Climate Technology

High energy costs don’t get in this brewery’s way

Hey, I don't want to get a reputation. But here's more news from the beer-and-rising-energy-costs front: The New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colo., is hopping on alternative energy instead. To wit: The company uses methane captured from its wastewater to help power its facilities, and uses a biodiesel blend in its delivery trucks. No big surprise from an outfit whose employees voted, waaaay back in 1998, to make it the nation's first wind-powered brewery.

When it comes to sustainability, New Belgium is "pretty impeccable," fellow beermeister Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery told Fortune Magazine in 2003. "They're the people the rest of us look up to."

GE kicks off ambitious green initiative

Last night, General Electric Chair and CEO Jeffrey Immelt canoodled with Congress members and industry top brass at a swish cocktail party on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., celebrating the launch of “ecomagination,” an initiative he announced earlier in the day to ramp up development of clean technologies and lighten the company’s Goliath-like environmental footprint. […]

Wait — They Drilled for Gas With a Nuclear Bomb?!

Oil company hopes to drill near nuclear-blast cavity in Colorado Some 36 years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission and a Texas oil company put a nuclear bomb in an 8,000-foot shaft on Colorado’s energy-rich Western Slope and detonated it, hoping to reach a reserve of natural gas lying beneath the subterranean rock. They succeeded in […]

Play Economisty for Me

U.K.-based weekly Economist exhaustively analyzes global oil situation Market-lovin’ U.K. weekly The Economist has a cover package on oil this week. The major topic, of course, is the recent spike in oil prices. The grumpy Economist editors are bothered by what they consider some pervasive myths. First, “energy independence” is a chimera as long as […]

Ford Imperfect

Ford, G.M. sales down as buyers spurn SUVs and look for fuel efficiency Detroit automakers Ford and G.M. are cursing Prius drivers right about now. Sales figures and market share for both companies were down in April, as car buyers turned their fickle affections from gas-gulping SUVs to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles — specifically those […]

The Nukes of Hazzard

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 […]

Mike Millikin, publisher of green-car blog, answers questions

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 […]

Gettin’ Busy

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 […]

Texaco to Ecuador: Have You Tried a Swiffer?

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 […]

The Loan Changer

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 […]