FEATURES AND NEWS
For example, the Ohio State University’s Ohio Stadium, with 105,000 seats, is the largest venue in the country to achieve greater than 90 percent diversion of waste from landfill (reaching a top diversion rate of 98.2 percent). And the University of Arizona’s LEED Platinum certified Recreation Center has high-efficiency plumbing ... Read more »
Layne Christensen’s 350-gallon-per-minute reverse osmosis system has reduced the environmental impacts and energy use of a food processing plant’s water treatment system, reports Water & Wastes Digest. The unnamed large food processing plant is based in Wisconsin and packages green beans, carrots and potatoes. As a means of reducing its ... Read more »
Based on data released earlier this month by the US Drought Monitor, nine urban areas in the United States are under “exceptional drought” conditions and may experience widespread crop damages, even more severe water restrictions, and water emergencies in coming months. Of the four different rankings, “exceptional drought” conditions are ... Read more »
As discussed in my colleague’s last post, when considering sustainability standards such as LEED, measuring and verifying your energy use is a key component to meeting many of the required specifications. Before you get to the measurement and verification (M&V) part though, energy conservation measures need to be put in ... Read more »
Toray Plastics, a manufacturer of polyester, polypropylene, metallized, and bio-based films, will begin construction in August on a second cogeneration system at its 70-acre North Kingstown, RI, campus. Toray has earmarked $22.7 million for the development of the new system, including funds from National Grid’s Energy Efficiency Program, developed in ... Read more »
Partner Content
Optimum Energy has raised a follow-on investment from Edison Energy, a subsidiary of Edison International. This investment expands Optimum’s financing round announced in June, which included Columbia Pacific Advisors, Navitas Capital and Johnson Controls. The financing will enable Optimum Energy to hire more talent and accelerate growth of its energy ... Read more »
Nissan’s Green Program 2016 focuses on reducing environmental impacts at its global locations, including energy management activities in Latin America. In Mexico, Nissan has expanded a green energy program so that 50 percent of the energy used by the Aguascalientes Vehicle Assembly Plant comes from renewable sources including wind power ... Read more »
Environmental groups are challenging the conservation plans of Iowa’s largest energy providers, reports the Associated Press. Iowa law requires that gas and electricity utilities submit energy efficiency plans every five years. The law also allows other groups to challenge those plans. Interstate Power and Light, a division of Alliant Energy, has ... Read more »
A $120 million Department of Energy program that helps spur innovation and encourage utilities to implement energy storage technologies could give rise to opportunities for wider implementation of storage technologies, says an issue brief from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). A consortium of DOE national labs, universities and ... Read more »
Lucid’s new BuildingOS, an online operating system for buildings, serves as the central hub to consolidate meter and building system data, giving visibility into the energy performance of a diverse portfolio of buildings. Lucid says BuildingOS integrates quickly and can be used on a computer, tablet or phone. The software ... Read more »
Partner Content
French retailer Casino and Coca-Cola Enterprises have partnered to engage with consumers about at-home recycling through a new campaign, asking them to make a recycling pledge. The campaign — Recyclons plus, engageons nous — lets consumers pledge to recycle, browse pledges made by other people, vote for their favorite pledges, ... Read more »
Miniwiz Sustainable Development Ltd., a Taiwanese architectural firm, completed a building in Shanghai, China, at the end of July, built with 100% trash. The building, Nike’s newest concept store, used 5,500 soda cans, 2,000 PET water bottles and 50,000 old CDs and DVDs, the company says. The suspension ceiling system ... Read more »
Marriott decreased landfill waste per occupied room in its Americas region by 4.9% from 2011 to 2012, the company announced in its 2013 sustainability report update. In 2012, Marriott initiated 15 third-party waste audits and waste characterization analyses to better understand the company’s waste streams. As a result, Marriott-managed properties ... Read more »
Based on that calculation, the clean air gains the port achieved in 2012 are even greater. On a ton per 10,000 TEU (20-foot equivalent unit) basis, the port slashed DPM emissions 81 percent, NOx emissions 59 percent, and SOx emissions 89 percent. The 2012 results are based on a combination ... Read more »
Redi-Mix, a business unit of US Concrete, has supplied its low-CO2 concrete to six Dallas Independent School District schools for a net savings of 108.7 million pounds of CO2 emissions. Additionally, the company says that US Concrete’s Aridus Rapid Drying Concrete was used at the Billy Earl Dade Middle School ... Read more »
Weyerhaeuser last year made $102 million in “Eco+ Revenues,” sales of products and services with an improved environmental profile, the company says. These products meet one or more of the following criteria, without hurting their overall sustainability profile: Enables substitution of nonrenewable energy or materials with renewable resources. Results show ... Read more »
Photo Credit: Portland Trail Blazers
The EPA has proposed a plan to address contaminated soil for which the Stepan Company is responsible, at the Maywood Chemical Company Superfund site in Maywood and Rochelle Park, New Jersey. Previous industrial activity at the site resulted in contamination of the soil and ground water with volatile organic compounds, radioactive waste and ... Read more »
The US Department of Energy has awarded Plug Power a $650,000 contract to demonstrate the use of hydrogen-based fuel cells to power the refrigeration units in semi-trailer trucks that transport perishable and frozen foods. Plug Power’s transport refrigeration unit (TRU) fuel cells, which will be based on its GenDrive technology, ... Read more »
Scientists in Australia are trialling a carbon capture system that turns emissions into green building materials, while a consortium led by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland says it has created a more economical and ecological carbon capture system for use at power plants. The Australian CO2 mineral carbonation research pilot ... Read more »
Veolia Environmental Services has opened an electronics recycling center that will serve the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic US while Synagro Technologies says it will build a facility in Florida to recycle biosolids and yard waste into class AA compost. Synagro’s $4.3 million facility will be based in southwest Florida’s Charlotte County, ... Read more »
Germany set a world record by producing 23,900 megawatts of electricity in a single day from thousands of solar systems across the country on July 8. While the number is impressive, it’s not likely to hold for long. Two of Germany’s leading downstream solar power companies filed for insolvency just ... Read more »
To meet their target storage inventory levels for the start of the 2013/14 winter, many local distribution companies will need to increase the amount of natural gas they have in underground storage fields this summer compared to last summer, according to US Energy Information Administration data. Total injections this summer ... Read more »
Japan’s largest IT services company NTT Data is going to use US-based AutoGrid’s Energy Data Platform (EDP) to conduct joint research and development in the energy sector, beginning in September. The R&D partners will look at the need for managing peak electricity demand, which is already popular in the US ... Read more »
Nine more General Motors facilities have achieved the US EPA Energy Star voluntary Challenge for Industry, bringing the company’s total to 63, more facilities than any organization worldwide. The specific challenge – to cut energy intensity by 10 percent within five years – resulted in a collective avoidance of $162 ... Read more »