Top Stories
France Abandons Plan for Carbon Tax.—reliability
high.
"After months of political rancor and legal obstacles, the French
government on Tuesday shelved its plan to introduce a tax on carbon
emissions that had been a cornerstone of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s
environmental policy. ... analysts said the drubbing handed to the
center-right government on Sunday in regional elections brought the
U-turn from Mr. Sarkozy." Story at The
New York Times.
Cornell Expert: World has underestimated
climate-change effects.—reliability high.
"As one of the authors of 'A Very Inconvenient Truth,' published in
the peer-reviewed journal Oceanography (March 2010), Greene said that
he and his co-authors conclude that the United Nation's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 4th assessment
report underestimates the potential dangerous effects that man-made
climate change will have on society." Story at PhysOrg. PDF of
article here.
[Worth
reading--only five pages. We are headed for a very different Earth.]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
Lighting Retrofit Saves GlaxoSmithKline $46K
a Year.—reliability high.
"By switching to LED lights at a Canadian office, pharmaceutical giant
GlaxoSmithKline estimates it is saving $46,000 a year. The lighting
retrofit at its Mississauga, Ontario, office, involved switching from
fixtures that used 26 watts an hour to new ones using nine watts an
hour, said Terrence DeWolfe of GlaxoSmithKline, in a statement. ...
DeWolfe said the fixtures should pay for themselves in about two
years." From Environmental
Leader. [Those
26 Watt fixtures must have been fluorescents already.]
Shutting Down Computers at Night Saves Ford
More Than One Million Dollars.—reliability high.
"Under a new program called PC Power Management, the power settings on
Windows laptops and desktop computers are centrally controlled to
reduce energy waste and optimize software updates. A managed shutdown
of computer systems not in use, especially overnight and on weekends,
further reduces energy use. ... The savings to the company on power
cost alone is expected to top $1.2 million annually when the system is
fully implemented. By reducing PC power consumption, Ford also stands
to reduce its carbon footprint by an estimated 16,000 to 25,000 metric
tons annually. ... Ford developed its PC Power Management system with
NightWatchman™ software from 1E Inc. 1E research found that almost half
of all employees who use computers at work typically do not power them
down at the end of the working day. In the U.S. alone, over $2.8
billion of PC power is being wasted every year, according to 1E." Ford press
release.
In Response to California Fuel Regulation,
Cargo Ships Chart More Precarious Routes.—reliability high.
To clean the air, California now requires ships within 24 nautical
miles of its coast to use a cleaner-burning (and more expensive) diesel
fuel, called lower-sulfur marine distillates, rather than cheaper
heavy-fuel oil. Many vessels have therefore put a jog in their route to
minimize the distance they sail within 24 nm of the coast. They save a
few thousand dollars in fuel cost by sailing outside the established
traffic separation scheme and through a military bombing range. See New
York Times Green Inc. blog. [Not an unexpected
consequence, but a "we hoped they wouldn't" consequence.]
KLM hopes to offer commercial biofuel
flights from 2011.—reliability high.
"Following on from the operation of its first ever passenger flight
powered by sustainable biokerosene in November 2009, Dutch airline KLM,
part of Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM, has said it hopes to offer
commercial biofuel flights from 2011, according to a report." See NewNet.
More in this
item (in Dutch) with video.
Mobile phone buyback offered at carrier
stores.—reliability medium.
"Start-up eRecyclingCorps on Tuesday is scheduled to announce that its
customer Sprint is offering a phone buyback program in which consumers
can get money for older phones when they upgrade to a newer model.
eRecycling Corp has developed an in-store application and a Web
service, offered from Sprint's site. The application lets a person see
how much an older phone is worth and get a credit for its residual
value when buying a new one. A consumer can also use a Web site from
home, mail a phone in, and get a credit for the returned product."
eRecyclingCorps' "business model is to collect turned-in phones and
have the data cleaned off. Right now it plans to resell those phones
for the domestic market in which people are seeking replacements for
lost or stolen goods. But the company is seeking to establish
relationships with carriers in India, China, and other countries
outside the U.S." See CNET
Reviews. eRecyclingCorps site.
Related story at Reuters.
[Crossposted from HaraBara.com courtesy of HaraBara, Inc. Copyright © 2010 HaraBara, Inc.]
