Green Tech

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu plans to dispense tens of billions of dollars in loans in the next year in an effort to stimulate the economy and shortcut bureaucracy at the Department of Energy.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday, Chu said that the goal is to spend about half of the roughly $37 billion set aside for clean-energy projects in the coming year.

The clean-energy provisions are a central piece of the government stimulus package, which was passed by the House earlier this week. The Senate late Friday reached an agreement on the spending bill so that it could be voted on early next week.

Existing energy legislation from 2005 set aside loans and grants for energy and auto companies but no money has been dispensed because of a slow approval process, Chu said.

"This is the pace we expect, not three years, but five months." We've got to do this and we've got to do it in a way that has not been done at the Department of Energy," he said.

The amount of money available for clean-energy related projects is actually larger than the $25 billion annual budget of the Department of Energy whose mission is largely tied to protecting the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal.

An analysis by climate change business consulting firm ICT International, which was commissioned by Greenpeace, found that early versions of the stimulus bill had set aside over $50 billion for clean-energy measure, such as smart grid technologies and auto battery research. The American Association for the Advancement of Science put the number at about $37 billion, according to the Journal.

"The synopsis of the loans I've seen in innovative green energy -- they're in the hundred-million dollar range. They're in big hunks of money," Chu said.

The provisions are a mix of direct spending or loan guarantees, which have emerged as a vital source of capital for new energy technologies companies because of the credit crisis.

A number of clean-tech companies are seeking loans from the DOE in order to build manufacturing facilities, which are difficult to get financed as banks have become more conservative or unwilling to lend. Well known clean-tech companies, including Tesla Motors and battery company A123 Systems, have applied for existing loans but haven't received money.

Chu said that less technology-oriented Department of Energy projects could be quickly dispensed through states, including roughly $6 billion set aside to weatherize homes and municipal buildings to be more energy efficient.

"The secretary is committed to streamlining the process and eliminating unnecessary paperwork so that we can make these important investments that create jobs as quickly as possible," Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow told Reuters.

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times earlier this week, Chu spoke about the potentially severe economic and environmental impact from climate change, particularly in California.

"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he told the newspaper. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."

WASHINGTON--As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama famously courted both labor unions and Silicon Valley firms. Now President Obama is finding that two groups that have been some of his most enthusiastic supporters are at loggerheads.

The tech sector sees President Obama's call for billions of dollars in targeted tax cuts and deficit spending on a new green economy as a generous windfall. So does the labor movement, which spent at least $385 million electing Democratic candidates, and is at odds with business over investment and procurement policies in the so-called "stimulus" package, including the "buy American" provision.

At the opening of the Good Jobs Green Jobs national conference here Wednesday, union leaders said high labor standards must be maintained in the government's nearly trillion-dollar attempt at economic recovery--which includes billions of dollars for broadband deployment and tens of billions of dollars for energy initiatives.

"If we extinguish workers' rights, the chances for a green economy are nonexistent," said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, the largest communications and media union that represents workers from AT&T, Embarq, Comcast, and many other companies. "We're not protectionists--we're people who believe in a sustainable economy. We can't just depend on markets, and if we do, we're likely to come up with answers that are at best incomplete."

On the other hand, many economists agree that higher union salaries can lead to fewer jobs (and higher unemployment). The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics says: "High union wages that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in the unionized sector of the economy."

More than 2,000 business, labor, and environmental advocates are participating in the conference, which lasts through the week, to shape the national dialogue on creating a "green" economy.

"This is the working-class and the progressive-movement's Davos," said Leo Gerard, the international president of the United Steelworkers.

A "green" economy will create new opportunities for labor, Gerard said, citing Gamesa, a Spanish windmill company with a branch in Pennsylvania.

"Gamesa is 100 percent union, and they make their windmills 100 percent union," he said. "In a windmill, you've got over 200 tons of steel, 20 tons of composite material, 250 cubic yards of cement...Every one of those is a green job, and one wind turbine can create enough energy for 500 to 600 homes."

For such projects to work as an economic stimulus in the United States, though, labor leaders said American jobs must be better protected. They pointed out that the "buy American" provision of the "stimulus" package, which would require manufactured goods used for projects funded by the legislation to be produced in the United States, is in line with long-standing procurement laws already in place.

"The economic philosophy of the right wing has allowed them to ignore that," Gerard said.

Regardless of its consistency with U.S. laws, he said, the controversy surrounding the bill has misdirected the dialogue about the economic package from its main objective: creating good jobs.

"This isn't about a trade war," Gerard said. "It's about making sure we're not putting our jobs out to bid for China."

"I resent the high-tech community, (which has) resisted all kinds of training programs so they can export cheap labor."

--Leo Gerard, international president, United Steelworkers

The technology industry, which will play an integral part in developing smart grids, renewable-energy sources, and other "stimulative" efforts, sees the "buy American provision" very differently.

Dozens of companies and trade associations, including AT&T, Dow Chemical, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, and the Consumer Electronics Association, sent a letter Tuesday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying the provision "will harm American workers and companies across the entire U.S. economy, undermine U.S. global engagement, and result in mirror-image trade restrictions abroad that would put at risk huge amounts of American exports."

"Government procurement is part of the WTO agreement," CCIA president Ed Black has said separately. "U.S. companies have won nondiscriminatory access to supply products for other governments because of these provisions. Keeping that reciprocity is important to the current economy and the economic recovery we are all hoping to see."

He said his organization has additional concerns that the "buy America" provision could be extended to information technology and is particularly concerned that the provision could extend to health IT stimulus efforts.

Gerard said at Wednesday's conference that "there's a fairly high level of duplicity" in the discussion over the "buy American" provision.

"I didn't hear any of the high-tech firms yelling and screaming when China said they were investing $700 billion for Chinese jobs," he said, "when they refused to sign the WTO procurement policy. All of a sudden, because we want to do this in the United States, something's wrong."

"I resent the high-tech community, (which has) resisted all kinds of training programs so they can export cheap labor," he added.

Wednesday's conference preceded a rally on Capitol Hill at which union activists voiced their support for the Employee Free Choice Act, a controversial measure that would allow workers to unionize by signing a card rather than through secret ballot. Some members of the tech industry are opposed to this measure as well.

"Future job growth is likely to come from the technology industry, and innovation requires the flexibility for companies to hire and fire," CEA President Gary Shapiro told CNET News in November. "In the tech industry, unionization would be devastating, frankly."

"When it comes to workers, we can't just be another commodity thrown in a landfill," Cohen said when speaking about the Employee Free Choice Act. "We want good jobs, we want green jobs, we want union jobs, and we're going to take a stand."

CNET News' Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.

It took about two decades for the packaging creature known as the "oyster" or "clamshell" to conquer the world of consumer electronics. But the hard-to-open casings of plastic considered by many to be toxic could start to disappear soon, according to some experts in packaging and design.

Although clamshells remain widespread, a small but growing number of companies are housing products in packages that are not only easier to open, but manufactured more efficiently with recycled or recyclable ingredients.

Oyster packaging forms what may seem like a hermetic seal around a wide array of goods, including MP3 players, Webcams, USB drives, mice, headsets, software, printer cartridges, and batteries.

"Clamshell packaging is so over," said Wendy Jedlicka, a packaging designer. "We know it sucks. We're fixing that." Jedlicka belongs to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a group that met last week in San Francisco that has grown to more than 300 member organizations in a few years.

More than a handful of packaging manufacturers have introduced eco-friendly alternatives to oysters within the past several years.

However, retailers have favored the rigid clamshell casings that deter shoplifters, are easy and cheap to ship and store, and offer a peek of the product inside.

The expansion of big-box stores, particularly bulk outlets that lack display cases, will drive demand for clamshells by 5.3 percent each year to $2.7 billion in sales within the next two years, according to the Freedonia Group, a market research firm. At that pace, more than 8 billion oyster packs will be produced by 2015.

However, growth could be hampered by corporations' sustainability efforts, along with spikes in petroleum prices, the firm added. Despite the energy-intensive process of spinning plastics from fossil fuels, traditional plastics still remain cheaper than those from recycled or plant-based materials.

Although greener alternatives to clamshells are a small niche in the packaging world, they may win favor with the public for reasons totally unrelated to their environmental footprint.

Clamshells can make products impossible to free with bare hands. Some attempts at grappling with knives and scissors have led to amputated fingertips and severed tendons. "The degree of injuries can be pretty severe, depending on the frustration of getting a package open," said Melissa Barton, an emergency room physician at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit.

She sees at least one patient each week--more around Christmas--suffer cuts and worse, usually from box cutters and other tools used to puncture and pry open the packaging.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that there were some 6,500 emergency room visits related to plastic packaging in 2004.

Some packaging makers are creating resealable, snap-out, or perforated designs that could reduce the amount of wounds and cursing triggered by clamshells.

Despite those steps, environmental groups dislike the toxicity and waste of using virgin plastics for disposable purposes. Some people go to extremes to avoid plastic trimmings for everyday goods, but find few practical alternatives.

"Consumers are becoming much more sensitive to the environmental ramifications of excess packaging," said Tod Marks, a senior editor at Consumer Reports.

The magazine for two years published an "Oyster Awards" hall of shame for hard-to-open packaging. Last year's winner was an Oral-B electric toothbrush tucking clamshells into a tight plastic and cardboard shell.

There weren't enough changes in packaging to warrant awards for 2008, but Consumer Reports will focus on packaging sustainability later this year, Marks said.

Packaging accounts for nearly one-third of consumer garbage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And plastics comprise 12 percent of U.S. waste each year, but are rarely recycled, while some scientists fear that irresponsible dumping is making a plastic soup of the world's oceans.

The European Union attempts to regulate packaging design and waste. California's Rigid Plastic Packaging Container Law encourages the use of recycled plastics. Yet such rules are rare in the United States, where businesses rather than government are driving dramatic changes.

"We're aggressively attacking the clamshell market," said Jeff Kellogg, a vice president of MeadWestvaco. Its Natralock line of packaging features a pop-out, glue-free clear plastic display "blister" surrounded by paperboard of one-third recycled content. Plant-based plastics could also be used.

Compared with clamshells, Natralock packages cost up to 30 percent less and weigh half as much, which cuts shipping expenses, Kellogg added. They also require less energy to seal in a factory, and can run on traditional equipment.

Competing products include Rohrer's Eco-View Pak, a mix of chipboard with a plastic display bubble.

Winterborne's Enviroshell packaging mixes a recycled-plastic blister with cardboard of more than two-thirds recycled material and soy-based inks. The board and plastic aren't fused together, enabling both to be recycled.

Enviroshell packaged the Xbox 360 when it launched in Wal-Mart stores in 2005. Toshiba began using the packaging in 2006 for storage devices.

Wal-Mart's sustainability goals (PDF) include reducing the amount of packaging in its stores by 5 percent by 2013. Its Sam's Club outlets halved the amount of packaging for digital media in 2006.

Phasing out PVC
In the United States, those attempts would remove millions of pounds of landfill-bound trash as well as wasted energy and greenhouse gas pollution, the equivalent of taking 213,000 trucks off the road every year, according to Wal-Mart. To help meet a goal of becoming packaging neutral by 2025, Wal-Mart's packaging scorecard measures suppliers' sustainability.

The retailer is also one of many phasing out toxic PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, formerly the main material for oyster packaging. Its manufacture and disposal is believed to release cancer-linked chemicals, including dioxins.

Other brands shunning PVC include Target, Sears, Johnson & Johnson, and Bath & Body Works. Wal-Mart and Apple worked together to develop iPod packaging free of PVC. Microsoft discontinued PVC in software packaging in 2005 and has since stopped using clamshells in half of its packed products.

PET, the common replacement for PVC, is widely considered better but still ecologically harmful. Plastics from PET, or polyethylene terephthlate, are also commonly used for soda bottles, and are being recycled for use in electronics packaging.

Reducing packaging altogether
Another alternative to plastic clamshells is a reduction of packaging--or a lack of it altogether. Music and software can be downloaded digitally, for instance. And some stores opt to keep pricey products behind a counter while showcasing the samples, reducing the need for so many plastic display casings.

Participation in the Sustainable Design Coalition by businesses across a swath of industries, including electronics, clothing, cosmetics, and food, proves that progress in packaging is accelerating, according to Scott Ballantine, a packaging engineer at Microsoft. He has driven the use of PET recycled from Coke and Pepsi bottles for use in packaging.

Ballantine said he imagines that producers might eventually institute take-back programs for packaging, such as those Dell and HP have instituted to collect used electronics and accessories.

"Maybe someday there will be an 'unpacking' station in the Costcos and Wal-Marts of the world where customers can remove the packaging and companies can collect the materials," he said.