Climate Technology
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Google invests in solar thermal company eSolar
Today, Google announced it’s investing $10 million in eSolar, a solar thermal company, as part of its RE<C project. (Speaking of the latter, we’ve got an excellent interview on it coming up soon.) Here’s what esolar has to say about itself (PDF): To serve the renewable electricity needs of utility-scale energy providers, eSolar has developed […]
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Former Hollywood madam to open wind-powered brothel
Heidi Fleiss. Ten things I didn’t know about former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss until I read this awesome Elle story: She’s a vegetarian. She calls herself a tree hugger. She owns 24 parrots. She runs a laundromat called Dirty Laundry in Pahrump, Nev. (Pahrump!) Her next business venture will be wind-powered. It will be a […]
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Monsanto’s latest court triumph cloaks massive market power
At first glance, it was an open-and-shut case. In 1998, Mississippi farmer Homan McFarling bought soybean seeds with genetic traits owned by Monsanto, then as now the world’s dominant provider of genetically modified seeds — and also the biggest herbicide maker. Like all farmers who buy GM seeds, McFarling signed a contract obliging him not […]
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Wal-Mart will open more-efficient stores
Wal-Mart — ah, always Wal-Mart — has plans to open four stores that “will operate at a level that’s 25 percent more efficient than a traditional Wal-Mart supercenter,” according to a representative. The chain, which has a goal of someday having all of its 2,400 U.S. stores reach that level of efficiency, is using tricks […]
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Companies’ green record not important to MBAs, says study
Young professionals are our hope for the future, a generation that will value sustainability and push big employers to take environmental factors into consideration … right, guys? Right? Oh, uh, this just in: MBAs rank a company’s environmental record at the bottom of factors they use to select employers, says a new study. In a […]
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Gingrich’s further explications of green conservatism do not inspire confidence
The more I see of Newt Gingrich’s "conservative environmentalism," the less impressive it seems. The guy’s offering run of the mill, crony capitalist conservatism with a shabby green paint job. The two top-tier public policy approaches to fighting climate change are: supporting green industries, practices, technologies, and infrastructure via subsidies, tax breaks, or mandates, and […]
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Chinese workers pay for our cadmium-battery habit
In the last 20 years, the United States has essentially dismantled its industrial base, moving production of consumer goods south to Mexico and east to Asia. This has not only dramatically lowered the cost of goods, fueling a consumer boom; it has also helped make our economy less energy-intensive, and lowered our exposure to industrial […]
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Starbucks will no longer offer organic milk
Photo: gisarah Starbucks will cease offering organic milk to its coffee-quaffing customers at the end of February. The company has offered organic cow juice since 2001 at an extra charge, but “orders of drinks made with organic milk have consistently been a small percentage of total orders,” according to a spokesperson. The chain has stopped […]
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Business-y news I should write more about, but probably won’t
GE is going to double its investment in renewable energy from $3b to $6b; Toyota plans to offer plug-in hybrids by 2010; meanwhile, GM, which also promises a plug-in by 2010, just struck a deal with Coskata, a start-up which will be making cellulosic ethanol from waste products. [Token acknowledgement that cars are not the […]
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New MacBook Air has some green qualities
Photo: apple.com Apple Inc. head honcho Steve Jobs has introduced the new MacBook Air. Your nerdy cousin’s new object of lust is LED backlit, comes with a recycle-friendly aluminum case, and gives purchasers the option of an efficient 64-gigabyte solid-state hard drive. It also boasts a mercury- and arsenic-free display, a circuit board without brominated […]
