Monday, October 30
Budgets Falling in Race to Fight Global Warming
DENVER — Cheers fit for a revival meeting swept a hotel ballroom as 1,800 entrepreneurs and experts watched a PowerPoint presentation of the most promising technologies for limiting global warming: solar power, wind, ethanol and other farmed fuels, energy-efficient buildings and fuel-sipping cars.
Is the carbon-trade business really 'green'?
System for combating greenhouse-gas emissions has forsaken its principles, critics say.
As the world grows warmer, poorer nations are helping the rich by reining in heat-trapping gases in a multibillion-dollar "carbon trade" that is outrunning its founding principles and spawning conflicts of interest and possible abuse.
As the world grows warmer, poorer nations are helping the rich by reining in heat-trapping gases in a multibillion-dollar "carbon trade" that is outrunning its founding principles and spawning conflicts of interest and possible abuse.
Thursday, October 26
Lighting up the $1 trillion power market
Silicon Valley has changed the world once. Now, thanks to a wave of investment and innovation in solar power, it's on to the next revolution: A massive disruption of the U.S. electricity market.
-- There's a missile-bunker vibe you get when walking into Solaicx, a Silicon Valley startup that manufactures the silicon wafers that are the building blocks of solar panels.
In one half of the nondescript Santa Clara warehouse, three men sit hunched on a wood platform 8 feet above the cement floor, their eyes locked on two monitors. The screens show data and video gathered from a 24-foot-tall steel tower. The tower begins in a squat, gourd-shaped base and tapers to a cannon-size column with a long drum spinning slowly on top. Thick power cables snake down its sides. Another sci-fi-looking tower rises up off to one side of the building.
-- There's a missile-bunker vibe you get when walking into Solaicx, a Silicon Valley startup that manufactures the silicon wafers that are the building blocks of solar panels.
In one half of the nondescript Santa Clara warehouse, three men sit hunched on a wood platform 8 feet above the cement floor, their eyes locked on two monitors. The screens show data and video gathered from a 24-foot-tall steel tower. The tower begins in a squat, gourd-shaped base and tapers to a cannon-size column with a long drum spinning slowly on top. Thick power cables snake down its sides. Another sci-fi-looking tower rises up off to one side of the building.
Friday, October 20
Green chimney could save the planet
A new power plant chimney that converts greenhouse gases into helpful substances could have a huge impact on global warming.
Fremont, Ohio (FSB Magazine) -- "This is my sandbox, where I play," says Tom Kiser, pulling his big Chrysler sedan into the parking lot of Professional Supply Inc. We're in Fremont, Ohio, population 17,000. There's a sauerkraut factory across the street, a fitting neighbor to Kiser's dreary, plywood-paneled headquarters.
Kiser was born and raised in Fremont. He founded PSI here in 1979 with an $80,000 SBA loan backed in part by his wife's wedding ring, and he's done well enough that he now owns a seven-passenger company jet. But that's not the story. The story is how a small-town heating and ventilation engineer with no illusions about his customers' true priorities ("What makes me go is, Can I make you money? If I can't, don't hire me") suddenly finds himself on the front lines of the fight to halt global warming.
Fremont, Ohio (FSB Magazine) -- "This is my sandbox, where I play," says Tom Kiser, pulling his big Chrysler sedan into the parking lot of Professional Supply Inc. We're in Fremont, Ohio, population 17,000. There's a sauerkraut factory across the street, a fitting neighbor to Kiser's dreary, plywood-paneled headquarters.
Kiser was born and raised in Fremont. He founded PSI here in 1979 with an $80,000 SBA loan backed in part by his wife's wedding ring, and he's done well enough that he now owns a seven-passenger company jet. But that's not the story. The story is how a small-town heating and ventilation engineer with no illusions about his customers' true priorities ("What makes me go is, Can I make you money? If I can't, don't hire me") suddenly finds himself on the front lines of the fight to halt global warming.
Saturday, October 7
Renewable Energy Bill Becomes Law
STATE UTILITIES' GOAL IS 20 PERCENT BY 2010
By Paul Rogers
Mercury News
California's three major utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, will be required to provide 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal energy within four years under a new law signed Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
By Paul Rogers
Mercury News
California's three major utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, will be required to provide 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal energy within four years under a new law signed Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Gentleman, stop your engines
EEStor's new automotive power source could eliminate the need for the combustion engine - and for oil.
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- The Disruptor: EEStor
The Innovation: A ceramic power source for electric cars that could blow away the combustion engine
The Disrupted: Oil companies and carmakers that don't climb aboard
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- The Disruptor: EEStor
The Innovation: A ceramic power source for electric cars that could blow away the combustion engine
The Disrupted: Oil companies and carmakers that don't climb aboard
The new fuel thing
Is the future now for the 'car of the future'? Not quite, but it may come sooner than you think - and from GM, says Fortune's Alex Taylor.
(Fortune Magazine) -- Stop. Reboot. Roll! In the future, that might be the most common advice from your friendly neighborhood gas jockey. Except he would be pumping hydrogen, not gas. And while your future car would look much the same as what's parked in your driveway right now, it will drive without disgorging many of today's problems--smog, pollution, dependence on nasty foreigners.
(Fortune Magazine) -- Stop. Reboot. Roll! In the future, that might be the most common advice from your friendly neighborhood gas jockey. Except he would be pumping hydrogen, not gas. And while your future car would look much the same as what's parked in your driveway right now, it will drive without disgorging many of today's problems--smog, pollution, dependence on nasty foreigners.
Wells Fargo Buys Green Energy Certificates
Wells Fargo & Co. became the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the country after an agreement to buy renewable energy certificates to support wind energy.
The financial services company said it would buy certificates to support generating 550 million kilowatt hours of wind energy a year for three years.
The financial services company said it would buy certificates to support generating 550 million kilowatt hours of wind energy a year for three years.
Wednesday, October 4
Reduced packaging to save Wal-Mart $3.4 billion
No. 1 retailer says it will ask 60,000 suppliers to cut product packaging by 5 percent.
CHICAGO (Reuters) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., fresh from cutting the prices on generic prescription drugs, is taking on the packaging industry.
The world's largest retailer said on Friday it would push its suppliers to cut the amount of packaging used in products sold through the world's largest retailer by 5 percent under a five-year plan scheduled to begin in 2008.
CHICAGO (Reuters) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., fresh from cutting the prices on generic prescription drugs, is taking on the packaging industry.
The world's largest retailer said on Friday it would push its suppliers to cut the amount of packaging used in products sold through the world's largest retailer by 5 percent under a five-year plan scheduled to begin in 2008.
U.S. POPULATION REACHES 300 MILLION, HEADING FOR 400 MILLION
Guess we need to "slow" down.
Sometime this month, the U.S. population is projected to reach 300 million. In times past, reaching such a demographic milestone might have been a cause for celebration. In 2006, it is not. Population growth is the ever expanding denominator that gives each person a shrinking share of the resource pie. It contributes to water shortages, cropland conversion to non-farm uses, traffic congestion, more garbage, overfishing, crowding in national parks, a growing dependence on imported oil, and other conditions that diminish the quality of our daily lives.
Sometime this month, the U.S. population is projected to reach 300 million. In times past, reaching such a demographic milestone might have been a cause for celebration. In 2006, it is not. Population growth is the ever expanding denominator that gives each person a shrinking share of the resource pie. It contributes to water shortages, cropland conversion to non-farm uses, traffic congestion, more garbage, overfishing, crowding in national parks, a growing dependence on imported oil, and other conditions that diminish the quality of our daily lives.
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