Posted by Yan Yan on July 25th, 2007
A specialist South African energy company, Sasol, is claiming to have launched the world’s first project that converts greenhouse gas nitrous oxide into harmless individual gases nitrogen and oxygen.
The company expects to remove the equivalent of a million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the project each year (every ton of nitrous oxide has the impact of about 310 tons of carbon dioxide). It will also net a tidy sum by selling its carbon credits on the international markets.
Sasol did not say how much it expected to earn from the carbon credit sale, but [Head of the Sasol project Fred Groen] said credit for a ton of converted greenhouse gas was worth $10 on the climate exchanges.
Posted by Greenbang on July 25th, 2007
John Watkins, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, is trying to look at the state of the UK’s countryside.
He’s teamed up with SAS, a company that is clever at interpretting data, and ESRI, a mapping software company ESRI to do this.
Greenbang asked him what it’s all about…
What does your organisation do?
[It] is the UK’s Centre of Excellence for research in the land and freshwater environmental sciences. We are a wholly owned research centre of the Natural Environment Research Council employing around 500 staff across England, Scotland and Wales.
Our staff have specialist skills in a wide range of environmental disciplines, ranging from the smallest scale (the gene) to the largest scale (whole Earth systems). Our research is aimed at improving understanding both of the environment as we see it today and the natural processes that underlie the Earth’s support systems - for example climate & water resources.
We are particularly interested in the impacts of human activity on natural environments. We aim to generate workable solutions to today’s pressing environmental problems.
How does that relate to business?
Rapid economic and population growth are increasing pressure on the world’s natural resources and changing the climate. The UK needs world-class scientific research to provide solutions to these key challenges.
Our staff work on many environmental issues in these areas, linking blue skies research to practical solutions that help maximise positive impact on economic, social and environmental well being.
Key examples where we have made maximum impact include the world leading Flood Estimation Handbook, long term monitoring programmes allowing detection of climate change impacts - for example spring coming earlier across Europe which will have major implications for agriculture, and ground breaking work on water pollution issues, for example the impact of drug releases into the ecosystem.
What pressures are businesses now under to change their way of working to adopt greener initiatives in the workplace? How can this be made profitable as well?
We don’t specifically provide advice in this area but as an organisation we are adopting green initiatives.
For example our Welsh based staff have just moved into the new Environment Centre Wales, a partnership venture between the ourselves and the University of Wales, Bangor. This new building is on track to receive the Building Research Establishment’s (BRE) highest environmental assessment rating for its design and construction elements.
The Centre has been built with the environment in mind. For example, photovoltaic panels have been installed to generate electricity from sunlight, ground-source heat pumps will air condition the building using minimal energy and at low cost, and a rainwater recovery system is used to flush the lavatories. It has been built using indigenous materials including Welsh oak and slate. …
Posted by Greenbang on July 25th, 2007
If you hadn’t heard, the UK is having a hard time from a nasty bout of flooding in parts of this fair land.
Greenbang thinks that disaster-recovery planning (i.e. being able to keep going as a business when the sh*t hits the fan), is all part of the sustainability picture.
This will sound gloomy, but if freakish weather is to attack more often, learning to cope and continue is exactly what this blog is about.
Now electricity and water have failed in certain areas, it’s going to be tough doing business - espeically for location-dependent companies, such as retailers. There’s no internet or computing power for anyone relying on the electricity grids.
So Greenbang reckons with this sort of thing on the cards for the future, there will be a big drive to a more self-sustainable model - not just for businesses but people in general.
You won’t laugh when people make their own power - it’s already starting to happen with bio-fuel generators and wind turbines on boats and houses.
It’s not a hippy, treehugger ideal, it’s just going to be necessary.
Now don’t get excited - it’s not Mad Max just yet, but climate change isn’t going away. In fact, whether you look at it from an environmental, business, political or even conusmer point of view - you can’t run. Change is on the horizon - better think about it now.
Now check out this BBC story:
The flooding which has left most of Gloucestershire without running water has brought misery to thousands of people. But businesses, too, are finding the extraordinary situation a challenge.
They are hardly what you would call ideal commercial conditions.
First came the floods. Then the electricity went, and so too the water supply.
Gloucester may have its power supply back, but the city’s dry taps mean local traders are facing a stiff challenge just to keep their doors open.
Posted by Greenbang on July 25th, 2007
Greenbang went to visit IBM yesterday for a chat and a cup of tea.
This is what the big computer company said:
- The total cost of operating IT equipment is roughly 50 per cent of the capital procurement budget. That means over the life of the product, a company spends more on the electricity running it.
- Forty per cent of the energy used in a company goes towards IT today. The rest goes on heating and lighting etc.
- PCs are used between five and ten per cent of their capacity. When you think about that they all have their own internal storage and disk space. The other one to look out for is UNIX systems. They typically run between ten and 20 per cent. Mainframes is between 85 and 90 per cent. [Greenbang asks - what does IBM sell!]
- Once data is backed up to tape there is no carbon footprint.
- IBM is not just on the green bandwagon. We want to leverage [that means use in normal speak] our experience in the technology sector.
- IBM has been dealing with that since 1990. We have reduced our carbon footprint by the equivalent of 40 per cent since those levels. We have always been environmentally focussed. We have always been driving that forward. By doing that we have saved $15m a year. For renewable energy we pay than for normal.
Posted by Greenbang on July 25th, 2007
CHINA WATCH Beijing has promised to create a green Olympic Games next year.
Work has begun on the first of 33 wind generators that will eventually supply clean energy to Beijing and next year’s Olympic Games, according to ChinaDaily.
The wind farm will sit on the outskirts of Beijing at Guanting. They are expected to help reduce the capital city’s reliance on emissions-heavy coal-fired power generators.
The wind-power stations will produce an estimated 100 million kwh of electricity a year, enough to meet the demands of 100,000 Beijing families.
The project will cost an estimated 580 million yuan ($76.7 million). Electricity generated by wind turbines will cost about 0.7 yuan per kwh, 0.3 yuan more than electricity from a coal-fired plant.
The government is considering a package of subsidies to encourage people to use wind power.
Posted by Greenbang on July 24th, 2007
This from Pensions and Investments Online - Greenbang’s daily must read publication…
Venture capital firms invested a total of $1.3 billion in clean technology companies during the year ended March 31, according to a study released today by Topline Strategy Group, a high-tech consulting and business development group. The study was derived by data from the National Venture Capital Association’s and PricewaterhouseCoopers’ quarterly Money Tree report.
Posted by Greenbang on July 24th, 2007
IBM’s got more of the same going on. Greenbang’s going to meet IBM today, so we’ll see what else is happening.
Again from those CNet people:
…IBM is working “in earnest” with GridPoint, a company that builds a system for generating renewable energy and storing it at people’s homes. Utiltities can play an important role in getting this relatively expensive product–which costs over $10,000–into the market, Clark said.
In the area of water conservation, IBM is starting to work with start-ups that have developed systems that can monitor and collect information on water quality. Municipalities are potential customers, Clark said.
In the case of water, it can build models that track changes to water quality over time, or create a dashboard that provides a real-time display of different factors.
Other areas on IBM’s clean tech watch-list include calculating corporations’ “carbon footprint” and working with green building companies for better energy efficiency.
Posted by Greenbang on July 24th, 2007
Where there be treasure, them Dow Jones journos be lurkin about.
Water Tech Online picked this little baby up today…
“Clean technologies” in water treatment, biofuels and other markets are among the topics addressed by Clean Technology Investor, a new e-newsletter and Web site product launched July 9 by Dow Jones & Co., according to a PR Newswire report carried on CNNMoney.com.
The product, the first developed by a new energy and commodities group within Dow Jones Financial Information Services, will cover trends, investments and companies of all sizes, public and private, in the clean technology and alternative energy markets, the report said.
Posted by Greenbang on July 24th, 2007
Told you again…(finger wags).
This on News.com, which is owned by the previous employer of Greenbang’s chief blogger.
Sensicore, which builds sensors and software for monitoring municipal water quality, is hoping that investors have a big thirst for clean tech ventures. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company intends to file to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange later this year, according to CEO Malcolm Kahn.
Its system compiles water quality information and maps it onto a Web-based application that shows workers at a treatment plant what’s happening in their distribution networks.
The basis of its product is “lab-on-a-chip” sensor technology, based on research from the University of Michigan. Rather than have a separate sensor to measure different chemicals, a single silicon chip-based sensor can gather several inputs, such as chlorine or ammonia levels.
Posted by Greenbang on July 24th, 2007
Greenbang’s crystal ball told you this was going to happen. And looky here, it is:
DOTCOM entrepreneurs are beating a path to the clean technology sector as cashed-up super funds open the spigot for ventures targeting green concerns ranging from energy to drought and global warming.
Venture capitalists who raked in big bucks during the 1990s internet boom are also setting their sights on cleantech, with plans to funnel tens of millions worth of general technology funding into green startups.
Worldwide, investment in clean technologies designed to reduce consumption, increase industrial efficiency and slash emissions, has exploded in the past three years.
The Cleantech Venture Network reports that North American and European venture capital investment in cleantech hit $US3.6 billion ($4billion) last year, up 45 per cent from 2005 and more than double the $US1.7 billion pumped into the sector in 2004.
