·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the press release.

More than five billion 12-oz. servings of beer — or about one in seven beers brewed by Anheuser-Busch in the United States — are expected to be brewed using renewable fuel by the end of 2009, thanks to environmental efforts at the company’s 12 U.S. breweries. The company’s breweries in Houston and Fairfield, Calif., are currently installing alternative energy technology that will be operational by year end, and as a result the company’s U.S. breweries will run on more than 15 percent renewable fuel.

Read the full story in USA Today.

Governmental inaction is prompting environmental groups and big business to cut unprecedented deals to promote energy exploration and other development in return for major conservation initiatives.

The agreements preserve large amounts of undeveloped land, impose stricter environmental practices than required by law and generate big investments in alternative energy. The deals also clear the way for oil drilling, new power plants and large residential developments.

Read the press release.

Defense Logistics Agency kicked off its fuel cell forklift pilot project here July 24 at the Defense Depot Warner Robins. It is part of an effort to find alternative energy sources and reduce America’s growing dependence on energy imports.

Read the full story in Renewable Energy World.

As fuel cells enter the portable electronics market, they will create opportunities for other businesses. With such a broad array of portable electronics on the market, the solution is not necessarily one-size-fits-all.

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

• Fuel Cells for Portable Electronics, and Beyond
• G24i: Pioneering Dye Sensitive PV Cells & Ethics-Driven Business Models
• Material May Help Autos Turn Heat into Electricity
• Renewing the Fight for Renewables
• What Biofuels Are In Development?
• Solar PV Industry Grows Across European Markets
• Making solar hot water count: Generating greentags with solar hot water

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Nanotechnology will significantly change virtually every facet of the American lifestyle. The next president has the opportunity to shape these changes and to ensure that nanotechnology’s benefits will be maximized and its risks identified and controlled.

A new report by former EPA official J. Clarence (Terry) Davies lays out a clear roadmap for the next presidential administration and describes the immediate and longer term steps necessary to deal with the current shortcomings of nanotechnology oversight.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing more than $500,000 in technical assistance for 16 Brownfields Sustainability Pilots. Assistance will support sustainable activities such as the reuse and recycling of construction and demolition materials, green building and infrastructure design, energy efficiency, water conservation, renewable energy development, and native landscaping.

“Brownfields redevelopment and sustainable reuse can go hand in hand,” said Susan Bodine, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. “These pilots will demonstrate best practices that can be used by other communities across the country.”

EPA will work with communities to incorporate sustainable redevelopment into the planning, design, and implementation of their brownfields projects. Each pilot project will receive between $20,000 and $50,000 in assistance. Pilot examples include:

• Analysis of green roof systems for a brownfields project in Roxbury, Mass.
• Feasibility analysis of reusing and recycling materials from closed textile mills in Valley, Ala.
• Green building and green infrastructure design at a former smelter in San Juan County, Colo.
• Assistance with applying green building principles and providing community training at a former gas station being converted into a community center in Portland, Ore.

Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. In January 2002, President Bush signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act, which increased funding, expanded authority, and provided liability protection to help communities revitalize brownfields. EPA provides grants, technical assistance and training to support local brownfields efforts.

For more information on the Brownfields Sustainability Pilots, go to epa.gov/brownfields/sustain_plts/index.htm

Read the full story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Seattle became on Monday one of the first major American cities to discourage the use of paper and plastic shopping bags by requiring grocery, drug and convenience stores to charge 20 cents per bag. In a related action, the City Council also banned plastic foam food and drink containers.

Read the press release.

Many Americans, including those who are enduring financial hardship, are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products, according to a survey conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

The Environmental Protection Agency is telling its pollution enforcement officials not to talk with congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency’s own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail provided to The Associated Press.

The June 16 message instructs 11 managers in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the branch of the agency charged with making sure environmental laws are followed, to remind their staff members to keep quiet.

Read the full story in Crain’s Chicago Business.

The city will ban vendors from using plastic shopping bags at Chicago-run farmers markets starting next year in an effort to reduce landfill waste.

Vendors at the city’s 24 farmers markets will be told later this week that they can’t use plastic bags if they want to participate in next year’s selling season, said a spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Office of Special Events. She said she doesn’t expect vendors to drop out because of the ban.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are better than compact fluorescent bulbs–LEDs use less energy, last longer, and contain no toxic mercury–but for general white-light illumination, they’re still far too expensive for mass adoption. Now, researchers at Purdue University have taken a step toward making white LEDs with cheaper materials.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

A new way to make advanced lithium-ion battery materials addresses one of their chief remaining problems: cost. Arumugam Manthiram, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, has demonstrated that a microwave-based method for making lithium iron phosphate takes less time and uses lower temperatures than conventional methods, which could translate into lower costs.

Read the full story in Plenty Magazine.

Recycling is a lot like working out—you know you should do it, but at the end of a long Monday when the dirty dishes are piled up in the sink and the couch never looked so inviting, if often gets pushed back to Tuesday, or Wednesday, or… never. Ron Gonen knows a lot about that lack of motivation. That’s why in 2004 he co-founded RecycleBank, a program that makes recycling worth your while.

The concept behind RecycleBank is simple: because economic incentives motivate recycling more effectively than green principles, reward people for recycling and watch the rates soar. The RecycleBank system is quick and painless: each customer on the garbage route gets a bin fitted with a computer chip. When garbage trucks pick up the bins, they weigh the bins and scan the cards, keeping track of how much each family is recycling. For every pound of material recycled, participants earn 2.5 RecycleBank points (up to about 400 points per month), which can then be cashed in at retailers like Bed, Bath and Beyond, CVS Pharmacy, and Petco.

Read the press release.

Answering the need to save money and reduce carbon emissions when it comes to residential energy efficiency, the new website GreenMadeSimple.com presents the first comprehensive database for local, state and national incentives, rebates, and special offers on the Internet.

Visitors to the site enter their zip code to quickly find local residential incentives and rebates covering appliances, lighting, cars, home improvement and construction, energy audits, solar and other renewables, recycling and financing options. Additionally, users are able to create an account to keep track of their projects, incentives and other offers.

The August 2008 issue of Biomass Magazine is now available. Highlights include:

• Flexible Biomass Conveyance
• Building Better Biofuels
• Sprucing Up Wood Waste
• Breaking Through to the Other Side of Biofuels
• Cleansing and Reforming Syngas
• A Sweet Energy Source
• Green Acres is the Place to Be
• A Multi-Prong Approach to Carbon Neutrality

The mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today launched the first in a series of audio podcasts to bring to a listening audience environmental news and feature stories as well as helpful consumer tips.

Called “Environment Matters,” the podcasts will be presented regularly on the region’s Web site, www.epa.gov/region3 and will be available as an RSS feed for automated distribution.

The series begins with a podcast featuring tips on saving gas and in assessing claims by the makers of gadgets promising better fuel economy.

Other upcoming “matters” will include:

• An EPA program for inner-city students that is helping to build the next generation of environmental leaders.
• Work by EPA and others to monitor the state of ocean water at beaches.
• Back-to-school recycling tips that will save money and reduce waste
• A brownfields “revolution” in York, PA.
• An initiative to put “green” into black and white highways.
• A class that won an EPA contest to lower its school’s environmental footprint.
• New ways of targeting environmental improvements.
• Saving money and water

Future segments will cover the range of environmental topics handled by EPA.

For a full-color, graphic version of this newsletter, go to
http://www.greenbiz.com/enewsletters/2008/greenbiz/index.html.

Charting the Climate Course for the Next U.S. President
By Matthew Wheeland
http://www.greenbiz.com/podcast/2008/04/14/charting-climate-course-next-us-president
In this episode from the GreenBiz Radio archives, longtime corporate sustainability leader Ray Anderson discusses the Presidential Climate Action Project, which  aims to give the next resident of the White House a running start on addressing the climate crisis, and explains how U.S. businesses can help.

PHEVs in the Spotlight
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/23/phevs-spotlight
The race to create the infrastructure for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles is on — the city of San Francisco, state of Tennessee and a slew of automakers and utilities announced separate plans to lay the groundwork for the mass introduction of PHEVs beginning in 2010.

Marks & Spencer’s Plastic Bag Fee Reduces Use, L.A. Passes Plastic Bag Ban
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/25/marks-spencers-plastic-bag-fee
The U.K. retailer has given out 80 percent fewer plastic bag since adding a bag fee, and Los Angeles has approved a plan to eliminate plastic bags in the city.

Building-Integrated Photovoltaics Market to Top $4 Billion by 2013: Report
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/24/building-integrated-photovoltaics
The market for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) will exceed $4 billion in revenues by 2013 and surpass $8 billion in 2015, according to a new report from a leading industry analyst firm.

Vehicle Makers Reduce ‘New Car Smell’ Chemicals
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/24/vehicle-makers-reduce-chemicals
Some car manufacturers have made gains in reducing chemicals that can be emitted as fumes.

JohnsonDiversey Reformulates Floor Care Line
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/21/johnsondiversey-reformulates-floor-care-line
The maker of Signature, Johnson Wax Professional and Butcher’s said its reformulation of floor finishes has decreased the volatile organic compound (VOC) content of a leading product line, achieving a result more than two years earlier than required by the California Air Resources Board.

Green Purchasing Makes Slight Gains
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/22/green-purchasing-makes-slight-gains
TerraChoice’s survey of procurement professionals found that green purchasing policies have grown and discovered which issues have increased in importance.

Greening the Links in the Supply Chain
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/25/greening-links-supply-chain
Driven by soaring fuel costs and the public’s call for greater environmental responsibility, more firms are trying to green their supply chain and increasingly are looking for outside help to improve the eco-friendliness, economy and efficiency of their transportation and logistics, a new study says.

Coca-Cola Aims to Increase Recycled Content, Reduce Weight of Bottles
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/25/coca-cola-increase-recycled-content
The Coca-Cola Company is building a bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in South Carolina to increase the availability of food-grade recycled plastic.

Climate Change Fight Requires ‘New Deal’ Effort
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/23/climate-change-fight-requires-new-deal-effort
A U.K. group is calling for a climate change strategy similar in scale to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, including a massive investment in renewables and major shake-up of taxation and financial systems.

More S&P 100 Companies Reporting CSR Progress: Study
http://greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/22/more-sp-companies-reporting-csr-progress-study
Eighty-six percent of companies on the Standard and Poors 100 Index have corporate sustainability websites, compared to 58 percent in 2005. Roughly half produced a sustainability report last year, 26 percent higher than the 39 companies that issued one two years before.

2008 Healthcare Energy Efficiency Indicator
http://greenbiz.com/resources/resource/2008-healthcare-energy-efficiency-indicator
Healthcare executives place greater importance on energy efficiency compared with their counterparts in other industries, according to findings of a new study commissioned by the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and Johnson Controls.

Ecomarkets 2008 Summary Report
http://greenbiz.com/resources/resource/ecomarkets-2008-summary-report
Procurement professionals reveal their attitudes and actions on green purchasing programs.

Designing a Greener Road Trip
By Mary Catherine O’Connor
http://greenbiz.com/feature/2008/07/28/designing-a-greener-road-trip
Whether taking a close look at packaging materials, optimizing shipping logistics or even changing the types of pallets in use, the world’s supply chain players are working to lessen transportation’s impact.

Lessons from Deathcare: The Greening of the American Funeral Home
By Andrew Whitaker
http://greenbiz.com/column/2008/07/28/green-lessons-from-deathcare
Unlikely as it may seem, the obstacles, benefits and opportunities encountered in the greening of the funeral home business offers take-aways applicable to making change happen in any industry.

How Your Company Can Benefit from Green Social Networking
By Perry Goldschein
http://greenbiz.com/column/2008/07/25/company-benefit-green-social-networking
It seems like everyone is signing up and logging in to Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and countless other social networks; according to a recent study, five of these are among the most fertile ground for green messaging, provided your company follows these do’s and don’ts for the online world.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

L.E.D.’s have replaced standard bulbs in many of the nation’s traffic lights. The bright, long-lasting bulbs are starting to show up in some high-profile places too.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) is to begin work testing a catalyst developed by Dow Chemical, the industrial giant based in Midland, MI, to see if it can be used to massively boost the production of ethanol made from biomass.

The partnership will attempt ways to make ethanol biofuel from cellulosic biomass, such as waste from corn or wood, using thermochemical processes. Specifically, NREL is looking to use a Dow catalyst to convert syngas–a mix of hydrogen and carbon dioxide made from the gasification of the biomass–into a mixture of alcohols, including ethanol. The joint agreement calls for the partners to demonstrate the process on a pilot scale and evaluate the feasibility of an integrated commercial-scale facility.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The average American home has 27 power-sucking devices that are always on — but how much they actually consume, most people don’t know.

Via Lifehacker.

Google Maps wants to help you get where you’re going on foot with a new option to switch your step-by-step driving directions to walking directions. The main difference between walking and driving directions appears to be time estimates, with Google estimating your walking pace at about 19 minutes per mile. The walking directions appear to deviate from driving directions at times, though from trying it in my neighborhood I can’t pinpoint why it’s changing for the walking route. The other main difference is the ominous warning that I should “use caution when walking in unfamiliar areas.” Thanks for the dose of fear, Google. (I guess the same doesn’t apply to driving?) We’d heard some users were seeing walking directions rolled out a few weeks ago, but it looks like Google has recently unveiled the feature to all users.

Read the full story in The Coloradoan.

CSU on Tuesday launched a new “School of Global Environmental Sustainability” aimed at crossing department boundaries to better educate the green-collar workers of tomorrow.

Read the full story in the Roanoke Times.

The environment remains a newsmaker from here to Beijing.

Demand for the Toyota Prius is up. China is trying to reduce its air pollution (for next month’s Olympics, at least).

And in Salem, to coordinate campus efforts to protect the environment, Roanoke College has formed a Green Advisory Committee.

On its list of duties? To be a clearinghouse for ecology issues and to advise President Michael Maxey and his Cabinet.

Green initiatives have happened independently so far, making them harder to track, explained Teresa Gereaux, a college spokeswoman and committee member.

Read the press release.

Converted Organics Inc.  announced today that the company has formed an innovative partnership with the city of Gonzales, CA and the Gonzales Unified School District to recycle food waste from local school cafeterias into all-natural organic fertilizer for application on Gonzales school fields, city parks and public spaces. The recycling program will begin in mid-August to coincide with the start of the school year. The fertilizer will be made using Converted Organics’ proprietary technology and process known as High Temperature Liquid Composting (HTLC).

Read the full story in the Syracuse Post-Standard.

A Fayetteville-Manlius High School teacher has turned her two passions into a fundraising effort for Syracuse city school students..

Stewart is collecting granola and energy bar wrappers and sending them to TerraCycle’s Energy Bar Brigade. The program will recycle and reuse the wrappers and donate 2 cents for each one to b.i.k.e. Syracuse, a mentoring program that matches city students with ride leaders and bicycles.

Read the full story in the Nova Scotia News.

The grass where Bobby slept gleams green.

And the rain that washed him clean a few evenings earlier has dried into a cool May morning.

Sunlight shimmers off Maynard Lake, motorists head to work, and the 59-year-old — awakened by sniffing dogs and people’s voices — wheels his crowded shopping cart past the water.

Wind whips his long blond hair, bouncing with the music blasting from his battery-operated boom box.

And the clothes he gathered from the garbage billow in the hard breeze.

His sunglasses, missing a lens, expose one blazing blue eye rimmed by a golden frame.

Those eyes can spot things — shiny pop cans, sunlit water bottles — from far away, a valuable talent when trash is a treasure.

Read the full story in the Wenatchee World.

Larry Stoltz, owner of L&L Engineering, has been making biodiesel at his Peshastin shop with members of a loose-knit cooperative for the past four years. Tuesday, he led a tour of his ramshackle operation for six teenage members of a local 4-H Forestry Education summer program. Earlier in the day the group worked at a Leavenworth organic farm that uses biodiesel fuel in its tractors and logging equipment.

Read the full story in Biomass Magazine.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England, are looking at whether an everyday bioprocess that occurs naturally might be harnessed to produce hydrogen on a commercial scale using sugary food waste as a feedstock.

Read the full story in Biomass Magazine.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has released a 50-page document containing guidelines for harvesting woody biomass for alternative energy sources.

Read the full story in Metal Finishing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing that control techniques guidelines could be just as effective as national regulations in reducing emissions of VOCs in ozone national ambient air quality standard non-attainment areas from the following five product categories: miscellaneous metal products coatings; plastic parts coatings; auto and light-duty truck assembly coatings; fiberglass boat manufacturing materials; and miscellaneous industrial adhesives.

Read the press release.

Be Green Packaging, LLC (Be Green) is pleased to announce that their line of bulrush packaging has been awarded and certified “Silver” Cradle to Cradle by MBDC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, LLC). MBDC is a leading environmental consulting firm focused on helping companies implement new approaches to sustainability and prosperity. Be Green Packaging’s certification comes after a ten-month study of its bulrush fiber and sustainable design. Be Green’s bulrush packaging has successfully met the certification criteria for: Materials, Material Reutilization/Design for Environment, Energy, Water and Social Responsibility.

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

• Solar and Semiconductor Industries Come Together In San Francisco
• Next Generation Dye Sensitive & Organic PV, Part 1
• Inside Renewable Energy podcast: Web 2.0: Connecting the Renewable Energy Community
• Heat is Power. Let’s Stop Throwing it Away!
• Will Offshore Drilling Help?
• Success in solar manufacturing: Challenges and opportunities

Read the full story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Environmental groups Wednesday called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce a law that would control the thousands of pounds of toxic mercury discharged into the atmosphere every year by cement kilns in the United States.

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday that it will no longer allow residue of the toxic pesticide carbofuran on domestic or imported food, a decision that would effectively remove the chemical from the U.S. market.

Via Librarians’ Internet Index.

Site for a “project funded by the City of San Francisco to support the transition of backyard, front yard, window boxes, rooftops, and unused land into organic food production areas. The SF Victory Garden program builds on the successful Victory Garden programs of WWI and WWII but redefines ‘Victory’ in the pressing context of urban sustainability.” Features information about the garden planted in front of San Francisco City Hall in 2008 and a FAQ.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

After years of false starts, a new industry selling motor fuel made from waste is getting a big push in the U.S., with the first commercial sales possible within months.

Read the story and see the photos at News.com.

Street artists are increasingly turning to non-destructive, paint-free forms of graffiti to make a point without permanently defacing property. Their urban pranks and social protests engage mobile gadgets, open-source software, and online social networking. They blend aesthetics from the hip-hop, punk, and do-it-yourself arts and crafts movements to convey messages from the silly to the politically provocative. Free speech, environmentalism, and anti-war messages are common themes.

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers’ on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins.

The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May. Instead, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao’s intention to push for the rule first surfaced on July 7, when the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posted on its Web site that it was reviewing the proposal, identified only by its nine-word title.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The Texas governor is leading a coalition seeking to waive the federal ethanol mandate because of costly grain.

Read the commentary in the New York Times.

Generating energy from space solar power is not science fiction. It is environmentally friendly, cost effective and the technology already exists.

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

• The Byproducts of Biodiesel Production Are Valuable Organic Acids, Researchers Say
• UC San Diego Enacts Green Energy Initiatives
• China’s Wind Power Industry: Localizing Equipment Manufacturing
• Distributive Wind Power Offers Solutions to Energy Crisis
• Can the U.S. Reach 100 Percent Renewable Electricity in 10 Years?
• Global PV Market Set to Take Off
• Launching Liberty: Clipper addresses teething issues

Read the full story in Technology Review.

A Canadian company says that it has developed a way for makers of precast concrete products to take all the carbon-dioxide emissions from their factories, as well as neighboring industrial facilities, and store them in the products that they produce by exposing those products to carbon-dioxide-rich flue gases during the curing process. Industry experts say that the technology is unproven but holds great potential if it works.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Princeton University believe that they’re on to a way to break the OLED-efficiency logjam. The scientists have designed an OLED that boosts illumination by 60 percent using a combination of an organic grid working in tandem with small micro lenses that guide the trapped light out of the device.

Need to know where to buy E85 or other alternative fuels? The US Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center now has an online station locator. Just specify which kind of fuel you want, then enter your address, and the locator will map out the closest stations that sell that fuel.

Read the full story from NIST.

Titanium, a protean element with applications from pigments to aerospace alloys, could get a new role as an environmentally friendly additive for automotive oil, thanks to work by materials scientists from Afton Chemical Corporation (Richmond, Va.) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In a recent paper, the researchers established that a titanium compound added to engine oil creates a wear-resistant nanoscale layer bound to the surface of vulnerable engine parts, making it a credible substitute for older compounds that do not coexist well with antipollution equipment.

Read the full story from NIST.

Adding just the right dash of nanoparticles to standard mixes of lubricants and refrigerants could yield the equivalent of an energy-saving chill pill for factories, hospitals, ships, and others with large cooling systems, suggest the latest results from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research that is pursuing promising formulations

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

In April of 1991, National Public Radio (NPR) began running a regular environmentally focused news segment called “Living on Earth.” NPR was the first major news outlet to take environmental news seriously. According to Bruce Gellerman, a longtime environmental reporter and alternative host for “Living on Earth,” “We’ve been reporting on the cutting edge of this topic for a long time… topics like endocrine disruptors, climate change, social justice and lead.” For many years, it seemed that NPR was the only major media outlet with any consistent focus on environmental stories. “The world finally caught up to our environmental reporting… It’s extraordinary how long it has taken,” says Gellerman.

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

Green condominium projects may be the most environmentally responsible housing on the market today. By their nature, condominiums are dense developments that take up less room and help preserve open space. Primarily urban, green condos are often sited near mass transportation routes and bike trails. And they use fewer resources per unit of construction to build and operate.

Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.

The rising oil prices are hitting the airline industry especially hard. According to the International Air Transport Association, which tracks the price of jet fuel on a daily basis, gas has gone up by more than 100% over the past year. And it’s good news for the environment — the high prices are causing airlines to rethink their fuel usage and look into ways to improve efficiency.