The answer, it seems, it at least three: fuel, metal and mulch. Visit Liberty Tire to find out more about how this Pittsburgh, PA company keeps used tires out of the country’s landfills.
How Many Products Can You Make from a Tire?
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Monthly Archives: August 2011
How Healthy are the Oceans?
We don’t get too many chances to talk about water issues – or at least not as many chances as the topic deserves – and we have even fewer to talk about ocean issues. But a new project to measure the health of the oceans recently caught our attention and we wanted to share it with our readers.
Conservation International, the brains behind what they are calling a “Dow Jones” for ocean health, is in the process of creating an Ocean Health Index. Due to launch in February 2012, the index will be,
a new world standard for gauging ocean health – a measuring stick to show whether our efforts to improve ocean governance and health are successful. . It will guide decision makers in the actions they take and raise global public awareness and support for ocean conservation.
Conservation International hopes to unite the various coastal communities of the world by bringing the health of the oceans they use for work and play to the forefront of their attention. The list of collaborators on the project is impressive. From the National Geographic Society, the Zoological Society of London, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, some serious scientific and environmental groups are supporting the effort. We’re excited to see what the index reveals in February.
Learn more about the index at its Conservation International site.
Performance.gov Goes Live to Public
The website Performance.gov was officially opened to the public last week. As the name suggests, the goal of the website is to increase governmental performance and accountability through transparency.
While a lot of things fall under the purview of “performance” sustainability and green government initiatives are certainly a prominent part of what the Obama Administration sees as good government performance. Sustainability is one of the eight Areas of Focus at Performance.gov and at the Sustainability sub-page you can get a sense of which agencies are leading the pack and which still have work to do from the OMB Sustainability/Energy Scorecards results matrix, partially pictured below.
While it’s great to see how the various agencies are doing with their sustainability efforts, we think that perhaps the best part of the sustainability section of Performance.gov is the fact that all of the sustainability plans are listed in one place, for easy cross-reference.
Visit sustainability.performance.gov to find more.
U.N. Sec. General Visits NREL
Last week, while most of the east coast was bracing for Hurricane Irene, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the Department of Energy’s NREL facilities in Colorado on Thursday. The Secretary General spoke highly of the work being done at NREL, and expressed his desire to learn from NREL’s example, saying:
“I’m here at NREL to learn more about how we can work together on international issues, how research communities can help us realize sustainable energy…I fully support your work.”
Watch the video above for Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon’s full comments.
News of the Week
Here is a brief list of some of the interesting sustainability news articles from this week:
- Chrysler teams with cellulosic-ethanol firm ZeaChem
- U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2010
- Solar power plant switches to PV from thermal
- MIT Weighs the Lifecycle Impacts of Concrete
And you’ll find more headlines at CEILeadership.org!
Energy Efficient Facilities – Daylighting
The U.S. Department of Energy has a series of videos on YouTube called “Energy 101.” The name might make you think that the information in the videos is simple. But unless you know all about green architecture, geothermal systems, energy efficient data centers, PV systems and wind turbines, there’s something new for you to learn in this series. So now we’re starting to think the 101 in the title means a basic understanding of good energy technology.
The video below is about daylighting, which we like for its efficiency and its ability to create a pleasant working environment. Be sure to check out more videos in the series at the DOE’s YouTube site.
Energy Efficient Light Bulb Comparison
CFL, LED, incandescent. The simple light bulb is clearly a think of the past, but how do modern, energy efficient bulbs differ from the incandescent versions of the past? One of the writers at cnet wondered the same thing and recently published a “regular person’s review” of the various bulbs. The color differences in the photo above are just some of the great parts of the cnet review, which includes price comparisons, features such as dimming and of course energy efficiency ratings.
Getting Serious About Tidal Energy
The video above gives a great overview of a DOE-sponsored University of Washington project being conducted in Puget Sound to study the viability of tidal power in the area and establish a baseline to evaluate environmental impacts of the turbines. For more information on the project, visit the UW site.
States Add Generating Capacity, Renewables Included
We really enjoy the EIA’s frequent energy data updates and the charts that come with them. Hardly a week goes by that we don’t find an update about renewable energy or energy efficiency from the EIA interesting or informative.
Today we’ve found a nice graph and set of data that shows the amount of electric generating capacity added in the first half of this year, and what type of power source was added. The graph above shows that while coal and natural gas dominated the new additions, California and Colorado added significant amounts of wind energy generating capacity.
Read more at the EIA website.
News of the Week
Here is a brief list of some of the interesting sustainability news articles from this week:
- A Solar Re-Skin at FedEx Field
- Non-existent baseline data calls agency green IT reporting into question
- NREL Mentors Keep It Real For Summer Interns
- Window and insulation experts the next plumbers?
And you’ll find more headlines at CEILeadership.org!
