Green Options

Tired of the general confusion and hoping to provide both companies and consumers with a better understanding of “green” claims, the American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute has a plan. Working with representatives from the from the ACS, major chemical and pharmaceutical companies, trade groups, nonprofit environmental organizations, and academia, they hope “to build a comprehensive, multiattribute, consensus-based standard with third-party verification that a company can certify against to say its product is green or that its manufacturing process or [...]

Nitrous oxide, more commonly known at your dentist’s office as laughing gas, is now the most prevalent man-made substance damaging the ozone layer. And it’s a greenhouse gas. Sadly, the joke’s apparently on us.

In an effort to curb solid waste pollution, China banned the import of scrap polysilicon at the beginning of August, an effort supported by its current environmental laws according to its Environmental Protection Ministry. Scrap polysilicon is a low-grade form of silicon not pure enough to use in microchips. However, it can be used as a component of solar wafers, which contain a variety of types of silicon, including up to 30% scrap polysilicon.

The energy giant BP and Martek Biosciences, a Maryland based company that uses micro algae to produce oil-based nutritional and dietary supplements, signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) earlier this month to produce microbial oils for biofuels applications.

Researchers at the University of York have recently come up with a method of recycling that seems like it fell from the pages of a science fiction novel. They want to turn discarded television screens into components for biomedicine.

Most odd stories relating to the environment tend to revolve around researchers and scientists and their slightly off the wall discoveries. But not so today. Today, in news of the weird – or at least slightly surreal – I bring you Daimler, the German automaker, who announced last week their very first hybrid car, the Mercedes Benz S Class. It’s a limousine.

Three more car companies received sizeable loans from the federal government yesterday, but don’t worry; it’s not another bailout. In fact, the$8 billion is just the start of a larger $25 billion project called the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM for short) that was thought up back in 2007 and funded by Congress in late 2008 during the Bush administration. The project, overseen by the Department of Energy, is a federal grant and loan initiative bent on providing [...]

In the constant push for ever newer and greener technology and energy, we sometimes forget that it is often both simpler and cheaper to revisit old techniques in new ways. And that’s exactly what a group of researchers in California has done.

One of the biggest problems with solar cells currently on the market is that they are extremely easy to break. Companies intent on manufacturing any sort of solar powered products have to find solutions, and few have yet been perfect. Hoping to change this trend, Dupont recently announced the launch of two new lines of encapsulants specifically designed to contend with the trials inherent in manufacturing photovoltaic products.

Honey bees are disappearing. The story has been in the news on and off since 2006, but for one reason or another, most people have paid little attention. And the situation is significantly dire.