Marie Morelli / The Post-Standard

60falcon, they have California plates because they are owned by and registered to Toyota. The cars are on loan.

crash2009, the 75 electric plug-in stations don't cost $5 million. In September 2009, CuseCar received a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to set up fueling stations for alternative cars. There's more to it than buying charging stations and plugging them in. They are developing payment and reservation software, among other tasks.

Good question, cuse1111. For lack of space, I skipped over another sorting step at Recycle America, on the second tipping floor, where any trash that made it past the first batch of sorters is plucked out by another worker as the old corrugated cardboard makes its way to the baler. Any trash that gets into the bale of OCC comes out in the wash, as it were, in the Solvay paper mill's pulper.

Excellent post, syracuse1950. There's lots of confusion over whether the recyclables are mixed with trash. The dual compartment trucks keep it separate.
BTW, a couple of weeks ago I visited WM Recycle America, the materials recovery facility in Liverpool that sorts all the county's recyclables. You wouldn't believe the trash that gets mixed up with stuff in the blue bins. They do a great job dealing with it -- but they wouldn't have to if we all took pains to keep trash out of the recycling stream.
I was there to work on a story about cardboard recycling. Look for it in the July 20 issue of Green Central New York magazine.

For the record, the custom cabinets are being paid for by the homeowners.

As for using a Swiss heat recovery ventilator, the U.S. just doesn't have much experience with the technology, as Stephens said. It's so commonly used in Europe that Zehnder is on its second-generation design. No doubt it's costly, but then the house has no furnace, and it is likely to have an enviably small utility bill for its entire lifespan. With all those monitors installed, we shall see if the house performs as advertised.