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sustainability
Feebates - The Most Effective Way to Accomplish Desired Shifts
Feebates can be implemented locally in budget-neutral ways, and can be tailored to avoid leakage by combining a number of incentives and disincentives into a comprehensive framework of policies, to most effectively accomplish desired shifts. [read more]
Oversimplifying A Complex Topic - Measuring The "Sustainability" Of Renewable Energy
The environmental impact of electricity generation is an incredibly complicated issue. Each electricity generation option, be it fossil fuel, nuclear or renewable, brings with it environmental costs and challenges. Some of these same energy technologies (such as renewables) also have environmental benefits when compared to... [read more]
How to “Green” a Hamburger
Plastic bags, SUVs and hamburgers: No right-thinking tree-hugger would endorse them, at least not in public. But here’s the thing: While we can replace plastic bags with reusable ones, and we can electrify our SUVs, the world’s consumers will almost surely demand more, not less, beef in the years ahead. Which is why the World Wildlife... [read more]
Accounting for sustainability
More evidence that corporate sustainability efforts are advancing, despite goverment inaction: Deloitte, one of the Big Four accounting and consulting firms, said today that it has acquired two sustainability consulting firms, ClearCarbon Consulting and Domani Sustainability Consulting. ClearCarbon and its principal, Kyle Tanger, have... [read more]
Sustainability: Challenges and Risks
“Ideally, however, no institutions in modern society are better situated and none more obliged to facilitate the transition to a sustainable future than colleges and universities…” This quote is from David Orr’s book, The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention. He is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of... [read more]
Sustainability reporting in tech companies – the hardware vs software divide
Photo credit Koshyk I wrote (and subsequently updated) a post a few weeks ago reviewing the Sustainability Reports of various companies in the technology space. I updated the review again this afternoon (see the updated review below) with the 2009 reports from IBM, Adobe and SAS. Something which struck me previously, and which... [read more]
Sustainability: Searching and Not Finding
Over the last twelve months the phrases “environmental sustainability” and the “definition of sustainability” are in number 1 and 2 positions on the top Google searches for sustainability. What do searchers find and who influences their thinking? Most of our citizens are getting information on these terms from Wikipedia or... [read more]
Reporter scuba dives in oil-polluted waters
Crossposted from the ACE Blog. As the oil disaster continues to unfold, we are getting part of the story. We see heartbreaking pictures of wildilfe and hear accounts of devastation from fishermen and other hunters. But we want to know the whole story. What's the consistency of this oil? How is it moving through the water? How fast?... [read more]
“Made in America” Energy – An Important Smart Grid Benefit
A couple of statistics recently caught my attention. The first was that in the month of May, Americans purchased more SUVs than any other type of vehicle. Gas guzzlers, not hybrids or gas-sipping vehicles. This happens while we have a catastrophic oil spill fouling critical habitat for land and marine species, along... [read more]
A dramatic story behind a soccer shirt: Carbon neutral manufacturing
Devoted fans of Ghana will wear this soccer jersey, designed by Puma, when they cheer on their team this month during 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Fans of Cameroon, meanwhile, will don their team’s green World Cup jersey. Ivory Coast Algeria Puma also sells replicas of the World Cup jerseys for Algeria and the Ivory Coast. What... [read more]
Sustainable Mobility: Walking before running is always best
Recently I referred back to the 2004 World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) document entitled Mobility 2030 as I recalled that it had an excellent table listing the well-to-wheels CO2 footprint of a variety of vehicle and fuel types. When I found the table in question what surprised me most of all was the... [read more]
Is biomimicry a “megacategory” of cleantech?
I had a terrific interview last week with natural sciences expert Janine Benyus, who is the foremost authority on an emerging area of science called biomimicry. In fact, Benyus is credited with coining the term in the1990s. Basically, biomimicry is about innovation that replicates what already works well in nature, whether it... [read more]
Methodology for Assessing the Sustainability of Hydrogen Production from Solid Fuels
Nirmal V. Gnanapragasam, Bale V. Reddy and Marc A. Rosen of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology have published a new paper titled „A Methodology for Assessing the Sustainability of Hydrogen Production from Solid Fuels.“ This paper introduces a methodology for for assessing... [read more]
Key Countries Commit to a Partnership to Reduce Deforestation Emissions
Today, around 50 developed and developing countries have signed a partnership to take “immediate action” to reduce deforestation emissions. These countries signed a “REDD+ Partnership” (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) at the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference in Norway. The Partnership is an... [read more]
The next debt crisis will be ecological
Anyone who paid attention learned a lot from the global financial crisis of 2008. Here are three lessons that were burned into my brain: 1. Live within your means. Debt creates risk. When homeowners, investors or banks take on lots of debt, and something goes awry—and it will—they will pay, big time. 2. We’re interdependent. It’s... [read more]
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Baby You Can Drive My (Electric) Car
Posted May 11, 2012 by Scott Edward Anderson
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Siemens develops ABS plastic alternative
Posted May 9, 2012 by Doris de Guzman
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Reduce CO2 and Slow Global Warming?
Posted April 30, 2012 by Willem Post
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Hidroenergia 2012
May 25, 2012, Wroclaw, Poland
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WGC 2012 - 25th World Gas Conference
June 4, 2012, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Ecwatech 2012
June 4, 2012, Moscow, Russia
The moderated community for energy, policy, and environment professionals
What's New on
Scott Edward Anderson is a consultant, blogger, and media commentator who blogs at The Green Skeptic. More »
Marc Gunther is a writer, speaker and consultant, who focuses on business and the environment. More »
Christine Hertzog is a consultant, author, and a professional explainer focused on Smart Grid. More »
Jesse Jenkins is the director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute. More »
Robert Rapier works in the energy industry and writes and speaks about energy and the environment. More »
Geoffrey Styles is Managing Director of GSW Strategy Group, LLC and an award-winning blogger. More »
Dan Yurman is a nuclear energy blogger and writes regularly for Fuel Cycle Week. More »
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Global JOJOBAWORLD 2012
When: Fri, 2012-05-25 09:00
Hidroenergia 2012
When: Fri, 2012-05-25 09:00
NESCO Town Hall: Security Risk Management Practices for Electric Utilities
When: Wed, 2012-05-30 13:00
Ecwatech 2012
When: Mon, 2012-06-04 09:00
WGC 2012 - 25th World Gas Conference
When: Mon, 2012-06-04 09:00
2nd CSP Optimisation Summit
When: Tue, 2012-06-05 08:00
“Cities will need to be retrofitted, as a whole. There's much work to be done. Vertical farming and other forms of energy/space/agriculture integration will be necessary to further sustain how humans live on this planet.”
“David,Reserves, potential resources and production are not interchangeable, and apocalyptic statements that depend on conflating them are thus fundamentally flawed. Your cogent analysis makes this crucial distinction well. It just needs a bigger audience.”