Utilities not as hot for new nuke plants as Bush is Not everyone is as cuckoo for new nuke plants as President Bush, not even the nation's electric utilities. Though some power companies have shown some interest in planning for future nuclear power plants in the U.S., experts concede the stars are not aligned just yet to make nuke power palatable to energy companies. The cost of building a new nuke plant starts at around $1 billion; add to that the well-known risks and you have enough to deter most investors unless there's substantial federal assistance. "The abiding lesson that …

Mike Millikin. What work do you do? I am the publisher/writer of Green Car Congress, a site covering technologies, issues, and policies for sustainable mobility. What does your organization do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute "mission accomplished"? My mission is to build a company that offers a portfolio of media products providing detailed technical, practical business and product information focused on sustainable energy and transportation markets to professionals and consumers. I want to provide people the information and context they need to make the right -- or at least informed -- decisions: personal, business, and political. What do …

U.S. business getting with it on climate change Talk about how the U.S. private sector is taking global warming seriously often flirts with wishful thinking. But we are nothing if not wishful. And flirty. So here goes: It looks like momentum is gathering in the U.S. business community to forthrightly address the issue of climate change. In part due to shareholder and activist lobbying, a growing number of companies are releasing reports on the financial risks associated with warming, including American Electric Power and Cinergy, two of the nation's largest electric-power generators. Just this week, J.P. Morgan Chase, the country's …

Texaco haunted by dirty legacy in Ecuador At a ChevronTexaco shareholder meeting today in California, Amazonian community leaders, celebrities, and activists will confront company officials, focusing attention anew on Texaco's messy legacy in Ecuador. Twenty years of oil exploration in the nation left much of the western edge of the Amazon rainforest in ecological ruin and many villagers with unusually high rates of illness. Though Texaco fled Ecuador back in 1992, its joint venture with the nation's state oil company left behind some 600 unlined open sludge pits, compromised or destroyed about 2.5 million acres of rainforest, and released an …

J.P. Morgan to green lending policies Today, New York banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase will issue new lending policies with an environmental bent. Although the company denies it was pressured into the shift, the bank's pledge is similar to those made in recent months by other financial institutions like Citigroup and Bank of America that have faced pressure from shareholder campaigns and activist groups like the Rainforest Action Network. J.P. Morgan's new guidelines are expected to tie greenhouse-gas emissions to financial costs in the loan review process and set up "No Go Zones" -- areas where the bank will refuse …

Water biz takes off Only 2 percent of the world's water is fresh, and with the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century projecting a 50 percent increase in demand in the next 30 years, food and drinking-water shortages, droughts, devastated agriculture, disease, and even armed conflict over water may be on the horizon. We smell profits! And indeed, over the last five years, stocks in the water sector have leapt 113 percent (while the S&P 500 lost 17 percent), with a 24 percent jump just last year. Companies involved in the $400 billion-a-year global water biz -- delivery …

Hydraulic fracturing raises concerns over water in Western U.S. Despite persistent concerns about its effects on groundwater, the practice of hydraulic fracturing (or "fracing") appears likely to receive an exemption from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act in legislation under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Fracing involves pumping highly pressurized fluids deep underground, forcing oil and natural gas to rise to the surface, where it can be slurped up and sold by companies like Halliburton, for which it generates about $1.5 billion a year. A recent EPA review judged the practice safe, but a whistleblower, 32-year …

You may hate its coffee, you may hate that it drove your favorite mom-n-pop coffeehouse out of business, you may just hate its bland ubiquity -- but you gotta give Starbucks props for its latest initiative. Today the java giant announced that it will buy enough wind energy to meet 5 percent of electricity needs at its North American stores. From the company's press release (not yet up online, the slackers): "Starbucks is mindful of the long-term implications that climate change has on the environment," said Sandra Taylor, Starbucks senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility. "Because the energy used …

After three years of silence following a 2002 lawsuit over its claims on labor practices, Nike has returned to social reporting in a big way, releasing a corporate responsibility report that is, from all indications, a genuine leap forward in corporate transparency. As well as providing detail on its supply chain practices, the report covers areas such as workforce diversity, the environment, community programs and socially responsible investment. An independent review committee of individuals from trade unions, non-governmental organizations, academia and the business community was brought together to strengthen the credibility of the information in the report. Among the more …

Wal-Mart pledges to buy and preserve land to compensate for footprint Retail leviathan Wal-Mart, stung by a spate of bad press accusing it of sprawling consumption of open spaces, excessive storm-water runoff at construction sites, discrimination against women, employment of illegal immigrants, ruthless price-cutting strategies that drive jobs abroad, and shabby treatment of employees ... er, "associates" (did we miss anything?), has launched a campaign it hopes will burnish its tainted image. The company pledged yesterday to buy and preserve enough land to compensate for the acreage lost to its stores, parking lots, and distribution centers for the next 10 …