Good News About The Environment:
April 2009 Archive
Two wheels good
(The Economist) Electric cars are all the rage. Every big carmaker seems to be developing one, and governments are vying with each other to support them. Although such vehicles are more environmentally friendly than their petrol counterparts, there is a greener option that many governments seem to have overlooked: the electric bicycle. Like electric cars, electric bicycles are classified as zero-emission vehicles, meaning they emit no exhaust gases. Emissions, however, are produced elsewhere, when the electricity used to power the vehicles is generated. Even taking that into account, though, an electric bicyle wins out handsomely in the emission competition with a petrol-driven car, as it is 15-20 times more efficient.
Composting Dirty Diapers in Toronto
(Kate Galbraith, New York Times) I visited some friends in Oakland this weekend and I was impressed when they instructed me to dump my coffee grounds into a composting bin for the city to collect. That’s greener than in New York, where the remains of my morning brew get scraped into the trash. But Oakland’s composting program, my friends asserted, could learn a thing or two from Toronto. That city composts not just food scraps, yard trimmings and paper napkins (like Oakland), but also dirty diapers – a non-stop source of waste for many families.
Ocean power surges forward
(Mark Clayton, Christian Science Monitor) Three miles off the craggy, wave-crashing coastline near Humboldt Bay, Calif., deep ocean swells roll through a swath of ocean that is soon to be the site of the nation’s first major wave-power project. Like other renewable energy technology, ocean power generated by waves, tidal currents, or steady offshore winds has been considered full of promise yet perennially years from reaching full-blown commercial development. That’s still true – commercial-scale deployment is at least five years away. Yet there are fresh signs that ocean power is surging.
New York considers landmark environmental code
(Ron Scherer, Christian Science Monitor) The Big Apple wants its skyscrapers to turn greener. That’s greener in terms of the environment, not in terms of money. On a grassy rooftop in midtown Manhattan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday – Earth Day – that the city will try to pass legislation mandating environmental changes that could reduce the city’s total carbon output by 5 percent. The proposed legislation is aimed at getting significant-sized buildings to meet tougher energy requirements anytime they renovate, to conduct an energy audit every 10 years, and to make energy improvements that will pay for themselves within five years. According to the city, the energy improvements could save landlords $750 million a year – assuming they upgrade everything from their lighting systems to boilers.
A $100-million bet on making fuel from trash
(Margot Roosevelt, L.A. Times) Arnold Klann has a green dream. It began 16 years ago in a sprawling laboratory in Anaheim. This year, he hopes, it will culminate at a Lancaster garbage dump. There, in the high desert of the Antelope Valley, Klann's company, BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, plans to build a $100-million plant to convert raw trash into an alcohol-based fuel that will help power the cars and trucks of the future.
Black-and-white printing goes green with soy toner
(Dinesh Ramde, AP) Every time you print out a page on a laser printer you're using toner made from petroleum-based products. Now there's a greener choice that shows promise: a toner product derived from soybean oil. While some customers might be wary, potential benefits are clear. It's easier to recycle paper printed with soy. And perhaps more important in a sour economy, soy toners can cost less than the standard alternative. Soybeans are a renewable resource whose price is likely to be more stable than that of oil.
Lab finds new method to turn biomass into gasoline
(Jasmin Melvin, Reuters) U.S. scientists have combined a discovery from a French garbage dump with breakthroughs in synthetic biology to come up with a novel method for turning plant waste into gasoline, without the need of any food sources. A synthetic biology lab at the University of California San Francisco identified a compound able to use biomass to produce a gas that can be converted into a gasoline chemically indistinguishable from fossil-fuel based petroleum.
Earth Day events combine environmental volunteerism, education, relaxation
(Mary Beth Lane) The people at yesterday's Earth Day festival in Goodale Park really do practice what they preach about living clean and green. Take Matt Richardson, his wife, Donna Baker, and their daughters, 6-year-old Ruby and 4-year-old Scout Richardson. Matt, 40, bikes to his lawyer's job in Grandview Heights every workday from their home in Clintonville, an 18-mile round trip. Donna, 40, who often works from home in her job as a freelance writer, recycles in the household, shops with the girls for clothing at thrift stores, packs their lunches for school and saves egg cartons and food tins for art projects. And, Scout added, "we pick up garbage" in the ravine.
'Green Nobel' for forest champion
(Victoria Gill, BBC News) A campaigner who was jailed during his battle to save the rainforest in Gabon has received a top international award. Marc Ona Essangui was honoured for his fight to stop what he describes as a destructive mining project in the Ivindo National Park. He is one of seven people from six continental regions to be awarded an equal share of the $900,000 (£600,000) 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize.
Hybrid Hummer Promises 100 Miles per Gallon
(Ben Mack, Wired) The Hummer is the poster child of excess consumption and inefficiency, but a Utah company is converting the much-maligned SUVs into a range-extended electric vehicle good for 100 mpg and a range of 40 miles. Raser Technologies will unveil the Raser H3 on Monday in Detroit. It promises a 90 mph top speed, off-road capability and a lithium ion-battery you can recharge in as little as three hours. What's more, the company says the drivetrain can be installed in other trucks and it hopes to have 2,000 converted vehicles on the road by the end of next year.
Using Fungi to Replace Styrofoam
(Laura Shin, New York Times) As a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eben Bayer, a co-founder of the company Ecovative Design and a Vermont native with some experience harvesting mushrooms, realized that perlite, a type of volcanic glass frequently used as a component of insulation, was also used in growing mushrooms. He thought it might be possible to make insulation out of fungi using perlite – and in a class before he graduated in 2007, he proved right.
New chemicals for eco-friendly paints and lubricants
(Coco Ballantyne, Scientific American) Last week, ScientificAmerican.com reported on the resurrection of olestra – a chemical once touted as the great fat alt in chips and crackers that tumbled when it turned out that it triggered gastrointestinal problems in those who chomped products containing it. The new use of olestra's chemical cousins had nothing to do with food but rather with making eco-friendly paints and lubricants.
Eco-warrior sets sail to save oceans from 'plastic death'
(Robin McKie, The Guardian) In a few weeks, the heir to one of the world's greatest fortunes, David de Rothschild, will set sail across the Pacific - in a boat, the Plastiki, made from plastic bottles and recycled waste. The aim of this extraordinary venture is simple: to focus attention on one of the world's strangest and most unpleasant environmental phenomena: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a rubbish-covered region of ocean, several hundred miles in diameter.
Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven
(Saeed Ahmed, CNN) When Jon Bohmer sat down with his two little girls for a simple project they could work on together, he didn't realize they'd hit upon a solution to one of the world's biggest problems for just $5: A solar-powered oven. The ingeniously simple design uses two cardboard boxes, one inside the other, and an acrylic cover that lets in the sun's rays and traps them.
A Solar-Powered Solution to Florida Sprawl
(Michael Grunwald, Time) Coming soon to the Sunshine State: the sunshine city. An NFL lineman turned visionary developer today is unveiling startlingly ambitious plans for a solar-powered city of tomorrow in southwest Florida's outback, featuring the world's largest photovoltaic solar plant, a truly smart power grid, recharging stations for electric vehicles and a variety of other green innovations.
Robins return to lost habitat
(New Zealand Herald) After a century's absence, the clear chirp of the North Island robin can be heard at the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula. The Department of Conservation Moehau Environment Group and iwi from Hauraki and Maniapoto yesterday released 60 birds at two Moehau sites, Stony Bay and Port Charles.
Dallas School Bus Runs On Vegetable Oil
(NPR) In Texas, the Dallas County school district has become one of the first in the country to figure out how to run a school bus on vegetable oil.
Empire State to get green makeover
(Ed Pilkington, The Guardian) The Empire State Building, the symbol of New York's pre-eminence that held the title of the world's tallest skyscraper for 41 years, is seeking to pierce through the pall of economic gloom that has descended on Manhattan by turning itself green. The owners of the building announced yesterday they were investing an additional $20m to reduce its carbon footprint and energy consumption. The retrofit is being added to a renovation of the art deco structure that starts this summer already costing half a billion dollars.
230,000 electric cars in Ireland by 2020
(Kitty Holland, Irish Times) More than 200,000 Irish motorists will be driving electric cars in just over a decade, according to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Eamon Ryan said it was his department’s aim to have 10 per cent of the vehicles on the roads – or 230,000 – running on electricity by 2020.
Wind turbines could more than meet U.S. electricity needs, report says
(Jim Tankersley, L.A. Times) Wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation's current demand, the Interior Department reported Thursday. Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters -- the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines -- could produce at least 20% of the power demand for most coastal states, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.
New gum could mean sticky end for mess
(Olivia Feld, CNN) British authorities and environmental groups were welcoming the launch this week of the world's first biodegradable chewing gum, which they say could help save some of the millions spent on clearing up the mess ordinary gum creates. The new gum becomes non-adhesive when dry and decomposes to dust within six weeks, a spokesman for Mexico's Chicza Mayan Rainforest Chewing Gum told CNN.
Calif. Desert Becomes Home For Renewable Energy
(Rob Schmitz, NPR) California's utilities are in a tight spot. They're mandated to procure 20 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by the end of next year. Currently, renewable energy provides only 12 percent of the state's needs. Green energy is needed, and fast. Where to get it? The southeastern corner of California is becoming the state's Wild West of renewable energy.