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Samsung Investing $4.3 Billion Towards Greener Gadgets : TreeHugger
In its Eco-Management 2013 report, the South Korean company Samsung says it is investing $4.3 billion in greening its gadgets and its facilities by, you guessed it, 2013. That’s a whole lot of pocket change to be thrown into positive change.
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Are we on the brink of saving rainforests?
Until now saving rainforests seemed like an impossible mission. But the world is now warming to the idea that a proposed solution to help address climate change could offer a new way to unlock the value of forest without cutting it down.
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Smart Grid Status According to the DOE, and Security According to (eep!) Black Hat : TreeHugger
Status of the Smart Grid According to the Department of Energy
The DOE has just released a state of the smart grid report as part of a directive in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that tells the Secretary of Energy to “…report to Congress concerning the status of smart grid deployments nationwide and any regulatory or government barriers to continued deployment. -
There are many obstacles to taking action on climate change. Most of those obstacles have deep roots: there are powerful interest groups that don’t want market prices to reflect true costs, and there are ideologues — financially supported by these interest groups — who don’t want to admit that sometimes the government has to intervene.
But there’s also, it seems, growing opposition to cap-and-trade from people who should be on the side of progress — but whose reaction is basically “Eek! Markets!Wall Street! Speculation! Bad!”
We don’t need this.
So let me talk a bit about why this reaction is 99% wrong, and bad for the planet.
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FedEx Converts 92 Delivery Trucks to Diesel Hybrids with Lithium-Ion Batteries : TreeHugger
FedEx is announcing today that it has converted 92 of its trucks to diesel-electric hybrids (using lithium-ion batteries), bringing the total number of hybrids the company has to 264. There are a few reasons why these conversions are noteworthy. First, despite a bigger and more powerful engine (going from a 5.9L 175 HP diesel engine to a 6.7L 200 HP one), the converted trucks show an improvement of 44% in fuel economy, a decrease in particulate matter (PM) emissions of 96% (!), and a reduction of NOx emissions by 75%
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The environmental damage caused by mountaintop removal mining across Appalachia has been well documented. But scientists are now beginning to understand that the mining operations’ most lasting damage may be caused by the massive amounts of debris dumped into valley streams
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Steven Chu | The Daily Show | Comedy Central
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu believes the cap-and-trade bill is a great opportunity for America to lead a new industrial revolution.
He came on the today show with Jon Stewart and was remarkably unfazed and even funny dealing with Jon
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Cutting Costs and Saving Energy – Vodafone
A new report issued by Vodafone, in collaboration with Accenture, concludes that mobile technology could cut Europe’s annual energy bill by at least €43 billion and effect a reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 113Mt CO2e by 2020. This represents 18% of the UK’s annual CO2e output in 2008 and approximately 2.4% of expected EU emissions in 2020. However, this opportunity can only be realised if industry and governments collaborate.
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Corporate pranksters show a lot of bottle in Bhopal fight
Dow has come under fire from activists because in 2001 it took over Union Carbide, which owned and ran the pesticide plant in the central Indian city where the world’s worst industrial accident took place.
In December 1984 a storage tank leaked toxic gas methyl isocyanate into the air. More than 500,000 people were exposed to the deadly fumes.
Estimates of the death toll vary but it is generally accepted between 8,000 and 10,000 died within the first three days and some 25,000 since.
Thousands more suffered health problems from the incident and subsequent pollution at the site.
As the 25th anniversary of the disaster approaches, activists are pressuring Dow to clean up the area’s contaminated water supply.
“The company has claimed that it is not responsible and that Union Carbide had settled its responsibility before Dow became the owner, but water in the city is still contaminated,” said Mr Bonnano.
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China offers big solar subsidy | Green Business | Reuters
China has launched an unprecedented plan to offer hefty subsidies to independent solar power projects, a move that sparked a rally in the sector on Tuesday.
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Household Cleaners, Air Fresheners Linked to Asthma in Adults
Regular use of household cleaning sprays and air fresheners may increase the risk of adult-onset asthma, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
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Drive around the San Francisco Bay Area and you can see the emerging corporate infrastructure of the new green economy.
In a downtown Oakland office tower, you’ll find the headquarters of BrightSource Energy, a solar thermal power-plant developer that has scored contacts to build more than 2,600 megawatts’ worth of solar farms. Off Highway 101 in the Silicon Valley suburb of San Carlos, Tesla Motors is developing its next electric car. Down the road in Palo Alto, Shai Agassi‘s Better Place is designing regional electric-car charging networks and battery-swapping stations for Australia, Canada, Denmark, Israel, and the United States.
Backing those companies is VantagePoint Venture Partners. The venture capital firm is making big bets on green tech by funding nearly two dozen startups involved in everything from LED lighting to algae biofuels to water to the smart grid.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
[...] GreenMonk news roundup 07/23/2009 (greenmonk.net) [...]