Jan-Mar 2009 Environment Archives

April 2009 Environment Archives

May 2009 Environment Archives

Whitening Cities' Roofs Is Environmental Equivalent of Taking 300 Million Cars Off the Road, DoE Study Says

(Rebecca Boyle, PopSci.com) Whitening the world's roofs would offset the emissions of the world's cars for 20 years, according to a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Overall, installing lighter-colored roofs and pavement can cancel the heat effect of two years of global carbon dioxide emissions, Berkeley Lab says. It's the first roof-cooling study to use a global model to examine the issue. The study used a global land surface model from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which contained regional information on surface variables like topography, evaporation, radiation and temperature, as well as on cloud cover, Berkeley Lab says. Lightening-up roofs and pavement can offset 57 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, about double the amount the world emitted in 2006, the study found.

Seasoning Livestock Feed With Curry Spices Cuts Methane Emissions 40 Percent

(Clay Dillow, PopSci.com) UK researchers seeking to cut back on greenhouse gases have found a deliciously potent weapon for fighting agricultural methane emissions: curry. It turns out two spices customarily used to season curry dishes -- coriander and turmeric -- have an antibiotic effect in the stomachs of sheep and cows, killing methane-producing bacteria there. By spicing up animal feeds, farmers could reduce methane emissions from farms by up to 40 percent. Methane, of course, is one of the more damaging greenhouse gases, and while it doesn't exist in the same quantities as carbon dioxide, it is more than 20 times more powerful in terms of contributing to the greenhouse effect.

Activists Want to Turn Ocean Trash Patch Into Hawaii-sized Green Nation

(Jason Mick, DailyTech.com) Located between Hawaii and San Francisco, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating column composed largely of particulate plastic residues that may cover an area twice the size of Texas. Exact determination of size is difficult, due to the inability to image the area with satellite imagery (the particulate polymeric residues which saturate the water are not visible via satellite). Even as "trash patches" pop up in other oceans, The Netherlands Architecture Fund has dreamed up a wild idea to transform this "dirty" patch into a green paradise. Under its plan, engineers would build "Recycle Island", a floating island nation, from polymers both from the shore and from those harvest from the water.

Environmental Visionaries: The Solar Roadrunner

(John Bradley, PopSci.com) The road ahead is paved with photovoltaics. That’s how Scott Brusaw sees it, anyway. His company, Solar Roadways, is embedding PV cells and LED lights into panels engineered to withstand the forces of traffic. The lights would allow for "smart" roadways and parking lots with changeable signage, while the cells would generate enough energy to power businesses, cities and, eventually, the entire country. Each 12-by-12-foot Solar Roadway panel would produce about 7,600 watt-hours a day, based on an average of four hours of sunlight. At that rate, a one-mile stretch of four-lane highway could power about 500 homes.

Empire State Building goes green, one window at a time

(Rick Hampson, USA Today) You want to ask him: How many do you break? That's because Anthony Concepcion does windows — lots of windows. He's working at the Empire State Building. As part of an effort to become certifiably green, the office tower is removing, retrofitting and replacing each of its 6,514 double-hung, dual-pane windows. That's 26,056 panes of glass. "It's a lot of glass," says Concepcion, 39, work crew supervisor for the contractor, Serious Materials of Sunnyvale, Calif. "It's all part of going green."

Fuel efficiency of 100 mpg? One team left in $5 million ultra-fuel-efficiency contest

(AP) The team led by Charlottesville real estate developer Oliver Kuttner is the only one left in the running for the multimillion-dollar X Prize competition to build a four-seat car that can achieve 100 miles per gallon. Two of the "Very Light Cars" designed and built by Kuttner's team, Edison2, were the only four-door cars to survive the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize's two-week knockout stage at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich. "It was as good as you can get," Kuttner said. "We did what we set out to do."

Environmental Visionaries: The Diaper Farmer

(Bruce Grierson, PopSci.com) When asked to imagine the Earth in 2040, many scientists describe a grim scenario, a landscape so bare and dry, it’s almost uninhabitable. But that’s not what Willem van Cotthem sees. "It will be a green world," says van Cotthem, a Belgian scientist turned social entrepreneur. "Tropical fruit can grow wherever it’s warm." You still need water, but not much. A brief splash of rain every once in a while is enough. And voilà—from sandy soil, lush gardens grow. The secret is hydrogels, powerfully absorbent polymers that can suck up hundreds of times their weight in water.

Concord, you can give up bottled water

(Huw Kingston, BBC News) Hello all Concord residents. I write to you from Bundanoon, a small town in Australia, a couple of hours south of Sydney. Some of you may know that last year we became the first town in the world to stop selling bottled water. We called our initiative Bundy On Tap. We're a bit smaller than Concord with a population of about 2,000. We're a town situated on the edge of a huge national park and a town that depends upon tourism. Last year I had the idea for the town to voluntarily give up the sale of bottled water.

An eco-friendly floor finish – from cows

(Nancy Humphrey Case, Christian Science Monitor) Andrew Meyer believes that he's found a "whey" to help Vermont's dairy farms by turning a cheesemaking byproduct into an eco-friendly wood finish. Like other water-based substitutes for traditional (oil-based) polyurethane, Vermont Natural Coatings' (VNC) PolyWhey dries fast and emits no toxic fumes. It releases very low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), about one-quarter the amount released by some polyurethanes. Unlike other waterborne finishes, its hardness makes it a viable option for professional-grade work, experts say.

Bacteria Turn Coal and Oil Into Renewable Energy

(Michael Reilly, Discovery News) Something amazing is happening in the Wilcox formation, a coal-bearing stretch of bedrock beneath central Louisiana. Bacteria that naturally feast on carbon dioxide (CO2) and coal in the presence of water are working overtime, producing natural gas (CH4; methane) as a byproduct. Why is this so special? The CO2 isn't naturally occurring. In the 1980's an oil company working in the area injected it into a deep underground well in an effort to push out more petroleum. The well was later abandoned. But since then microbes have been busy taking our waste CO2, some hydrogen atoms out of the coal beds, and a few other nutrients and turning the lot into a fuel we can burn for energy.

Waste Anchorage Grease Turned Into Biodiesel

(AP) The Anchorage area's private trash hauler, Alaska Waste, is picking up used food-frying oil and has started turning it into biodiesel to power its trucks. The company showed off its new $3 million plant Thursday in south Anchorage where it turned out its first batch of biodiesel last week. Alaska Waste is collecting oil from 240 restaurants, groceries, hotels and hospitals from Girdwood to Wasilla. The Anchorage Daily News reports that previously most of the food grease from Anchorage had been dumped in landfills or barged to the Lower 48.

Whale poo helps offset carbon footprint

(Michael Perry, Reuters) Southern Ocean sperm whales offset their carbon footprint by defecating, scientists said on Wednesday, releasing tonnes of iron a year that stimulates the growth of phytoplankton which in turn absorb carbon dioxide. Each whale releases about 50 tonnes of iron a year, their natural fertilization stimulating the process of photosynthesis. An estimated 12,000 sperm whales that inhabit the Southern Ocean absorb about 400,000 tonnes of carbon each year, twice the amount they release by breathing, said scientists from Flinders University in South Australia.

Students taught greenest way of making cups of tea

(ClickGreen) British university students are wasting almost £11million a year when they brewup and snack on fast-food. The figure was released as Lancaster University launched a new scheme to help save the be green by teaching students the most carbon friendly way to make a pot of tea and snacks such as Pot Noodle - the iconic student meal. The move, the first in the country, comes after it was revealed that the UK’s two million students waste around £10.8million-worth of electricity a year just by overfilling kettles and leaving them to boil longer than necessary.

Water Source Discovered for Desert Oasis near Death Valley

(Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience.com) About 10,000 gallons of water per minute gush up from the desert floor at an oasis near Death Valley, Nevada, but only after the water completes a slow 15,000-year underground journey, a new study suggests. Until now, scientists were puzzled over the source of water for the oasis called Ash Meadows in Nevada. The new research suggests the water flows from the north to the south through an underground crack in the Earth's crust known as the Gravity Fault, which acts as a guide for the water.

Swimming with sharks saves lives

(Arwa Damon, CNN) "Welcome to Donsol, the home of the gentle giants," Alan Amanse says smiling broadly at us as we awkwardly scramble onto the traditional fishing boat. "We have something must be followed; the rules about whale shark interaction." He's delivered this speech countless times, but says he never tires of seeing newcomers eager faces. Donsol in the province of Sorsogon, Philippines, was once a sleepy fishing village, now it buzzes with excited tourists who flock here for what many later describe as a life changing experience -- swimming with the largest fish in the ocean, the whale shark.

Mozart's flute proves magic medicine for busy microbes

(Kate Connolly, The Guardian) Mozart has been credited with everything from increasing the intelligence of unborn babies to boosting the milk yield of cows. Now the head of a German sewage plant has introduced piped Mozartian music to stimulate the activity of microbes that break down waste. Anton Stucki, Swiss-born chief operator of the sewage centre in Treuenbrietzen, an hour south-west of Berlin, believes the chords and cadences of the compositions speed up the way the organisms work and lead to a quicker breakdown of biomass.

Manure could power data centers, Hewlett-Packard scientists say

(Brandon Bailey, Los Angeles Times) Giving new meaning to the term "server farm," a team of Hewlett-Packard Co. researchers has come up with a plan for combining cow chips and computer chips to build an environmentally friendly data center — powered by manure. HP scientists have proposed using a biogas recovery system that would convert livestock waste into methane, to be used as fuel to generate electricity for data centers — those cutting-edge computer facilities that serve as the nerve centers for an increasingly Internet-dependent world.

Prince Charles brokers $1bn deal to save Indonesian rainforests

(Ben Webster, Times Online) Some of the world’s most endangered rainforests will be saved under a $1 billion deal inspired by the Prince of Wales, due to be announced today. Indonesia, the country with the highest rate of deforestation, will sign an agreement under which it will stop issuing new licences for forest clearance and establish a new unit to tackle illegal logging. The deal, which follows a rainforest summit hosted by Prince Charles at St James’s Palace last year, will test the principle of rich countries paying developing nations not to cut down their trees.

Philadelphia makes progress toward "greenest" goal

(Jon Hurdle, Reuters) Less garbage, more bike lanes and warmer, energy-efficient houses are a few of the improvements Philadelphia has made as it aims to be the greenest city in America. Philadelphia Greenworks, a six-year, city-run program that is celebrating its first anniversary, also plans to cut city government energy consumption by 30 percent, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent and to double the number of green jobs. "When I said that Philadelphia will be the number-one green city in America, I'm sure many felt the goal was too bold," Mayor Michael Nutter said. "Now, looking back on the first year of Greenworks, I am more confident than ever that we will be successful."

Prisoners turn over a new leaf with eye on environment

(Patrick Oppmann, CNN) The organic vegetables travel a short distance from the well-tended garden to the table where they are eaten. Waste is carefully picked through and recycled, saving thousands of dollars. The close-cropped lawns are maintained by push mowers to cut down on carbon emissions and gas expenses. This is not some new designer eco-hotel where the rich and environmentally conscious can be pampered free of guilt. It's a prison. At the Stafford Creek Corrections Center, a few yards from the garden where strawberries and cucumbers grow looms a tower where guards watch inmates, high-powered rifles at the ready.

Waterlily saved from extinction

(Pallab Ghosh, BBC News) A scientist based at the UK's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has prevented the world's smallest waterlily from becoming extinct. Carlos Magdalena now plans to repopulate the plant in its native home in the hot springs of Rwanda. The world's biggest species of waterlily can have pads that grow to around 3m (10ft). By contrast the thermal lily is just a centimetre wide - with tiny satin white flowers with a butter yellow centre. Two years ago, this delicate bloom went extinct in the wild due to over-exploitation of its habitat. Luckily its seeds were kept in storage - and were used by Carlos Magdalena to regrow the plant at Kew Gardens - just outside London.

Determined students trying to make UAF a greener campus

(Christopher Eshleman, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) If Michael Golub isn't readying cars to run on electricity there's a chance he's spending his time on bigger conservation projects. Golub is one of a handful of staff, faculty and students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks working on an emerging, student-initiated directive to make the campus greener. Golub had been converting vehicles to run on batteries last year when students approved a fee to improve energy efficiency and conservation, and invest in renewable energy.

'Underwater kite' aims to turn energy tide

(Matthew Knight, CNN) A new type of tidal turbine which its creators describe as an "underwater kite" has taken a step closer to becoming commercially available. "Deep Green," developed by Swedish start-up Minesto, has just secured €2 million ($2.5 million) from investors to fund testing scheduled to start in 2011. The technology comprises of a turbine attached to a wing and rudder which is tethered to the ocean floor by 100 meters of cable. Anchoring "Deep Green" and steering the tethered "kite" enables the turbine to capture energy from the tidal currents at ten times the speed of the actual stream velocity, say Minesto.

Got pet hair to spare?

(Matt Hickman, Mother Nature Network) If you’ve been keeping tabs on the catastrophic (an adjective I feel like I’ve been having to use far too often lately) Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you’ve probably been wondering how exactly you can help. Well, for those of you with furry, four-legged flatmates, it can be as easy as sweeping the floors and collecting all that errant fur and hair.

Green graduation: Gowns now recycle or biodegrade

(Holly Ramer, AP) College seniors across the country are getting ready to toss their caps in the air and their gowns into recycling bins. For years, eco-conscious campuses have been trying to reduce the environmental impact of commencement ceremonies by using less electricity or printing programs on recycled paper. Now, academic apparel manufacturers are jumping in with "green" options, ranging from disposable gowns that decompose quickly in soil to gowns made of recycled plastic bottles that can be reused or recycled. The new products are an alternative to the petroleum-based polyester gowns millions of graduates buy each year then promptly throw away or stuff in their closets.

Kingsborough Community College students cook up project to generate greener boat fuel

(Jeff Wilkins, New York Daily News) Out of the frying pan and into the ... boat? A group of eco-minded students from Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn has converted an old diesel boat to run on recycled cooking oil from the school's cafeteria. "It's just like burning diesel fuel," said Prof. Conrad Kreuter, who helped oversee the project. "Except you get a little French fry smell in the end."

Green monastery is heavenly for Benedictine sisters

(Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN) Green living is a spiritual calling for a group of Christian women in the upper Midwest. Call it a heavenly approach to being good stewards of the Earth. While most people don't think about sustainable buildings in a spiritual light, the Benedictine Women of Madison, Wisconsin, believe they should. The ecumenical order's new Holy Wisdom Monastery scored the highest number of points ever awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for new construction.

Energy-efficient prototype homes to be tested in villages

(Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News) Two prototype homes, one designed for the state's wind-beaten coast and one for the Arctic, will be built in remote villages this summer as researchers look for low-cost answers to the housing crunch in rural Alaska. In rainy Quinhagak, where a recent report found that dozens of 1970s-era houses may be rotting and potentially unsafe to live in, the village plans to build an easy-to-heat, eight-sided home meant to resemble traditional Yup'ik dwellings.

New Kiosks Make Recycling Good for the Pocket Book

(Emily Fredrix, AP) Sure, the feeling of helping the planet might be nice when you recycle, and it's the law in many places. But you might rather get rewards, like free pilates classes or discounts at restaurants. PepsiCo Inc., the nation's second-largest drink company, and Waste Management Inc., the largest U.S. trash hauler, say their new electronic kiosks in high-traffic areas like gas stations and stadiums will offer points toward prizes. And that will entice more people to recycle more bottles and cans.

Good Bacteria Eat Bad Greenhouse Gas

(Amanda Morris, Northwestern University) A small rectangular window on the front of the fermenter shows bubbling liquid inside. If it is clear, then that means it is only solution. If it is foggy, then bacteria have been added. Today, the liquid looks milky grey. It fizzes and froths as the correct amount of air and methane is added, which grows and feeds the bacteria inside. This solution is more than just bacterial soup; it could hold the answers to some of the world's most complex problems, including how to mitigate global warming and how to clean up toxic waste in the environment. At first, that doesn’t seem possible. How could a simple, one-celled organism do something that advanced technology struggles to do?

She'd call herself dirt rich

(Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times) Denise Ritchie scratches holes into a pile of cow manure to make room for the herbs that will create her unusual brand of fertilizer. Once dried and infused with chamomile, stinging nettle and yarrow, the mixture will be bagged and sold as Bu's Blend Biodynamic Compost. Each package features an illustration of a Holstein surfing near Malibu Pier. That's Bu, the formerly scrawny dairy cow Ritchie and her husband rescued as she was about to "go to beef." "You're healing your soil with this stuff," says Sarah Spitz, a KCRW producer and a graduate of the Los Angeles County master gardener program. It's also healing Ritchie's soul.

Everest 'death zone' set for a spring clean up

(Gopal Sharma, Reuters) Twenty Nepali climbers are setting off to Mount Everest this week to try and remove decades-old garbage from the mountain in the world's highest ever clean-up campaign, organizers said Monday. Many foreign and Nepali climbers have cleaned Mount Everest in the past but Namgyal Sherpa, leader of the Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, said no one had dared to clean above 8,000 meters (26,246 feet), an area known as the "death zone" for the lack of oxygen and treacherous terrain. Sherpa and his team of seasoned climbers, carrying empty rucksacks and special bags, will risk the zone's thin air and freezing temperatures to pick empty oxygen bottles, gas canisters, torn tents, ropes, and utensils lying between the South Col and the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) summit.

Turning Chicken Poop Into Power

(Phoebe Judge, NPR) In a dimly lit chicken house, John Logan stands surrounded by thousands of fluffy, yellow, week-old chicks. They're among 275,000 chickens he raises on his farm in Prentiss, Miss. Every 38 days, he ships off a batch to the chicken processor Tyson Foods. Every year in the United States, 9 billion chickens are raised and sold for food. Their poop has become a problem for the environment.

Solar panels, wind turbine may power student creativity

(Pam DeFiglio, Chicago Tribune) On the roof of Burr Elementary School, about 75 feet above ground, a new wind turbine spins, and solar panels soak up the sun. Inside, Doug Snower, a wind energy expert, points out a wall-mounted monitoring station that teaches about sustainable energy by letting students see how much power comes in and think about creative ways to use it, such as firing up their iPods or heating a fish tank.

World's Deepest Undersea Vents Discovered

(LiveScience.com) Beneath the Caribbean Sea a remotely controlled vehicle came upon the world's deepest hydrothermal vents, where super-heated mineral-rich water gushes from chimney structures onto the ocean floor. The black smokers, named for how they spew out an iron sulfide compound that's black, sit 3.1 miles (5 kilometers) deep in the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean. While black smokers are the hottest of the undersea vents, white smokers are cooler and often contain compounds that are white in color. Until now, the deepest known vents had been found some 2.6 miles (4.2 km) below the sea surface.

Highland Park teen wins $25,000 for green invention

(Susan Berger, Chicago Tribune) Lots of kids like to tinker, but 14-year-old Jonny Cohen's tinkering has led to a breakthrough that could help a whole industry become more efficient. It started with an idea inspired by a children's aerodynamics class the Highland Park teen took at Northwestern University, an idea he said hit him while he was walking home from school. Noticing all the "not so friendly" carbon monoxide exhaust coming from the school buses, it occurred to Jonny that placing Plexiglas shields on the front of the buses might make them more streamlined and efficient.

One man's volunteer effort to plant trees in San Francisco

(Paul Van Slambrouck, Christian Science Monitor) Charlie Starbuck has them in just about every part of this city. Walk a block or two in virtually any neighborhood, from the concrete canyons of the financial district to the windblown avenues of the Outer Sunset and Mr. Starbuck's fingerprints are there. It might be a Brisbane box, a bronze loquat, a primrose, or a purple leaf plum. Whatever the species of tree, chances are excellent that Starbuck helped plant it. Not as in ordered the tree or arranged for the planting. But as in actually put his fingers in the dirt and planted it.

Electric cars give power back to grid

(Jon Hurdle, Reuters) At first glance, the Toyota Scion sitting in the University of Delaware parking lot looks like a normal boxy car. But a second look shows it lacks a tailpipe, and has an electrical outlet set into the grille below the hood. Inside, the Scion's identity as an electric car is revealed by the lack of a fuel gauge, and by a dashboard display showing that it has used 54.3 kilowatt hours to drive 210 miles. But this is no ordinary electric car because, in addition to recharging its battery when not being driven, it also gives power back to the grid.

Stealing Electricity From Algae

(Eric Bland, ABC News) Why spend the time and expense necessary to harvest energy when you can simply steal it? For the first time, scientists from California and Korea have successfully stolen an electric current from algae. The research could eventually create a new and environmentally friendly way to generate electricity. "We have shown that we can steal an electrical current from algae," said Fritz Prinz, a scientist from Stanford University and co-author of the ACS Nano Letters article.

‘Gribble’ marine pest may be key to biofuel breakthrough, say scientists

(Times Online) A marine pest could be the key to a biofuel breakthrough, say scientists. Gribble, which resemble pink woodlice, plagued seafarers for centuries by boring through the planks of ships and destroying wooden piers. But now environmental scientists are taking a keen interest in the crustaceans. A team of British researchers has learnt that gribble have a gift for digesting wood not seen in any other animal. Enzymes produced by the tiny creatures are able to break down woody cellulose and turn it into energy-rich sugars meaning that gribble could convert wood and straw into liquid biofuel.

Small biofuel farm bears fruit

(Craig Gima, Honolulu Star Bulletin) If the vision of father and son farmers Christian and James Twigg-Smith becomes reality, acres of now-fallow sugar cane land will be growing crops again. But rather than producing food, the land would be used to grow fuel oil. About two years ago they planted jatropha, an oil-rich nut native to South America, on 250 acres in Keaau on Hawaii island. They have leased another 750 acres that could be put into production if the crop is successful. The plants take two to four years to mature, but last summer they were able to harvest their first, small crop -- enough to make a few gallons of biodiesel and run some tests on the oil they produced.

Going For the Green: How one ski resort cleaned up its act

(Daniel Gross, Newsweek) The balmy weather in Vancouver, which delayed some of the Olympic downhill events, highlights the danger warmer winters pose to ski resorts. The situation isn't as dire in the higher-elevation resorts of the Rockies, however. But these large businesses—think of the Trapp Family Lodge on steroids—still worry that a warming planet could melt their businesses. Vail, the home base of gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, where I spent a chunk of a recent week desperately trying to maintain my balance, is the largest single ski area in the United States: 32 lifts, 198 trails, 63 miles of snowmaking pipe, and six on-mountain restaurants. Its parent company, Vail Resorts, which has a $1.3 billion market value, has a lot to lose from climate change, and a lot to gain from cutting energy use.

Athletes compete for green titles

(Eloise Gibson, New Zealand Herald) She ditched the gas-guzzling 4WD, replaced her fridge and changed all of her lightbulbs. But Barbara Kendall's hopes of winning carbon-saving gold in the Project Litefoot competition have been trounced by the Evers-Swindell twins, after Georgina slashed 40 per cent from her personal carbon footprint. The rowing gold medal-winning sisters (now Georgina Earl and Caroline Meyer since their marriages) and the Olympic boardsailor are among seven top sportspeople vying for the title of lightest carbon footprint.

Orange peels, newspapers may lead to cheaper, cleaner ethanol fuel

(PhysOrg.com) University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a groundbreaking way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. His approach is greener and less expensive than the current methods available to run vehicles on cleaner fuel - and his goal is to relegate gasoline to a secondary fuel. Daniell's breakthrough can be applied to several non-food products throughout the United States, including sugarcane, switchgrass and straw. "This could be a turning point where vehicles could use this fuel as the norm for protecting our air and environment for future generations," he said.

Eco-philanthropists to the rescue of wildlife?

(Sara Miller Llana, Christian Science Monitor) While everyone else is sitting down to dig into a roast-chicken dinner, hostess Kristine McDivitt Tompkins is padding around her lodge barefoot, binoculars in hand, charting the movement of a duck on the pond outside. When she finally tears herself away from the picture window – which frames the rolling hills of her $10 million, 173,000-acre Patagonian spread – to sup with her guests, it's with a bird book open next to her plate so she can annotate the guests' sightings. And no one dares a lengthy deliberation on politics or the personal; Ms. Tompkins steers all conversation straight to her obsession: wildlife.

Gains in Global Wind Capacity Reported

(Lars Kroldrup, New York Times) The Global Wind Energy Council, a trade association based in Brussels, estimates that wind power capacity grew by 31 percent worldwide in 2009, with 37.5 additional gigawatts installed, bringing global wind power capacity to 157.9 gigawatts. China accounted for a third of the new capacity, and the Chinese market experienced more than 100 percent growth. According to the trade group, more than 500,000 people are now employed by the wind power industry around the world, and the market for wind turbine installations last year was worth about $63 billion.

Cleveland signs agreement to build small power plant fueled by municipal waste

(John Funk, Cleveland Plain Dealer) The city of Cleveland has signed a $1.5 million agreement with a New Jersey company to design a small power plant fueled by municipal waste. The Princeton Environmental Group will design a 20-megawatt power plant for the city's Ridge Road Transfer Station. A megawatt is 1 million watts. The plant, the first of its type in the country, would cost about $200 million and employ about 100 people. It could supply about 6 percent of Cleveland Public Power's 350 megawatt peak load.

New game show in India to reward 'green' projects

(CNN) A new game show in India will award prizes to villages that are going green. The program, modeled after the rags-to-riches game show in the blockbuster film "Slumdog Millionaire," will focus on mainly rural institutions leading sustainable development, officials said. India's state-owned Doordarshan television network will air the new version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" -- which will be called "Green Kerala Express," after the coastal state of Kerala in which it will be filmed.

In Utah, company aims to store energy in air

(Paul Foy, AP) A Utah company plans to dig a series of underground caverns that it hopes to one day fill with compressed air, releasing it to generate electricity by turning a turbine and solving one of the most vexing problems facing the clean-energy industry - how to store power. Under a barren patch of Utah desert, a private-equity group is bankrolling the project to hollow out a series of energy-storage vaults from a massive salt deposit a mile underground. It promises to make a perfect repository for storing energy and, in effect, creating a giant subterranean battery. Energy storage is catching on as a way to make wind and solar power more useful.

Incentives to going 'off grid' bring power to the people

(Matt Ford, CNN) The price of power has always been a political issue -- but now campaigners argue it could be the key to starting a green energy revolution. On February 1, the British Government announced details of the rates that will be paid for renewable power generated by homeowners and communities. Called the Clean Energy Cashback, or feed-in tariff (FIT), the aim is to provide an above-market bonus that will encourage individuals and groups to invest in solar panels, wind turbines and other forms of green power. It's the first national scheme of its kind in the UK, although FIT plans have been operating in other EU countries and at regional levels in the U.S.

Texas Rancher An Unlikely Environmentalist

(Wade Goodwyn, NPR) Ranchers in central Texas aren't known for their fondness for government regulation or the Endangered Species Act. But one rancher — a former vacuum cleaner salesman turned fried chicken tycoon — has become a champion of land stewardship and habitat restoration. And it's rubbing off on his fellow ranchers. David Bamberger converted 5,500 acres of some of the most badly damaged and overgrazed hill country in Texas into a showpiece of environmental restoration. Bamberger has been hailed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and has won the state's top voluntary land stewardship award.

Levitating Magnet Brings Nuclear Fusion Closer to Reality

(Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience.com) Physicists may be one step closer to achieving a form of clean energy known as nuclear fusion, which is what happens deep inside the cores of stars. A recent experiment with a giant levitating magnet was able to coax matter in the lab to extremely high densities — a necessary step for nuclear fusion. When the density is high enough, atomic nuclei — the protons and neutrons of atoms — literally fuse together, creating a heavier element. And if the conditions are right that fusion can release loads of energy. Depending on the mass of this element, energy could be created by fusion without any greenhouse gas emissions. So it could present a tantalizing clean power source, if scientists could achieve it.

Gray water's grass roots

(Gloria Goodale, Christian Science Monitor) If water is the next battleground for a globe facing dwindling water resources, then this 1960s-style community center at the northern end of Los Angeles's Koreatown is at the forefront of the fight. On this day, Laura Allen, cofounder of Greywater Action, a group that encourages conserving and reusing household water, is in her fourth of a five-day workshop teaching Californians how to reclaim and recycle what has been dubbed "gray water." Typically, gray water includes the discharge from washing machines, sinks, showers, and tubs, which is then used to provide moisture for outdoor plants, from backyard rosebushes to large orchards.

How Cows (Grass-Fed Only) Could Save the Planet

(Lisa Abend, Time) On a farm in coastal Maine, a barn is going up. Right now it's little more than a concrete slab and some wooden beams, but when it's finished, the barn will provide winter shelter for up to six cows and a few head of sheep. None of this would be remarkable if it weren't for the fact that the people building the barn are two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country: Eliot Coleman wrote the bible of organic farming, The New Organic Grower, and Barbara Damrosch is the Washington Post's gardening columnist. At a time when a growing number of environmental activists are calling for an end to eating meat, this veggie-centric power couple is beginning to raise it.

From slaughter to sanctuary

(New Zealand Herald) To the south and east of New Zealand, in the great Southern Ocean that encircles Antarctica, lie seven island groups. They are inhospitable places, blasted by unremitting westerly winds. Yet a striking range of wildlife survives on these specks of land. Megaherbs grow in warmer spots, their flowers and leaves bigger than mainland relatives. Seals and seabirds cluster on rocky coasts in their thousands. Some are found nowhere else on the planet.

Sea to provide power for 250,000 homes

(Wayne Thompson, New Zealand Herald) A tidal power station on the Kaipara Harbour seafloor could be providing power to a quarter of a million homes by the end of the decade. The Environment Court has made a positive recommendation to Conservation Minister Tim Groser on a plan to generate electricity from the harbour's swift tidal flow. The approval is subject to fine-tuning of consent conditions. Crest Energy plans to spend $600 million on sinking 200 tidal power turbines to the seabed of the harbour entrance, creating New Zealand's first tide-driven power station.

New Life for Solar-Updraft Technology?

(John Collins Rudolf, New York Times) The solar updraft tower, which uses the greenhouse effect and thermal convection to drive wind turbines and produce electricity, has been hailed as a novel — and promising — approach to renewable energy generation. The technology relies on an elementary principle of physics: heat rises. To generate power, a massive greenhouse creates hot air and funnels it into a tall chimneylike structure. This hot wind propels a wind turbine within the tower. According to some estimates, such towers could, if sufficiently large and in the proper environment, generate emissions-free power at a considerable discount over traditional renewable sources.

Sun, wind and wave-powered: Europe unites to build renewable energy 'supergrid'

(Alok Jha, The Guardian) It would connect turbines off the wind-lashed north coast of Scotland with Germany's vast arrays of solar panels, and join the power of waves crashing on to the Belgian and Danish coasts with the hydro-electric dams nestled in Norway's fjords: Europe's first electricity grid dedicated to renewable power will become a political reality this month, as nine countries formally draw up plans to link their clean energy projects around the North Sea.

'Green' buildings in vogue

(Elizabeth Gibson, Columbus Dispatch) Environmentally friendly construction is not new, but building experts say it's just beginning to go mainstream in central Ohio. "After all this talk, it's finally starting to happen," said Meera Parthasarathy, chairwoman of the central Ohio chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. "There was a learning curve, but people have seen more and more buildings, and they're finally ready to jump into the fray."

Unplugging from the world's power lines

(Teo Kermeliotis, CNN) You won't hear much about it in the vast conference halls of the Copenhagen climate change summit, but living "off-grid" -- beyond the water and power lines that intersect much of the modern world -- could hold a solution to some of the planet's worst environmental woes. Initially adopted by hippies and environmental mavericks, the pioneering lifestyle has grown to attract thousands of devotees who choose to live completely independently of the local utilities power grid and instead generate their own electricity and water.

Turning on to rain, and turning off the tap, 55 gallons at a time

(Molly Selvin, Los Angeles Times) I joined the city's rainwater harvesting program in October, when fierce Santa Ana winds made the notion of any rain, not to mention enough to "harvest," seem fanciful to say the least. But last week's glorious pelting rains filled my new storage barrel to the brim, along with those of several of my Mar Vista neighbors. My rain barrel, which looks like a plastic beer keg, sits under our kitchen window, so as my morning coffee dripped last Monday, I watched runoff trickle in.

NASA Uses Algae to Turn Sewage Into Fuel

(Jeremy Hsu, Space.com) NASA may concern itself largely with space exploration, but it also wants to keep Earth on a steady course in the face of rising energy costs and climate change. Now the U.S. space agency has thrown its weight behind a clever method of growing algae in wastewater for the purpose of making biofuel. The OMEGA system consists of algae grown in flexible plastic bags floating offshore, where cities typically dump their wastewater. Oil-producing freshwater algae would naturally clean the wastewater by feeding on nutrients in the sewage.

Green building comes of age

(Alexandra Marks, Christian Science Monitor) Green building is finally coming of age. Building sustainable, energy-efficient homes became a fad during the 1970s energy crisis, bolstered by tax incentives for solar energy and growing environmental awareness. But its popularity faded as oil prices dropped, tax breaks were rolled back, and an economy of excess kicked in during the booming ’90s. Green became just a color to many in the culture. But due to concerns about possible climate change, the recent spikes in oil prices, and a set of new tax incentives, green building has undergone a resurgence in the past two years.

Chinese Eco-Farm Turns Chicken Poop into Usable Power

(Clarissa Ward and Lily Lee, ABC News) For China, the path to a low-carbon economy starts from a chicken farm on the outskirts of Beijing. The first thing that strikes a visitor to this poultry farm is the smell. The strong odor of chicken manure permeates the air and brings tears to one's eyes. Billed by state media as an ecological farm, it was first set up nine years ago by a private Chinese agribusiness firm to raise chickens and supply Chinese consumers with organic eggs. With the use of imported technology, this pioneering eco-farm now turns chicken poop into biogas and electricity and plays a role in China's effort to reduce its carbon emissions.

Can a City Cut Its Energy Use by 2/3?

(Elizabeth Palmer, CBS News) On the eve of the historic climate change summit in Copenhagen, the "climate express" rolled into the Danish capital from Brussels tonight - a green-striped train carrying environmentalists and journalists. Zurich and other Swiss cities have what they call a 2,000-watt solution to climate change. Zurich, Switzerland's largest city, has a radical goal: to reduce the amount of energy residents use by two-thirds and become a 2,000-watt society. If you take all the energy being consumed on earth and divide by the number of people it works out to about 2,000 watts per person, every second of every day.

Steps help native fish avoid the rush hour

(Mathew Dearnaley, New Zealand Herald) When cars and trucks cruise along Auckland's new Hobsonville motorway from 2012, fish and eels should be splashing happily up a network of "ladders" being built in culverts beneath them. The contraptions, series of rectangular plastic blocks screwed to the bases of about 20 culverts under the motorway and an associated two-lane northern extension of State Highway 16, are designed to break water flows and provide resting platforms for fish such as native kokopu or inanga on their journeys upstream.

From worms to used motor oil, green gets a lift at ski resort

(Pamela LeBlanc, Austin American-Statesman) Worms that eat coffee grounds. Old motor oil that heats workshops. Patio furniture made of recycled milk jugs. Colorado ski resorts are going beyond standard recycling in an effort to green up their industry — and lure skiers and snowboarders concerned about the impact their sport is having on the mountains they love. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile our ski-loving, traveling side with the side that cringes at the environmental effect of all those people on the snowy slopes and the travel we do to get there.

Hope floats on eco-celebrity's recycled plastic boat, Plastiki

(Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY) There's one big problem with Plastiki. Sure, the 60-foot catamaran made entirely out of recycled plastic looks majestic enough propped on a wooden pedestal here inside cavernous Pier 31. But the boat is too small. Not for the 11,000-mile voyage due to kick off next month, out the Golden Gate and across the Pacific to Sydney Harbor. But rather too confining for its peripatetic creator, David de Rothschild, the 31-year-old eco-celebrity (and scion of Europe's fabled banking family) whose mission is to forever change the way the world sees polyethylene terephthalate — aka plastic.

New Orleans in the forefront of a green building revolution

(Husna Haq, Christian Science Monitor) When hurricane Katrina blew into New Orleans four years ago, Matt Petersen watched in shock as the floodwaters retreated, revealing one of the most devastating natural disasters in US history: billions of dollars in damages, 80 percent of the city flooded with filthy water, and a government response that provoked a firestorm of criticism. "I watched everything play out in horror," says Mr. Petersen. "And, like everyone else, I went through the process of thinking, ‘What can I do?’ " Petersen donated money and considered volunteering, but that wasn’t enough. "I kept feeling this well up inside me, I felt compelled to act," he says.

Do Green Jobs Create Greener Americans?

(Liz Galst, New York Times) Most "green job" training programs aim to teach low-income workers the job skills necessary to join the nascent clean-tech economy: energy-efficiency retrofitting, wind turbine maintenance, brownfield remediation and so forth. But do these programs train low-income people to become environmentalists, too? At present, there seems to be no academic research addressing that question, though anecdotal evidence gathered while reporting my story in today’s New York Times suggests that, at least in some cases, they do.

Micro loans bring light to rural poor

(Rina Chandran, Reuters) When night falls in remote parts of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, hundreds of millions of people without access to electricity turn to candles or flammable and polluting kerosene lamps for illumination. Slowly through small loans for solar powered devices, microfinance is bringing light to these rural regions where a lack of electricity has stymied economic development, literacy rates and health.

Save Printer Ink by Choosing an Ink-Saving Font

(Rick Broida, PC World) I've written before about ways you can save money on pricey printer consumables. For example, you can configure your printer driver to print two pages on one piece of paper. You can turn on "draft" mode for lighter output and less ink consumpton. And, my favorite: bypass printing altogether and generate PDFs. Now there's another option, one that combats excessive ink consumption at the font level: Ecofont, a free typeface that promises to reduce ink use by up to 20 percent.

Habitat homes designed with efficiency in mind

(Georgia Tasker, Miami Herald) In Pompano Beach, the 27 Habitat for Humanity houses built or under construction on Northwest First Court are green, says Mary Lou Bowman Cubbin, architect and director of construction. The homes, designed to save energy costs and water for low-income families, feature double ceilings to cool air conditioning ducts, roof and soffit vents to ventilate attic space and R-30 ceiling insulation, more than the R-19 required by code.

Recycling Goes From Less Waste to Zero Waste

(Leslie Kaufman, New York Times) At Yellowstone National Park, the clear soda cups and white utensils are not your typical cafe-counter garbage. Made of plant-based plastics, they dissolve magically when heated for more than a few minutes. At Ecco, a popular restaurant in Atlanta, waiters no longer scrape food scraps into the trash bin. Uneaten morsels are dumped into five-gallon pails and taken to a compost heap out back. And at eight of its North American plants, Honda is recycling so diligently that the factories have gotten rid of their trash Dumpsters altogether. Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as "zero waste" is moving from the fringes to the mainstream.

Modern alchemy: Turning plastic trash into oil

(Dugald McConnell, CNN) Like the alchemists who once tried to turn lead into gold, a green entrepreneur says he has found a cost-effective method for turning plastic trash into oil. During a recent visit to his new demonstration plant in Maryland, Envion CEO Michael Han describes his process: Waste plastic is shredded and melted and then processed in a way that separates the petroleum from the rest of the ingredients.

'Mad scientist' to build greener future with 'megacrete'

(Ed Lavandera, CNN) Pliny Fisk III has been called a "mad scientist," a "dreamer" and a "visionary." His favorite word to describe the architectural work he does is "crazy." Spending a day with Fisk on his 18-acre work site outside of Austin, Texas is like riding a rocket blast into the future. "To be free to do what we're doing is absolute magic," Fisk recently told CNN. Pliny Fisk opened the non-profit Center for Maximum Potential Building (CMPB) in 1975 and he also teaches architecture at Texas A&M University. Running around his architectural compound are some 10 interns, from around the world, always carrying out experiments.

Smart grid getting luxurious test on Maui

(Mark Niesse, AP) A 4-square-mile patch of Maui in the nation's most fossil-fuel dependent state soon will be home to a new kind of power grid, one that saves energy by turning off household appliances when electricity is expensive and makes better use of wind and solar power. General Electric Co. recently announced it would test its "smart grid" technology in the luxury resort community of Wailea, hoping to reduce peak electricity consumption there by 15 percent by 2012.

French make cars from flax

(Ray Hutton, Times Online) Welcome to the bio-car. PSA, the French automotive group that makes Peugeots and Citroëns, has started using components made from natural materials — radiator caps and side mirror mountings that contain hemp instead of glassfibre; parcel shelves that are moulded in a plastic made from wood chippings; and inner door panels that are 50% flax. The components are the fruit of PSA’s Green Materials Plan, set up last year. Its target is a six-fold increase in natural and renewable materials used in all its vehicles by 2015.

Off the Interstate: Turning 'Blue Highways' Green

(Peter Chew, Time) Kim Gallagher has a plan for America's "blue highways," the thousands of miles of dusty, old single-lane heritage routes that wend desolately through the countryside: turn them green. Superseded by high-speed interstates, many of these narrow byways have been long forgotten, along with the faded small towns they connect, says Gallagher, a project manager for the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission. But off-the-beaten-path America can be revived, she says, by transforming little-used roadways into "green highways" that cater specifically to electric-vehicle drivers and other slow-moving, eco-minded tourists traveling by bicycle or on foot.

Going for gold in the Solar Decathlon

(CNN) For two weeks the National Mall in Washington D.C. has been transformed into a boulevard of homes of the future. The solar-powered houses are the work of university teams from across the U.S., Puerto Rico, Germany and Spain, all taking part in the Solar Decathlon. The aim: to design, build and operate the best energy-efficient solar houses. Most teams have spent at least two years working on their projects.

Britain's greenest house unveiled... and it costs just £70 A YEAR to heat

(Daily Mail) While most people dread their astronomical winter fuel bills, Geoff and Kate Tunstall won't be feeling the heat. They've commissioned a pioneering home, which combines British construction techniques with German technology. The special green house is set to become the most energy-efficient home in Britain, and will leave them with fuel bills of just £70 a year. Their cosy new home in Huddersfield, West Yorks., will be finished in February next year and will be the first Anglicised version of the famous German Passivhaus.

Sunflower Power? An Entrepreneur's First Steps

(Adam Burke, NPR) When farmers in the town of Dove Creek, Colo., started planting sunflowers a few years ago, many of them were motivated by the promise of a decent income — not energy independence. But an activist-turned-entrepreneur named Jeff Berman had floated a proposal with a green hook: He told farmers if they grew sunflowers, he'd give them a renewable fuel source. "Well, when we first came in we were going to produce biodiesel, from local, sustainably grown oil seeds, and allow the farmers to use that fuel, to grow the wheat and the beans that they also grow here," says Berman, chief executive officer of San Juan Bioenergy.

San Jose quietly building a green reputation

(Tracy Seipel, San Jose Mercury News) When San Jose last week became the largest city in the country to effectively ban plastic grocery bags and most paper bags, many observers might have been surprised. After all, similar efforts have failed — or backfired — in more liberal cities such as Seattle and San Francisco. But to those who have been watching San Jose's growing environmental agenda over the years, the sudden publicity surrounding the effort merely cements the city's reputation as a player in the environmental and green technology movements.

India's 'green and clean' village

(Jyotsna Singh, BBC News) A small village in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya has become the envy of its neighbours. Large crowds of visitors have been thronging to the village curious to find out why Mawlynnong has earned the reputation for being arguably the cleanest and best educated in India - all its residents can read and write and each house has a toilet. That is no mean achievement in a country that is still struggling to educate its population and address basic water and sanitation issues.

Bringing Solar Power to Africa’s Poor

(Pete Browne, New York Times) Politicians from 11 Southern African countries gathered in Maputo, Mozambique, over the weekend to examine how to address climate change issues without reducing access to energy. Off-grid solar is seen as one of the continent’s strongest options, capitalizing on Africa’s abundant sunlight without the need to invest in expensive grid networks. Renewable energy experts and politicians were shown practical examples of how sensitive green energy developments have the potential to satisfy both requirements.

Smart Grid Project Cuts Electricity Usage

(Todd Woody, New York Times) A smart grid pilot project in Fayetteville, N.C., has resulted in an initial 20 percent decline in average electricity consumption, according Consert, a Raleigh, N.C. technology company. Those numbers are based on the first month of the project, a joint effort between Consert and I.B.M. that installed energy management systems for 100 residential and business customers of the Fayetteville Public Works Commission, the local utility.

Scientists discover low-methane sheep

(Eloise Gibson, New Zealand Herald) Scientists have proven not all sheep are created equal, at least when it comes to belching greenhouse gases. Researchers working for a Government partnership with the farming industry have discovered that some sheep naturally make less methane digesting their food than others - potentially opening the way for a low-methane breeding programme.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists nurturing growth of green technology

(Todd Woody, Los Angeles Times) In what would have been an unaccustomed move for a Silicon Valley venture capitalist not too long ago, Alan Salzman recently flew to Copenhagen to attend a conference on climate change and schmooze government policymakers. His mission: Explain the role of venture capitalists and their green-tech start-ups in cleaning up the environment.

Interest in algae's oil prospects is growing

(Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times) To many, algae is little more than pond scum, a nuisance to swimmers and a frustration to boaters. But to a growing community of scientists and investors in Southern California, there is oil locked in all that slimy stuff, and several dozen companies are racing to try to figure how best to unleash it and produce an affordable biofuel.

Cheap solar? Texan house aims low to win contest

(Chris Baltimore, Reuters) A solar-powered house built by a group of Texas students offers a blueprint for recession-hit U.S. families to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and their electricity bills without busting their budget. The Zerow House, built by students at Rice University in Houston, will compete against other solar homes in Washington D.C. in October as part of the Solar Decathlon sponsored by the U.S. Energy Department. But unlike some of its competitors, which are integrating high-concept, high-price features like tricked-out home entertainment systems and moving solar arrays that track the sun, the Rice team's aim is affordability.

Building a Green, Hi-Tech City of the Future

(Joohee Cho, ABC News) Just 14 miles east of Incheon International Airport, in South Korea, construction is moving full steam ahead on a model future city, equipped with state-of-the-art universal wireless connectivity. Songdo International Business District will be twice the size of Manhattan, built on land reclaimed from the sea. The plan is to create a model for future cities from scratch. "From infrastructure to system to software, everything will be installed with the most advanced technology," said Incheon's mayor, Ahn Sang Soo. "The future city will be compact, smart, and green."

Let's Talk Trash: A cheaper, greener way to deal with garbage

(Daniel Gross, Newsweek) If you had to devise a product designed to succeed in this unique climate, it might be one that makes an eco-friendly, alternative-energy-powered, carbon-reducing, American-made, public-space-beautifying commodity that saves municipalities money and that can be purchased with stimulus funds. In other words, it might be the BigBelly solar-powered trash compactor. Capital investment and discretionary spending have fallen this year, but BigBelly's sales are up 80 percent.

Habitat Teams Up with Exelon for Retrofits

(Colin Miner, New York Times) The Exelon Corporation, one of the nation’s largest energy providers, is working with Habitat for Humanity, the global housing charity, to reduce the energy bills of 70 low-income homes in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas. The company, which has one of the largest nuclear power plant fleets in the country, will help weatherize the homes as part of its larger “Exelon 2020” program to eliminate its carbon footprint.

Chinese Solar Plant Expected to Be the Biggest

(Chris Kahn, AP) First Solar Inc. said Tuesday it has received initial approval from the Chinese government to build what may become the largest solar field in the world. First Solar, which makes more solar cells than any other company, said it struck a tentative 10-year deal to build in China's vast desert north of the Great Wall. The project would eventually blanket 25 square miles of Inner Mongolia — slightly larger than the size of Manhattan — with a sea of black, light-absorbing glass.

First floating wind turbine powers up

(SidewaysNews.com) The world's first full-scale offshore floating wind turbine has begun a two-year test period off Norway's coast. Hywind, which was constructed by Norwegian energy giant StatoilHydro and Siemens, is due to run as a pilot for a plan that could one day see renewable energy created by vast farms that can be established in water depths of up to 700 metres.

'Green the Capitol' initiatives save energy, set a good example

(Erin Thompson, USA Today) Two years ago, the Capitol was full of trash — literally. The House of Representatives alone used to dispose of 240,000 meal remains each month, all served on plastic plates or in Styrofoam containers. It was all thrown in the trash and taken to landfills, says Karissa Marcum, deputy press secretary for the chief administrative officer for the House of Representatives. But in January 2007, the House committed to becoming a greener, more energy-efficient institution.

Brazil points to sharp drop in Amazon destruction

(Raymond Colitt, Reuters) The annual rate of destruction of Brazil's Amazon rain forest has fallen 46 percent to its lowest level in over two decades due partly to increased police patrols, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said on Tuesday. The drop, if confirmed by definitive data, could allow Brazil to argue at a major world climate summit later this year that it is delivering on a pledge to slash deforestation after decades of criticism by environmentalists.

Bay Area utility turns food scraps into energy

(Julie Anne Strack, Los Angeles Times) Leftovers from San Francisco Bay Area restaurants may soon help power the region. The East Bay Municipal Utility District has created a program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, to generate electricity from the methane gas produced by food decomposition. Engineers have been testing and refining the process since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the utility $50,000 in 2006 to study it, and they plan to sell energy to the grid beginning next year.

Going to sea in a 'boatle' takes bottle

(Vaimoana Tapaleao, New Zealand Herald) Recycling bins just not doing it for you any more? How about building a boatle. Kiwis Marcel Syron, 31, and Cameron Holm, 28, have found an innovative way to reuse old plastic bottles while helping a worthy cause. The two friends - they are from Auckland but have lived in London for several years - have built a "boatle," a craft made completely out of plastic bottles.

'Green goo' biofuel gets a boost

(Steve Mollman, CNN) Three years ago many would have dismissed the notion that a significant supply of the world's automotive fuel could come from algae. But today the idea, while still an adventurous one, is getting much harder to ignore. Back then there were only a handful of companies seriously focused on producing algae fuel. Now there are well over 50, according to Samhitha Udupa, a research associate with Lux Research.

Hungry bugs could slash animal-gas danger

(Eloise Gibson, New Zealand Herald) A Palmerston North dairy farm is home to an experiment that could radically cut New Zealand's methane emissions - simply by putting a lid on effluent ponds. Scientists at Government-owned science company Landcare Research have taken volcanic soils from the top of Taupo District Council's landfill and will use them to cultivate methane-eating bacteria.

Who needs gasoline if you have old beer?

(Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times) It sounds too good to be true: A residential system that allows people to make fuel from old beer, leftover wine and other waste products and use it to run their vehicles. That's what inventors of the E-Fuel MicroFueler claim, and there's support for the idea in government, industry and pop culture. MicroFueler buyers are eligible for a $5,000 tax credit. Former L.A. Laker Shaquille O'Neal is an investor in the system's distributor.

From junkyard to community garden

(Evelyn Nieves, Christian Science Monitor) Near a San Francisco freeway choked with commuters, Jason Mark shows off rows of strawberries, cucumbers, and loquat trees."It’s time to water," he said, checking on green beans growing like vines on stakes. Mr. Mark helps manage Alemany Farm, a volunteer-run garden that’s an example of what the San Francisco mayor wants implemented all over the city: community gardens on vacant and underutilized city-owned lots.

Europe's First Artificial Surf Reef

(Cornelia Treptow, ABC News) British surfing is getting a makeover. Next month, just in time for the start of the surfing season, the English coast will see the opening of Europe's first artificial surf reef, and the world's fourth. Once open, the reef, located some 800 feet off the shoreline in Boscombe near Bournemouth, South England, will be one of only four in the world. Two are in Australia, in Queensland and Cables, and a fourth is in Mt. Maunganui, New Zealand.

Herbs 'can be natural pesticides'

(BBC News) Common herbs and spices show promise as an environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional pesticides, scientists have told a major US conference. They have spent a decade researching the insecticidal properties of rosemary, thyme, clove and mint. They could become a key weapon against insect pests in organic agriculture, the researchers say, as the industry attempts to satisfy demand.

An electric chopper? What would Dennis Hopper think?

(Ron Scherer, Christian Science Monitor) You know those powerful choppers – customized motorcycles, often with unusual designs – that can be heard in the next county when they zoom down the highway. Well, Orange County Choppers (OCC), the custom bike shop in Newburgh, N.Y., that has its own TV reality show, has a new take on the genre: no noise. No, it’s not a special muffler developed by NASA. It’s what OCC is calling the first custom electric motorcycle.

How Baoding, China, becomes world’s first ‘carbon positive’ city

(Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor) Yu Qun’s journey into a low-carbon future began with a bad case of smelly fish. Scarcely had Mr. Yu been named mayor of this city 100 miles southwest of Beijing when fish in his region’s largest lake began dying by the thousands. He had only one option, he felt: to close several hundred factories whose pollution was to blame. That cost his city nearly two percentage points in annual economic growth – the Holy Grail by which Chinese officials have long been measured. And it taught him a lesson. "Polluting first and cleaning up later is very expensive."

First U.S. "Power Tower" Lights Up California

(David Biello, Scientific American) In southern California's Antelope Valley, 24,000 silver-bright mirrors have been positioned to reflect light on two 50-meter-tall towers. And at 11:08 A.M. local time Wednesday, this concentrated light heated steam in those towers to turn a turbine—the first "power towers" in the U.S. to convert the sun's heat into electricity for commercial use. Dubbed Sierra SunTower, the power plant can produce five megawatts, enough to power roughly 4,000 local homes at full capacity.

Habitat for Humanity Gets Greener

(Kate Galbraith, New York Times) Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit home building organization headquartered in Americus, Ga., announced plans on Tuesday to build 5,000 "green" homes around the country for low-income families. The homes, built over five years, will meet EnergyStar guidelines or other green building standards, like LEED.

Powerful Ideas: Shrimp Cocktail Helps Make Biodiesel

(Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience.com) Shrimp cocktails could help out fuel tanks, scientists now reveal. As concerns over global warming and dwindling fossil fuel reserves increase worldwide, more and more interest is growing in renewable fuels such as biodiesel to fill energy demands. However, biodiesel production techniques require catalysts to speed up the chemical reactions that convert soybean, canola, and other plant oils into diesel fuel, and so far catalysts both cannot be reused and must be neutralized with large amounts of water, leaving behind large amounts of polluted wastewater.

Nissan unveils zero-emission hatchback "Leaf"

(Chang-Ran Kim, Reuters) Nissan Motor Co took the wraps off its much-awaited electric car on Sunday, naming the hatchback "Leaf" and taking a step toward its goal of leading the industry in the zero-emission field. Japan's No.3 automaker and its French partner, Renault SA, have been the most aggressive proponents of pure electric vehicles in the auto industry, announcing plans to mass-market the clean but expensive cars globally in 2012.

State's largest biodiesel plant unveiled in Kern

(Sarah Reinecke, Bakersfield Californian) Four years ago, Harry Simpson started thinking about what he could do to improve the environment for his his kids and future grandkids. "I wanted to be an old man some day and say, 'I did something to help the greater good,'" Simpson said. "I wanted to be able to tell them that what I'm doing is to make the planet -- their world -- a better place." Simpson, president and co-founder of Crimson Renewable Energy, had a vision to produce low- and ultra-low carbon fuels to better the environment and improve air quality.

At 65, Smokey Bear is still fighting fires

(Mike Anton, Los Angeles Times) He's a war hero who became a media mogul, celebrity pitchman, pop icon and philanthropist. He's so famous he was given his own ZIP Code, 20252, to handle the fan mail. He is 65 years old but has no intention of retiring. In fact, he looks fitter than ever.

Potting mix a way to make office environment healthy

(Eloise Gibson, New Zealand Herald) Potting mix may be the solution to some of the coughs, sneezes, headaches and depression suffered by office workers. Research showed a pot plant 20cm or bigger could suck enough toxins from the air to make life easier for workers with a bit of greenery on their desks.

Drink this water before the bottle disappears

(Jan Norman, Orange County Register) Aquamantra Premium Bottled Water in Dana Point has introduced a new plastic bottle that completely degrades into organic material within 250 days. That compares to 500+ years for the average water bottle, says Aquamantra Founder and President Alexandra Teklak. That means you shouldn’t stock Aquamantra as your emergency water supply in case of earthquake or other disaster. But it does get around environmentalists’ complaint about bottled water drinkers’ loading the landfills with plastic.

ExxonMobil to fund $600 million biofuel partnership with La Jolla firm

(Bradley J. Fikes, North County Times) ExxonMobil Corp. and a company founded by biotech entrepreneur Craig Venter announced Tuesday a $600 million partnership to develop fuel from algae. If successful, the partnership will create an economical, renewable oil substitute to replace fossil fuels in cars and airplanes, and for other uses such as making plastics.

Older towers go 'green' for edge

(Chris Kahn, AP) When owners of the Empire State Building decided to blanket its towering facade with thousands of insulating windows this year, they were only partly interested in saving energy. They also needed tenants. After 78 years, Manhattan's signature office building had lost its sheen as one of the city's most desirable places to work. To get it back, the owners did what an increasing number of property owners have done: They went green, shelling out $120 million on a variety of environmental improvements, a move that would have been considered a huge gamble a few years ago.

A blaze of blooms to send your spirits floating like a butterfly

(Fiona MacRae, Daily Mail) Just a few yards from the noise and fumes of one of the nation's busiest motorways stands an oasis of dazzling natural colour. Twenty acres of grassland have been transformed by an explosion of summer blooms into Britain's biggest and brightest wildflower meadow. Designed to attract butterflies and naturelovers alike, it was created in only 12 weeks and boasts 65 different species of flower from around the world.

The start of something big?

(The Economist) It is an old idea. Build solar power stations in the Sahara desert and transport the electricity produced to Europe using high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) cables. It is simple in theory, but hard in practice—and very, very costly. But it is a carbon-dioxide-free way of making a lot of electricity, and a collecting area the size of Austria could supply the world. A meeting on July 13th might get the ball rolling.

The Green Home Guide From Popular Science

(PopSci.com) Did you know you can cut your water use by 10 gallons a day by switching toilets? That a new washer and dryer could save you almost $150 a year? These are just two of the dozens of tips, tricks, facts and projects packed into the free Green Home Guide, the second in our series of digital special issues called Genius Guides, designed to make you an expert on one of the core PopSci topics. You can click through our animated home to see the worst spots for wasting power, air and water.

World's largest plant to convert garbage gas to fuel to open soon in Altamont Pass

(Sophia Kazmi, Valley Times) Later this summer, gas produced by smelly garbage will be transformed into clean-burning fuel. The Altamont Landfill, operated by Waste Management, is putting the finishing touches on a plant that will take landfill-generated methane gas and turn it into liquefied natural gas to fuel garbage-collection trucks. The plant will be the first of its kind in the United States, and the largest in the world.

Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge

(Leora Broydo Vestel, New York Times) When Congress passed a new energy law two years ago, obituaries were written for the incandescent light bulb. The law set tough efficiency standards, due to take effect in 2012, that no traditional incandescent bulb on the market could meet, and a century-old technology that helped create the modern world seemed to be doomed. But as it turns out, the obituaries were premature. Researchers across the country have been racing to breathe new life into Thomas Edison’s light bulb, a pursuit that accelerated with the new legislation.

His green genes go way back

(Kevin Kiley, News & Observer) Twenty years ago, Will Hooker began efforts to make N.C. State University's red brick campus more green. Hooker's pleas fell on deaf ears. Administrators didn't want to require environmental classes for every student. They didn't want to hire someone to organize environmental projects. "They basically laughed me out of their offices," he said. Now environmentalism is all the rage.

Bright idea puts paid to power bills

(Alex Brooks, Sydney Morning Herald) As energy bills rise by 20 per cent, meet the man who pays nothing for electricity to power his four-bedroom house. Warren Yates even managed to score a $10 credit from EnergyAustralia for selling electricity back to the grid - he is believed to be the only person in NSW to have done so - after covering his roof with a three-kilowatt solar power system. While average households will spend an extra $182 a year on electricity bills after last Wednesday's price rise, the Yates family home in Mosman creates more energy than it consumes.

New York inches closer to offshore wind farm

(Reuters) Government agencies and power companies said on Wednesday they are gauging interest from developers and manufacturers about building a wind farm about 13 miles off the New York city coast that could end up being the largest such project in the United States. The Long Island Power Authority, the New York Power Authority, other agencies and Consolidated Edison Inc hope to build the 350 megawatt wind farm off the Rockaway Peninsula in the Atlantic.

Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics

(Leslie Kaufman, New York Times) This month, Edward Reilly, 35, finally let go of the television he had owned since his college days. Although the Mitsubishi set was technologically outdated, it had sat for years in Mr. Reilly’s home in Portland, Me., because he did not know what else to do with it, given the environmental hazards involved in discarding it. "It’s pretty well known that if it gets into the landfill, it gets into the groundwater," he said. "Its chemicals pollute."

School pupils get energy monitors

(BBC News) Pupils in Perthshire will be the first in Scotland to test energy monitors which show how much electricity, gas and water their school is using. The devices have been installed in Kenmore, Longforgan, Stanley and the Royal School of Dunkeld primaries. The equipment also stores data which the schools will use to understand and reduce their energy consumption.

Tallest U.S. building to get "green" retrofit

(Andrew Stern, Reuters) The tallest building in the Western Hemisphere will undergo a $350 million "green" retrofit that its owners said on Wednesday will make the 110-story office tower a beacon for environmentally sound space. Plans call for the 1,450-foot Sears Tower to reduce its electricity consumption by 80 percent and water usage by 40 percent.

Riding a bike made of grass

(Catherine Porter, Toronto Star) It's light, it sucks carbon out of the air and you could compost it. What more would you want from your bike? Move over Prius, the bamboo bike is the next hot thing for environmentalists. "Picture a steel factory in the Midwest U.S. Now picture a place where we source organically grown bamboo in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico," says Jacob Castillo, co-founder of Panda Bicycles, a Colorado-based start-up set to begin producing bamboo bikes this fall.

Newly Uncovered Enzymes Turn Corn Plant Waste into Biofuel

(Steven Ashley, Scientific American) "Visualize three tons of moldy bread." It's not the most appealing image, perhaps, but it's a description of the moist mound of growth media tended by bioscientist Cliff Bradley and his partner, chemical engineer Bob Kearns at their biofuel facility in Butte, Mont., that could help cut ethanol costs at the fuel pump. Selected soil fungi that eat cellulose—the hard-to-digest, structural component of woody plants—thrive on the big pile of putrefaction from which Bradley and Kearns harvest certain powerful enzymes.

Europe Looks to Africa for Solar Power

(Tom Zeller Jr., New York Times) The European project known as Desertec is nothing if not ambitious. It aims to harvest the sun’s energy — using a method known as concentrating solar power, or C.S.P. — from the vast North African desert and deliver it as electricity, via high-voltage transmission lines, to markets in Europe. Eventually, its backers say, it could satisfy as much as 15 percent of the European Union’s power needs.

Turning Human Organic Waste Into Energy

(John Lorinc, New York Times) With an eye firmly trained on a job-rich clean-tech future, San Jose city officials unveiled this week a $20 million deal under which three private partners will produce 900,000 gallons of biogas using German technology and 150,000 metric tons of organic waste generated by San Jose residents.

When nature gets a second chance

(Elisabeth Ginsburg, Christian Science Monitor) Nearly two decades ago, Steven Handel was asked to help breathe new life into a former landfill in Kearny, N.J. The barren tract – bounded by highways, salt marshes, and railroad yards – had been closed and covered for 20 years. But it was an ecological desert, supporting no birds or mammals and home to only two plant species, both of which were alien to northern New Jersey. After studying the site, its history, and the native flora and fauna of the area, the Rutgers University professor and his team of graduate students began installing groups of native trees in hopes of creating a dynamic, healthy ecosystem on top of the old landfill.

Continental says biofuel did well in flight test

(Deepa Seetharaman, Reuters) Continental Airlines said a blend of biologically derived fuel and jet fuel performed slightly better than jet fuel alone during a test flight by the world's fifth-largest airline. During some parts of a 90-minute test flight in January, the blended fuel displayed a 1.1 percent increase in fuel efficiency over traditional jet fuel alone, the Houston, Texas-based airline said in a statement on Wednesday.

Lazy Environmentalist says don't feel bad

(Claudia Parsons, Reuters) Self-described lazy environmentalist Josh Dorfman has a plan to save the planet that is a little unorthodox -- he tells people to stop feeling bad about taking long showers and driving fast cars. "Environmentalists make people feel bad, and making people feel bad is a terrible marketing strategy," Dorfman said, explaining the concept of his new television series debuting on the Sundance Channel on Tuesday, "The Lazy Environmentalist."

Students learn benefits of composting, recycling through class worm project

(Jennifer Jackson, Peninsula Daily News) Do worms like pizza? To students in Dorothy Stengel's class, this is not an esoteric question. It is a matter of life and death. "They can have pizza but only the crust," Eileen Leosa said. "Not the sauce, the cheese or the pepperoni," Brenna Franklin added. Eileen, Brenna and their classmates know what worms, at least red wigglers, like and don't like, because they take care of more than 1,500 of the little critters that live in the black circular bin in their classroom at Grant Street Elementary School in Port Townsend.

High-Altitude Wind Machines Could Power New York City

(Alexis Madrigal, Wired) The wind blowing through the streets of Manhattan couldn’t power the city, but wind machines placed thousands of feet above the city theoretically could. The first rigorous, worldwide study of high-altitude wind power estimates that there is enough wind energy at altitudes of about 1,600 to 40,000 feet to meet global electricity demand a hundred times over. The very best ground-based wind sites have a wind-power density of less than 1 kilowatt per square meter of area swept. Up near the jet stream above New York, the wind power density can reach 16 kilowatts per square meter.

Shoppers' cars will soon be able to power supermarkets

(Sean Poulter, Daily Mail) Shoppers' cars will be used to power supermarket tills in a revolutionary new scheme. The weight of vehicles driving over road plates into a new eco store will power a generator that creates enough electricity to keep checkouts ringing. The system uses the same type of technology Formula 1 cars use to convert kinetic energy created during braking into speed.

Global PC makers vying for "Green" crown

(Gabriel Madway, Reuters) Personal computer makers are increasingly prioritizing "green" strategies, creating a pivotal point of competition for customers that are becoming more attuned to their financial -- and societal -- benefits. Analysts say going green has become a business plan unto itself for the industry's heavyweights: a way to stand apart from rivals, win over a growing segment of environmentally conscious consumers, and shore up branding worldwide.

Prince Charles presents Ashden Awards for innovative environmental projects

(Adam Vaughan, The Guardian) A network of 28 demonstration green "superhomes" and a low-tech greenhouse for growing vegetables in a remote Himalayan region were today presented awards by Prince Charles in an environment competition. Other winners in the prestigious Ashden Awards for sustainable energy included a solar electricity project in Ethiopia, an innovative Ugandan scheme selling biomass briquettes to prevent deforestation, and a Surrey school that halved its electricity consumption.

Nokia developing phone that recharges itself without mains electricity

(Duncan Graham-Rowe, Guardian) Standby mode is often accused of being the scourge of the planet, insidiously draining resources while offering little benefit other than a small red light and extra convenience for couch potatos. But now Nokia reckons a mobile phone that is always left in standby mode could be just what the environment needs. A new prototype charging system from the company is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radiowaves – the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us.

Florida Town to Start Using Sewage for Fuel

(Orlando Salinas, Fox News) Where some people see poop, others see brown gold. Sanford, Fla., aims to be the first town in America to covert sewage sludge into energy, and has built a new "gasifier" plant to do so. It's a completely closed-loop system made by a Houston company called MaxWest Environmental Systems. Nothing escapes.

Washington University's "living" building sustains itself

(Kim McGuire, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) Jonathan Chase bristles when you call the new Living Learning Center at the Tyson Research Center a "green" building. Sure, it's got solar panels on the roof, and it's surrounded by native plants. But the 2,900-square-foot, one-story building goes way beyond green. In fact, it's on track to become the nation's first "living" building, a new designation that basically means a structure is self-sufficient, producing all the energy it consumes.

The Hobbit House: A quiet revolution

(Clare Dwyer Hogg, The Independent) Simon Dale resisted the description of the round house he and his family built as a 'hobbit home' for as long as he could, but it was futile. "I've finally given into it," he laughs. It's not hard to see why: built into the Welsh woodland, with a turf roof that blends the house into its forest environment, what else would you call it? But it's not just about aesthetics. "There's some relevance in what hobbits were representative of for Tolkien," Dale says.

Trip to Big Sur will be last fling for young women

(Asher Price, Austin American-Statesman) When a group of 18-year-old girls from western Travis County alight in Big Sur this August to help rid a patch of California coastline of invasive plants, it will be a sentimental bit of environmentalism. The trip will be the latest in more than a half-dozen for the tightly knit group, who call themselves the Wildthings and have spent parts of their summers since they were 11 doing manual labor in wildlife refuges and wilderness from Oregon to Colorado.

Mountains hidden under Antarctic ice revealed by radar map

(Hannah Devlin, Times Online) Antarctic mountains hidden beneath thousands of metres of ice have been mapped in detail for the first time. One of Antarctica’s highest mountain ranges, located in the centre of the continent, shows remarkable similarities to the Alps, with steep cliffs, valley steps and flat tributary valleys. The study, published today in the journal Nature, mapped the Gamburtsev mountains by bouncing radar signals off their hidden surface and observing how long they took to return. The highest peak was found to be 2,434m (7,985ft) above sea level, about twice the height of Ben Nevis.

Rainforest is worth more standing

(Victoria Gill, BBC News) The Indonesian rainforest is worth more standing than felled say researchers. A new analysis has shown that payments to reduce carbon emissions from the forests could generate more income than palm oil production on deforested land. Protecting the forests could become profitable under a proposed scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd). In the journal Conservation Letters, they say this scheme will help protect threatened forests.

Clean Energy Funding Trumps Fossil Fuels

(James Kanter, New York Times) Global investors spent about $250 billion building new power capacity in 2008, and for the first time the lion’s share of that money went to renewable sources, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Renewable sources accounted for 56 percent of investment dollars, worth $140 billion, while investment in fossil fuel technologies was $110 billion.

California forests hold one answer to climate change

(Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times) Silvery light flickers through the redwood canopy of the Van Eck forest down to a fragrant carpet of needles and thimbleberry brush. A brook splashes along polished stones, through thickets of ferns. How lush. How lovely. How lucrative. This 2,200-acre spread in Humboldt County does well by doing good. For the last four years, Van Eck's foresters restricted logging, allowing trees to do what trees do: absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Jason McLennan is setting the pace to create the greenest building ever

(Carey Quan Gelernter, Seattle Times) Stripped of trees, lakes deadly to fish, rocks stained black by gunk that spewed from the tallest smokestack in the world. That was the landscape Jason McLennan knew growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, a nickel-mining town that by 1970 was the largest single source of acid rain in North America. A place so moonscape-bleak that NASA deemed it ideal for astronaut training. But by the time McLennan was in middle school, Sudbury had begun to turn things around in drastic ways.

Getting Greener at Google’s London Office

(Jeffrey Marlow, New York Times) At Google’s London office, across the street from the bustling Victoria station, high-tech and low-tech strategies are used to minimize its environmental impact. As an example, an enormous videoconference network across Google’s 119 global offices has minimized the need for extensive inter-office travel and helped Google weather the current economic storm as other companies learn to adapt to business travel cutbacks.