Climate Technology
All Stories
-
New wind now costs the same as new coal — the tiebreaker is one of them kills you
The radical environmentalists at Bloomberg have declared that the world's best new wind projects now produce electricity that costs about the same as electricity produced from new coal-fired power plants. A lot goes into these calculations, but here's the bottom line: wind costs $65 a megawatt-hour, while power from new coal-fired power plants costs about […]
-
How green are those solar panels, anyway?
SolarWorld’s ratings aim to keep the photovoltaic industry on the sunny side.So which is the sunniest solar manufacturer of them all? I don’t mean companies whose photovoltaic panels generate the most carbon-free electricity, but which are the most environmentally friendly in their manufacturing, labor, and recycling practices. Solar modules can contain toxic materials, and they […]
-
Putin test-drives, makes fun of radical new hybrid
Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia's richest man and owner of the New Jersey Nets, has bankrolled an all-Russian natural gas-electric hybrid car called the ë-mobile (pronounced yo-mobile), but that wasn’t enough to impress Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his tiger blood. Putin: "This yo-mobile of yours, I hope it won't fall into pieces, will it?" Before a […]
-
How a carbon-neutral product is made
Making environmentally-responsible products is hard, so kudos to M.E. Heuck Co., houseware manufacturer, for even trying. After more than a year of work with their partner FirstCarbon Solutions, they have unveiled ZEROCA Carbon Neutral Cookware. Yeah, they had to buy offsets to make it totally carbon-neutral, but first they did their best to tamp down […]
-
How to prevent climate change: Blot out the sun
As Montgomery Burns reminds us, since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun. That’s lucky for the top brains who attended Sunday’s conference on climate change and geoengineering — deliberately tweaking the Earth, sea, and atmosphere for improved performance. Of the several geoengineering solutions they discussed, only one promised to alter […]
-
Americans are crap at recycling mercury-containing CFLs — here’s how to do better
Update: Turns out the original story on which this post is based is bunk. Check out an update direct from the EPA here: CFLs are not a significant source of mercury, says EPA Every year, Americans recycle only 2 percent of the compact fluorescent light bulbs they toss an unknown proportion of the CFLs they toss. The […]
-
Powering up: Green tech investment surges
The money’s coming in for green tech.Photo: MoneyblognewzSome good news on the environmental front for a change: Global investment in green technology in the first quarter of the year spiked 52 percent compared to the previous quarter, to $2.57 billion. That’s according to a report released Tuesday by the Cleantech Group, a San Francisco research […]
-
How to make energy savings info compelling
Over at the consistently interesting EnergySavvy.com, they’ve got a neat little post about the kind of cues that increase people’s participation in energy savings programs. They are helping the Department of Energy pilot test the new national Home Energy Score. You can read their post for all the details; I’ll just pass along the conclusions. […]
-
How does your supermarket stack up to the world’s greenest grocery store?
The Whole Foods in Dedham, Mass. is bringing new meaning to the word “greengrocer.” It’s a showcase facility, which means it basically tries out all the company’s environmental best practices to see how they work in the wild. The result is a store with an inspiring combination of architectural and procedural innovations: The building’s steel […]
-
By 2015, it will be illegal for New Yorkers to throw electronics in the trash
If you thought forcing restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus was an intrusion by the nanny state, get ready for the Mary F'in Poppins of regulations: To prepare consumers and businesses for the arrival of a 2015 law that will ban the disposal of electronics in the trash, New York state is forcing […]
