Climate Technology

Find a new source of power, dudes

Google got a lot of great press for its new plan to "voluntarily cut or offset all its greenhouse emissions by the end of the year." But was it all deserved?

The Boston Globe reported the story as "Google aims to go carbon-neutral by end 2007. " The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) reprinted the story, as did Greenwire and others. Buried in the story was this gem:

Boulder and Wiser

IBM plans green data-center expansion in Colorado High-tech grandpappy IBM will undertake an $86 million expansion of a greenish data center in Boulder, Colo. The company will add 80,000 square feet to a 225,000-square-foot facility, using energy-efficient lighting and heating, efficient building design, and energy-conservation technologies in the data gear. It’s all part of a […]

I’m lovin’ it

I've got an interview over at Salon with Charles Clover, a British journalist who has been covering the oceans for 20 years and has a book out, End of the Line.

Among his more startling revelations: that McDonald's fish sandwich is more sustainable than Nobu's menu (the restaurant for the stars), because it is sourced from an Alaskan fishery certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. McDonald's, though, does not advertise the MSC label because then it would have to pay a licensing fee.

Legit or not?

While writing about medium wind in Alaska, I ran into information that led me to believe there were some questionable offsets involved with the project. More extensive research, including interviews with Brent Petrie of AVEC and Tom Stoddard of Native Energy, have revealed a more complicated situation, one that still doesn't look good to me.

Here is what the situation looks like at first glance: AVEC has installed wind turbines that produce electricity for around 15 cents per kWh, according to the interview on which the first post was based. That 15 cents per kWh wind is displacing 45 cents per kWh electricity -- of which 13-25 cents per kWh is diesel and diesel storage alone. Yet Native Energy is selling carbon offsets at up to $12/ton for this project -- claiming that this produces additional wind power compared to not getting the subsidy.

How does Native Energy justify this? The Alaska Tundra may be the harshest environment in the world for running renewable energy projects. The claim is that if the Tookok and other projects failed in the early stages this would have discouraged further development. The money from offsets has been used so far for operations during the first two years to cover monitoring and recovery from failures during this time.

Nike or Adidas? Google or Yahoo? Scorecard helps shoppers pick.

Stepping back for a second from the fact that they all churn out unhealthy food and are a general blight upon society, which fast-food joint has the most cred on climate change — Burger King? McDonalds? Wendy’s? A new scorecard issued Tuesday ranks corporations on their commitment to reducing their contribution to global warming, giving […]

Google.org funds V2G demonstration projects

Sweet mama! Google.org is going to give vehicle-to-grid technology a much-needed boost, to the tune of $10 million. The company is going to modify six cars, a mix of Toyota Priuses and Ford Escape hybrids, with batteries that can draw juice from the grid and feed juice back in. The promise of this technology is […]

Prospects May Have Shifted During Flight

Booming airline industry gives nod to climate change The world’s biggest air show opens in France today, and the commercial airline industry is all hepped up on salted peanuts: after two years in the red, it’s expected to reap $5 billion in profits this year. Both Boeing and Airbus announced billions of dollars of aircraft […]

Dorgan Grinder

As oil prices dip, industry faces questions about summer supplies Oil prices dipped from a nearly nine-month high today, and everyone’s atwitter over what the summer will hold. The industry is beset by turmoil, with hostage-takings in Nigeria and turf battles in Gaza the latest contributors to price and supply instabilities. In addition, the U.S. […]

Intel It Like It Is

Tech companies go for the green This week, a consortium led by big tech kahunas Google and Intel kicked off an effort to reduce the power use of the approximately 250 million personal computers and servers manufactured each year. Participants that signed on to the Climate Savers Computing Initiative — including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun […]

The financial giant is ready to take on climate change

The investment firm Goldman Sachs has released an environmental policy framework (PDF) and invested billions of dollars in clean energy and research into environmentally-friendly markets, a stark contrast with the inaction of our own government.

In their environmental policy framework, Goldman Sachs recognizes climate change and its threat to financial markets and general livelihood. Consequently, they advocate limiting emissions, participate in Europe’s carbon market, and have agreed to voluntarily report and cut their own emissions by 7 percent by 2012.

You can find their progress in their 2006 Year-End Report (PDF), which includes the partnerships they have forged, research papers they have commissioned, and even exact numbers for emissions from their real estate utilities.

From GreenBiz News:

Market analysts have called the U.S carbon market a "hibernating giant." With Goldman Sachs leading the way, the conservative wing of Wall Street seems to have woken up. And so the question is: when will lawmakers on Capitol Hill follow suit?

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.