Category Archives: Awareness and Hype
Thought of renting a car on your trip to Beijing for the Olympics? Think again! Beijing is one of the world’s most polluted cities and road traffic grows by 1,200 vehicles a day. August, when the wind drops and the normally dry climate turns humid, is typically one of the worst months for smog. With the Olympics deadline approaching the city of Beijing has gone into a massive green drive to clean up the cities smoggy skies. To do this, half the city’s 3.3m cars are banned from the roads each day, depending on whether their number plates end in an odd or even digit. All construction sites and more factories in and around Beijing may be temporarily closed if the air quality deteriorates during the games. To add fuel to the fire there are chances that it may rain on the ceremonial day.
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Fuel prices affect all but now movie studios are feeling the production pinch, but for some in Hollywood it barely matters. Ingo Volkammer’s Leomax Entertainment, a Los Angeles- and Berlin-based financing and production banner, has found that the jump in oil prices has opened up its financing options. The company has created a five-year slate using money from an oil-based hedge fund — one of its current projects is a thriller called “Short Cut” from Adam Sandler’s production company — and found financing relatively easier to come by. This is because tax laws in some European countries require that windfall profits are taxed heavily unless the money is quickly invested in an intangible asset like film. This means that even if a movie loses, say, 20% or 30% of its money, investors still come out on top because those losses pale compared with what a government might have taken. However the greatest potential upside to oil and gas price increases lies with ticket sales at the box office. In 1981 and 1982, for example, oil prices rose roughly 30% and then 10% year-over-year; in that same period, box office saw sizable increases of 8%, then 16%.
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Seems China wants to be known in recent history as being one of the fastest implementer of the latest and greatest technology. A-Power Energy Generation Systems, Ltd has completed the construction of the first phase of its wind turbine production facility in Shenyang, China. It is said to be the largest wind turbine production facility in China. The first phase is a 310,000 square foot production facility with an annual capacity to produce 300 2.5MW wind turbines and 420 750kW wind turbines. They have already laid the foundation for phase 2 of the wind turbine production facility, which, when completed, will increase A-Power’s wind turbine production capacity by another 30%. It is estimated that construction on phase 2 will commence in Q4 2009 and will be completed in about 4 months at a cost of approximately US$10 million. After phase 2 is completed, A-Power will have the capacity to produce 400 2.5MW wind turbines and 550 750kW wind turbines each year.
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This year let’s hope our Independence Day celebrations are more eco friendly than ever. Although the celebratory fireworks are meant to paint the sky with light, they however fill the sky with smoke, lead and mercury since they are always in the mix. Among the toxic culprits being addressed lately, potassium perchlorate is a reliable and inexpensive oxidizer, but it has been connected to cancers and thyroid problems. The technologies behind fireworks have changed little through the ages. Today’s fireworks products may be able to last longer and burn brighter, they essentially contain a form of gun powder used in wars fought in China some 800 years ago. Strontium and lithium may be used for red, barium and copper lead for green, and sodium glows golden. Calcium deepens colors. Zinc makes smoke clouds, aluminum sparkles, and antimony adds glitter. Scientists in Germany and at Los Alamos National Laboratory have explored reducing perchlorate, smoke, and carbon by using substances rich in nitrogen. Los Alamos researchers responded to complaints some 10 years ago from Anaheim, Calif., residents about pollution from fireworks shows every night at Disneyland. The theme park in 2004 announced it was adopting safer air cannons that use compressed air instead of a chemical propellant, eliminating black smoke.
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Sony and Sony Ericsson (SE) may have topped Greenpeace’s latest Guide to Greener Electronics, but almost all manufacturers saw their scores plunge thanks to new, more stringent marking criteria. Greenpeace decided that it was now necessary to make the grading system tougher and to create additional grading criteria. For example, it added more toxic compounds to its list of materials manufacturers must commit themselves to eliminate and provide a timeline for that process. Chemicals added to the roster of nasties include beryllium in all its forms and compounds of antimony. That’s were Apple failed, in the previous report it scored 6.7 but, has since seen its score drop to 4.1. Greenpeace admitted that the firm’s timeline for PVC and BFR phase-out is positive, but slapped the iPhone maker on the wrist for failing to provide a timeline over which it’ll withdraw use of other Earth-damaging chemicals, such as beryllium. It also lost points over its use of recycled plastic content; it’s somewhat sketchy information about plans for the reduction of its carbon footprint, and failure to provide any information about the amount of renewable energy it uses, if any.
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China’s carbon dioxide emissions contributed the bulk of last year’s 3.1 percent global rise in CO2 emissions, its emissions were about 14 percent higher than the United States and accounted for two-thirds of the global rise, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) said Friday. The United States was second with 21 percent, while the European Union was at 12 percent, India eight percent and Russia six percent. Cement clinker production was a major cause of the emissions, and with an increase of 10 percent in 2007 China now accounted for about 51 percent of global cement production, said the PBL. After the earthquake which recently hit the Sichuan province, it may be expected that the rebuilding of houses and roads for over five million people will cause the cement demand to soar even further. Overall in the US last year, CO2 emissions rose by 1.8 percent, mainly due to the cold winter and warm summer contributed to rising carbon emissions from heating and cooling functions
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A group of fourth graders have gone ahead and put forth a proposal to reduce paper wastage asking local governments to join them in the fight against global warming by changing their margins to reduce paper consumption and help stop deforestation as well. The kids calculated that we can save 6,156,000 trees per year if everyone in the U.S. just reduced their margins while printing. Assuming you change from ½ to ¼ inch margins on all sides, you’ll save 6.667% of a single sheet of paper. And that means that for every fifteen pages of changed margins you’ll have put over one page back into the forest, monumental work for a fourth grader.
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It’s very rare that a IT infrastructure company takes the initiative to offer its clients a complete green solution in its product package itself. Project Big Green by IBM, is a $1 billion project aimed to provide customers with high computing capacity in a smaller footprint while saving on power, cooling and space costs. It is designed to introduce new technologies that customers will be able to use in order address energy challenges in data centers. A modular data center may be the right move for a company that doesn’t want to take on the additional cost of building out a data center, but is still looking for high computing efficiency; off setting costs and adding efficiency are driving IBM and its customers to adopt ecologically friendly products. Very few companies are doing power efficiency or space efficiency because it is the ecologically right thing to do. This has however received lukewarm response simply due to the fact that, in most cases the IT head isn’t the one who pays the power bills so why saving on energy & heating costs be his concern.
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Japan has initiated its ‘Cool Earth Initiative’ in which it outlines that Japan will reduce its carbon emissions by 60-80% by 2050. It also called other nations of the world to strive to cut by half the global carbon dioxide output by 2050. G-8 summit leaders voiced support for that last year. Japan is struggling to meet obligations under the Kyoto global warming pact to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions’ trading involves the setting of caps and credits on greenhouse gas production. Any company or nation emitting levels higher than those allotted would have to buy credits from those emitting lower levels. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Japan would use a broad range of strategies to reduce its emissions, including investment in new technologies, stiff construction standards to create energy efficient buildings, an array of tax incentives and a public awareness campaign.
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DHL has initiated a GoGreen initiative to encourage its workforce to cut their carbon footprint by 30% before 2020. By switching off the lights at DHL offices worldwide it estimates it will reduce 5.2 metric tones of carbon dioxide. This includes offices across the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Middle East and North Africa – is part of the company’s GoGreen Program that was launched in April this year. The program brings together all elements of its climate change initiatives and will work to improve DHL’s carbon efficiency. “Lights Off” aims to increase the environmental awareness of DHL employees and promotes the responsible use of energy. The company encourages staff to adjust their daily habits in terms of paper, water and resource usage thereby contributing to making it a more environmentally-friendly company.
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