GreenerPolitics

by Lisa Margonelli, The Atlantic

Forty years ago, the steel mills and factories south of Chicago were known for their sooty smokestacks, plumes of steam, and throngs of workers. Clean-air laws have since gotten rid of the smoke, and labor-productivity initiatives have eliminated most of the workers. What remains is the steam, billowing up into the sky day after day, just as it did a generation ago.

The U.S. economy wastes 55 percent of the energy it consumes, and while American companies have ruthlessly wrung out other forms of inefficiency, that figure hasn’t changed much in recent decades. The amount lost by electric utilities alone could power all of Japan.

A 2005 report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that U.S. industry could profitably recycle enough waste energy—including steam, furnace gases, heat, and pressure—to reduce the country’s fossil-fuel use (and greenhouse-gas emissions) by nearly a fifth. A 2007 study by the Mc­Kinsey Global Institute sounded largely the same note; it concluded that domestic industry could use 19 percent less energy than it does today—and make more money as a result.

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By Helen Briggs, BBC News

An important step has been taken in the quest to create a synthetic lifeform.

A US team reports in Science magazine how it built the entire DNA code of a common bacterium in the laboratory using blocks of genetic material.

The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Publication of the research gives others the chance to scrutinise it. Some have ethical concerns.

It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms.

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Plenty, the World in Green By Eric Mack

If someone tried to sell you a zero-emissions car that costs around $10,000, you might think he was full of hot air. Turns out it’s the car that’s full of it: The vehicle runs on and emits nothing but air. Now, after more than fifteen years of languishing in automotive obscurity, it’s heading for mass production.

The Air Car is the brainchild of Guy Negre, a French inventor and former Formula One engineer. In February, Negre’s company, Motor Development International (MDI), announced a deal to manufacture the technology with Tata Motors, India’s largest commercial automaker and a major player worldwide. “It’s an innovative technology, it’s an environment-friendly technology, and a scalable technology,” says Tata spokesperson Debasis Ray. “It can be used in cars, in commercial vehicles, and in power generation.”

Though Negre first unveiled the technology in the early 1990s, interest has only recently grown. In addition to the Tata deal, which could put thousands of the cars on the road in India by the end of the decade, Negre has signed deals to bring the design to twelve other countries, including South Africa, Israel, and Germany. But experts say the car may never make it to US streets.

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Here is a relatively dated video about MDI’s air car that will give you an idea of the technology involved in the air car:

from CBC News

Resources Minister Gary Lunn said Wednesday that he fired the head of the nuclear safety watchdog for her “lack of leadership” in handling the shutdown of a medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor late last year.

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission president Linda Keen was fired hours before she and Lunn were set to appear before a natural resources committee meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday. 

Lunn, in his appearance Wednesday morning, told the committee that the closure of the nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., “threatened a national and international health crisis.”

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By Forbes Bagatelle-Black, EV World

We live in a polarized nation.

Millions of people passionately believe that our current military action in Iraq is absolutely necessary to preserve our national security. Millions of other people believe, with equal passion, that the situation in Iraq threatens not only our national security but the political stability of the entire globe.

Many feel that the money we are spending on our current military actions is a small amount compared to what we would be spending if we allowed the situation to go out of control. Others feel that the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending are only making the situation worse by allowing us to remain entrenched in a conflict we cannot win.

But there is one idea that is garnering increasing support from hawks and doves alike; our nation will be safer when everyone starts driving electric vehicles. EVs will increase our self-sufficiency by allowing us to use domestically-produced energy to fuel our automobiles. A dramatic decrease in our demand for foreign oil would cut off the cash flow to terrorist organizations bent on the destruction of our society. Since EVs can run on renewable power sources, widespread use of them could eliminate the threat of global warming, which would eliminate the associated threats of natural disasters and the political upheaval such disasters would create.

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