Top Stories
Agency Will Create National Climate Service
to Spur Adaptation.—reliability high.
The U.S. administration announced creation of a new service within the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help businesses,
local governments and individuals with information on how to cope with
climate changes. "The proposed entity would provide "user-friendly"
information to help governments and businesses adapt to climate change,
creating a central federal source of information on everything from
projections of sea level rise to maps of the nation's best sites for
wind and solar power." "as plans for the new climate service shape up,
NOAA launched a new Web site yesterday, climate.gov, designed to provide
access to a wide range of climate information". From
The New York Times. See NOAA press release here.
CEO Report Envisions $6 Trillion in
Sustainable New Business Opportunities.—reliability high.
A report from Alcoa and the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development "outlines new business opportunities valued at about $6.2
trillion that will lead to a sustainable world by 2050". The report
looks at the challenge of a world in 2050 with 40% more inhabitants and
asks what sort of business and industrial developments would be
required and possible to give all of those people decent, sustainable
lifestyles. See
Environmental Leader. PDF of report here.
["The
transformation ahead represents vast opportunities in a broad range of
business segments . . . . In natural resources, health and education
alone, the broad order of magnitude of some of these could be around
US$ 0.5-1.5 trillion per annum in 2020, rising to between US$ 3-10
trillion per annum in 2050 at today’s prices, which is around 1.5-4.5%
of world GDP in 2050."]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
Where's Google Putting Its Money?.—reliability
medium.
As a major power consumer, Google is motivated to reduce fossil energy
consumption both for its own financial reasons and to avoid criticism.
"Besides promoting policy with Clean Energy 2030, a plan to wean the
U.S. off coal and oil for electricity by 2030, Google is investing in
cleantech on several fronts: developing utility scale renewable energy
that can compete straight up with coal, and supporting commercial
adoption of plug-in vehicles. Google aims to drive the costs of both
down and roll out innovative and scalable solutions within 3 to 7
years. Its solar installation, Power Meter, venture capital fund, and
Google Energy are further examples of the company’s expanding reach
into the clean energy sector." Post lists 11 Google initiatives. From
SolveClimate blog.
Nuclear giant Areva buys solar company Ausra.—reliability
high.
"The world's largest nuclear plant builder, Areva SA, is entering the
solar power industry, with the company announcing on Monday its
acquisition of U.S.-based solar thermal player Ausra." More on the
deal. See
Reuters story.
25% US Renewable Electricity Standard Will
Create 274,000 Jobs.—reliability high.
"A new study released by Navigant Consulting finds that a 25% by 2025
national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) would support hundreds of
thousands of new American jobs and prevent a near-term collapse in some
industries. Job growth in the wind, solar, biomass, waste-to-energy and
hydropower industries would particularly benefit the Southeastern U.S.
and manufacturing states whose Congressional delegations have had a
history of voting against incentives and other measures designed to
support the renewable energy sector." See
Renewable Energy World. PDF of report here.
.Yellow+Blue Wines go a Shade Greener.—reliability
high.
.Wine importer J. Soif, Inc. says it has become the only carbon-neutral
wine importer in the U.S. through its certified organic wine brand,
Yellow+Blue. "Due to its eco-friendly Tetra Pak packaging, the carbon
footprint of Yellow+Blue wines is 46% less than that of wine in
traditional glass bottles. In order to offset the remaining 54%, the
company has purchased 472 metric tons of verified carbon offsets to
take responsibility for one hundred percent of the emissions generated
by moving its wine from the vineyards to its packaging plants and
warehouses. The carbon credits, which were purchased from Boulder, CO
based Renewable Choice Energy, support a landfill gas-to-energy carbon
reduction project in the United States." From CSRwire. [The company is
clearly trying to be greener than other wine importers, but its claim
to be carbon neutral is problematic. It has bought offsets to cover the
transportation of its wine from vineyard to bottling plant, but not the
emissions associated with growing and crushing the grapes, nor
packaging the wine, nor distributing it to retailers. "Importation" is
carbon neutralized, but not other emissions. Distribution emissions are
significantly reduced by use of Tetra Pak packaging, though.]
Government and
Regulation
Energy Star for Data Centers Coming in June.—reliability
high.
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is wrapping up work on an
Energy Star program for data centers that it hopes to launch in June,
EPA officials said this week. The goals of the program are to give
organizations more incentive to improve the energy efficiency of their
data centers, and also give them a way to track the results of
efficiency projects over time, said the EPA's Alexandra Sullivan, who
described the program Thursday at the Green Grid data center conference
in San Jose, California." From
PCWorld.
[Crossposted from HaraBara.com courtesy of HaraBara, Inc. Copyright © 2010 HaraBara, Inc.]
