3p Contributor: Bill DiBenedetto
Recent Articles
Chrysler Pulling Plug on EV Development? Maybe Not
It wasn’t all that long ago that Chrysler Corp. pocketed more than $12.5 billion in government bailout funds to avoid a bankruptcy filing, promising on the way to the bank to build more fuel efficient cars and produce electric vehicles by 2011.
About three years later the U.S. carmaker has launched no hybrids – although plans for them remain in the works – and its ENVI electric vehicle program is fading fast in the rearview mirror largely because of a strategic decision by Fiat. Fiat received a 20 percent stake from the U.S. in exchange for the Italian carmaker’s more fuel-efficient chassis and engine technology, and is apparently calling the shots now at Chrysler.
Oh the irony.
Spacing Out on Solar Energy
Solar power satellites are the yin to the yang of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s Star Wars fantasy, and almost as old. Scientists for decades have explored the potential of using space-based solar cells to beam power to the Earth.
It’s an idea with very long legs, as they say, but now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has gone beyond whimsy by actually signing up several major collaborators to launch a giant one-gigawatt space solar power satellite into space. The players are huge – Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric and Sharp – and the bucks that JAXA has indicated it will invest in the project are also huge, $21 billion worth of huge.
The plan, according to various recent news reports including London’s Telegraph, is to have the test version of the Space Solar Power System launched in 2020. The final system would go operational in 2030. The station would send down power by laser or microwave.
Odd Couple, or Where Coffee Grounds and Mushroom Meet
BTTR (as in Better) Ventures has a thing about mushrooms, while Peet’s Coffee & Tea of course has a very big thing about coffee (and tea). This unlikely duo has joined forces in a clever and delicious waste-to-food recycling venture that produces gourmet mushrooms out of coffee grounds.
Some 16 billion pounds of coffee beans are used each year, most of which eventually wind up in landfills. Cal Berkley Haas School of Business grads Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Aorara founded the company to turn one of the largest waste streams in America into sustainable local food. They do this by using coffee grounds as the substrate to grow different varieties mushrooms.
SC Johnson Ahead of GHG Reduction Target
SC Johnson, maker of a variety of household products that include Glade, Drano and Scrubbing Bubbles, says in its latest sustainability report that it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions 27 percent at its worldwide factories over the last eight years.
In the U.S., the Racine, WI, company reported a 17 percent reduction in GHG emissions since 2005. Both reduction numbers “have been met three years ahead of the company’s internal 2011 target,” it says in its 2009 Public Report, titled Responsibility=Resilience.
Those reductions are the equivalent of taking about 11,100 U.S. cars off the road for one year, the report says.
The 2009 Public Report is SC Johnson’s 18th year of reporting on sustainability objectives.
It reveals that SC Johnson is closing in on another major goal, to reduce combined air emissions, water effluents and solid waste by 50 percent by 2011. Last year it reduced waste and emissions by 40.5 percent, compared to a 2000 baseline.
Ex-Im Bank Carbon Policy Increases Export Credit Support for Renewables
The Export-Import Bank of the United States has established a $250 million credit facility aimed at helping to promote and finance renewable energy exports, including solar, wind and geothermal energy products and projects.
The move this week makes Ex-Im the world’s first Export Credit Agency to fashion that kind of credit assistance and also the first to adopt an actual “carbon policy” to guide the financial support of U.S. exports “in light of climate change concerns,” the agency says.
The Catch-22 of Clean-Coal
The old adage cautions one to be wary about what is asked for because often the expected result comes out somewhat differently.
Take the latest report from the Australia-based Global CCS Institute as the latest example. The fifth and final of a series, the 224-page ‘Strategic Analysis of the Global Status of Carbon Capture and Storage,’ prepared for the CCS Institute by a WorleyParsons-led consortium, is supposed to make the case for the efficacy of accelerating the commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (CSS) projects.
It does, sort of, but not very effectively depending on one’s perspective. It is certainly not the slam-dunk for commercial CCS projects spreading across the globe and taking care of nasty coal-plant CO2 emissions (by, in effect, burying them) that clean-coal fans anticipated.
Eco-rate Aids Eco-Minded Buyers
It’s a Consumer Reports or CNET type of comparison shopping service for the eco-conscious crowd.
Eco-rate is the brainchild and a labor of environmental love and activism founded by a Seattle couple, Brycelaine Self and Colby Self.
“The Eco-rate idea is to allow people to compare common household products, based not only on their green attributes, but also on their affordability,” says Brycelaine Self, co-founder of Eco-rate and principal of a related green building, green marketing and energy consulting company, Eco-innovations.
Launched in mid-May, they spent more than two years designing and developing the Web-based product and technology rating and comparison resource for shoppers looking to make ecologically-intelligent choices on just about any product out there, from autos to dishwashers to TVs to paint to water heaters.
Mitsubishi Chemical Uses the Sun to Chill Out Trucks
Somehow it’s a fitting juxtaposition: using solar power to cool down.
Mitsubishi Chemical has developed a solar technology system that enables solar cells to power air conditioning units in the cabin of trucks, according to reports from Kyodo News International and BusinessGreen.
The result: reduced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
Japan’s biggest chemical manufacturer, based in Tokyo, last week demonstrated a 10-ton prototype tractor-trailer truck equipped with solar cells. They are installed on the tops of wings that can be lowered over the container compartment.
The solar cells are based on Mitsubishi Chemical’s thin-film solar technology. Two types of cells achieve a maximum output of 900W, and excess power can be stored in a battery for use on rainy or overcast days.
Lead by Example: Obama Executive Order Pushes Federal Sustainability
In these parlous economic and perilous environmental times a firm focus on sustainable government practices sounds like a good exercise that could also serve as a valuable template for action outside of the government.
It’s also impossible to imagine something this sweeping coming from the previous administration, another reason why President Obama’s recent Executive Order could become a landmark in the world of sustainability.
The Executive Order signed by the president earlier this month sets sustainability goals for Federal agencies, focusing on improving their environmental, energy and economic performance.
Sigh of the Times: German Bordello Uses Green Incentives
Bike to work, bike to the workout, and now bike to work it. The world’s oldest profession, once considered recession-resistant, is going green–in Germany at least, and largely out of economic necessity.
The country’s flaccid sex-for-hire industry could follow the example of one flagging bordello in Berlin, the Maison d’Envie (House of Desire) which is offering discounts to customers who pedal their bicycles to the door.
Shock and Awe: EPA Halts Largest Mountaintop Coal Mine
The Environmental Protection Agency is serious: It really is taking on Big Coal in a big way.
Following up on word last month that it would delay action on 79 mountaintop coal mining projects (EPA Takes on the Coal Industry), the agency on Friday moved to halt the Clean Water Act permit for the nation’s largest proposed mountaintop removal coal mining site, the Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia.
DHL GoGreen Debuts in North America
DHL’s much-ballyhooed GoGreen climate change program has finally reached North America. A year after the launch of the huge German package express delivery and logistics company’s initiative, it’s now available in Canada.
DHL Express Canada launched the GoGreen service this week. It’s described by the company as a “carbon-neutral” shipping option that “enables Canadian businesses of all sizes to ship their goods internationally without leaving an environmental footprint.”
Bottle Rocket: SIGG Faces Class Action Suit
It turns out that even trace amounts of BPA, or bisphenol A, can create a public relations – and public trust – nightmare for a product marketed as an eco-friendly and reusable alternative to single-use plastic water bottles. This is especially true when the manufacturer is caught in a lie about it.
Just ask SIGG Switzerland and its U.S. subsidiary, the maker of hip, colorful reusable water bottles. It has what could turn into a damaging and costly lawsuit on its hands as a result of what was at the very least is a gross misrepresentation and marketing blunder.
BPA is a manufactured chemical compound that is commonly used in the production of plastics and epoxy resins. It mimics the estrogen hormone and is considered a possible health risk. When concerns about BPA and SIGG products were raised several years ago CEO Steve Wasik said testing showed “no presence of lead, phthalates, Bysphenol A (BPA), Bysphenol B (BPB) or any other chemicals which scientists have deemed as potentially harmful” in SIGG aluminum bottles.
Costco Dives Into Product Sustainability
If you’ve ever shopped at one of Costco Wholesale Corporation’s massive retail warehouses, you already know that it’s pretty much a low-tech, do-it-yourself shopping experience.
Paper or plastic is a question unasked at the checkout line; the best one can do is to opt for a recycled cardboard box that might once have contained kumquats, underwear, olive oil or detergent.
So in that respect the Issaquah, Wash., retailer has already been taking a somewhat sustainable approach since it started business in 1983. Plus, it saves on overhead by reusing the boxes.
In its first Corporate Sustainability Report, which covers the 2007-2008 period, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer Dick DiCerchio admits that Costco’s environmental reporting “is still evolving. We recognize the need to report more environmental metrics information in future reports.”
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