·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story at News.com.

Drinking filtered water may save plastic bottles, but what happens when you need a new filter cartridge?

Last year, cleaning-product maker Clorox, together with bottle maker Nalgene, launched a campaign that struck an environmental chord with consumers.

In the Filter for Good campaign, the companies appealed to Americans to “take the pledge to reduce bottled-water waste.” By investing in a reusable Nalgene bottle and drinking tap water filtered with Clorox’s Brita products, they hinted, Americans could avoid littering the planet with 38 billion water bottles each year, thus saving the 1.5 million barrels of oil used to produce the bottles.

For a full-color, graphic version of this newsletter, go to http://www.greenercomputing.com/enewsletter.

Green and Lean: Four Steps to Improving Data Center Efficiency without Capital Expenditures
By Larry Pepper
http://www.greenercomputing.com/column/2008/06/25/four-steps-improving-data-center-efficiency
Increasing the efficiency of your data center doesn’t have to mean spending a
great deal of money. Larry Pepper, senior practice manager for EMC
Infrastructure Consulting, shows how you can green your data center and reduce
operating costs while working within your existing capital budget.

New EcoRAM to Boost Performance, Drop Energy Use in Data Centers
http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/06/25/ecoram-drop-energy-use-data-centers
The new line of flash memory, unveiled yesterday by Spansion and Virident, is
designed to replace DRAM in servers for search-heavy applications; the companies
estimate significant energy savings and reductions in TCO.

Apple and HP, India and U.S. Among Leaders of Green IT Movement: Survey
http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/06/24/apple-hp-india-us-lead-green-it-movement
Looking at marketing, perceptions and adoption of energy-efficient IT products
around the globe shows distinct movements in what motivates companies and
countries to purchase green IT, as well as how some have succeeded in branding
themselves as green while others struggle.

Telecom Industry Unveils Eco-Initiatives
http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/06/23/telecoms-unveils-eco-initiatives
The Telecommunications Industry Association claims its EIATRACK, a worldwide
benchmark for intelligence and environmental product-oriented regulatory
tracking and analysis, offers legal expertise that is worth millions. The
group’s electronics waste recycling website also serves as a database of
2,000-plus recycling centers across the country.

Intelligent IT Deployments to Cut Global Emissions 15 Percent: Report
http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/06/20/smart-it-cut-global-emissions-15-percent
Even as the technology sector’s carbon footprint is expected to double in the
next 12 years, applying tech tools to monitoring energy use, maximizing energy
efficiency and reducing the need for travel, shipping and resource use could
save businesses billions of dollars and cut overall CO2 emissions, according to
a report released today.

U.K. Retailers Feeling the IT Energy Crunch
http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/06/19/uk-retailers-feeling-it-energy-crunch
Data center energy costs are skyrocketing for United Kingdom retailers, who on
average waste more than $2 million (£1.25 million) a year in excess energy
consumption.

Lenovo Lends Businesses a Hand With Their E-Waste
http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2008/06/18/lenovo-lends-businesses-a-hand-with-their-e-waste
Lenovo Asset Recovery Services will offer U.S. and Canadian businesses a slew of
options for end-of-life technology equipment, such as computer take-back, data
destruction, refurbishment and recycling. Lenovo will destroy data on equipment
using standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense. The company also will
conduct value assessment, data encryption and on-site deinstallation.

If You Measure It, They Will Green: Energy Efficency Metrics plus Server
Benchmarks
http://www.greenercomputing.com/resources/resource/energy-efficency-metrics-plus-server-benchmarks
This report from Info-Tech explores the ways that a shift in data center
economics is occurring, and explains how data centers can expect new green
responsibilities to measure and optimize power consumption.

SMART 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age
http://www.greenercomputing.com/resources/resource/smart-2020-enabling-low-carbon-economy-it
This report from The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative
explores the ways that information technology can play a positive role in
fighting climate change.

Read the full story in T.H.E. Journal.

How green are your feet? That’s the question IBM wants to answer as it launches a new consulting service to determine the carbon footprint of IT organizations and help those organizations plan for greener operations throughout and beyond the enterprise.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The White House told E.P.A. officials that it would not open an e-mail sent in December that argued that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Skyrocketing energy prices are inflating the costs of living on the distant edges of metropolitan areas.

The latest issue of Renewable Energy Weekly is now available. Highlights include:

• Renewable Energy a ‘Finance-driven’ Industry
• Eastern Ontario Is Canada’s Green Energy Patch
• The Future of U.S. Ethanol Production: Where Do We Go from Here?
• U.S. Government Incentives Hinder Local Ownership of Solar
• Renewable Energy Incentives for Low and Middle Income Families
• Energy Technology Perspectives Report Says Wind Power is Essential
• Investment: Does investment in renewables stack up

Read the full story in NIST Tech Beat.

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in cooperation with national standards organizations, have taken the lead in developing the first two standards for solid-state lighting in the United States. This new generation lighting technology uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of incandescent filaments or fluorescent tubes to produce illumination that cuts energy consumption significantly.

Read the full story in NIST Tech Beat.

Seeking to understand a new fuel cell material, a research team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the University of Liverpool, has uncovered a novel structure that moves oxygen ions through the cell at substantially lower temperatures than previously thought possible. The finding announced this month in Nature Materials may be key to solving fuel cell reliability issues and lead to reduced operating costs in high-performance stationary fuel cells.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Every time you turn around, you can see technology. Most of it uses electrical energy that creates electromagnetic fields (EMFs), but is this a problem?

EMFs first caused a stir in the late 1970s when a study linked them to childhood leukemia. Studies that have been performed since have produced differing results. The National Institute of National Health Sciences in 1999 reported that studies indicating a link can’t be discounted, but that the overall evidence showed a weak link between EMF and increased cancer risk.

However, other risks exist. For example, EMFs from different sources can interact, causing an elevated flux density within an area. They can affect equipment performance, including computer monitors. In addition, elevated EMFs within a facility can interact with pacemakers, causing them to malfunction.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

What are the financial benefits of using environmentally sustainable materials and technology in construction?

Professor John Quigley at the University of California, Berkeley – Haas School of Business is conducting the first systematic analysis of environmentally sustainable construction and its economic impact on the real estate market.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

While consumers are highly receptive to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), conflicting messages about CFLs are leaving people confused about the safety of the lamps, specifically regarding mercury and end-of-life issues when the lamp burns out.

Read the full story at News.com.

Dell on Wednesday said that its server power supplies have met an industry target of 92 percent efficiency.

Read the full story at News.com.

How many start-ups does it take to change a lightbulb? Entrepreneurs and investors aim to turn a profit with energy-efficient lighting.

Read the full story from the Modular Building Institute.

Each year the Modular Building Institute (MBI) sponsors its prestigious Awards of Distinction contest. As the only industry contest of its kind, MBI’s Awards of Distinction reviews commercial modular building entries submitted by MBI member companies. Entries are judged in the areas of architectural excellence, technical innovation, efficiency and length of project.

Last year a green building design category was added to include university architecture students, with the winner receiving a scholarship of $2500 towards higher education. Because the category was so well received by the industry and architecture programs alike, MBI continued it in the 2008 award competition.

2008’s first-place winning design comes from William O’Brien, of Concordia University. View design drawings and project summary

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

“Independent labels are about more than just records,” says Stephen Glicken, musician, producer and co-founder of New York-based Green Owl Records. His company is committed to releasing records with as little impact on the Earth as possible. Green Owl’s CDs are packaged in 100 percent post-consumer paper, and last year Green Owl won accolades for its Sundance Festival film entry, Everything’s Cool: A Toxic Comedy about Global Warming.

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

Jennifer Phillips always felt guilty that her large Nashville law firm didn’t recycle. So after big client meetings, she collected all the empty plastic water bottles, took them home and added them to her own curbside recycling bin. Now, she is proud to report that her firm, Bass, Berry & Sims, serves an icy pitcher of tap water during meetings. “We even have glasses with the company logo on them,” she says. Phillips estimates switching to tap keeps 3,000 plastic water bottles per week out of the landfill.

It’s a trend that is taking hold in the U.S., Europe and Canada: more people are switching from bottled water to tap. Call it reverse snob appeal. Bottled water once carried a certain European mystique. But these days, it’s the tap water enthusiasts, concerned about the environment, who get to act self-righteous. Just like it has become cool to bring your own cloth bags to the grocery store and your own mug to the coffee shop, the reusable water bottle is the hip, new eco accessory.

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

Tin cans provide us with a convenient source of ready to eat olives, beans, soups, and of course, Popeye’s spinach. We’re talking inexpensive, longlived miracle foods that require no refrigeration and will keep you alive in your bunker should some cataclysmic scenario play out. We know we sacrifice freshness when we eat food from a can, but do we also sacrifice safety? Recent disclosures suggest that the plastic lining of our food cans contains hormone mimicking Bisphenol A (BPA), and some of this chemical leaches into our food.

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

The costs of generating solar power will be on par with the costs of power made from fossil fuels like natural gas and coal within a decade, according to clean-tech research and publishing firm Clean Edge and green-economy nonprofit Co-op America. The two groups collaborated on a new report, the Utility Solar Assessment (USA) Study, to provide a roadmap for utilities, solar companies, and regulators to work together so the nation can derive 10 percent or more of its power from the sun by 2025.