Climate Technology
All Stories
-
The Good of Small Things
Aussies See Big Business in Small Life Forms Here’s an investment tip from Down Under: bacteria. That’s right — Australian scientists are creating a range of bacteria-based products to help clean up the environment, and, while they’re at it, reap some of the riches of a $5 billion global market in environmental biotechnology. A coalition […]
-
A Turkey of a Project
Big Pipeline Project Threatens Environment in Azerbaijan, Turkey BP and 10 other companies are plotting to build a 1,000-mile pipeline to carry oil from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, Turkey, at a cost of up to $4 billion. The project is enthusiastically backed by the U.S. government, which is on the lookout for new sources of […]
-
Chemical Reaction
E.U. Waters Down Chemical Safety Testing Plan In a blow to advocates of environmental and human health, the European Union dramatically narrowed the scope of its plan to require safety testing for tens of thousands of chemicals. The move was motivated primarily by financial concerns, and the narrower plan is expected to save billions of […]
-
Poor Judgment
Company Warns Poor and Minorities They Will Suffer if N-Plant Is Closed The power company Entergy Nuclear Northeast is warning low-income and minority citizens in New York that more power plants will be built in their neighborhoods if the state’s highly controversial Indian Point nuclear power plant is closed. Critics say the move is an […]
-
Thar and Thar and Thar She Blows
Southern Right Whales Rebounding in South African Waters In a rare bit of good news about the marine environment, southern right whales are making an impressive comeback in the waters of South Africa. The mammals were pushed to the brink of extinction by whaling until protections were put in place in 1935; in recent years, […]
-
Coffee Roasting on an Open Fire
Eco-Friendly “Java Log” Aims for More of the Fake Firewood Market Ah, winter — icicles on the eves, smoke rising from the chimneys, a crackling fire, and emerging from it, that fragrant, familiar smell of … coffee? Yep, that’s right: A Canadian company is marketing fake logs made of recycled coffee grounds. Other fake logs, […]
-
Solar Flair
U.S. Companies Are Getting Hip to Solar A growing number of U.S. companies are installing solar-power systems at their facilities, driven at least in part by government tax credits and incentives that make solar more financially attractive. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has built a large solar installation on the roof of a major facility […]
-
Dollars Without Sense
Privatizing Forest Service Jobs Would Cost More, Study Finds A Bush administration plan to privatize hundreds of U.S. Forest Service jobs, from wildlife biologists to safety officers, would cost taxpayers more than continuing to pay federal employees, a new agency study has found. Under the Bush plan, as many as one-fourth of all 40,000 USFS […]
-
Cheap Tricks I
Toyota Says Hybrids Can Be Inexpensive to Manufacture Defying conventional wisdom, Toyota unveiled its new hybrid-car production site in Toyota City, Japan, yesterday and sent a clear message to other automakers: Gas-electric hybrids can be manufactured inexpensively. Such cars have traditionally been thought of as too costly to be practical, and Toyota and Honda, the […]
-
Cheap Tricks II
New Solar Panels Would Be Inefficient — and Inexpensive Usually, inefficient energy sources are an environmentalist’s worse nightmare — but the opposite might be the case for a new type of solar cell. True, the new cells would only capture about 10 percent of the sun’s energy (roughly half of what conventional solar cells capture), […]
