Photo credit XcBiker
Here are this week’s top 10 Green numbers – with a bonus one for good luck!
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Price of electricity goes negative in Ireland
On 21st September 2010 the price of electricity in Ireland turned negative for the first time since the market opened in 2007.
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French Post Office Aims to Have 10,000 Electric Vehicles in Use by 2011
Established in 1576, the French post office is the oldest mail delivery system in the world and one of the largest employers in France. Now, it’s going green. La Poste has made sustainability a major goal for the next several years, with its sights set on serious carbon output reduction. To make it happen, the organization is developing a fleet of electric vehicles adapted to the varying needs of urban, suburban and rural mail delivery. The goal? Have 10,000 of them in use by 2011.
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NRDC has been working in China for fifteen years on such issues as climate, energy efficiency, green buildings, clean energy, governance and law, health, and green supply chain issues. This China Environmental News Alert is a weekly compilation of news from around the world on China and the environment.
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OECD lists three steps for sustainable raw materials policy
Green public procurement, eco-labelling and producer responsibility were listed among possible policy options to reduce raw materials consumption in the manufacturing sector, amid growing pressure to decouple economic growth from rising natural resource use.
Lifecycle thinking should be integrated at the very early stages of a product’s conception, the OECD argued at a global forum on sustainable materials management, held in Mechelen, Belgium, this week.
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US Wind Power?s Dismal Quarter – lowest quarter since 2007
The U.S. industry added just 395 megawatts of wind-powered electric generating capacity in the third quarter of 2010, making it the lowest quarter since 2007, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
The industry added only 700 megawatts in the second quarter of 2010.
Year-to-date installations stood at 1,634 MW, down 72 percent versus 2009, and the lowest level since 2006. In 2010, wind projects in the U.S. are being installed at half the rate as in Europe, and a third of the rate as in China.
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US Venture Capital Investment in Cleantech Falls 55% to $575.6 Million in Q3 2010
US venture capital (VC) investment in cleantech companies in Q3 2010 fell to $575.6 million in 53 financing rounds, a 55% decrease in capital and a 22% decrease in deals compared to Q3 2009, according to an Ernst & Young LLP analysis based on data from Dow Jones VentureSource. These results come amidst a quarter of significant corporate engagement with the cleantech sector.
“This quarter reflects the ongoing volatility in cleantech investment that we have observed over the past two years, depending on the presence of the very large transactions we see in cleantech,” said Jay Spencer, Ernst & Young LLP’s Americas Cleantech Director. ?”However, a number factors point to the continuing strength in the US cleantech sector, including growth in Energy Efficiency investments and corporate involvement throughout multiple industries ? from utilities to technology to consumer products.”
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Worldometers – real time world statistics
Fantastic site with constantly updating statistics on things like World population, healthcare expenditure, forest loss, CO2 emissions, water consumed, energy etc.
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Huhne heralds green homes revolution – 100,000 new Green workers by 2015
Chris Huhne, the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, today said that by 2015 up to 100,000 Green Deal workers could be employed in the effort to upgrade Britain?s homes. Currently around 27,000 work in the insulation industry. Legislation to start the process of establishing the Green Deal is due to be introduced into Parliament next month.
The Green Deal is the Government?s new and radical way of making energy efficiency available to all, whether people own or rent their property. The work to upgrade the property will be paid back from the saving on energy bills.
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Nissan sells out of electric Leaf before it hits U.S. showrooms
U.S. consumers looking to get Nissan’s all-electric Leaf will have to wait another year, after dealers sold this year’s entire shipment before the zippy sedan even hit showrooms, the Japanese automaker said Monday.
Nissan dealers have collected more than 20,000 orders for the Leaf, and the bulk are wealthy “early adapters” on the West Coast of the United States, said Carlos Tavares, chair of Nissan’s management committee for the Americas.
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New Zealand wine first in world to come with carbon footprint label
A New Zealand wine has become the first in the world to display the carbon footprint of each individual glass serving on its label ? laying bare to the shopper or drinker the full environmental impact of making and transporting it.
Each bottle of Mobius Marlborough sauvignon blanc ? which takes its name from the highest peak of the range of hills above the town ? will display its carbon emissions for a typical 125ml glass.
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Trucks outsell cars by widest margin in five years
Trucks outsold cars by the highest margin in nearly five years in October, a small sign that the US economy may be starting to improve and a sure sign that the national IQ is not improving!
These trucks aren’t the tractor-trailers that haul freight. They were vehicles such as pickups, SUVs, minivans and smaller SUVs, which made up 54 percent of all U.S. vehicle sales according to industry tracker J.D. Power and Associates, while cars made up 46 percent of the market. That’s the biggest margin of difference between the two categories since December 2005, when trucks accounted for 56 percent of sales.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.