Smart grid software company eMeter is like the general store in the Gold Rush, according to company CEO Cree Edwards—not particularly glamorous, but absolutely necessary.

Some investors apparently agree about eMeter’s role in the emerging smart grid: the company announced in June that it closed a $32 million funding round, led by Sequoia Capital and Foundation capital.

San Mateo-based eMeter makes software for utilities to manage smart meters, and has about 24 million meters under contract worldwide. In June, the company jumped into the home energy management arena with the release of Energy Engage, an online system for customers to track and manage their power use. The product rolled out with a one-year, 1,000 customer pilot project in Washington, D.C.

While a slew of companies are coming out with home energy management solutions, Edwards says eMeter has an advantage because Energy Engage will be integrated end-to-end with utilities’ back offices. Whereas products from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) are designed to serve customers, Energy Engage serves utilities, he adds.

The latest funding round could be the last for the decade-old company. Edwards says he expects the latest injection of capital to carry the company through to profitability.

IREC serves as one of the many catalysts between renewable energy projects and the public. Their mission, "to accelerate the sustainable utilization of renewable energy sources and technologies in and through state and local government and community activities," helps to bridge projects that are experimenting with energy and not only utility companies, but also the public who may be curious about how a renewable energy grid may come about given the economy.

IREC is asking projects that started generating energy in 2008 to submit their applications for their 16th annual award search. Applications are due by July 30.

Past awards went to individuals and organizations like the San Francisco Department of the Environment who developed a Solar Map technology identifying residences and businesses where solar panels may be installed to generate energy. Other winners include the Texas State Energy Conservation Office, Conservation Services Group, and the Texas Solar Energy Society, who provided renewable energy lesson plans for teachers across the state, and the Rhode Island Renewable Energy Office, U.S. DOE and Partners who nixed the island's fossil fuel energy consumption and replaced it with five city projects that generate solar power.

For those projects that use wind, wave, and other renewable energy sources other than the sun, SUBMIT! It seems as though so many past winners are solar projects and there is so many more opportunities for clean energy than just the sun.

IREC awards showcase these projects and help to inspire more.

Sau Paulo's motto has been "I am not led, I lead," so perhaps it is appropriate that the city will be receiving the first of several clean buses. The first bus will be driving through the streets of Sau Paulo, covering the ABD Metropolitan Corridor, between Sao Mateus and Jabaquara.

The bus uses an interesting hybrid system, combining hydrogen fuel cells with batteries, resulting in even higher efficiency. The batteries, for example, could be used to capture energy generated during stoplights, while the fuel cells (generating 68 kW) are designed specifically for automotive use.

Brazil also happens to be the world's largest bus market, producing more than 50,000 units a year. Sao Paulo also has the biggest bus fleet in the world, making motor vehicle emissions a threat to air quality.

The program means more than just a few buses coordinated between Brazilian transportation and energy agencies and funded by several global groups, including the United Nations Program for Development. International funding was due to the transit project being selected according to the country's emerging economy, which buses performing the vital task of ferrying commuters around the metropolitan area.

Some areas in Brazil have been heavily polluted-- Cubutao, one of the worst areas and once surrounded by mudslides caused by acid rain. 90 percent of air pollutants can be traced back to motor vehicles, especially with the use of diesel in most mass urban transportation.

The original Brazilian goal was four hydrogen buses by June 2010, after two months of testing earlier this month. Daimler has also continued work on the Mercedes Benz fuel cell bus.

New fuel cell buses are finding their way into a number of markets, in Canada and California, for example. The Hydrogen Bus Alliance was formed by several European countries, representing over 12,000 buses, and are working towards commercial viability, which they predict in the 2010 to 2015 time frame.

Brazilian legislation is making strides to correct local environmental issues and is now attacking one of the dominant contributors to pollution. At the same time, hydrogen is beginning to get some attention, though it does seem to come in waves.

In a study published in the July 24 issue of Science, researchers Amy Clement and Robert Burgman from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Joel Norris from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego begin to unravel this mystery. Using observational data collected over the last 50 years and complex climate models, the team has established that low-level stratiform clouds appear to dissipate as the ocean warms, indicating that changes in these clouds may enhance the warming of the planet.

The result of their analysis was a surprising degree of agreement between two multi-decade datasets that were not only independent of each other, but that employed fundamentally different measurement methods. One set consisted of collected visual observations from ships over the last 50 years, and the other was based on data collected from weather satellites.

"The agreement we found between the surface-based observations and the satellite data was almost shocking," said Clement, a professor of meteorology and physical oceanography at the University of Miami and winner of the American Geophysical Union's 2007 Macelwane Award for her groundbreaking work on climate change. "These are subtle changes that take place over decades. It is extremely encouraging that a satellite passing miles above the earth would document the same thing as sailors looking up at a cloudy sky from the deck of a ship."

Together, the observations and the Hadley Centre model results provide evidence that low-level stratiform clouds, which currently shield the earth from the sun's radiation, may dissipate in warming climates, allowing the oceans to further heat up, which would then cause more cloud dissipation.

"This is somewhat of a vicious cycle potentially exacerbating global warming," said Clement. "But these findings provide a new way of looking at cloud changes. This can help to improve the simulation of clouds in climate models, which will lead to more accurate projections of future climate changes. "

For more information: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/21575

Reprinted with permission from ENN

The dream of cellulosic ethanol powered vehicles and biorefineries is slowly coming to life, climbing through contentious issues of fuel versus food, low petroleum oil prices and sustainability. Brazil is growing quickly alongside the expanding biofuel market with predicted long term demand.

A recently released biofuels report by the Pike Research held a positive outlook for biofuels, which will be supplemented by increasingly advanced feedstocks, but will eventually face competition from drop-in fuels like "green gasoline and renewable diesel."

The Pike report also predicts the world biofuel market to surpass $280 billion by 2022, due in no small part to national biofuel consumption mandates. These consumption mandates result in impressive global evolution rates, with the worldwide compound annual growth rate for biodiesel from 2009 to 2022 to be 15 percent, according to Pike Research.

Big oil is also making forays into biofuel, such as BP, which has already pledged over a billion to biofuel projects. In a report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, oil and gas companies were found to have invested $58.4 billion between 2000 and 2008.

One of the top three biofuel markets, though dwarfed by its EU and US competitors, Brazil already provides more than 50% of the fuel by volume in vehicles with gasoline engines. With Brazil's increasing presence as an oil power, the current administration has worked on increasing renewable energy output alongside growing oil reserves.

The report's author, Robert McDonald, explained that the long term trend for ethanol to replace gasoline has continued in Brazil, as ethanol is affordable for flex fuel-friendly consumers. "Global policies to reduce the greenhouse gas footprint are also contributing to the trend for increasing biofuels demand in Brazil," he added.

McDonald said in response to Brazil's recent oil sales to China, "My personal view is that Brazil will continue its long-term biofuels trends and that the future will see it exporting both crude petroleum and biofuels. Brazil's increasing role as an oil power can coexist with its biofuel policies."

With rainforest destruction being one of the greatest accelerants of climate change, will the search for acceptable biomass land lead to deforestation? Deforestation has previously accounted for the majority of Brazil's emissions, however this year Amazon deforestation dropped to lower than ever recorded, per Monga Bay.

With new microcrops in development and new biomass on the way, the Pike report predicts a series of "growth spurts" due to feedstock advances, starting with low-grade greases, followed by jatropha oil (which has been met with mixed opinions) and finally algal oil.

The biofuel market is one that presents tremendous opportunity, supported by global efforts towards emissions reduction and an increasing Big Oil presence. The path ahead may be hampered by feedstock availability, production capacity and infrastructure compatibility, but the future remains bright for biofuels, a market valued at $100 billion-plus per year.

Amid worsening climate change-related problems for small island states, Tuvalu has established a national goal of being powered entirely by renewable energy sources by 2020.

Government officials and the donors of Tuvalu's first large-scale solar energy system alike hope the moves help inspire much larger nations later this year in negotiations of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol agreement on climate change.

The solar system installed on the roof of Tuvalu's largest football stadium now supplies 5 percent of the electricity needed by that nation's capital, Funafuti.

In its first 14 months, the operation has reduced Tuvalu's consumption of generator fuel, shipped from New Zealand, by about 17,000 litres and reduced Tuvalu's carbon footprint by about 50 tonnes.

In the process, it has also reduced the risk of diesel spills around the archipelago of four low-lying coral islands and five atolls.

Based on the project's success, the country now aims to be powered entirely by renewable energy sources by 2020, a goal requiring an investment estimated at just over $20 million, according to government estimates.

At their summit earlier this month in Italy, the richer G8 countries committed to help finance efforts by poorer nations to battle climate change.

Tuvalu's first grid-connected, 40-kilowatt solar energy system was implemented under the leadership of Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co with the support of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, both members of the e8, an international non-profit organization of 10 leading power utilities from G8 countries.

"There may be other, larger solar power installations in the world but none could be more meaningful to customers than this one," says Takao Shiraishi, General Manager of the Kansai Electric Power Co.

"The plight of Tuvalu versus the rising tide vividly represents the worst early consequence of climate change," he adds. "For Tuvalu, after 3,000 years of history, the success of UN climate talks in Copenhagen this December may well be a matter of national survival."

The Tuvalu government is working to expand the initial US $410,000 e8 project from 40 to 60 kilowatts, and will extend solar power to outer islands, starting later this year with the commission of a US $800,000, 46-kilowatt solar power system for the Motufoua Secondary School in Vaitupu, being implemented with the support of the Italian government.

With a population of 12,000, Tuvalu is halfway between Hawaii and Australia, 26 square km in size, with a maximum elevation of just 4.5 meters and most of its land less than a meter above sea level.

Tuvalu is already experiencing flooding amid predictions of a large sea level rise this century.

Says Kausea Natano, Minister for Public Utilities and Industries: "We thank those who are helping Tuvalu reduce its carbon footprint as it will strengthen our voice in upcoming international negotiations. And we look forward to the day when our nation offers an example to all – powered entirely by natural resources such as the sun and the wind."

The e8's Tuvalu project was initiated after a series of regional renewable energy feasibility workshops, jointly organized by the Pacific Power Association (PPA) and the e8.

e8 members agreed to donate and install the first facility, and are monitoring its success and building local expertise to ensure the project's sustainability.

Run by the state-owned Tuvalu Electricity Corporation (TEC), the system in Funafuti today powers households, healthcare facilities, small-and medium-sized enterprises and other facilities.

Johane Meagher, Executive Director of the e8, expressed thanks for the support of the Pacific Power Association, with whom the e8 has established a long term collaboration to support development of small scale projects in the Pacific Islands and strengthen the capacity of the engineers and technicians of the islands' utilities to enhance renewable energy power in the Pacific region.

Meagher said, "We are proud of the role the e8 has played in creating this clean energy project, which was intended to generate far more than just electricity in Tuvalu. It is a message to the world about the urgent need to promote sustainable energy development and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a massive scale."

Reprinted with permission from RenewableEnergyWorld.

U.S. farmers and foresters could earn more money from carbon contracts than they pay in higher costs from legislation to control greenhouse gases, the Agriculture Department estimated on Wednesday.

In the near term, most of the money would go to people who plant trees to lock carbon in the soil or enroll woodlands as carbon sinks. Relatively small amounts would be generated by changes in tillage or crops.

USDA's "preliminary analysis" was one of the first attempts at a broad-spectrum examination of the House-passed climate bill. Most of its 13 pages were devoted to grains, cotton and soybeans. Limited space went to livestock and none to fruits and vegetables.

Skeptics like the American Farm Bureau Federation say climate legislation will drive up sharply the cost of farm fuel, fertilizer and pesticides. A carbon offset market will not benefit all farmers or all parts of the country, it says.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the House climate bill would increase farm expenses by $700 million, or 0.3 percent, from 2012-18. That would be offset by revenue from a carbon offset market, estimated by USDA at $1 billion a year in the near term and $15 billion in 2040. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said offsets would be worth nearly $3 billion a year in 2020 for farms, ranches and forests.

"In the short term, the economic benefits to agriculture from cap and trade legislation will likely outweigh the costs," said Vilsack. "In the long term, the economic benefits from offsets markets easily trump increased input costs from cap and trade legislation."

Beyond that, said Vilsack, is income from biofuels, worth a net return of at least $600 million a year.

Two senators from the arid Great Plains, Republicans Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Pat Roberts of Kansas, asked Vilsack and Jackson, without success, how much pasture and crop land would shift into trees if a carbon offset market is created. Roberts suggested 40 million acres might be converted.

"There is possibly the idea many farmers will choose to do that (plant trees)," said Jackson. "We don't have a number." Vilsack said the tree-planting may be focused on land already idled in the Conservation Reserve or on poor-yielding land and that U.S. crop output would not suffer.

"Unless you can quantify this, you can't sell the plan," said Johanns. Most of the carbon-control income would go to forestry, he said, while row-crop farmers will face higher energy costs with little income to offset it.

USDA's report said there could be a small decline in cropland as forestland expands, which would result in higher livestock feed costs, but provided no details.

Democrat Ben Nelson, of Nebraska, and Johanns described hostile reaction among voters to the House-passed climate bill. At a community parade, said Nelson, people shouted "No to cap and trade."

Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin said the Senate climate bill should include an "off ramp" to relax U.S. controls on greenhouse gases if other nations fail to act against climate change. He said he would give other nations three to five years to get on board.

"We can't do it all by ourselves," said Harkin.

Climate change poses the threat of more frequent droughts in the U.S. Midwest and Plains and lower livestock production in the U.S. Southeast due to heat stress, said EPA's Jackson.

The EPA estimates U.S. cropland accounts for 6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions but growing vegetation removes 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Reprinted with permission from Reuters

Sometimes, when you ask a question, you get a good answer.

A recent post on a push to increase the U.S. gasoline blend rate ended with this thought-provoker: At this rate, will cellulosic ethanol, from non-food plant materials, ever get off the ground?

Yes, replied Sam Salyer, a representative for a Massachusetts-based biofuel company called Qteros.

The company, formerly SunEthanol, recently announced an ethanol yield well beyond what the U.S. Department of Energy considers the threshold for commercial production, he wrote.

Qteros says it’s achieved an ethanol yield of 70 grams per liter. The DOE’s commercial standard is 50 grams per liter.

“To date, this is the most economical and viable cellulosic process announced by any cellulosic company,” Salyer says.

“Additionally Qteros has achieved these results without yet genetically modifying its microbe strain — something the company is working on now which they expect will further increase their output.”

Qteros uses a technology called Q Microbe, which turns biomass into cellulosic ethanol, according to company officials.

“These results confirm what we predicted: Qteros and the Q Microbe can make cellulosic ethanol a commercial reality.” according to Sue Leschine, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst microbiologist who first discovered the Q Microbe near the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts.

Company officials describe the Q Microbe as a super-bug with unique properties that make it ideally suited to the production of cellulosic ethanol from a variety of non-food plant materials. They say it’s the “yeast” component of the conventional bioconversion process plus the enzyme component, all in one.

Qteros has been funded by companies including BP, Valero, Soros Quantum Fund, Battery Ventures and Venrock.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

The Swash replaces traditional toilet seats and makes the commode more environmentally friendly. The seat includes a small water sprayer and has sensors that detect when rears are approaching, an anti-microbial finish, and many more features including stylish design. Its greenest feature helps reduce the need for toilet paper (the company says up to 75 percent less) and prevents clogged toilets with its bidet-like self-washing feature. Less tp means less environmental drain.

While nixing the tp seems a bit, well, crappy, it can save pounds of paper from ending up in sewage loads. Nixing waste nixes needing additional landfill space and slows cutting more treetops to wipe bottoms. Also, some toilet papers are sprayed with fragrance that, even in small amounts, add chemicals to the environment mixing with water and soils. Your wondering, ;what about hygiene? A full anti-microbial wash is perhaps cleaner than just wiping away nature. Feeling squeaky clean and return to starboard side can't be all that bad if it helps prevent environmental damage. In this case, less is more: less waste, more environmental preservation.

Onion power could now mean more than daunting breath. The nation's largest onion producer is covering new ground with renewable power and tackling the energy demands of food production.

Gills Onions is now home to an anaerobic digester and efficient fuel cells. Originally used as compost, the onion waste is now used as feedstock to produce electricity.

Anaerobic digesters work by methane recovery, converting material (onion juice in this case) into methane, which can then power the fuel cells.

Onion waste has never been used in this way before, and was studied extensively at the University of California-Davis. During the two years of study, the researchers determined that onion juice was superior to the skin, due to its high sugar content, for energy production.

The onion producers worked with Biothane, a Netherlands-based company (with offices in New Jersey) that designed an anaerobic digester specifically for onion juice. The Gills chose two 300-kilowatt units from FuelCell Energy for their energy storage needs— the project has enabled the company to receive a $2.7 million federal grant and $3,000 per kW in tax credits.

FuelCell Energy is also working with a number of facilities to address power needs; including the Santa Rita Jail and the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.

Dealing with the onion waste on site will also keep transportation costs down as well as energy demand. The resulting waste, once the juice is separated, is used as cattle feed.

The project will save $700,000 in annual electricity costs, paying for itself in less than six years. With projects like this sprouting up throughout the U.S., stationary fuel cells seem a strong short-term possibility for green power.

You’d think this would be a “Buy American” type of issue. Growth Energy, an ethanol industry trade group, wants to raise the content in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent in the United States.

The ethanol industry, of course, is firmly behind the proposal, made to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ethanol plant operators say a boost would bring jobs and investment on U.S. soil.

And even some government leaders, like Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, have expressed support for at least a “baby step” increase to 12 or 13 percent.

But other folks, seizing on the fact that most U.S. ethanol is made with corn, are telling the EPA to put the brakes on the plan.

Just today, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers filed comments with the EPA in opposition to Growth Energy’s “waiver request.”

The association is concerned about harm to conventional vehicles not designed to operate on higher blends of ethanol and harm to the planet from increased carbon emissions.

Is ethanol headed for the hay heep, with these and other concerns over the fuel’s connection to higher food prices?

At this rate, will cellulosic ethanol, from non-food plant materials, ever get off the ground?

Image Credit: ammocacher, via photobucket.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

Members of the manufacturing and utility industries formed the U-SNAP Alliance in 2007 to strengthen efforts towards common connections. The group now developing products compliant with the Utility Smart Access Port Bus Specification that will hit retail shelves later this year.

Efforts like this are what the smart grid needs to reach households -- otherwise the result is too many standards, which would hinder the adoption of intelligent devices. The U-SNAP specification is meant to foster the use of wireless standards by accommodating radios that will support popular options that will include ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, FM and FlexNet.

The U-SNAP serial interface will work between utility and customer, facilitating the communication between the smart grid and the consumer devices. The alliance refers to it as the "USB" of the smart grid, allowing for a number of connections and enables any HAN standard, keeping those charges out of the hands of utilities.

What spawned the idea of the U-SNAP Alliance was the California Energy Commission's consideration of programmable communicating thermostats. It is appropriate, then, that the first devices expected to be deployed will be none other than thermostats.

Consumers will be able to purchase thermostats compliant with the standard and be able to check them whether they're at home or through an Internet connection. "Several companies," according to the chairman of the Alliance, are building products based on the first specification, and Version 2 is well on the way.

The U-SNAP standard could potentially free manufacturers from having to sweat to support too many protocols during smart meter deployment. "This important industry standard allows utilities to continue smart meter deployments," said Barry Haaser of the U-SNAP Alliance and Executive Director of LonMark, "while enabling a new generation of products to connect to smart meters by simply inserting a U-SNAP card."

The U-SNAP specification can be downloaded here.

Part of achieving energy efficiency is using good insulation. The definition of good insulation, from an environmental stand-point, should include insulation made from recycled materials that does not contain chemical irritants like formaldehyde. Three companies make products that fit my definition of good insulation: Bonded Logic Inc., Ecovative Design, and GreenFibers.

Bonded Logic Inc. takes people’s used pair of jeans and makes insulation out of them. The company’s UltraTouch insulation line does not contain chemical irritants, and is made from 85 percent recycled textile waste taken from landfills. UltraTouch is treated with a non-toxic mineral, Borate, which acts as a fire and mildew retardant. During UltraTouch’s manufacturing process, “minimal amounts of energy are used,” according to the company’s website. All scraps are re-used, so there is almost zero waste.

“The company is owned by a very sustainable, environmentally friendly conscience family,” said Sean Desmond, director of sales and marketing. “What really got them into (the insulation market) was the availability of the raw materials because of their background in the recycling industry. They’ve always been looking for ways to be energy efficient and to conserve resources.”

Ecovative Design

Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre founded Ecovative Design, and created insulation made from agricultural byproducts, called Greensulate that do not contain chemical irritants. The byproducts are put in a dark room without electricity, and then a growing organism is introduced into it. Within a week the organism coasts the byproducts, creating material strong enough for insulation. By the end of the year the product will be shipped in limited quantities to consumers.

Bayer described the process of making Greensulate:

We are developing a whole new material. Instead of making it with conventional manufacturing processes, synthetic resins, we are actually growing materials. We are growing them indoors, in the dark in molds. It is actually a fungi. We take local feedstock, agricultural byproduct, and combine them together with a organism that we have identified. We then form them into a shape and over a seven day period in the dark, without any electricity or petroleum, that organism self assembles a strong resin around these particles. We dry them out and get a rigid material that can be used as insulation, or depending on how you formulate it and what particles you use, a packaging material. It is totally compostable at the end of its lifestyle and it has an extremely low carbon footprint.

GreenFiber

GreenFiber is the only national manufacturer of cellulose insulation. Their insulation is called Cocoon Insulation, and is made from recycled paper fiber, called Cocoon Insulation. The company has 11 manufacturing plants in the U.S., and wants to use more locally available materials at all of its sites. Cocoon Insulation is non-toxic, according to the company’s website, and has a 26 percent better performance than other insulation.

GreenFiber pays people to recycle, by offering $15 a ton to businesses or schools that use the company’s recycling bins, and $30 a ton to an individual who drops paper products off at their warehouse in North Carolina. The company has placed 1,600 recycling bins.

Reprinted with permission from Triple Pundit

Seattle Steam, a company that’s been using old school technology to heat downtown buildings for more than 115 years, is turning to an even older fuel source—wood—in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

In Fall 2009, the company plans to fire up a new boiler which will allow it to derive more than half of its source fuel from biomass—specifically, wood waste from a number of local sources including composting, construction waste and wood culled from city waste streams. The switch will reduce Seattle Steam’s carbon emissions by about 55,000 tons annually, the company says.

Privately owned Seattle Steam provides heat to about 200 customers in Seattle’s downtown and First Hill neighborhoods via 18 miles of underground pipe. For hospitals, food producers and the city’s art museum, it also offers high-temperature steam and humidity control. While the company’s customers are already eligible for points from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for connection to a district energy system, the switch to biomass could mean additional LEED credits, Seattle Steam CEO Stan Gent says.

Because the new biomass boiler will be more expensive to operate and maintain than the existing natural gas system, Gent says the company is not expecting a quick return on investment in the $25 million project. However, added costs will not translate to higher rates for customers, he says.

For Seattle Steam, the move to biomass represents a first step in switching to renewable energy sources. The company has applied for stimulus funds for a combined heat and power plant, which would boost its renewable energy percentage to more than 80 percent, Gent says.

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Industries

Around 1,600 tons of waste, including toilet seats, dirty diapers, used syringes and old TVs and computers, are lying in the containers at two southern ports after being sent from Britain falsely declared as a cargo of plastics.

Brazil has fined the three companies that imported the waste, Stefenon Estrategia e Marketing, Bes Assessoria e Comercio Exterior and Alphatec, environment agency IBAMA said, and said the firms would have to pay to send it back.

"If they don't send the rubbish back they will be fined (a daily rate) until this is resolved," said Ingrid Oberg, head of IBAMA in Santos, where the country's largest port is located. The daily rate would be on top of the fixed penalties the government has already slapped on the firms.

Some of the trash-filled containers have been docked at the ports since November.

There was confusion over who would foot the bill to return the waste.

Britain's Environment Agency said on Monday the company that exported the waste to Brazil also would be made to repatriate it to Britain at its own expense.

Oberg said the Brazilian companies, based in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, had shown willingness to cooperate.

The companies, who say they were expecting shipments of plastic, can contest the fines if they can prove they did not knowingly import waste that was potentially harmful to the environment and to public health.

British authorities are also investigating how the waste came to be exported.

(Reporting by Peter Murphy; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

As part of overall sustainability efforts and in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, the environmental award winning chain Fairmont Hotels is working to reduce waste by collecting used cooking oil and grease for recycling. Oils and grease are then converted into other uses, for instance, biodiesel.

The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa uses Yokayo Bio-Fuels, a firm that converts the oil and grease into feed for agriculture purposes. Fairmont Scottsdale's oil and grease is converted into bio-diesel and sent to local businesses that use diesel engines to operate equipment such as forklifts and generators.

Greenest of them all is the Farimont Chateau Lake Louise, which reuses the grease and oil on site for various sources, one of them being two shuttles that show a video educating riders about the hotel's green measures and why those measures are important. The list goes on and on at each of the chains 20 plus locations.

Because the biofuel manufacturing market is not entirely accessible by the general public or business community just yet (many of the large scale manufacturing operations are energy companies or research labs), the chain must use local shops for recycling. This provides an opportunity to promote local operations while reducing transportation emissions.

This is true sustainability. For so many companies, buying recycled paper and collecting aluminum cans is their sustainability plan. Hardly. Fairmont is really making great strides in to implement a full portfolio of sustainable measures that compliment each other: recycling oil and grease and limiting the fossil fuel used to transport it to recycling centers. Perhaps they will work on using biodiesel shuttles everywhere that transport that oil.

Greening the hospitality industry is free advertising for the environment. If a chain serves corn utensils alongside organic room service, promotes conserving water by reusing towels (limiting the number of washes), shows a video on a T.V. channel or in the lobby about recycling used oil and grease, then that chain educates guests on not only what it is doing to be green, but how manageable living green can be.

So, eco gurus, the next time you think about a hotel, research what that hotel is doing for long term preservation for the environment, or one that is dedicated to growing environmental stewardship.

Upon selecting that local Fairmont hotel, be sure to order room service or stop by the cafe. Most importantly, cheat a little on your diet, order a little something fried and do something good for the environment. Those calories don't count.

Made in the USA is back. Nordex USA, Inc., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wind turbines, has just announced that it will build a manufacturing plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The plant is expected to begin producing turbines in 2010 and create approximately 600 jobs. With a typical wind turbine requiring about 8,000 components, that could mean a ripple effect in related jobs in the supply chain.

Sustainable Wind Power Means More Local Manufacturing
Germany-based Nordex announced its intention to build wind turbines in the U.S. last year. Local sourcing makes sense for wind turbine production, because of the high number of components needed to manufacture them. The main components are bulky, so transportation can add a huge chunk to the cost of installing wind power. Local sourcing of production cuts into that cost. Nordex is not alone in targeting local manufacturing. In addition to wind power, solar companies such as Stirling Energy Systems are beginning to turn to U.S. manufacturing for sustainable energy sourcing.

U.S.A. a Top Market for Wind Power
Because of its wide open, sparsely populated spaces, the U.S. has much more potential to tap wind power than Europe. Just one example is the massive new wind farm built by E.ON Climate and Renewables in Roscoe, Texas. According to Nordex USA, the U.S. could well be the world’s biggest wind market as early as next year. That means more sustainable power - and more jobs

Nissan has announced plans to sell compact hybrid vehicles based on its own technology in Japan, starting from 2011.

The Japanese outfit intends to make a low-cost, compact powertrain featuring an integrated electric motor providing supplemental power to the main gasoline engine. Energy will be provided by high-performance lithium-ion batteries.

According to Nissan the hybrids should be more than twice as fuel efficient as the equivalent gas-powered offerings.

The company plans to kick-off the new line-up with the Serena minivan, Nissan’s Japanese best seller, having sold 33,500 units across the country in the first half of the year.

Nissan has previously announced plans to sell an electric car in Japan and the US by the end of 2010 and has been at great pains to stress that it believes the future of eco-cars lies with all-electric vehicles.

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

There is a controversial decision to be made in Maryland soon regarding a nuclear reactor that might be built there. Similar to reactors being built in Finland that British and Finnish regulators are finding problems with, this reactor would be built largely by a French nuclear technocratic elite who are operating in a questionable and risky way.

The project in Maryland is a 4.5 billion dollar deal that is trying to skirt public service regulation. Thanks in part to a regional coalition, the Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition (CSEC), and their ability to get 650 petition signatures sent to the Public Service Commission (PSC), the nuclear business elite are running into responsible and practical decision-making that will give more public accountability.

An in-depth report of the history of nuclear technology in France that leads into the situation today was completed by international nuclear expert and consultant Mycle Schneider in May of this year. There are many issues put forth in this paper that are discussed in great detail and with appropriate connection to various global issues (i.e. issues regarding political conflict and the environment). Six key points from the report are introduced below:

1) the French nuclear system is a consortium of elite technocrat-engineers who are not elected and have exercised primary (if not full) control over this system for decades;

2) the group is building two nuclear reactors in Europe and they are having serious problems with delay and being over-budget;

3) the group’s influence and interests have led to numerous environmental problems regarding uranium mining around the world and have also been a driving force behind armed conflict in Niger (between the Niger national government and locals who oppose or want a fair share in the economic returns);

4) the French nuclear system never separated civil from military research and development;

5) the group dominates the international nuclear sector;

6) the group seems to be willing to distribute technology, build facilities and share nuclear know-how very indiscrimately, including to countries with fragile and even dangerous socio-political structures and to countries on both sides of major international conflicts.

The situation in Maryland calls for more help as the Public Service Commission now moves forward to review the deal. Public input will be included, now that the Baltimore Circuit Court has denied Constellation Energy’s appeal to not have the PSC regulate the deal. For more information on the issue, visit the Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition website and also feel free to take action here.

Other than the reasons stated previously, the CSEC are telling the PSC to say no to the deal because: “EDF’s business culture and practices are unacceptable in Maryland. These include recent allegations of anti-competitive practices in Europe, an indictment of two senior EDF officials by a French court for activities involving spying on the environmental group Greenpeace France, and statements by EDF against clean wind power in the United Kingdom.”

With the inside look at nuclear energy in France from Mycle Schneider, an international consultant on energy and nuclear policy, we can now all be more informed, and decion-makers in Maryland and other places have more to think about regarding nuclear energy and policy.

Image credit: huntz via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Reprinted with permission from Planetsave.com