Green Technology Forum

EnerTech Environmental, Inc. announced today that it has signed an Expression of Interest to build a SlurryCarb demonstration facility at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. Masdar City will be the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city, completely powered by renewable energy.

EnerTech’s SlurryCarb demonstration facility will process biosolids (sewage sludge) produced from the permanent buildings erected during Masdar City’s first phase as well as from the accommodation for the several thousand workers building Masdar City between 2008 and 2016. Biosolids from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, the workers’ accommodation, and the headquarters of Masdar will be converted into renewable E-fuel, a fossil fuel replacement. The demonstration facility is the first step towards installing a permanent SlurryCarb facility in the city.

“This is an opportunity to showcase the SlurryCarb process to the Middle East and work with the international community to build a city that truly embodies sustainable living and working,” said Kevin Bolin, EnerTech CEO. “It showcases the SlurryCarb process as the best available biosolids technology when it comes to sustainability, renewable energy, and the reduction of greenhouse gases.”

Masdar is Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted, multi-billion dollar investment in the development and commercialization of advanced and innovative technologies in renewable, alternative and sustainable energies as well as green design. By applying scale and leveraging Abu Dhabi’s low-cost, tax-free manufacturing base, businesses will enjoy significant competitive advantages, allowing them to compete internationally and provide significant diversification to the Abu Dhabi economy. On February 9, 2008, Masdar broke ground for Masdar City.

Source: prweb.com

A Pacific Northwest renewable heating solutions manufacturer - Greenwood Technologies - is blazing a new trail in the clean technology market. The company has overhauled the traditional outdoor wood boiler to create a next generation of indoor and outdoor wood-fired furnaces, and investors are starting to take notice. Recently, Martin Tobias, formerly of Imperium Renewables, a biodiesel company located in Washington State, signed on as an investor.

Located in Bellevue, Wash., Greenwood Technologies manufactures low emission appliances that can heat spaces up to 12,000 square feet. The furnaces are available through more than 100 North American Greenwood Dealers. The company’s distribution is currently in the mid-West and Eastern states and provinces, and is expanding into overseas markets. Greenwood Technologies sales are on track to reach more than $10 million by the fourth quarter of 2008 and could reach $30 million by 2010.

“Just like other clean tech companies, we are developing competitive products that exceed the performance of similar conventional products,” noted Tom Eckmann, CEO of Greenwood Technologies. “With the rising cost of oil and gas, high efficiency wood-fired furnaces provide a significant economic relief to their owners.”

Clean tech wood boilers are helping households and light commercial businesses address rising fuel costs because of the locally available and renewable fuel source – firewood. They also produce approximately 90 percent less wood smoke and are twice as efficient when compared to traditional wood boilers. These significant benefits are making a difference to communities struggling with federal non-attainment for air quality.

Source: businesswire.com

This Wednesday, May 14, actor Ed Norton, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and experts in the field of green building appeared before Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to discuss how more efficient buildings and better building policies can reduce energy costs and cut global warming pollution. Norton is a Trustee for the Enterprise Foundation and works to bring green building practices to low-income housing development.

The building sector is responsible for 48 percent of all heat-trapping emissions, and it is estimated that 76 percent of all electricity generated by U.S. power plants goes to operate buildings. As energy prices rise — increasing the costs of cooling, heating and construction — green building has become a popular mantra for homeowners, corporations and environmentalists alike. Yet the numerous definitions of green buildings can lead to confusion, inaction or ineffective policy. As Congress examines all sources and causes of global warming emissions, it must consider how the buildings we work and live in can contribute to reducing the impact of climate change.

Source: globalwarming.house.gov

The recent report entitled Water for People – Water for Life of the World Water Assessment Programme of the UNESCO says that more than 6000 people die every day due to water-related diseases, including diarrhoea, worm infections, and infectious diseases.

In addition, organic pollutants from industrial wastewater from pulp and paper mills, textiles and leather factories, steel foundries, and petrochemicals refineries, are a major cause of illness in parts of the world where regulations do not necessarily protect people from such industrial outflows.

So the availability of drinking quality water is fast becoming a major socio-economic issue across the globe, especially in the developing world. However, water purification technology is often complicated, requires sophisticated equipment and is expensive to run and maintain. Moreover, it usually requires a final costly disinfection stage.

Now a team of scientists at the Ian Wark Research Institute at the University of South Australia are tackling this by taking a nanotechnology approach to water purification – a move that has the potential to prevent disease and poisoning from affection millions of people.

Research professor Peter Majewski and biomolecular chemist Chiu Ping Chan have investigated how silica particles can be coated easily with a nanometre-thin layer of surface active material (SAM) based on a hydrocarbon with a silicon-containing anchor. The coating is formed through a chemical self-assembly process so involves nothing more than stirring the ingredients to make the active particles.

These active particles were then tested to demonstrate that they could remove biological molecules, pathogens such as the polio virus, bacteria such as Escherichia coli, and Cryptosporidium parvum -– a waterborne parasite.

Source: engineerlive.com

Prana the Dinosaur is an inflatable “smart” sculpture built by the Contemporary Art and Technology class at Cypress College. The design enables the sculpture to monitor and visualize current air quality data of North Orange County, CA.

Prana (”breathing”, the breath of life) is described on Wikipedia as a Sanskrit word that refers to a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy in natural processes of the universe. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis.

Prana has been programmed to change color in accordance to the current air quality data extracted from airnow.gov, a cross-agency government website. Airnow.gov is dedicated to transmitting U.S. air quality conditions and forecasts. The hope for this project is to inform our school community with specific air quality data and to spark critical dialogue on campus. This sculpture was inspired by the many other air quality related projects studied in the course.

Source: air-dino.info

Two large-scale carbon sequestration projects — the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership and the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership — landed a total of $126.6 million in U.S. Department of Energy funds. The cash will be used to test carbon sequestration technology in California and Ohio. The two projects are the fifth and sixth projects the DOE has funded to improve carbon storage technology.

Both projects are intended to demonstrate the CO2 injection process, from pre-injection characterization to post-injection monitoring, and between the two projects, the DOE expects to see injections of one million tons or more of CO2. So far, the DOE has pursued similar tests in the Plains, Southeast and Southwest regions, through similar regional partnerships. DOE acting deputy secretary of energy Jeffrey Kuper calls these projects “the most promising of the major geologic basins in the United States.” He followed up in a press release from the DOE by saying that, “Collectively, these formations have the potential to store more than 100 years of CO2 emissions from all major point sources in North America.”

Source: matternetwork.com

Tesco is trialling telling customers about the greenhouse gases emitted from “seed to store” of some products, as it hunts the green pound of customers worried about climate change.

From Tuesday, the world’s third-biggest food retailer is piloting carbon labelling across 20 products, putting a number on the packet showing greenhouse gas emissions per helping of certain items including potatoes, orange juice, washing-up liquid and light bulbs.

The government-funded Carbon Trust and the Environment Ministry are backing the initiative which aims to add the power of consumer spending to fraught political efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But Tesco won’t put a timetable on rolling out the initiative further across its product range of tens of thousands of goods, partly because of the complexity of measuring emissions.

“Let’s see what the response to this is and in the meantime we’ll measure the emissions of more products,” said David North, Tesco’s community and government director.

Source: uk.news.yahoo.com

The trouble with a lot of the corporate speak about going green is the promises can seem abstract, or worse, like just another PR campaign. Xerox Corp. is working on a green technique that’s as plain as the stack of papers on your desk. Scientists at Xerox can make the print on documents appear — then disappear in time, allowing paper to be reused.

Using a molecular compound similar to the one on tinted eyeglasses, which darken or lighten depending on the amount of ultraviolet (UV) light in the environment, Xerox labs have developed paper that changes color when exposed to UV light. Unlike tinted glasses, however, which change color instantly upon walking outside or into a building, the print on Xerox’s paper fades gradually over 16 to 24 hours, or it can be erased instantly by heating the paper.

The goal is to produce an erasable paper that costs two to three times the price of regular paper but can be used hundreds of times. People can relate, Xerox scientist Paul Smith said.

“We got enormous feedback from customers. They loved this concept of a green technique,” said Smith, laboratory manager at Xerox Research Centre of Canada, near Toronto.

Source: searchcio.techtarget.com

Green is the new gold for OMI Industries, maker of an odor neutralizer for factory emissions that has parlayed its all-natural product into a hit with eco-minded consumers.

The company’s Fresh Wave line of odor-eliminating sprays, candles and crystal gels is ringing up about $12 million annually from sales at Ace Hardware

Source: chicagotribune.com

Bioplastics are biodegradable and can be made from a wide range of different plants. In the future genetically modified plants will need less water and reduce the costs. Bioplastics has the potential to reduce the petroleum consumption for plastic by 15 to 20 percent in 2025. Improved technical properties and innovations open new markets and applications with higher profit potentials in automotive, medicine and electronics.

When bioplastic companies change their strategy from just replacing today’s products to new applications, product conceptions and production processes with the advantage of bioplastics the profitability and saleability increase dramatically.

In 2025 Europe will count for 31 percent, USA 28 percent and Asian for 32 percent of the total markets. Asian has the advantage that genetically modified plants are easier to realize and new outlets for agriculture are faster to build up. These are some results of a new released market study by Helmut Kaiser Consultancy.

Bioplastics fast market growth of more than 8-10% per year. Bioplastics cover approximately 10-15% of the total plastics market and will increase its market share to 25-30% by 2020. The market itself is huge, it reached over 1bn US$ in 2007 and will be over 10 billion by 2020. More and more companies are entering and investing in this market. New applications and innovations in the Automotive and Electronics Industry lead to market boom. Over 500 bioplastics processing companies are already available, more than 5000 is expected by 2020.

Source: nanovip.com