The yellow dots represent buildings with solar power in San Francisco.

(Credit: San Francisco Solar Map)

To play devil's advocate, even at the Cleantech Forum some people were saying, "Maybe global warming isn't happening." If it's not true, then what good is all of this new technology?
Why should we breathe the fumes of other people's cars? Why not clean the air? Even if there's not global warming, there's an inherent benefit that accrues in terms of health care costs. Taxpayers are all the beneficiaries.

Why wouldn't we do green buildings to reduce our energy costs? Do we like not being able to develop on Hunter's Point Shipyard? Why wouldn't we want to invest in technologies to clean up toxic waste so that at least we can create an economic stimulus and take back some of those problems?

There's nothing we're doing that we shouldn't be doing anyway. Period.

What kind of gadgets do you have?
The only thing I have is an iPod, which is my iPhone, for no other reason than I really think it's cool. I used to have a BlackBerry but then the press sunshined my e-mails. I got rid of it: no computer, no BlackBerry.

We had everything exaggerated with the Wi-Fi thing with Google. On the front page of the newspaper was the actual e-mails between Google and myself. It was horrible. Now they won't e-mail back here, I can't even communicate, it was that bad..

Are you going to get a Macbook Air?
I am. I want that.

Native ferns mark the first step toward greening the exterior walls.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

A San Francisco nightclub installed on Monday what it's promoting as the city's first vertical garden. Several plant-filled boxes turned on their sides and bolted outside near the entrance are the first step in the Zen Compound's plans to cover the facade of the building in greenery.

"The hope is to have a living building," said Mike Zuckerman, director of sustainability at the 40,000 square foot complex. He spotted a butterfly hovering near native licorice ferns on Tuesday.

Green rooftops are in vogue in cities around the country. Hanging, wall-mounted gardens, on the other hand, are few and far between--except, naturally, where ivy climbs.

Zuckerman envisions eventually shaping plants into the form of the club logo, or sculpting Styrofoam embedded with sprouts to make the facade green all over. And spray-on seeds could cover the building with plant graffiti, making it the architectural equivalent of a Chia Pet.

The existing plants, a test run, may not be ecologically perfect. They're inside of nonrecycled plastic boxes, for instance, but those last at least five times longer than bioplastic. And they will be hooked up to plumbing from the roof to be watered, though the long-term goal is to harvest rainwater.

Don't dis the plants, a sign suggests.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Zuckerman aims to turn the compound's nightclub and restaurant, which attracts 1,000 people on a decent night, into a showcase of sustainability.

Planned for next year is a dance floor coated in piezoelectric crystals that turn the pressure from dancing feet into electrical power. He already knows someone who can handle the job for only $10,000.

"We have a mystical physicist in residence here," Zuckerman said.

Eco-chic event planning is expanding as more people seek to celebrate without expanding their carbon footprint.

A club in Rotterdam has already harnessed piezoelectrics (more at Inhabitat) to power its lights and sound system. Several other nightclubs are pushing green efforts, including the Butterfly Social Club in Chicago and even some sex clubs in Tokyo.

For now, the Zen Compound serves organic spirits with corn-based cups and straws that get composted rather than trashed. Club marketing is moving away from using paper fliers, even if recycled, to online-only promotions with Flash animation.

Zuckerman is updating the lighting with efficient fluorescent and LED bulbs, which will reap a refund from Pacific Gas & Electric. Future plans include adding an energy monitor to display the building's vital signs, such as water collected from the roof and power generated from planned solar panels. Wind power is on the wish list.

Full disclosure: CNET's holiday staff party is being held here tonight. Sorry, you won't get past our bouncers.

Plans are in the works to cover the club in a living, green skin that can be seen from the freeway nearby.

(Credit: Zen Compound )