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Friday Green Numbers round-up for March 25th 2011

Green Numbers

And here is a round-up of this week’s Green numbers…

  1. Infographic of the Day: Do Americans Pay Too Little for Gas?

    Even with prices at the pump hovering around $3.50, that’s a fraction of the prices in other rich countries

    Every year without fail, as the days get longer and warmer, gas prices begin to shoot up. Throw in intense turmoil in the Middle East, and the annual price skyrocket and accompanying fretting began even earlier this year. But while gas prices have risen to more than $3 a gallon in the United States, remember that gas here is still cheaper than many places–especially developed nations–around the world.

    This infographic from Flowing Data shows where–according to gas price tables on Wikipedia–people are paying more… read on

  2. China battery plant poisons more than 100 villagers

    Lead emissions from a battery plant in eastern China have poisoned more than 100 villagers, including 35 children, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday, the latest in a string of heavy metal pollution cases in the country.

    A total of 139 villagers in a village near Taizhou city in coastal Zhejiang province have been found to have elevated lead levels in their blood, Xinhua cited the provincial health department as saying in a statement.

    Three of the adults had lead in their blood more than… read on

  3. Philips AmbientLED 12.5 Watts LED Lightbulb (Product Review)

    The Philips AmbientLED 12.5-watt A19 LED lightbulb (quite a name!) is probably the favorite LED bulb that I’ve tried so far. It beats the competition when it comes to light output (800 lumens vs. 450-590 lumens for the other LEDs that I’ve tried), the design of the bulb is very innovative, and light quality is excellent.

    Read on for my full review and more technical specs on the Philips AmbientLED…. read on

  4. Obama administration announces massive coal mining expansion

    Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced yesterday an enormous expansion in coal mining that threatens to increase U.S. climate pollution by an amount equivalent to more than half of what the United States currently emits in a year. A statement from Wild Earth Guardians, Sierra Club, and Defenders of Wildlife put the announcement in perspective:

    When burned, the coal threatens to release more than 3.9 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, equal to the annual emissions from 300 coal-fired power plants, further cementing the United States as a leading contributor to…. read on

  5. The triumph of coal marketing

    Do you have an opinion about nuclear power? About the relative safety of one form of power over another? How did you come to this opinion?

    For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced… read on

  6. King Crabs Invade Antarctica for First Time in 40 Million Years

    King crabs haven’t historically caroused in Antarctic waters — it’s simply been too cold for the famed crustaceans. But warming waters have allowed crusading crabs to march further south than they have in millions of years. Which is bad news for the diverse sea life currently thriving in the underwater habitats around the Antarctic peninsula: Seeing as how they’ve been living in a crab-less environment for 40 million years, scientists now fear that Antarctic animals like brittle sea stars, mussels, and sponges will be sitting ducks for the marauding king crabs… read on

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Photo credit house of bamboo

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Friday Green Numbers round-up 05/07/2010

Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

And here are this week’s Green numbers:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Suddenly the business case for being an ethical, non-polluting business seems all the stronger

BP Oil Spill

Photo credit NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Is the massive environment, health and safety (EHS) risks, which fossil fuel companies represent, starting to hurt their businesses?

Reading this morning about the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the continuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico I note that BP’s market value has fallen from ?122bn last week to ?102.5bn today – a loss of almost ?20bn in a week (or just over 16% of its value).

What has to be really worrying for BP investors is that

Things must be pretty grim at present in BP’s plush London HQ but it is not like BP have an exceptionally poor record by fossil fuel producers standards. For example:

And this EHS risk is not limited to oil and gas companies. On the contrary:

Massey Energy, the owner of the Upper Big Branch coal mine which exploded four weeks ago, killing 29 miners, has a terrible record of environmental and health and safety abuses. In fact, so bad are they that the FBI announced recently that they would be investigating Massey for the possible bribery of federal officials overseeing mining industry regulation and for potential criminal negligence.

Massey’s main competitors in the US are little better –

With the rapidly increasing number of environmental lawsuits taking place companies like the above are going to be spending more and more of their time in the courts with the consequent losses in time, productivity and reputation which that entails.

When you couple that with the growing interest in environmental issues being taken by the SEC, the EPA and investors and suddenly the business case for being an ethical, non-polluting business seems all the stronger.

After all, as many people noted on Twitter in the last few days, spills of air from wind farms or sun from solar plants are not going to have the devastating environmental consequences we have witnessed in the last decades as a result of our addiction to fossil fuels.

You should follow me on twitter here.

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Investors, the EPA and now the SEC are making pollution an increasingly unattractive option

Shareholder

Photo credit Neubie

A perfect storm consisting of the EPA, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and investors is pressuring companies to come clean on their environmental risks and performance.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about FaceBook’s decision to use a primarily coal-burning utility to power its new data center where I asked should FaceBook’s investors be worried about the decision.

Now the SEC has started taking an interest in this area as well and recently clarified that companies’ have responsibilities [PDF] to report on:

  1. the direct effects of existing and pending environmental regulation, legislation, and international treaties on the company’s business, its operations, risk factors, and in Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
  2. the indirect effects of such legislation and regulation on a company’s business, such as changes in demand for products that create or reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
  3. the effect on a company’s business and operations related to the physical changes to our planet caused by climate change ? such as rising seas, stronger storms, and increased drought. These changes to the environment could have a number of material effects on corporations, such as impairing the distribution and production of goods and damaging property, plant, and equipment

In announcing the clarification SEC Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar stated that the SEC will begin to be far more proactive on environmental reporting:

The Commission’s action today is a first step in an area where the Commission will begin to play a more proactive role, consistent with our mandate under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, to consider the environment in our regulatory action. The National Environmental Policy Act charged the Federal Government “to use all practicable means” to, among other things, “fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations.”

Noting the interest of the SEC and their clarification around companies’ environmental risk reporting requirements, investors are now becoming more vocal and are increasingly asking companies to report more information about their environmental risks and responsibilities. These investors need to look after the long term interests of their funds and the last thing they want is to have their monies disappear in some environment-related mishap like the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill or a class action litigation.

Ceres, the non-profit network, reported recently that investors filed a record 95 climate change resolutions, a 40% increase over the 2009 proxy season! And these are serious investors. Jack Ehnes, CEO of CalSTRS for example, manages $131 billion dollars in assets. That’s billion, with a b!

As Ceres notes:

Many of the investors are part of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), an alliance of more than 80 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $8 trillion.

$8 trillion! Investors with a war chest of $8 trillion wield a lot of clout.

Combine this with the fact that on Dec 29th 2009 the EPA’s Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule came into effect and it states:

suppliers of fossil fuels or industrial greenhouse gases, manufacturers of vehicles and engines, and facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons or more per year of GHG emissions are required to submit annual reports to EPA. The gases covered by the proposed rule are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons (PFC), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and other fluorinated gases including nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and hydrofluorinated ethers (HFE).

So, the EPA is requiring the reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the top 10,000 emitters in the US, the SEC now has environmental risk reporting and transparency in its sights and investors with considerable resources are looking for more details on possible environmental risks from companies they invest in. You have to think that this is not a good time to be in the pollution business!

UPDATE – A reader on the Energy Collective reminded me that I forgot to include reputational risks:

Another climate-related risk called out in SEC’s Interpretive Guidance is reputational risk: “Another example of a potential indirect risk from climate change that would need to be considered for risk factor disclosure is the impact on a registrant?s reputation. Depending on the nature of a registrant?s business and its sensitivity to public opinion, a registrant may have to consider whether the public?s perception of any publicly available data relating to its greenhouse gas emissions could expose it to potential adverse consequences to its business operations or financial condition resulting from reputational damage.”

I had read this but somehow neglected to include it in this post, thanks for the reminder.

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Should FaceBook’s investors be worried that the site is sourcing energy for its new data center from coal?

Mountain-top removal

Photo credit The Sierra Club

Should FaceBook’s investors be worries that the site is sourcing energy for its new data center from primarily coal-fired power?

FaceBook is fourth largest web property (by unique visitor count) and well on its way to becoming third. It is valued in excess of $10 billion and its investors include Russian investment company DST, Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital and Microsoft.

FaceBook announced last month that it would be locating its first data center in Prinville Oregon. The data center looks to be all singing and dancing on the efficiency front and is expected to have a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.15. So far so good.

However, it soon emerged that FaceBook are purchasing the electricity for their data center from Pacific Power, a utility owned by PacifiCorp, a utility whose primary power-generation fuel is coal!

Sourcing power from a company whose generation comes principally from coal is a very risky business and if there is anything that investors shy away from, it is risk!

Why is it risky?

Coal has significant negative environmental effects from its mining through to its burning to generate electricity contaminating waterways, destroying ecosystems, generation of hundreds of millions of tons of waste products, including fly ash, bottom ash, flue gas desulfurisation sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals and emitting massive amounts of radiation.

And let’s not forget that coal burning is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the air [PDF].

The US EPA recently ruled that:

current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases–carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)–in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.

Note the wording “the public health and welfare of current and future generations”

Who knows what legislation the EPA will pass in the coming months and years to control CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants in the coming months and years – and the knock on effects this will have on costs.

Now think back to the litigation associated with asbestos – the longest and most expensive tort in US history. Then note that climate change litigation is gaining ground daily, the decision to go with coal as a primary power source starts to look decidedly shaky.

Then GreenPeace decided to wade in with a campaign and FaceBook page to shame FaceBook into reversing this decision. Not good for the compay image at all.

Finally, when you factor in the recent revolts by investors in Shell and BP to decisions likely to land the companies in hot water down the road for pollution, the investors in FaceBook should be asking some serious questions right about now.

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Friday Morning Green Numbers round-up 02/19/2010

Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

Here is this Friday’s Green Numbers round-up:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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GreenMonk Energy and Sustainability show for Monday January 25th

We had a great show today – almost all positive stories and lots of interaction – see below for the transcript:

Tom Raftery :
Hey all – Monday Jan 25th, show kicking off in 10 mins

Alice :
yes

Fabian :
yes

Tom Raftery :
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60I16A20100119
http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20100122/157651199.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100121/wl_africa_afp/kenyaethiopiaenergyelectricitysocietyenvironment
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/01/20/senator-murkowski-aims-to-shut-down-ghg-reg/
http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_14219650
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/21/ozone-united-states-asian-pollution
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60O0UC20100125?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/24/beijing-cycling-capital-plans
http://ecogeek.org/computing-and-gadgets/3047-greenpeace-releases-2010-green-electronics-ranking?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoGeek+%28EcoGeek%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

monkchips :
hello mate. we really need to establish better reminder mechanisms than twitter.
i missed your reminder!
and HELLO!

Tom Raftery :
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/01/24/samsung-signs-66-billion-solar-and-wind-power-deal-with-ontario-canada/

mikethebee :
How about and alarm clock

monkchips :
is the turtleneck in honour of this week’s tablet?

Tom Raftery :
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/01/24/samsung-signs-66-billion-solar-and-wind-power-deal-with-ontario-canada/

mikethebee :
Tom wishes his body to ‘disappear’ into the background

Tom Raftery :
http://practicalsustainability.blogspot.com/2010/01/ghg-software-innovation-continues-60.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Practicalsustainability+%28PracticalSustainability%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2256640/carbon-reporting-software

monkchips :
to be fair Verdantix has done a stunning job of tracking the carbon accounting firms…
ya think?>
SAS – i really liked their honesty/approach

Tom Raftery :
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/business/energy-environment/24idaho.html?th&emc=th
http://meridianandthecoolwind.blogspot.com/

mikethebee :
And our UK utility has just bumped up the price of the low user tier and reduced the upper usage tier price

Tom Raftery :
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/11/obama-energy-climate-one-year-in-office/
http://blog.connectedplanetonline.com/briefingroom/2009/12/17/vice-president-biden-kicks-off-72-billion-recovery-act-broadband-program/
http://www.betterplace.com/company/press-release-detail/better-place-secures-350-million-series-b-round-led-by-hsbc-group/

marilynpratt :
Wow more funding than Haiti received

Joe :
Great news from Better Place – just such a shame that the Olympics People decided to choose BMW rather than Nissan for the London Olympics, so we aren’t going to see a BetterPlace network in London by 2012…

Tom Raftery :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/paper-ethical-sourcing-supply-chain-carbon-footprint
http://blogs.msdn.com/see/archive/2010/01/20/city-of-miami-using-windows-7-to-reduce-power-costs.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/17/carbon-diaries-saci-lloyd-television

monkchips :
cathy lloyd? the topless model? 😉

Tom Raftery :
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_offices/post/new.cfm
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-19-stephen-colbert-on-mountaintop-removal-mining-video/

monkchips :

Tom- you should get the show transcribed every week.
get some blog posts out of it.


mikethebee :

I am tagging my green news on twitter with #greenmonk. I hope that will help ppl filter it for this show.

marilynpratt :
++! @monkchips

monkchips :
good show tom!

marilynpratt :
THANKS

Alice :
All really interesting, thank you very much Tom

Ian B :
Thanks Tom

mikethebee :
Cheers

Tom Raftery :
Thanks everyone for your time, interest and participation in the comments – always great

Joe :
Cheers Tom

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GreenMonk Energy and Sustainability show for Monday 18th Jan

Watch live streaming video from greenmonktv at livestream.com

We had a rocky start on today’s Energy & Sustainability show when the video didn’t work initially but a quick re-start of Livestream (the video platform I use) for the show got us back on track (if a few minutes late).

Here is the chatstream from today’s show:

Tom Raftery :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/traftery/tags/ecologistasenaccion/
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60E5VG20100116?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010937.html
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/12/despite-epa-deal-massey-water-violations-more-frequent/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34809699/ns/us_news-environment/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8461727.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/18/shell-shareholders-fury-tar-sands
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60D6IP20100114?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://dallas.dbusinessnews.com/viewnews.php?article=bwire/20100114005759r1.xml
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jan/14/tva-purchasing-wind-power-kansas-illinois/
http://newenergyfocus.com/do/ecco/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=32&listitemid=3434&section=Wind
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/01/incentives-included-in-recovery-act-may-stimulate-community-scale-wind-projects?cmpid=rss
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-awards-23-billion-new-clean-tech-manufacturing-jobs
http://gas2.org/2010/01/14/doe-grants-187-million-to-improve-fuel-efficiency-of-long-haul-trucks/2/
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-11-ford-fusion-hybrid-wins-2010-car-of-the-year-no-green-spin/

Joe :
Good thing is it’s terrific to drive too!
And it’ll do 47mph running purely on electric!
which is quite a lot faster than a prius will

Tom Raftery :
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/audis-electric-car-gets-even-hotter/

Joe :
It’s very cool – the new one at least… nice how they’re refined it since Frankfurt

Tom Raftery :
http://blogs.zdnet.com/sustainability/?p=968&tag=col1;post-968

Joe :
and very cool they’ll actually produce it. We all thought it was concept, but seems real now. (You’re right on price though Tom – won’t be cheap)

Tom Raftery :
http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/01/walmart-sustainability-20/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TriplePundit+%28Triple+Pundit%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.iomnet.org.uk/News/Manufacturing/January-2010/Panasonic-pledges-to-cut-carbon-emissions-19559912.aspx
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/01/12/GE-to-build-China-smart-grid-demo-center/UPI-76891263323751/

Joe :
Unrelated to what you’re talking about with China Tom – but thought this was cool/interesting. Boris wants London to be the first ‘plastic bag free’ city. Maybe you’ve seen it http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991689.ece. My question is, what are we replacing these with? Paper? Our own stuff… I wonder how this pans out

Tom Raftery :
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/cement-giant-tackles-its-footprint/
http://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/community_content/_low_carbon_news/8358/rss
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/apple-getting-into-energy-management/

MikeTheBee :
Joe: Ireland introduced a charge for all plastic bags and it has reduced the usage many fold.

Tom Raftery :
http://earth2tech.com/2010/01/12/egg-energy-the-netflix-of-batteries-for-the-developing-world/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+earth2tech+%28Earth2Tech%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.ecohuddle.com/wiki/lifetime-costs-of-light-bulbs
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991689.ece

Joe :
Sounds smart
totally – why couldn’t we do like Ireland… I didn’t know about that, but an education campaign – perhaps coupled with a ramped up, bags getting more expensive scheme?

Joe Garde :
Sea Level rise… Well worth looking through… London Thames Flood gates and why Why The Barrier Is Too Small http://www.floodlondon.com/floodtb.htm

Tom Raftery :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/sign-up
http://www.marcgunther.com/2010/01/12/wanted-a-cultural-revolution/

MikeTheBee :
Could you take a couple of minutes to do me an audio promo for your show? just a few words about how you want the show to develop over 2010, and I will record it now.
Okay via skype maybe

divydovy :
Great show Tom thanks

Joe Garde :
thanks Tom … cheers

MikeTheBee :
Cheers, Tom

Tom Raftery :
Thanks everyone for the interest, and contributions

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Mobile phones – distributed air quality sensor network?

Since giving my talk on sustainability in the mobile phone sector at Mobile 2.0 in Barcelona a few weeks back and writing my post about how Augmented Reality on mobiles could be transformative for Green tech I have been thinking a lot about how mobiles could make a significant positive contribution to the planet.

The context behind this is that while there are 1 billion PCs in the world and 1.4 billion internet users, there are 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions and climbing. One possibility I posited at Mobile 2.0 was that mobiles could become clients for grid computing projects like IBM’s World Community Grid. This would add significantly to the compute power of the grid (but for now battery life considerations probably means this is still a few years out).

The other thought rattling around in my head was probably sparked off by my discussions with IBM execs around their Smarter Planet initiative. It occurs to me that if mobile phones had built-in air quality monitors, you could very quickly build up a real-time map of pollution hotspots. Current municipal pollution monitors are static and far too few in number to give a meaningful picture of air quality but if mobile phones had this capability, the combining of the air quality information with the GPS data from the phone would allow for pinpointing of pollution trouble spots very quickly.

Obviously for this to be effective, the data would need to be anonymized and uploaded to a central server. Also, the pollution information would need to be made freely available for everyone’s consumption. There may even be a business model there for someone to pay mobile phone users to sample air and upload the information.

A quick bit of research around this thought and I found the video above showing that not alone is it feasible but it wasn’t a hugely original idea on my part 😉

With the recent news of urban pollution being responsible for lower IQ in children and being implicated in premature births of infants and preeclampsia, there is a definite health imperative for something like this. Especially in China, where air pollution is causing massive health problems. Imagine if the Chinese authorities mandated this the way they mandated that all mobile phone chargers use usb back in 2006! Very quickly economies of scale would drive costs down and competition amongst manufacturers would mean smaller chipsets to do this.

Original Rockwell GPS receiver - image from ion.org

Original Rockwell GPS receiver - image from ion.org

For anyone who thinks that air quality monitors would be too bulky for mobile phones, just have a look at what the original GPS receivers looked like (large backpacks) and now they are embedded in most smart phones!

One final thought harking back to my post on Augmented Reality, with air quality data from mobile phones uploaded to the cloud (unintentional pun, sorry!) it would be very straightforward to create an Augmented Reality view of air quality allowing mobile phone owners to ‘see’ pollution in their immediate environment – imagine how quickly that would drive home to people the seriousness of their air quality situation.