Written by: Brad Done

Schools, churches, campuses, community groups and non-profit organizations can apply to receive free bike racks from Reliance Foundry through their free bike rack offering. Reliance Foundry is excited to launch "Take A Stand for Cycling" -- a campaign to allow schools, churches, campuses, community groups and non-profits the opportunity to receive high quality bike parking stands from their discontinued bike racks offerring at no charge.

The model R-8225 bike rack is one
of the racks in Reliance’s
discontinued product line

Bicycling has been steadily growing for sport, hobby and commuting over the past decade. With this increase in bike sales comes a need for businesses and communities to offer secure bike parking. Reliance Foundry is continually striving to bring the best products to the public, both in materials and design.

"Reliance Foundry is clearing models from our inventory that have been discontinued to make room for newer models and styles in our product line," said company Vice President, Brad Done. "We have several models of high quality, secure bike parking stands that we will no longer be selling. We want to give businesses the opportunity to purchase these racks at the lowest prices ever, but we also want to do our part to help schools and other community-serving organizations to receive these racks at no cost for the rack purchase."

The end user would be responsible for paying the shipping charges on the bike racks and would need to have a local contractor provide the installation. However, receiving the racks themselves for free could save a school or campus hundreds of dollars, while giving students and local citizens a secure place to park their bicycle.

Schools, campuses, churches and non-profits who would like to contact Reliance regarding receipt of the free bike racks need to send an email to info@bike-parking.ca. The email should include a brief description of your organization. Once Reliance Foundry acknowledges your organization’s participation, follow the ordering instructions (below) to check availability of the styles you want.

There are limited quantities of these clearance bike racks available at no-charge. These racks will be given away to recognized schools, churches and other non-profit community organizations while stocks last, on a "first-come, first-serve" basis.

The model R-8230 bike stand
is one of the racks offered at
no charge to schools for a limited time

Questions and inquiries can also be made by calling 1-888-735-5680.

Ordering Instructions

From the Discontinued Bike Racks Page, click on the item you wish to request. You will be taken to a page that gives the dimensions and specifications of that particular bike rack.

From there, complete the inquiry form (“Request a formal Quote by e-mail….”) with the quantity you would like to receive, your contact details and shipping information. Feel free to include optional models that you are interested in in case the model you are looking for is sold out. Reliance Foundry’s sales team will get back to you with a quotation for the shipping charges; from there, you can confirm your order.

About Reliance Foundry Co. Ltd.

Reliance Foundry has been a family-owned business since 1927. Bike racks are one of its main product lines, along with industrial wheels, bollard products and investment castings. Reliance sources products globally and offers quick and convenient delivery in the United States and Canada from its Vancouver location.

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<noscript>

Reliance Foundry Co. Ltd., a leading provider of bicycle parking racks, has recently provided bike stands to The Maritime Hotel in New York City. These stands not only help The Maritime Hotel align with New York City’s overall goal to reduce CO2 emissions from vehicles, they have become a place for visitors to the city to feel a part of the New York culture.
Written by: Brad Done

New York City recently announced that in the summer of 2012 they will implement a bike share program that will see 10,000 "bike share" bicycles available all over the city at 600 stations, creating the biggest bike share program in the nation. The bike share program is but one of the many ways that Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Transportation is encouraging New Yorkers to switch from cars to bicycles.

Many businesses, like The Maritime Hotel in New York City, have been seeking to do this for years. In 2006, The Maritime Hotel began offering complimentary bicycles as an amenity to guests of their hotel. They saw this perk as a way to be considerate of their high numbers of European clientele (bicycling is more common in European countries as a way of transportation), as a way to enable guests to take advantage of the hotel’s close proximity to some great bicycle paths, and as a way to take action to reduce their overall carbon footprint.

Now, The Maritime Hotel and Reliance Foundry have made another step towards making New York City a better place for bicyclists and visitors. The installation of Reliance Foundry’s model R-8224-SS bike parking racks outside of the hotel not only encourages bicycling, they are becoming a place of community. Callen Polmer, Director of Sales and Public Relations for The Maritime Hotel, said that the bike stands provided by Reliance Foundry are quickly becoming a place where visitors to New York City find connection.

Polmer said, “The bike stands are a great place for our guests to intermingle and become part of the neighborhood by integrating them into the thriving NYC bike culture.”

When a hotel can make its guests feel like they are more than just visitors to a city, they provide an experience that guests will want to return to. The Maritime has three different dining experiences available in their hotel, and offering the bicycle parking enables guests to come and dine without having to worry about locating parking on the narrow streets of New York, or in the expensive parking garage across the street.

The City of New York is no stranger to expanding bike parking availability. NYC has also repurposed hundreds of parking meters to bike racks in their Meters-To-Bike Racks project. This is exciting news for cyclists, as meters on their own are not a secure bike stand option. By leaving the poles of the meters in place with some new hardware additions, options for secure bike parking have grown exponentially in the city of New York.

Going even a step further, NYC often provides businesses with bicycle parking in front of or near their locations - installed upon request. If the area around the business meets certain criteria, the city will install and pay for the addition of new bike parking spaces. Internested business should visit CityRacks program in NYC for more information.

Thanks to the Maritime Hotel, Reliance Foundry is pleased to have been part of the drive to increase bike parking availability in New York City.

Visit Reliance Foundry’s bike parking web site to see their entire selection of cycle storage products.

About Reliance Foundry Co. Ltd.
Reliance Foundry has been a family-owned business since 1927. Bike racks are one of its main product lines, along with industrial wheels, bollards and investment castings. Reliance sources products globally and offers quick and convenient delivery in the United States and Canada from its Vancouver location.

The Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse and Custom House in Lexington, KY is protected by security bollard covers from Reliance Foundry

Written by: Brad Done

Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse
and Custom House, Louisville, KY

On the morning of September 11, 2001, as news reports were released of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, many individuals who worked in government buildings at the time couldn’t help but wonder if they would also be targeted. An Assistant District Attorney in a Pennsylvania Courthouse stated, "We all gathered around the television and wondered if our building would be next..."

Finding the balance between providing responsible security and functioning in a non-fear-based way is an ongoing endeavour. Recently, U.S. Marshals decided to implement a precautionary measure to protect employees of the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse and Custom House in Louisville, Kentucky.

The U.S. Marshals have funded a project in which concrete-filled steel bollards embedded in concrete are being installed around the building perimeter starting in October, 2011. These bollards provide the utmost in security to prevent terrorist activity through the use of vehicles. Each bollard is fitted with a decorative two-piece ductile iron bollard cover (bollard base, c/w ball-shaped bollard cap), which is more aesthetic than a plain steel pipe and also provides even more strength for protection. These bollards are substantial; the bollard covers themselves weigh over 250 lbs., and stand 53” high above the grade.

Reliance Foundry's R-7593 bollards stand 53" high

Vehicle bombs are effective as weapons as they allow a terrorist an easy way to transport large amounts of explosives and flammable material to the site where they want the explosion to take place. U.S. Marshal Jim Clark said that damage increases the closer a vehicle explosion is to a building.

Reliance Foundry provided the model R-7593 ductile-iron bollard covers for this project. Reliance Foundry Vice President, Brad Done, said that they are proud to be assisting the U.S. Marshals in protecting one of the United States’ historical buildings in this way: "Sometimes builders opt to use smaller, less expensive cast iron bollards to provide security - or they weld decorative caps onto steel pipe; Reliance Foundry’s two-piece, ductile-iron security bollard cover is the strongest, largest and most substantial competitive decorative option for this type of project."

“We work constantly with architects and designers who need to maintain the design integrity of a building, while providing security to the people and the building contents. In projects where buildings have a highly public historical significance, like the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse Building, this was especially important.”

Reliance Foundry’s model R-7593 bollards are
highlighted with a ball-shaped top casting

A few U.S. citizens have expressed concern that a Canadian company was used to provide the bollard covers, even though the major cost items of the secure perimter were sourced in the U.S., and the installation was by a U.S. company. However, what many may not fully appreciate is the longstanding relationship between the U.S. and Canada - and the ongoing joint efforts to protect all of the citizens of both countries. Relations between the two countries have spanned more than two centuries, and the U.S. and Canada represent one of the most successful international relations in the world. Each is the other's chief economic partner, they share the world’s longest border, and there is significant interoperability within the defence sphere.

American defence arrangements with Canada are more extensive than any other country. As a Canadian company, Reliance Foundry views helping protect a U.S. federal building with as much of a privilege as they would if it were a Canadian Government building.

Reliance Foundry’s model R-7593
architectural iron bollards surrounding the
Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse

The day after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which damaged 324 buildings, including 10 that collapsed and 13 that were condemned, President Bill Clinton ordered the Justice Department to assess the vulnerability of all federal facilities to acts of violence. The result was a set of standards for new buildings that required them to be blast-resistant and set back a good distance from streets. For existing buildings that did not meet the distance criteria, the options are to close the street or to erect barriers to protect them from vehicle infringement. Security bollards meet this protection requirement.

Although many may see the added security measures taken as unnecessary - those responsible for safety and security would rather err on the side of protection. Security bollards are used by federal buildings, retailers, convention centers, schools and residential buildings - everywhere to prevent unlawful access, damage and injury caused by vehicles. They are relatively simple to install and with all of the decorative bollard cover options available, they can compliment the building and site design.

The exact numbers of pedestrians, cyclists, and building employees whose lives have been saved because someone made the decision to install security bollards will never be known; but that is the whole point of having them: to prevent the tragedy from even happening - and Reliance Foundry is grateful to be a part of it.

About Reliance Foundry Co. Ltd.
Reliance Foundry has been a family-owned business since 1927. Bollards are one of its main product lines, along with bike racks, industrial wheels and investment castings. Reliance sources products globally and offers quick and convenient delivery in the United States and Canada from its Vancouver location.

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Technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.

Among the 11 shortlisted organizations are:

• biochar (Biochar Solutions, Black Carbon and Full Circle Biochar)
• carbon capture, particularly from ambient air (Carbon Engineering, Kilimanjaro Energy and Climeworks)
• enhanced weathering (Smart Stones)

Above three technologies (biochar, carbon air capture and enhanced weathering) have great potential to help out with carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. To combat global warming, further technologies should be considered, such as in Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Arctic Methane Management (AMM).

How effective each technology is in one area is an important consideration; importantly, each such technologies can also have effects in further areas.

Further areas

Global warming is only one out of multiple areas where action is required; an example of another area is the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica; effective action has already been taken in this area, but the growing hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic shows that further action is necessary.

A safe operating space for humanity is a landmark 2009 study that identifies nine essential areas where sustainability is stressed to the limits, in three cases beyond its limits.

The inner green shading represents the proposed safe operating space for nine planetary systems. The red wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable. The boundaries in three systems (rate of biodiversity loss, climate change and human interference with the nitrogen cycle), have already been exceeded. From: A safe operating space for humanity, Rockström et al, 2009.

Areas and applicable technologies

The table below shows these nine areas on the left, while technologies that could be helpful in the respective area feature on the right.

As said, each of technologies may be able to help out in multiple areas. As an example, by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, biochar and carbon air capture can also indirectly reduce carbon dioxide in oceans and thus help out with ocean acidification. Enhanced weathering could additionally reduce carbon dioxide in the oceans directly, thus presenting itself even more prominently as a proposal to achieve sustainability in this area.

Similarly, algae bags located in the mouth of a river could help out in multiple areas. They could produce biofuel and thus help reduce aviation emissions, while in the process catching fertilizer runoff, thus reducing emissions of nitrous oxide (the largest ozone-depleting substance emitted through human activities in a 2009 NOAA study) and also reducing depletion of oxygen in oceans.

Implementing the most effective policies

Policy support for such technologies is imperative. Just like some technologies can help out in several areas, some policies can cover multiple areas. As an example, a policy facilitating a shift to cleaner energy can both reduce greenhouse gases and aerosols such as soot and sulfur. Sulfur reflects sunlight back into space, so reducing sulfur emissions results in more global warming, but conversely global warming can be reduced by releasing sulfur over water at higher latitudes.

How many different policies would be needed to support such technologies? What are the best policy instruments to use?

Traditionally, government-funded subsidies and standards have been used to contain pollution, sometimes complemented with levies and refundable deposits; this can also work for chemical pollution. Standards have also proven to be effective in reducing the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer, while - as said - policies could at the same time also be effective in other areas, in this case reducing the impact of CFCs as greenhouse gases.

However, standards don't raise funding for support of such technologies, while taxpayer-funded subsidies make everyone pay for the pollution caused by some. Hybrid methods such as cap-and-trade and offsets are prone to corruption and fraud, which compromises their effectiveness. Local feebates are most effective in facilitating the necessary shifts in many areas.

Two sets of feebates

To facilitate the necessary shift away from fuel toward clean energy, local feebates are most effective. Fees on cargo and flights could fund carbon air capture, while fees on fuel could fund rebates on electricity produced in clean and safe ways. Fees could also be imposed on the engines, ovens, kilns, furnaces and stoves where fuel is burned, to fund rebates on clean alternatives, such as EV batteries and motors, solar cookers and electric appliances. Such feebates are pictured as yellow lines in the top half of the image below.

Support for biochar and olivine sand could be implemented through a second set of feebates, as pictured in the bottom half of the image below. Revenues from these feebates could also be used to support further technologies, as described in the paragraph below.

Further technologies should be considered for their effectiveness in specific areas, including:

• release of oxygen to help combat methane in the Arctic and to help combat loss of stratospheric ozone
• use of plastic sheets to capture methane
• use of radio waves to enhance methane decomposition
• diversion of water from rivers to avoid warm water flowing into the Arctic Ocean
• release of aerosols over water at higher latitudes
• surface & cloud brightening to reflect more sunlight back into space

Further reading:

Feebates
Biomass
Carbon Air Capture and Algae Bags
Enhanced weathering
Oxygenating the Arctic
Ozone hole recovery
Enhanced methane decomposition
Desalination
Vortex towers could vegetate deserts
Carbon-negative building
LEDs: When will we see the light?
Thermal expansion of the Earth's crust necessitates geo-engineering
Towards a Sustainable Economy
The way back to 280 ppm

Two Senior citizens from Washington, MO have developed a new filter for an electric dryer.  Jim & Sandy Atkinson were driving around and saw steam coming out of the side of homes.  They thought, "What a waste of heat!"

So, they started experimenting with different products and were not satisfied with any of them.  They decided to develop their own product.  They named it, Dryernet;  It filters the air coming out of the dryer so well, you can hardly smell anything. It filters down to .5 microns and removes all the contaminants.  Jim's physician says it filters down to the bacteria level.

The original thought was to save on heat to cut expenses but they have discovered added benefits to the product.  It adds much needed moisture in the winter, you don't have to have a humidifier going since the Dryernet adds moisture.  With the added moisture, Sandy doesn't have to use skin moisturizer.  It makes it easier to breathe at night cutting down on that dry mouth feeling in the morning. It cuts down on static electricity.

They found out that if your dryervent is longer than 10 feet, the dryer dries the clothes faster due to increased airflow.  So that saves energy too. Overall, Jim and Sandy saved about $20.00 a month on their heating bill.  If you use your dryer more than 4 times a week, you'll save more.  Many house fires are caused by a clogged dryer vent, not with the Dryernet!

How often does a "Green" product pay for itself in a month and a half?  If  ten percent of the electric dryers used the dryernet, over 1 Billion dollars in energy use would be saved, each year.

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