News Forum Archives: June 2005
New Belgium Brewing Turning Wastewater to Cash
June 26, 2005 07:30 AM – Michael G. Richard, Ottawa
Treehugger.com
New Belgium Brewing, a brewery located in Fort Collins, Colorado, is using 40% less energy per barrel of output than the average American brewer. How do they do it? By being smart: They are aggressively targeting reduction of energy use through conservation and efficiency and getting the most out of what other less eco-savvy businesses would consider only waste. A $5 million system collects methane from the brewing wastewater and uses it to fire a 290-kilowatt electric generator. “When the generator is running – typically 10 to 15 hours a day – it supplies up to 60 percent of the brewery’s power. New Belgium saves $2,500 to $3,000 a month by generating its own electricity. But the system’s biggest savings came from avoiding the steep fees that would be assessed by the city of Fort Collins to treat the brewery’s nutrient-rich wastewater.”
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Rare Mushrooms Could Counter Bioterrorism
By Tom Banse, OPB News
OLYMPIA, WA (2005-06-08) (Oregon Considered) – Over the years, you’ve no doubt heard people make different arguments for protecting the remaining stands of old-growth forest in the Northwest. Here’s a new twist on the subject: saving ancient forests as a matter of national defense. The connection is a local mushroom that could be useful to counter a bioterrorism attack.
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It’s Getting Cheaper to Tap the Sun
By Barry Rehfeld
The New York Times
June 18, 2005
Annette Benedict gave a party to celebrate the installation of solar panels on the roof of her Bronx home over a year ago.
John Sunde bought three systems in three years for the two Long Island homes he owns – two for the Brentwood house he lived in and a third for a Hampton Bays home he lives in now.
Susan Ferraro and her husband, Nick, featured their new network in the sales ad for their summer home on Shelter Island, N.Y., earlier this year.
Excitement over residential solar energy may not be running this high everywhere, but providing homes with electricity and heat from the sun is getting more buzz than it has in decades.
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Cultivating New Farmers
By Gretchen Lehmann
OPB News
PORTLAND, OR (2005-06-13) (Oregon Considered) – The “buy local” trend has had a tremendous impact on agriculture in the Portland metro area. Farmers markets are popping up everywhere; more people are buying weekly boxes of organic produce from specialty farms; and chefs are shaping their menus based on ingredients from local fields.
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Editor of Climate Reports Resigns
By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
June 10, 2005
Philip A. Cooney, the chief of staff to President Bushs Council on Environmental Quality, resigned yesterday, White House officials said.
Mr. Cooneys resignation came two days after documents revealed that he had repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that cast doubt on the link between building greenhouse-gas emissions and rising temperatures.
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Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
June 8, 2005
A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
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