·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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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.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Maine leads the country in office building energy efficiency, followed by Massachusetts and New Hampshire according to a study just released by energy economist, author and Texas A&M University professor Jerry Jackson, Ph.D. State rankings below reflect the percent of office buildings that exceed EPA’s Energy Star standard and provide the first quantitative evidence of state level cost savings.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

A new nationwide poll released recently shows that more than four in 10 of all Americans, and an even larger percentage of committed voters — 44 percent of those who say they are absolutely certain to vote in the upcoming presidential election — agree that if action is not taken to address global warming and climate change, the country’s national security will be threatened by global instability. Almost two-thirds, 62 percent, of all U.S. adults believe it is important that the next President of the United States initiates strong action to address climate change soon after taking office.

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