The Green Village News Tagged ‘carbon emissions’
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Following the intervention of President Barack Obama signing a Presidential Memorandum requesting the Environmental Protection Agency to review the decision to deny the greenhouse gas waiver request submitted by California. The waiver will apply to California’s greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles produced in 2009.
Under the Clean Air Act, California is given the authority to introduce and enforce stricter standards for cars and trucks than current federal law dictates. The original request was submitted in December 2005 by the California Air Resources Board but was denied in March 2006 on the basis that there was no need for California’s greenhouse gas emissions standards to meet “compelling and extraordinary conditions”.
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Tags: barack obama, california, carbon emissions, clean air act, epa, fuel efficiency, greenhouse gases
Posted in Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet, Transport and Travel | 1 Comment
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth have launched a new campaign promoting the reduction of carbon emissions by challenging local councils to get serious about CO2. The campaign was launched with the release of independent research conducted by Carbon Descent, leading climate change advisors for councils.
The campaign aims to highlight the role that local councils should be playing in helping reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by making a commitment to achieve a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 in their local area. In addition, councils are being asked to draw up action plans to explain how they’ll make their cuts in CO2, which Friends of the Earth’s research demonstrates could create 77,000 jobs in green industries across the UK. Jobs could be created in industries such as insulation, loft lagging and green building techniques, and that is without the consideration of warehouse and admin staff required behind the scenes.
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Tags: campaign, carbon emissions, co2, friends of the earth, get serious about CO2, local councils
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | No Comments
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Barack Obama has been accused of watering down the climate change bill following pressure from coal and oil companies. The policy that originally would have required companies wanting to build greenhouse gas emitting power stations and producing carbon emissions to pay for a permit and penalised them per tonne for carbon emitted has been diluted following discussions in Congress.
Criticism is borne from a number of changes, including a dramatic change in the percentage reduction in carbon emissions compared to 1990. This stands to be down to 4%, which Greenpeace’s Joss Garman pointed out on Newsnight tonight ought to be 40%. In addition, the carbon permits that were originally planned to be paid for will now be given out free to 85% of emitters; another aspect of the bill that is receiving criticism.
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Tags: barack obama, carbon emissions, climate change, climate change bill, co2, us
Posted in Energy and Resources, Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | No Comments
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
On 23rd April Ed Miliband outlined plans for clean coal technology to help reduce the UK’s carbon emissions and begin to take action against climate change. Today the details of the new coal consultation have been announced, asking for feedback on three documents published today on the Department for Environment and Climate Change website.
The proposals focus on three main areas and provide more detailed information about the plans in the pipeline to help reduce carbon emissions. The first part of the proposal will mean that all newly built coal fired power stations will only be approved if they include CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology that captures at least 25% of the power stations’ carbon emissions and pumps it back into the ground where oil and gas were originally stored beneath the North Sea.
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Tags: carbon capture and, carbon emissions, ccs, clean coal, climate change, coal, coal fired power stations, coal power station, decc, ed miliband
Posted in Energy and Resources, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | 1 Comment
Monday, June 15th, 2009
You would be forgiven for thinking that all supermarkets are born equal; the same blueprint for design and layout. However, the new supermarket being built in Gloucester by Sainsbury’s is challenging convention by fitting kinetic road plates in its car park. These plates will generate electricty that can be used in the store’s checkouts, which will help reduce the store’s carbon footprint.
Although not widely known about, the technology isn’t new; the kinetic plates are on trial in a number of distribution warehouses, but this is the first time they have been put to use in a supermarket carpark. Developed by a scientist in Dorset, Peter Hughes of Highway Energy Systems, the kinetic road plates are designed to transfer energy from the the tyres of cars as they pass over them as they travel across the car park. The cars create a rocking motion in the plates which drives a generator to produce the electricity; electricity generated from energy that would otherwise be lost.
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Tags: carbon emissions, eco store, kinetic plates, sainsburys, supermarkets
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Energy and Resources, Environmental Impact, Green Planet, Sustainable Development | No Comments
Monday, June 8th, 2009
A new 195-house eco village has been given the go ahead at a former hospital site near Bristol. The eco houses will be part of the Hanham Hall development being led by building contractors Barrett Developments PLC, where the Grade II listed hospital building will be revamped into a community centre.
The planning proposal, which was submitted to the council in December 2008, also includes 2.5 hectares of agricultural land that will be split into allotments and for community amenities. In addition, a Sustainable Living and Energy Centre will be built as part of the development. A CHP power plant within the eco village, powered by a biomass boiler, will be responsible for providing the village’s hot water and electricity supplies, and will be a key component of the zero carbon development.
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Tags: carbon emissions, carbon footprint, eco-village, hanham hall
Posted in Eco Home, Environmental Impact, Green Living, Green Planet, Sustainable Development | 1 Comment
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Supermarket giant Tesco has unveiled plans for a new carbon neutral store which they will build in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.
The plans for the carbon neutral store are the latest in a list of new green objectives and promises from the company, who recently featured in the Sunday Times Green Businesses list as the greenest supermarket. In addition to the new store, Tesco have promised to install charging points in their carparks for electric cars, and an extension to their carbon labelling scheme, which provides customers with information about the carbon footprint of their products of choice.
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Tags: carbon emissions, carbon footprint, carbon neutral, corporate responsibility, supermarket, tesco
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Energy and Resources, Environmental Impact, Green Planet, Sustainable Development | 1 Comment
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
Despite the promises to keep to Ken Livingstone’s targets to crunch carbon in London and make it a flagship green city with low carbon emissions, a year in Boris Johnson is not doing enough.
Although some good progress has been made by the bumbling but well-liked politician, such as making commitments to cycle hire schemes and electric car networks and planting significant numbers of trees in the city. Like his predecessor however, Boris has also made his share of decisions and shows support for a number of environmentally polluting projects and developments that undermine his aims for making London a green capital.
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Tags: boris johnson, carbon emissions, friends of the earth, green city, london
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | 2 Comments
Friday, April 17th, 2009
A new report undertaken by spam expert, Richi Jennings, ICF International, a global firm that provides consultancy and technological solutions to issues such as climate change and environmental problems among others, has been commissioned by Internet Security Firm McAfee to investigate the carbon footprint of spam emails.
Spam emails cause everybody grief from time to time. There isn’t much that’s more annoying than unwanted emails trying to sell you products you don’t want and requests to transfer money to your bank account when all you want to know is whether your friends and family have been in touch.
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Tags: carbon emissions, carbon footprint, email, mcafee, spam
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Green Planet, Science and Technology | No Comments
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
The Empire State Building in New York is leading the way in retrofitting old buildings by taking advantage of green technologies to reduce emissions. $20 million will be spent, beginning in the summer, to reduce energy usage by 38% a year by 2013. The building was constructed in 1913 and although renovation work has been carried out over the years, the efficiency of the building has been rather low compared to newer buildings in and around the New York area.
This project is set to show that eco retrofitting very large buildings can be cost efficient. The Empire State Building could recoup the costs incurred in as little as 3 – 4 years, and because large buildings account for a significant proportion of emissions in large cities such as New York, renovating them with green technologies would save them many millions of dollars in wasted energy costs.
The money invested in the project will go towards replacing 6500 of the building’s massive windows with more efficient versions, as well as upgrading the electrical, heating and ventilation systems so that they save as much energy as possible. Much of the work will be carried out on site to reduce costs and emissions from transportation.
New York’s finest building will show the rest of the world that upgrading large buildings to be energy efficient does not mean expense and compromise.
Tags: carbon emissions, empire state building, energy efficient, new york
Posted in Green Planet, Sustainable Development | No Comments
