Pimp my hybrid ride

Just when you think hybrid cars can’t get any cooler, those scientific types step right up and come up with another top idea.

Here’s the latest update from the Seattle Post Intelligencer: scientists in Idaho are working on some Toyota Priuses (should the plural be Pri-i?) with batteries that can be plugged in at the wall socket alongside your telly and the rest of those cable-generating consumer electronics.

From the article:

“We’ve done some testing where we’ve seen over 200 miles per gallon” under laboratory conditions, said Jim Francfort, who leads the INL’s Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity program. “Where you’ve got a lot of city driving, we’re seeing 125 miles per gallon, plus.”

Treat yourself to the full article here. Go on, you deserve it.

Ford Canada to recycle dirty air

Continuing Greenbang’s car themed week – a great use of technology and recycling in Canada will see one of Ford’s assembly plants running on fumes.

Paint fumes.

To lesson its environmental footprint the clever Canadian beans are installing a ‘fumes-to-fuel’ system in Oakville, Ontario.

The Edmonton Sun has the story and Ford is hailing the idea as ‘environmentally responsible technology’ and the ‘first of its kind in the world’.

Of course, the company then uses the technology to build more internal combustion engines…

“There’s nothing like this in the world,” Kit Edgeworth, a manufacturing expert with the Ford Motor Company, told Sun Media. “You couldn’t ask for anything greener in terms of technology.”

For years, paint-shop emissions - known as volatile organic compounds or VOCs - have been siphoned and incinerated in natural gas-fired furnaces that are costly and consume huge amounts of energy.

In contrast, Ford’s complex eco-friendly system, which is slated to be in use by the end of the year and at full capacity by late 2008, is expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 88% and eliminate nitrogen oxide emissions, Edgeworth said.

Solar power’s boom beckons

Solar power is apparently gaining momentum here in Europe, Reuters says:

Solar power could be the world’s number one electricity source by the end of the century, but until now its role has been negligible as producers wait for price parity with fossil fuels, industry leaders say.

Once the choice only of idealists who put the environment before economics, production of solar panels will double both next year and in 2009, according to U.S. investment bank Jefferies Group Inc, driven by government support especially in Germany and Japan.

Small town’s big carbon reduction journey

Greenbang just stumbled across an inspiring story about a little town in England, Ashton Hayes, which has made some huge strides towards its ultimate goal of carbon neutrality.

 In England’s Ashton Hayes, a not-so-sleepy town of about a thousand people, one man convinced his town to go carbon neutral and save the planet for their grandkids. How’d he do it? On a cold night, he promised them sparkling wine and warm apple pie, and about 75 percent of the town showed up to his presentation.

We always knew bribery worked, but the results sound great: locals switched light bulbs, recycled more, put in solar panels–and even the local pub cut down on night-time refrigeration. Net result? Emissions down by 20% in year one. What an effort. Read a bunch more stories on the town’s site here.

Data centres = 1/4 of IT CO2

The big beasty analyst Gartner says data centres account for 23 per cent of global ICT CO2 emissions.

Its estimate follows its finding in April 2007 that the ICT industry produces 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions, placing it on a par with the aviation industry.

This from the press release…

Speaking ahead of Gartner’s Data Centre Summit this month, Rakesh Kumar, research vice-president at Gartner said: “Although the figure compares favourably with the 40 per cent of emissions from PCs and monitors, it is much more concentrated and rising more quickly. Not enough attention has been paid to reducing the data centre’s carbon emissions. Organisations should aim to keep their data centre CO2 emissions constant. This will help curb excessive data centre growth and act as a counterbalance to deploying energy-inefficient hardware.”

“Data centres account for such a large portion of ICT CO2 emissions for three main reasons,” Mr Kumar said. “There is a lack of floor-space, a failure to house high-density servers and increased power consumption and heat generation. These three issues will affect the cost of running a data centre. For example, Gartner predicts energy consumption of microprocessors alone will rise for the next ten years.” …

Newsweek tracks the green job boom

Newsweek has a great story about the job boom in the green market. Of course, it’s hard to define exactly what that market is, but it tracks the surge of new opportunities for renewable-energy technologies and earth-friendly products.

Greenbangers watching our regular job updates will know know all about this, but the story gives some great details:

Even if some of these nascent companies falter, there’s widespread conviction that this sector will become one of the country’s hottest employers. “This is the challenge of the 21st century … and it’s not going away,” says Kevin Doyle, founder of the consulting firm Green Economy.

 Based on the flow of venture capital, K. R. Sridhar, CEO of the fuel-cell start-up Bloom Energy, believes the clean-tech sector could produce 50,000 new jobs by 2010. (By way of comparison, General Motors’ hourly work force, which briefly went on strike last week, currently numbers 73,000.) Peter Beadle, president of Greenjobs.com, cites estimates that the solar sector alone could employ 2 million people by 2020—more Americans than currently work as elementary-school teachers.

Sainsbury’s to switch to more eco-friendly HQ

Sainsbury’s plans to check out from its Holborn head offices and move to a more eco-friendly spot in King’s Cross, which it reckons will chop carbon emissions by up to 40%.

It’s still some time away, sadly, as relocation is only due in 2011, but good news nonetheless. Details remain sketchy, with talk of plans to use “renewable energy technologies”, “energy efficient building designs” and so on. This from the firm’s release:

The development will also include roof-mounted wind turbines, photovoltaics (solar cell technology), ground source heat pumps and solar thermal systems for generating hot water.

Firms face eco lawsuits in UK (lawyers say)

And it’s good news for lawyers today.

“Directors of companies incorporated in the UK could face action from shareholders in British courts for ongoing damage to the environment or communities in any part of the world under new Companies legislation which takes effect on Monday (1 October) according to lawyers at LG, a London-based business law firm.

“This legislation opens the door for directors to be sued in British courts for damage to the environment in any part of the world,” said LG’s Paul Lester, a partner specialising in corporate law.

“This is genuinely ground breaking in that it is no longer going to be enough for directors solely to focus on the bottom line when assessing their company’s performance - they will also have to consider what impact the company’s activities might have on others and be able to demonstrate that they have fulfilled their corporate and social responsibility as well.”

“The new Companies Act pushes the environment higher up the directors’ agendas - and will force companies to be able to demonstrate and verify their environmental and social practices around the world,” said Colleen Theron, head of LG’s environmental practice. “The impact is potentially much greater, as businesses will be forced to carry out internal risk assessments and review all their policies and procedures on the environment and social issues to avoid the risk of lawsuits.”

Small firms wait on government help for carbon cuts

Greenbang’s advice would be, don’t. The government is slow - it’s known about climate change for decades - and believes enough is already being done.

Cutting carbon and all things green, right down to eating properly, is your own  responsibility and Greenbang is afraid you’re going to be waiting in a very long Post Office queue for your hand out on advice.

But here’s the research anyway. Greenbang just thought he’d give his opinion before you had even read it.

More than 85 per cent of UK SMEs claim going green will be a part of their business strategy over the next five years, according to research from fast-growing UK ISP Eclipse Internet.

But the research also shows SMEs don’t believe government is doing enough to support their carbon-cutting efforts, resulting in them not being able to take advantage of new working practices which provide significant environmental savings.

The research sends a strong message to the government, whilst most SMEs are making efforts to reduce their environmental impact there is a significant knowledge gap that needs to be addressed. Almost 82% of UK businesses surveyed believe they need to be given more guidelines from government on how to cut their carbon footprint. Only 10% of those surveyed think they know what they are doing when it comes to going green, leaving a staggering 90% of businesses with a lack of understanding.

Lose carbon now, ask me how: Sun launches carbon cutting community site

Sun Microsystems, best known for making large servers that get stuck in corporate basements, has launched an online community site called OpenEco to help firms track and compare energy use.

As the site explains: “OpenEco is a new global on-line community that provides free, easy-to-use tools to help participants assess, track, and compare business energy performance, share proven best practices to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and encourage sustainable innovation.”

The hope is that firms will start to open up and share their data, in order to benchmark themselves against others.

And that’s about all we have to say about that.  Let us know if you’ve tried it out.

Greenbang tracks the explosion of the environmental industry, reporting on news of green innovation and thought leadership.

We blog on this rather than the environmental problems of the world because we are interested in the answers to climate change.