Top Stories
Starbucks expanding recycling programme with
coffee cups in Chicago.—reliability high.
"This fall, it will send cups used at its Chicago stores to Green Bay,
where a Georgia Pacific paper mill will turn them into Starbucks
napkins. The effort is a major push by Starbucks to create a commercial
market for its used cups, which include 1 billion plastic cups for cold
drinks. Over the past few weeks, it has put recycle and compost bins
into 90 Seattle stores to comply with a new city ordinance. ... The new
ordinance will prevent 6,000 tonnes of food and service ware from
piling onto garbage heaps. Starbucks' cups also are recycled or
composted in San Francisco and Ontario, because of laws there. In areas
without such mandates, commercial demand determines which products are
recycled. 'The biggest roadblock to recycling is the lack of demand for
old paper,' said Jim Hanna, Starbucks' director of environmental impact
and global responsibility. 'We need to create demand for recyclers for
our products.'" Story at imagesfood.com.
[Supply chain
eats its own tail.]
Tata Power to Double Wind Power Capacity to
400 MW This Year.—reliability high.
"Tata Power Ltd., India’s largest non-state generator, plans to double
its wind power capacity to 400 megawatts this year, the company said
today. The Mumbai-based utility plans to add 88 megawatts of capacity
using turbines from Germany’s Kenersys Europe GmbH and will shortly
place an order for a separate 150-megawatt project to be set up in
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu states ... Tata Power generates about 20
percent of its total 3,000 megawatts of capacity from clean sources,
such as wind and hydropower, and plans to expand that share to 25
percent in four years, Managing Director Prasad Menon said in the
statement." See Bloomberg
Businessweek article. [This doesn't mean
it isn't building huge new coal-fired plants at the same time.]
Companies,
Industries, Markets and Supply Chains
Analysis: Silicon Valley all aglow on green
lighting.—reliability high.
"'Lighting is going to completely change over the course of this
decade,' said Alan E. Salzman, the chief executive of VantagePoint
Venture Partners, a venture capital fund in Silicon Valley. His firm
has $4.5 bn in capital committed to start-ups across different sectors,
but lighting is an area he is very bullish about." More about companies
and advances in LEDs, including cost reductions. From Reuters.
Lloyd's Offers Clean Shipping Index
Verification.—reliability high.
"Lloyd’s Register, the London-based ship classification, consulting,
and risk management firm, has announced it will offer a verification
service to ship-owners and operators wishing to demonstrate their
success in reducing the environmental impact of their activities beyond
the requirements of classification or statutory rules and regulations
in a company press release." Part of the Clean Shipping Project. See Environmental
Leader.
CDM offset assessors face fresh criticism.—reliability
high.
"Companies tasked with evaluating projects for the UN-backed Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) offsetting scheme performed even worse than
last year, according to a damning new report. ... It concluded once
again that some DOEs were failing to adequately audit and register
projects in line with the CDM's rules and warned that the issue could
become more pronounced as project verification requirements tighten.
... The report is the latest in a in line of criticisms for the CDM
scheme, which has been repeatedly accused of failing to deliver the
scale of emission reductions promised by project developers." BusinessGreen
story. Access report here.
Unilever tops new climate change index.—reliability
high.
"Unilever has topped a new index that assesses how Britain's largest
companies are dealing with climate change, outperforming other industry
leaders such as Tesco and Centrica. The new FTSE carbon strategy index
weighs up the "carbon risk and performance" of the UK's largest 350
firms. It compares them on cutting carbon emissions, making their
products more energy-efficient and setting the most ambitious reduction
targets. ... The index, published today, is one of a series of
initiatives to measure and reward carbon efficiency. It argues that
firms with a strong grasp of the risks of climate change and of high
carbon emissions are likely to be the most efficient and best-run."
Article in The
Guardian.
Science and
Economics
'Carbon storage' faces leak dilemma, study
finds.—reliability high.
"The new research, published by the journal Nature Geoscience, wades
into the debate with an estimate of capturing enough carbon to help
limit warming to 2 degrees C ... The gas will have to be stored for
tens of thousands of years to avoid becoming a threat to future
generations, a scenario similar to that for nuclear waste, it says.
This means less than 1 percent of the stored volume can be allowed to
leak from a chamber per 1,000 years. ... 'The dangers of carbon
sequestration are real and the development of CCS should not be used as
a way of justifying continued high fossil-fuel emissions,' said
Shaffer. 'On the contrary, we should greatly limit CO2 emissions in our
time to reduce the need for massive carbon sequestration and thus
reduce unwanted consequences and burdens over many future generations
from the leakage of sequestered CO2.'" See item in grist
from AFP. Abstract of research report here.
[Although
politicians and coal companies like the concept, it is not clear that
CCS will work on the scale required. We may just be using it as a way
to excuse continued use of high-emission technology.]
[Crossposted from HaraBara.com courtesy of HaraBara, Inc. Copyright © 2010 HaraBara, Inc.]
