Renewable energy projects are picking up pace in USA with Oregon Energy Facility Sitting Council giving it a green signal to build the world’s largest onshore wind farm- The Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm .It will be built on private land (spanning Gilliam and Morrow counties); 5 miles southeast of Arlington and will consist of 300+ wind turbines, plus a combined installed capacity of 909 megawatts. According to Michael Grainey, director of the Oregon Department of Energy, this announcement marks a tremendous day for the state’s renewable energy options.

So far, the largest single wind farm (the Horse Hollow wind farm, located in Texas) holds a capacity of 765 MW. Development of the Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm will be undertaken by Sacramento (California firm Caithness Shepherds Flat LLC) and it hopes to alleviate the current energy scenario in Oregon.The wind farm will double-up the Oregon’s wind capacity. While Shepherd’s farm might seem to be the largest so far, plan to build a 4,000 MW wind farm in Texas by business tycoon T. Boone Pickens by 2014, seems a wee bit outlandish.

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The latest entry in the world of diverse wastes yielding valuable “biogas” is yours truly, human excreta! We have heard about astronauts up there in space breathing oxygen churned out from their own urine earlier. Now down here on earth, our households will get powered by our own collective poo. Of course, this isn’t something that will happen in the whole world simultaneously for such an exclusive power generating mechanism will be test run under a $1.1 million pilot project. The latter undertaken by Terasen Gas of British Columbia (Canada) which is determined to purify “biogas” from human waste. The procedure will take place at the Lions Gate sewage treatment plant. This project happens to be the first of its kind in British Columbia although efforts to do the same are going on in the United States. Tearsen hopes to extract biomethane (biofuel) at the end of the process and distribute it via its existing natural gas distribution system. Methane gas is produced by sewage treatment via processes like decomposition / digestion of sewage and solid-liquid waste separation.

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The image of a happy Sarah Jessica Parker walking around on the streets of New York wearing absolutely drop dead gorgeous Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos in Sex and the City will forever be embedded in our hearts and mind.  From personal experience, I can say that beautiful shoes make a happy woman. However, companies like Miôn, Simple Shoes, Planet Shoes, TerraPlana take this concept to a whole new level. They have come up with eco-friendly shoes which not only make women (and men) happy but they also make for a very happy planet.  These shoes come in every style imaginable for men as well as women. They are made completely out of recycled material, animal friendly products and relatively harmless chemicals. What more, the price range for happy earth shoes is quite competitive with shoes costing as less as $74. GreenPiggies have come up with a similar line for children so that our tiny tots learn a lesson or two in saving mother earth.

With eco-friendly shoes, organic food, vegan skin products, one can only imagine what will be the next step in the race to save our planet. Eco-friendly cars have been the talk of the town ever since companies like Honda and Genepax have launched cars that run on water. The commercial viability of these products are still questionable, considering one does not see many people wearing eco-friendly shoes and driving eco-friendly cars. Awareness, thus, become the need of the hour.

via Source

Being from the technology background does not necessarily mean that one has an eco-bent of mind. Going green is not just an activity. It starts with forming a similar mindset and that’s usually the hard part. So it came as a very motivating surprise when I read about the eco-responsibility initiative taken up by Sun Microsystems, an industry giant by many standards, to modify their data-centers (place where a lot of energy-consuming technical stuff happens on many huge machines simultaneously) in such a way that they emit less heat and CO2 and become smaller in size while not compromising with issues such as capacity and security of these data-centers. I felt that if a huge company like Sun is taking such a definitive step towards “going-green”, I as a speck in this huge universe also have certain responsibilities towards planet Earth.

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Toshiba-one of the famous names in home-use lighting equipment industry has released two nouveau LED lights for commercial purposes. These are shaped like midget reflector and beam lamps. These were designed in a manner that they can be easily used with current sockets used for existing lights in your house (because these lights have the E26 base).

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The world of dentistry will be revolutionized if Japanese manufacturers and a University of Saskatchewan researcher have their way. A company by the name of Shiken, based in Japan, is seeking to take dentistry in the future. Yes, they have visualized it to be a time when your toothbrush may no longer need your toothpaste to get the job done. The idea is to have a solar-powered toothbrush which will cause a chemical reaction in your mouth to eliminate plaque and bacteria from your mouth.

Sask dentistry professor Dr. Kunio Komiyama thought of it first when he created this type of toothbrush 15 years ago. A titanium dioxide rod was contained in the neck of the brush a little below the nylon bristles. Light falling on the wet rod would release electrons, which would react to the acid typically found in the mouth, helping break down plaque. The latest model is called the Soladey-J3X and works in the same way, except that it’s twice as powerful. The toothbrush needs about as much light as a solar-powered calculator.

Via DiscoveryChannel

What made Sony target the reprocessing of one pound of e-waste for every pound of electronics sold under it? Following the footprints of Dell, the company has introduced e-cycling program globally to contribute its services to the environment by reducing electronic waste.

Sony believes in post-sales services and thus the company has inked pact with 75 Waste Management Recycle America eCycling drop-off centers across US to maintain the ecological-balance by protecting environment from e-waste.

The fact is that the usage of electronic products cannot be restricted to numbers as they have become the demand of the hour. So, the smart way is to recycle the used products to save our own lives.

Art Installation made by utilizing damaged computers 

Survey done by the EPA in 2005 revealed that out of 1.9 to 2.2 million tonnes of electronic products used; only 345,000 to 379,000 tonnes are recycled. Unfortunately, the rest resides in landfills. This effort made by Sony is more than just doing away with this way of disposal as the process enables the reuse of the glass, plastic and metal. This ultimately reduces the need to extract fresh metals from the Earth, thereby cutting off the energy expenditure. Also, the emission of greenhouse gases can be put to an end to a certain extent.

The customer-friendly nature of the company is making them open sufficient drop-off locations, so that distance would never be an issue. Also, Sony customers’ do not have a spend a single penny to avail this service but yes recycling of other company’s products would demand the payment of market prices.

Via News Factor

Save water, reduce greenhouse emissions; ride on the green road carved by Fujitsu

Japanese Electronic Giant Fujitsu plans to walk on a green road for its contribution towards the safety of the planet. Having bought a 200 KW hydrogen fuel cell from UTC, the company aims at providing power and heat to sprint the buildings covering its campus in California.

This single fuel cell is capable to offer two different types of energies to the plant. Hydrogen produced through burning methane with steam is flowed into a proton exchange membrane, thereby generating electricity that power computers and other electrical paraphernalia within the facility.

The process in turn produces heat when the hot water is cycled through the plant. The temperature of the water is too high that a small quantity of water has to be taken away as its temperature is unbearable for the internal working of the plant.

Likewise every move to have a green earth, reduce global warming; one cannot claim this option to be 100% eco-friendly option. But what catches eye and mind is the fact that the greenhouse emissions through this process are almost 35% of the normal. This simply means doing away with the 500 tons of carbon dioxide from the air along with saving about 800K gallons of water a year. Isn’t it a great move?

Against present 50% efficiency of the fuel cell, it can be 85% competent, if additional heat is captured from the process. This praiseworthy and efficient move of Fujitsu is aided by utility credits as the company has got a rebate of $500,000 ($2.50 rebate per watt) from Pacific Gas & Electricity. No doubt about the success of the Fujitsu’s initiative but yes success can go two-fold if the waste is minimized and cell works with its full efficiency.

Drawback: The installation of this system is accessible to the industry that works in a 24X7 environment. It is this feature only that Fujitsu doesn’t fall in a category to make the efficient use of its own invention.

Via NYTimes

As against companies Customer Social Responsibilty (CSR) sharing a proportional relation with company’s reputation, the impact of the eco-friendly division of the company on its stock performance is inversely proportional.

As per a report by Goldman Sachs International, global banking and securities firm: Those companies who are actively engaged in managing environmental, social and governance factors have proved better market leaders.

Anthony Ling, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs believes that due to the vibrant spread of the Internet, around 3,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are listed with the UN, generating the lucidity for corporations.

The other side gives a more curvy graph displaying the weak performance in the environmental, social, and governance area will hint towards the lose of company’s competitive advantage, thereby affecting stock performance. This is because investors consider such factors before picking up the stocks.

The report is followed saying eco-friendly companies’ viz. recycling and nutritional foods are growing well and the alternative energy industry had grown five-fold in the last three years, resulting in rising stock of the company.