Iceland Scores at the Top of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index
Feb 8th
Environmental researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities released the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland last month. Iceland came in first, while the U.S. trailed behind at a distant 61 st , dropping from 39th in 2008. This was the third edition of the EPI that ranks 163 nations based on a variety of environmental performance indicators. Categories include: environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland, which derives most of its power from geothermal energy and hydropower, got high marks on …
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Iceland Scores at the Top of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index
US renewable standard would provide sizeable jobs boost
Feb 8th
Danny Bradbury, BusinessGreen , Monday 8 February 2010 at 00:00:00 Report predicts a mandatory “25 per cent by 2025″ target would not only cut carbon emissions, but would also create 274,000 new jobs A national renewable energy standard could create more than 274,000 more jobs in the US, according to a new study, which argues that mandatory targets for renewable energy generation would…
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US renewable standard would provide sizeable jobs boost
EU Increases Wind Capacity, Decreases Coal Use
Feb 7th
Many recent reports have come out declaring that despite the economic downturn wind energy advanced in 2009. The Global Wind Energy Council recently announced that wind energy capacity increased 31 percent in the year of 2009. Similar data was reported in individual countries such as China and the United States. Further evidence of the growth of wind energy comes from Europe, where nine percent of their electricity needs are acquired through wind power. The European Wind Energy Association recently released their report on the field in 2009. It turns out that Europe also experienced a great increase in wind capability, increasing it 23 percent from 2008. Overall, Europe installed 10,163 megawatts of wind capacity in the year 2009. This increase brings the total capacity in the European Union to 74,767 megawatts.
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EU Increases Wind Capacity, Decreases Coal Use
Palin bashes ‘cap and tax’ and commends Obama on nuclear
Feb 7th
by Lisa Hymas Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated speech Saturday night at the first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville included a one-minute-and-20-second disquisition on energy policy. She hit on her familiar talking points — drill here, drill now, “cap-and-tax” sucks. But she also commended Obama for highlighting nuclear power during his State of the Union address , a brief departure from her otherwise sneering tone toward the president .
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Palin bashes ‘cap and tax’ and commends Obama on nuclear
The Rising Sea
Feb 7th
“ All indications are that we should be alarmed about the future of sea level rise and should be doing something about it now .” Orrin Pilkey and Rob Young , eminent coastal scientists, wrote their book The Rising Sea to provide substance for that alarm and to offer suggestions as to how we can plan ahead to reduce the severity of the impact of the rising sea. The authors begin by reminding us that it’s not a distant prospect. They describe what is happening to Alaskan shoreline villages such as Kivalina and Shishmaref, the Pacific atoll nations such as Kiribati, the …
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The Rising Sea
Why Militarizing Aid in Afghanistan is a Bad Idea
Feb 7th
Along with several other international NGOs working in Afghanistan, Oxfam last week published a powerful paper on the damage being caused by the militarization of aid. In many ways it resembles the debate on how to ensure that Haitian reconstruction builds, rather than undermines, its battered state. In the last half hour, one Afghan woman died from pregnancy-related complications, another of tuberculosis and 14 children perished, largely from preventable causes. Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, the humanitarian and development needs in Afghanistan remain acute. Undoubtedly, Afghans have seen some improvements, particularly in the expansion of access to ..
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Why Militarizing Aid in Afghanistan is a Bad Idea
Brazil: Europe’s perfect supplier for biomass & biofuels
Feb 7th
Editor’s note: The following is a guest commentary by Stanley Wootliff, chairman of jatropha grower Viridas PLC . Shell’s joint venture with Cosan highlights the strong positioning of Brazil as well as the burgeoning demand for biofuels. While this may have come as a surprise to some, it was no surprise to me, having spent the last three years developing an appropriate strategy to deliver biofuels to Europe from Brazil. Brazil has the ideal climate in terms of sunlight and rainfall; it also benefits from having large areas of accessible, fertile, idle land. The country benefits from a strong economy and good political stability, as well as having excellent infrastructure. While Brazil may be perfect, the views on biofuels have been mixed. There is no doubt that there have been many lessons to learn, particularly from some of the mistakes of the past adopted by first-generation biofuel developers
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Brazil: Europe’s perfect supplier for biomass & biofuels
First LEED Platinum Home in Indiana
Feb 7th
A little over a month ago, this home received the first LEED Platinum certification for a home in the state of Indiana. Located in Franklin, the 2,000 square-foot contemporary residence has three bedrooms and two bathrooms for a family of three and a dog. Castalia Homes built the home, which has a number of green features. Perhaps most importantly, the home is very energy efficient. It was built with a tight envelope that tested at 3% air leakage. This has been accomplished, at least in part, with foam insulation and carefully placed double-pane argon filled windows. The homeowners, Mark and Sibylle Jennett, also made sure the green home had a fresh air recovery system because of its tight envelope. Inside it boasts Energy Star appliances, low-VOC paints and finishes, bamboo flooring, dual-flush toilets, and a tankless water heater, among other green elements. That said, according to The Indianapolis Star , the Jennetts aren’t done yet. They’re thinking about adding a vertical small wind turbine to generate on-site green energy. Seems like a decent idea so long as the wind blows where placed. Photo credits: Alan Petersime for The Indianapolis Star.
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First LEED Platinum Home in Indiana
Videos: How we know humans are changing the climate and Why climate change is a clear and present…
Feb 7th
After the 90-minute panel on “The Science of Climate Change” with Dr. Christopher Field and Dr. Michael MacCracken (video and PPTs here) , I interviewed them both. First, here’s Christopher Field, the director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, professor of biology and environmental earth system science at Stanford University, and the Working Group II Co-Chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Second, here’s Michael MacCracken is the chief scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute and a co-author and contributing author for various chapters in the IPCC assessment reports.
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Videos: How we know humans are changing the climate and Why climate change is a clear and present…
Breakthrough could lead to cheap, printable sheets of light
Feb 7th
Swedish and US researchers have developed a new lighting technology that could lead to innovations like illuminated wallpaper made entirely of plastic and cheaper, more easily recycled electronic devices. The secret, they believe, lies with using organic light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) to replace the organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, that currently provide the light-up displays in mobile phones, cameras and flat-screen TVs. While today’s OLED technology has enabled a proliferation of ultra-thin, energy-efficient gadgets, it comes with a couple of drawbacks. One, OLEDs are made with indium tin oxide, and indium is rare, expensive and difficult to recycle. Two, the OLEDs themselves are costly to make. Replacing OLEDs with LECs could solve both those problems, as the LECs feature a transparent electrode made with graphene — a one-atom-thick lattice of carbon, which is far cheaper and far more abundant than indium. “This is a major step forward in the development of organic lighting components, from both a technological and an environmental perspective,” said Nathaniel Robinson, a scientist at Sweden’s Linköping University. “Organic electronics components promise to become extremely common in exciting new applications in the future, but this can create major recycling problems.
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Breakthrough could lead to cheap, printable sheets of light
