Nissan gives HQ a lick of green paint

Nissan is greening its HQ. You might be thinking a car company making its buildings more environmentally friendly is a bit like a crocodile brushing its teeth in the name of fish welfare, but Greenbang would suggest, to quote the venerable Tesco, that every little helps.

The Associated Press has gone for a gander around the building and this is what it found:

A sci-fi sounding “light harvesting system” automatically dims or turns off interior lights in the 460,000 square feet of offices. Sun shades outside — sort of like reflective visors — with computer-designed blades direct sunlight to reduce glare and heat in the Southern summer. [...]

Outside the glass-covered building, Nissan is restoring a 2 1/2-acre wetland. Tens of thousands of native Tennessee plants, including iris, button bush and rushes, are already growing there.

There’s also a lot of greenery, and air conditioning controlled through outlets at individuals workstations. Ahhhh.

Aside from the cockle-warming potential, the building will cut Nissan’s HQ’s energy consumption by 35 percent. Good show.

Has Arnie’s hydrogen highway hit a roadblock?

Erk. Speculation is afoot that the Arnie “Get to the chopper” Schwartzenegger’s plan to get a hydrogen fuelling stations dotting California is having some considerable problems, after some stations have shut up shop and plans for others have been shelved. Out of Arnie’s proposed 100 stations, only 22 are up and running.
From the Mercury News:

California Air Resources Board officials met with more than a dozen energy companies and automakers Thursday to shore up wavering support for the governor’s proposed hydrogen highway - a network of fueling stations to allow motorists use non-polluting fuel-cell-powered vehicles.

Energy companies agreed Thursday to provide money and staff time needed to reopen a critical hydrogen station at the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a group of state and private organizations in Sacramento that are working to get hydrogen into mainstream use. [...]

The Air Resources Board said it will reissue bids for the projects in the next few weeks and will add money to help upgrade two existing stations. There is already $7.7 million set aside for the competitive projects from past budgets. An additional $6 million is being requested for future projects in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget, which he released Thursday.

The LA Times has more:

But the three stations that never got off the ground are raising the most eyebrows. All three contracts were awarded in May 2006, for amounts ranging from $1.1 million to $1.25 million. Last spring, however, the award to Cal State L.A. was rescinded because of contractual disagreements. And in October, the San Diego Unified School District, chosen to build a station that creates and dispenses its own hydrogen using wind energy, also fell through, because the school district never acquired the necessary land.

Just before Thanksgiving, PG&E’s contract with the state also fell through. Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said it disagreed with the Air Resources Board over how the station should operate. The state expected PG&E to generate the hydrogen it dispensed on site, but the utility, eager to invest in other alternative vehicle technologies, wanted only to sell hydrogen created elsewhere.

If only all Arnie’s problems could be solved by putting on some camouflage paint and getting out some very big guns.

One to watch? Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd…

Ceramic Fuel Cells, a company based in Australia, is making some waves in the UK and the rest of Europe.

It has just shipped one of its a NetGenPlus energy units here as part of an agreement with E.On and Gledhill Water Storage in a bid to make micro-combined heat and power products for the British market.

The units are powered by the company’s metal-ceramic fuel-cell stack, running on widely available natural gas. They can be connected to existing gas and electricity networks. In November 2007, the NetGenPlusTM unit was awarded CE approval, enabling the units to be deployed throughout Europe.

The units are being integrated with the partners’ high efficiency boiler units to create micro-combined heat and power products.

EWE in Germany, Gaz de France in France, E.On UK Ltd in the UK and Nuon in Holland have signed up. Combined, CFCL’s utility customers have more than 20 million customers across Europe.

Green tech funding beats $100bn

Greenbang likes a good number, does Greenbang. Especially when that number is over $100bn. Especially especially when that $100bn is the amount VCs have invested in clean technology during the last year.

The number comes courtesy of consultancy New Energy Finance, who says the actual total of financing transactions concerning renewable and low carbon tech last year topped out at $160bn. Keep that fact handy and impress your funding-obsessed friends next time you’re down the pub.

India gives hand-outs for solar-power plants

India is to subsidise the cost of producing energy made from the sun’s rays.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said it is trying to build a renewable energy infrastructure - something we Greenbangers know is a costly business.

Minister of State for New & Renewable Energy, Shri Vilas Muttemwar said the Ministry will provide financial assistance amounting to Rs.12 per KW hour in case of solar photovoltaic and Rs.10/KW hour in case of solar thermal power fed to the electricity grid.

America declines to sign Kyoto Protocol

The United States said today that they would not buck under pressure and adhere to the proposed greenhouse gas emissions cuts, despite every other major industrialzed country signing the Kyoto Protocol.

Just a few hours ago, main man Harlan Watson, (head of US delegation), broke the news, saying that neither Australia signing the treaty, nor proposals from the US Senate committee to limit emissions would influence their decision to ratify the agreement.

“We’re not changing our position,” said Watson

AFP report:

Watson said the US was hoping to come up with their own set of figures on cuts when a meeting of 17 nations that are major emitters of greenhouse gases, organised by US President George Bush, takes place next year.

“We’re not trying to detract from the United Nations process,” he added.

Ahead of the meeting, Bush reiterated that his administration was opposed to any international constraints on curbing carbon emissions if it undermined economic growth.

Britian not meeting targets. Carbon emissions still too high

Britain looks set to fall short of its target to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent in the next two years (from levels in 1990), according to Hilary Benn, Environment Secretary.

Reuters report:

Giving evidence to parliament’s all-party Environment Audit Committee, Benn said the actual figure in 2010 was likely to be a 16 percent cut — and that only with a significant quantity of carbon emission credits purchased overseas.

“We are not making fast enough progress on carbon reductions. We have got a long, long way to go. We have a very big task on our hands,” he said, highlighting the Climate Change Bill now going through parliament.

He acknowledged that extra measures would be necessary to obtain the necessary cuts in emissions of climate warming carbon gasses from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, but declined to go into detail.
Pressed on whether it was right for a country to be able to buy carbon credits from abroad to make its own performance look better, Benn said that it was a global problem so the solution had to be equal in scope.

It is a global problem, Hilary. Do you know what percent means?

With scientists predicting that average temperatures will rise by up to 4.0 degrees Celsius this century because of global warming, this is not going away.

Toshiba passes carbon buck to customers?

There are two ways of looking at this:

1 - Toshiba is helping customers to offset the carbon from the manufacture and use of their laptops

2 - It’s helping itself pass the carbon buck and freeing any guilt from customers…

Toshiba today launched a new scheme through which its customers can offset the carbon dioxide produced during the manufacture and lifetime use of their laptops. For a small donation of £1.18, Toshiba customers now have the option of making their laptops a ‘Carbon Zero’ purchase through a tree planting scheme at dedicated Toshiba woodland, delivered in partnership with co2balance, Toshiba’s carbon offset partner.

The trees planted as part of the Toshiba Carbon Zero scheme will be native broad-leafed trees, in a new developing woodland called Sand Martin Wood in Cumbria. Trees are an effective, natural means of absorbing carbon dioxide emissions as part of the carbon cycle, with each tree absorbing around one tonne of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

Announcing the new scheme, Tom Nickson, Environmental Manager, Toshiba Computer Systems said: “The Carbon Zero scheme is an important one for Toshiba, because we’re allowing our customers to make a positive environmental choice when buying one of our products. This scheme is an important part of Toshiba’s wider commitment to improving the value, eco-efficiency of its products and business processes, as well as reducing emissions of carbon dioxide related to the manufacture and use of its products. The fact the cost to the consumer to offset one of our lap-tops is so low, demonstrates the progress made so far.”

…

Oceanlinx prepares to float

Some days Greenbang likes to give thanks to the pun gods for making her job easy. Today is one of those days, after Greenbang discovered that a wave power company wants to float on the stock exchange.

Wave power. Float. You can see where this is going. Greenbang is welling up with enthusiasm to tell you Oceanlinx is going for an IPO that should help it raise up to £35 million, according to Reuters. The company is presumably hoping interested buyers will flood in.

Reuters goes on to say that the company could be valued at up to £100 million - no drop in the ocean for a wave power company.

What the impact on other environmental stocks will be is unknown, but anyone will tell you a high tide raises all ships.

Supermarket to switch 300 lorries to rapeseed fuel

Rapeseed. It makes the countryside a nice yellow hue. And many commentators are claiming it is the answer the world’s fueling problems. Supermarket chain Waitrose certainly thinks so - it is trialling a system that could see its entire lorry fleet powered by the increasingly popular plant.

This from The Times

The supermarket chain is the first to opt for rapeseed oil.

It claims that the process of cold-pressing rapeseed to produce the oil has a carbon footprint 20 per cent lower than producing the equivalent amount of bio-diesel, which is made through a chemical process involving methanol.

Charlie Mayfield, chairman of John Lewis, said: “We are always looking at ways of improving the efficiency of our fleet and this is a win for us. We expect it to succeed and as and when it does we will roll 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.