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The headquarters of a construction firm in Michigan has the distinction of being the first building to achieve LEED “double platinum” certification. What is more, according to the company, the cost of construction was no greater than conventional building practices.
The Christman Construction offices in Lansing MI occupy roughly half of the 64,000 square foot building which was initially built in 1928. The project cost $12 million, and also benefited from brownfield credits as well as state and federal historic preservation tax credits.
Could the state of Michigan see a revived economy and a new place in a renewable fuel future? The possibility of that happening got a boost when Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. began operating the world’s largest polysilicon production plant near Hemlock in western Saginaw County, Michigan.
According to recent post in Triple Pundit, the new Hemlock facility will churn out 9,000 metric tons of polysilicon — a key element in solar photovoltaic cells — each year. With another 10,000 tons already being produced annually at an older plant, Hemlock would be on pace to become a force to be reckoned with in the solar power industry.
A Great Lakes compact that would prevent the region’s water from being siphoned off into the thirsty Southwest and other dry parts of the country is a little closer to taking effect, now that lawmakers in Michigan have OK’d the deal.
The Great Lakes Water Resources Compact aims to protect the water rights of the eight states bordering the lakes: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Michigan’s approval of the agreement brings the number of states signed on so far to five: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and New York.
Rising prices for everything from copper and platinum to flour, gas and cooking oil are creating new markets for trend-minded thieves across the U.S.
With gasoline prices in the U.S. breaking new records weekly, for example, law enforcement officials are seeing more cases of cooking grease thefts from fast-food establishments and other restaurants. Why used grease? Because cooking oil can be converted into biodiesel fuel that can be sold at a cool profit.
Ypsilanti, Michigan is in the outlying suburbs of Detroit and is, itself, a city with a long automotive heritage going back to the Tucker Torpedo and Kaiser Motors and extending to a present day Ford assembly plant and the last Hudson dealership in the country and an Automotive Heritage Museum. But now, a local couple have embarked on a different direction towards automobiles, encouraging drivers to embrace a new mindset with a website called DriveSlowly, which they are unveiling for Earth Day.
Despite our hopes and best plans, sometimes we still have to drive. And while that high-end, high-performance hybrid remains out of our budget, we’d still like to do better with the vehicles we have. One way to accomplish that is by just driving a bit more slowly.
Hey, way to go, Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen! These are two young Girl Scouts who are showing what it takes to be real young leaders and good citizens.
According to the Ann Arbor News, these two 12-year-olds gave up on selling Girl Scout cookies after learning that the cookies are made with palm oil, which comes from Indonesian plantations that threaten the orangutan’s natural habitat. What started out as a research project on orangutans aimed at earning their Bronze Award has since turned into a two-girl campaign against palm oil production.
Grand Rapids, Michigan is one of the greenest cities in the country, at least if you go by the number of LEED certified buildings it has. And now it adds to its distinction with the first LEED Gold certified art museum in the country.
Grand Rapids is tied with Pittsburgh and Washington at #5 on a list of cities with the most LEED certified buildings, surpassing even cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, New York. Grand Rapids also has embraced renewable energy for the city. A strong regional commitment to green building and support from philanthropist Peter Wege (who serves on the board of the designerly office furniture manufacturer Steelcase as well as the Grand Rapids Art Museum’s board) has helped Grand Rapids But Grand Rapids’ latest claim to green fame is that it is now the home to the first new construction LEED-certified art museum in the country.
By Philip Proefrock •
September 29, 2007
This local blog first came to my attention via an article in the local paper about a University of Michigan medical student and his daughter who are operating a blog together that is encouraging people to eat vegetarian meals one day a week (on Wednesdays). The Vegetarian Wednesday blog began just this past summer. Originally founded by Josh Mugele and his daughter Eleanor, there are now a few other writers
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For those of you who do not live in Michigan, or keep up on its politics, it may come as a surprise to find out that our economy is pretty much in the gutter. Our unemployment rate is the highest it has been in nearly six months, and it seems the bad news keeps rolling in. With large cuts in the automotive industry, coupled with the dissapearence of jobs from such powerhouses
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Last week I wrote an article titled "Real Renewable Energy vs. Renewable Energy Credits" where I looked at the issue of renewable energy credits (RECs) versus direct purchase of renewable energy. (For some followup to that story, a podcast of the WDET radio program ‘Detroit Today’ where the issue of the local REC program was discussed is now online. In addition to discussing the DTE Greencurrents program, the [...]
