Climate Technology

Wal-Mart releases its first “sustainability report”

Hugemongous retailer Wal-Mart released its first “sustainability report” yesterday after having delayed its release several times. In it, the company touts its recent efforts to green its operations, while also admitting it has a long way to go. “We make no claims of being a green company,” said company CEO H. Lee Scott. No argument […]

RED positioned to fund $1.5 billion of recycled energy projects

While humility makes it awkward for me to be posting this, David said it would be OK. (I swear!)

More seriously, this is a day of great pride at RED and I wanted to share a bit with you -- and perhaps explain the lack of time I've had for more insightful posts lately.

We've just completed a pretty substantial equity raise, with funds available to invest in recycled energy projects that convert waste heat to power. The target for our investments are places where we can simultaneously generate profits, lower energy costs, and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions - in other words, all the things I've blogged about here before. But now instead of just being an academic idea, we have the financial resources to go out and prove the concept. And, it bears noting, quite a bit of financial pressure to do so.

More important than that, though, is that we have a platform to change the way the world makes power.

Lots of good press today in Bloomberg, the Chicago Tribune, and The International Herald Tribune, among others. (Or, if you're a stickler for original source material, our press release is here.)

But perhaps the best piece -- and the one that really gets what we're out to do -- is on the Dow Jones newswire, printed below the fold ($ub req'd, or else I'd give the link).

Frito-Lay hopes to manufacture eco-friendly potato chips

You know it’s crunch time when a potato-chip factory goes green. A Frito-Lay factory in Arizona has plans to produce, yes, carbon-neutral potato chips: sliced, fried, seasoned, and bagged in a plant nearly entirely off-grid and powered with renewable fuels. The company’s Casa Grande plant will make do in its desert locale by recycling water, […]

Big Auto unveils efficient cars, continues to fight against strict efficiency standards

When the L.A. auto show opens to the public on Friday, automakers will flaunt hydrogen cars, super-efficient engines, electric vehicles, and hybrid SUVs — leading some to wonder at the disconnect between car manufacturers’ public-facing “green” ambitions and their vocal opposition to a significant increase in federal fuel-economy standards. “They’re definitely saying one thing to […]

E.U. Parliament approves plan to require airline emissions reductions

A European Union plan to bring the airline industry into its carbon-trading market has just passed the E.U. Parliament, angering many airlines, the United States, and other countries. Parliament voted to require steeper emissions cuts than the E.U. Commission’s relatively weaker airline plan. Under the amended version, by 2011, all airlines flying within or into […]

Automakers want to delay the transition to electric vehicles

The following is a guest essay by Marc Geller, who blogs at Plugs and Cars, serves on the board of directors of the Electric Auto Association, cofounded Plug In America and DontCrush.com, and appeared in Who Killed The Electric Car.

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The IEEE Spectrum Magazine for November 2007 touts on its cover: "Battery or Fuel-Cell Cars? A California Cabal Will Decide." Interesting choice of headlines. Surely a strong argument can be made that something approaching a cabal turned a practical electric-cars-on-the-road mandate into a research and development program for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Carmakers are desirous of delaying the inevitable but problematic move to electric drive. Oil companies shut out of electric markets are exploring biofuels and hydrogen as potential markets they could control. Academics awash in government and corporate grants analyse and research biofuels and hydrogen. The problem with electric is it is here now. Proven, ready to market. No significant need for research. Batteries could always use a nudge, but the 100-plus-mile battery has existed for over a decade. Price needs to come down by a factor of two at most, not a factor of 100. Economies of scale, baby!

Facts are facts. Not five years ago we had thousands (about 6,000, to be exact) of battery electrics as daily drivers for consumers like you and me and utility fleets like PG&E and SCE. Thanks to Plug In America's predecessor DontCrush.com, about 1000 of those cars still drive today on the original batteries using existing electric infrastructure. Their owners love them, and when one appears on the used car market it sells for more than the $42,000 original MSRP.

Climate change could put millions out of work, says U.N.

Not only is climate change not a hoax manufactured by dirty hippies who hope to put every American out of a job, global warming is real enough to, um, put millions of people out of jobs, United Nations officials said yesterday. At a meeting of the International Labor Organization, the heads of the U.N. climate […]

New tool helps groups assess large retail proposals

Big-box stores have significant impacts on a community's economy, environment, and character. The Big Box Evaluator (created by the Orton Family Foundation, which offers numerous programs that aid good land-use planning) is a new online tool designed to help citizens, activists, and municipal officials get the basics on these impacts in an unbiased manner.

It's interactive, and lets you plug in variables like tax rates, community demographics, size of a hypothetical big-box proposal, and much more. The outcome is a well-rounded assessment of probable impacts, the good as well as the bad, which will help its users ask important questions when proposals like this come to town.

Target asks USDA to let it label meat treated with carbon monoxide

Under pressure from Democrats in Congress, Target Corp. has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to let it attach warning labels to meat it sells that has been treated with carbon monoxide to make it appear fresher than it is. The proposed label reads: “CONSUMER NOTICE: Carbon monoxide has been used to preserve the color […]

Al Gore joins big-name venture-capital firm, will focus on green investment

Former vice president Al Gore has joined a notable venture-capital firm that’s aiming to step up investment in green businesses. In his role as a partner at California-based firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Gore will investigate the potential growth of alternative-energy start-up companies and counsel the firm on related greenish investments. No stranger to […]