Environment

Photos: Washington renewable energy conference in pictures

Highlights from my week: a hybrid Mack dump truck, foldable solar panels, biomass pellets to replace coal, and a speech by President Bush.

The first Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) 2008, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday, brought together ministers from 119 countries and a trade show floor full of businesses.

The headline event, without a doubt, was a speech delivered by president George Bush on Wednesday morning where he said America has to "get off oil."

Overhanging the entire event, however, was a policy stand-off that renewable energy business people is hurting the U.S. economy. … Read more

No tech cure for oceans 'damned' by plastic

Plastic contamination in the world's oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up, according to Charles Moore. The oceanographer returned February 23 from a five-week odyssey in the Pacific Ocean with samples showing 48 parts plastic for every part of plankton.

"We are damned to a future of pollution by plastic," said Moore, who has spent more than a decade investigating Pacific plastic pollution. "There's no evidence it will end in a millennium."

A plastic "graveyard" double the size of Texas swirls in the Pacific … Read more

More money washes into wave power

Right now, wave power is in the early experimental stages, but venture capitalists are lining up to be on the ground floor.

Orecon has lined up $24 million in funding from Advent Ventures, Venrock, Wellington Partners and Northzone Ventures to build a full scale prototype of its wave power machine and, if the results are positive, move toward commercial deployment.

The U.K.-based Orecon has devised a large-scale buoy for harvesting power from waves. In a nutshell, waves striking the device create pressure in a chamber, which is used to turn a turbine and create electricity. A single device … Read more

Newsom: 'Green' tech promises not good enough

San Francisco may have shaken some flowers from its hair since hosting the first Earth Day 38 years ago, but the city continues to be named one of America's greenest. Satirists mock its politically correct "smug cloud" of eco-hipness, but many other regions tend to follow the city's environmental lead. For instance, more than a handful of U.S. cities are now mulling a ban on plastic grocery bags, first passed in San Francisco last March.

Fresh into his second term, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newson in January set goals for the city to become carbon-neutral … Read more

Green-tech news harvest: Solar batteries for home electronics

Solar home batteries. Japanese newspaper Nekkei reports that Sharp is forming a partnership with Daiwa House Industry and Dai Nippon Printing to make home batteries that will be powered by small solar panels. Set for release in 2009 or 2010 in Japan, the lithium ion batteries would be able to store up to 18 kilowatt-hours of power, enough to run home electronics such as laptops. There is a growing number of portable solar chargers for gadgets, like cell phones, but larger batteries are needed for most household appliances and electronics. Reuters. Asia in Focus.

Climate change hits water sources. Eight … Read more

Start-up aims to keep boat waste out of waterways

Most owners of the 13 million recreational boats in the United States dump their waste in the water, fouling fish and coral reefs with sewage and fuel, according to Klean Marine. The start-up plans to help boaters clean up their act.

Its founders aim to launch a service that would clean sailboats, motorboats, and yachts in ports of harbor around the country. Klean Marine would thus be able to serve, say, traveling snowbirds whether they're docked in Chicago in July or Miami in December. An annual subscription would start at $250.

Company president Kean Fulton, presenting Tuesday at the … Read more

Wal-Mart telegraphs its clean-tech needs

For many new green-tech ventures, Wal-Mart is the ideal customer, sitting on top of the economic food chain of environmentally friendly products.

On Tuesday Wal-Mart and the Cleantech Group launched a Web-based tool that provides a sort of shopping list for Wal-Mart's sustainability strategy. The Cleantech Group is hosting its Cleantech Venture Forum in San Francisco, which starts on Tuesday.

Which "innovative ideas" Wal-Mart is seeking is instructive because it points to large corporate demand for clean-tech products.

The list:

• Alternative battery technology for forklifts. • Wind harvesting. • Closed-loop water processing. • Sustainable building materials. •&… Read more

Plastic bags built to be yesterday's news

The Gray Lady may someday arrive at your doorstep inside a "green" plastic bag.

A company that makes delivery bags for The New York Times and other major newspapers has designed a plastic bag to biodegrade within three months.

GP Plastics' PolyGreen bags are made with fossil fuels, as are their traditional polyethylene counterparts.

However, a chemical added during manufacturing enables the plastic to be digested by microorganisms. The bags are supposed to disintegrate within a few months outdoors or three years in a landfill when exposed to oxygen and ultraviolet light, leaving behind little but water, carbon … Read more

Plankton grower Climos gathers funds for climate mitigation

Only a few weeks after ocean iron fertilization venture Planktos folded, rival Climos is set to announce a first round of venture funding totaling $4 million.

Climos CEO and founder Dan Whaley said Thursday that the company will announce funding early next week.

The idea behind Climos is to grow large amounts of plankton by pouring iron into the ocean.

Iron stimulates the growth of plankton, which consumes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Once the plankton sinks several hundred meters, it is considered sequestered from the atmosphere.

The practice of ocean iron fertilization, which has been experimented with since the … Read more