Environment

Rising temperatures on the planet are killing off the equivalent of a mid-sized city every year.

The World Heath Organization attributes about 150,000 global deaths a year, according to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, in a report released today. Malnutrition due to crop shortages is having an impact, but so is the spread of infectious diseases like malaria. Mosquitoes carrying malaria have now been found in traditionally cooler climates like South Korea. Increases in asthma can additionally be linked to warming.

Summer heat waves are also taking their toll and expect to see refugees increase … Read more

The U.S. does not recycle nuclear waste from power plants because it could be used for weapons, but that might change.

Pete Domenici, the Republican Senator from New Mexico, said the country should start to examine the benefits of recycling fuel, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

France and most other nuclear energy-producing countries recycle fuel. Doing so cuts down the amount of fuel that needs to be mined, as well as the amount of nuclear waste that needs to get buried. Recycling, however, leads to byproducts that can be used to build bombs.

Domenici also said he wants … Read more

Sylvania's micro-mini-energy saver compact fluorescent bulbs have a few novel things going for them, but one of the more interesting is that they hold far less mercury than most CFLs.

The bulbs contain only 1.5 milligrams of mercury. Most CFLs have about five, according to Stephanie Anderson, the company's chief corporate spokesperson. That comes because the mercury is encased in a metal sphere. Conventional CFLs deploy mercury in its natural liquid state. Granted, it's still a pain to get rid of a CFL, but less mercury means less toxins.

Anderson also points out that the bulbs … Read more

Energy utility executives say that the environment and greenhouse gas regulations top their worry list.

Researcher Platts and consulting firm Capgemini on Tuesday published the results of a survey that asked 100 executives from the utilities industry what their biggest concerns are.

Although there are no federal regulations to restrict greenhouse gas emissions, utility executives are already preparing.

Ninety-five percent of respondents said that the industry's focus on environment has increased from 2006. Global warming, climate change, and carbon emissions were the top environmental issues, according to 77 percent of the participants.

The reason that utilities are taking carbon … Read more

Which parts of the United States emit the most global-warming gases? The best view until now came via satellites, which could capture only snapshots at about the state level. Total carbon emissions were known, but their distribution remained a mystery.

That changed on Monday with the release of the most detailed map to date of U.S. carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

The map, by the Vulcan Project, took more than two years to complete and cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars, with backing from NASA and the Department of Energy. The result, named after the Roman god … Read more

Nearly every cellulosic ethanol company claims it will be able to produce fuel at $1 or less a gallon in a few years. William Roe, CEO of Coskata, in a meeting on Monday explained how his Warrenville, Ill., company will do it.

It's one of the more interesting processes out there, because it combines both biological (i.e., microbes) and thermochemical (heat and chemicals) processing. Menlo Park, Calif.-based ZeaChem is also taking a mixed approach, but it combines thermochemical and biological processes in a different manner. Most other companies are using primarily chemical or biological processes. We don'… Read more

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 … Read more

6N Silicon, a Canadian start-up that says it has coined a method for producing silicon on the cheap, has secured up to $20 million dollars in second-round funding. The money will be used to pave the way toward mass production.

Getting adequate supplies of silicon has been a challenge for the solar-panel world. A shortage of silicon caused prices of both silicon and solar panels to soar upward in 2004 and the shortage continues. In 2006, solar-panel makers for the first time bought more silicon than chipmakers. Both fields have used the same type of silicon--electronic-grade polycrystalline silicon--which is … Read more

Plug-in hybrids get far better mileage than standard cars or regular hybrids--and emit far less pollution.

But they are also tough to justify economically at the moment with existing technology, according to the first several months of data from RechargeIT.org, which is studying how well plug-in hybrids work in real-world circumstances.

Plug-ins, in fact, only cut gas consumption by about 88 gallons a year over regular Priuses in urban driving. That comes to an annual savings of $158 to $250 (when you factor in the cost of electricity too). With the conversion running around $15,000, the payoff … Read more