On July 7, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new rules for coal-fired power plants that, beginning in 2012, would protect 240 million Americans who currently live downwind from thousands of tons of smokestack emissions. The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule would shield communities in 27 eastern states from emissions of compounds that cause soot, smog and acid rain – at an additional cost to utilities of less than $1 billion a year, according to the EPA.
However, according to Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, “The EPA is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause,” said. “America’s coal-fueled electric industry has been doing its part for the environment and the economy, but our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, EPA doesn’t seem to care.”
In the U.S. Senate, a compromise proposed this week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), would allow the current ethanol blender subsidy and tariff to expire as of July 31. The legislation, which has not yet been passed by Congress, would save an estimated $2 billion over the next five months. Some $1.33 billion – an estimated two-thirds of the total savings – would be used to reduce the $14.29 trillion U.S. debt. Another $668 million would be used to extend three existing tax credits that support alternative fuel production and infrastructure. “If Congress fails to enact this proposal before it adjourns for August recess, the substantial levels of deficit reduction and investment achieved by this compromise will no longer be possible, and we cannot commit our support after that point,” the Senators said. Brooke Coleman, Executive Director of the Advanced Ethanol Council (AEC) , commented, “This agreement has enough of the right ingredients to move the conversation forward.…We particularly appreciate Senators Klobuchar and Thune for their dogged commitment to reforming rather than terminating the federal commitment to renewable fuels.”
Across the pond, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced on July 5 that the city plans to offer low-cost rentals of “non-polluting” cars to its residents by the end of 2012. The car rental plan will be similar to the economical bicycle rental program, called Vélib’, that has proven successful in Paris since 2007. To take advantage of the new Autolib services, Parisians would register and obtain a card. By presenting that card and paying a minimal price, they would be able to rent one of approximately 4,000 electric or hybrid cars at 700 points throughout the city. A driver would be able to pick up a car, for example, in the east of the city and drop it off in the west after a short journey. But Green Party members in Paris were “very skeptical” about Socialist Mayor’s plan , according to Denis Baupin, a Green Party Deputy Mayor, who further commented, “If this scheme encourages people to pick up these cars every day, using them to go into work and back instead of using bikes or the Metro – crowding roads and changing habits, that's a problem. Whenever electric car schemes have been tested in French towns, it has been a failure.”
On July 6, Louisiana State University’s mascot, Mike the Tiger, became the first (human or feline) to use an electric vehicle charging station on campus in Baton Rouge. Mike drove an electric Nissan Leaf, provided by Royal Nissan of Baton Rouge, to charge up at one of the two stations donated to the school by Entergy Louisiana LLC and Entergy Gulf States Louisiana L.L.C. The chargers were paid for by Entergy shareholders through a $160,000 grant from its Environmental Initiatives Fund, which was established to reduce greenhouse gas emissions via innovative and promising projects. The program to provide LSU students, faculty, and staff with free electrical “fill-ups” with the use of an issued swipe card is expected to be in full swing around the start of the fall semester.
Fleet driver performance and safety management company, GreenRoad, is offering enhancements to its flagship solution, GreenRoad 360 – including posted speed performance, idling heat maps, and extended data integration with new application programming interfaces (APIs). The Posted Speed Performance feature can automatically detect an event where a vehicle is traveling above the posted speed limit and reflect the impact of these incidents on the safety score, as well as map the details. The reports are delivered in colorful graphics for easy viewing and understanding on the Web-based management dashboard. Unique Idling Heat Maps have been designed to view of idling hot spots across specific geographies and routes. A new set of APIs offers live data delivery, such as GPS data, fleet administration automation interfaces, and behavioral insight interfaces. To date, the company has logged over 3 billion driver miles and continues to add over 100 million driver miles per month.
For industries on the move and in the field – including military intelligence, oil and gas exploration, digital video production, and network testing – there’s new high-performance hardware featuring full-powered CPUs, high-end 3D graphics, fast RAID storage, and PCI expansion slots for their demanding and mission-critical applications. Typically, when in the field, these applications are developed using large, non-mobile systems or is scaled down to run on a laptop for mobility due to various constraints, thereby making the task difficult. In an effort to provide such industries with a complete mobile power computing solution, NextComputing (News - Alert), a provider of portable workstations and dense, small-footprint servers, has rolled-out a new battery powered portable workstation, Radius EX-B. Featuring a briefcase-like design, it is the company’s first portable system to feature an integrated battery for total mobility. This enables the workstation to run for more than two hours on battery.
The leading power in the computing and supercomputing has something new to crow about. A new IBM prototype 20-Petaflop supercomputer called “Blue Gene/Q” has been chosen for the No. 1 spot – meaning it's the most efficient supercomputer in the world – on the latest Supercomputing “Green500 List” announced by Green500.org. In fact, six of the top 10 most energy efficient supercomputers in the world are built on IBM (News 
- Alert) high-performance computing technology, according to the Green500List, which also contains contenders from China and Germany as well as the United States. Supercomputers are traditionally designed and used for applications that require a great deal of processing power, such as astronomy and cosmology, climate prediction and life sciences. When IBM Blue Gene/Q is ready to roll in 2012, it will already have some takers, including the Argonne National Laboratory (the U.S. Department of Energy's lab) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
E-World Online, a provider of responsible recycling solutions for consumer electronics manufacturers, recently responded to a recycler in Hilo, Hawaii, who was in urgent need. The company’s contract with the state expired over a year ago, but Big Island residents continued to drop e-waste at the site. It was in May 2010, when E-World Online became aware of the predicament of the Bay Side Computer Shop's dilemma and got its manufacturing partners – Sony Electronics Inc., Acer (News - Alert) America Corp., ViewSonic, NiCad LG – to come together and fund the collection, shipping ,and recycling of over 180,000 pounds of abandoned e-waste which had been dumped at the former collection site. E-World Online President Cindy Erie said that “We we wanted to help out a small business. Bay Side Computer Shop was in a tough position.”
But not all old computers are abandoned as e-waste. Authorized Toshiba (News - Alert) reseller, TestLink, is offering a selection of refurbished laptop computers online at about half-price. TestLink said that, in a struggling economic environment, it has seen a huge increase in demand for affordable laptops. Internet sites such as eBay are becoming the hot destination for these customers – so TestLink recently opened a new eBay store that “provides quality refurbished Toshiba laptops with different specifications and price ranges to suit every need.” Laptops are restored to “as new” condition by expert engineers, the company claimed, and buyers can expect to find laptops that are typically less than three months old. The offerings include some of Toshiba’s top-selling products, including Toshiba Portege and Satellite Pro Ranges.
Finally, New Yorkers are famous for minding their own business – but if you ask them, they’ve got plenty of strong opinions. So it’s interesting that a new website, called, “Change by Us NYC,” is soliciting ideas about how to make the city greener and more livable. The site, which went live on July 7, promises to directly connect people who live and work in New York with city government in order to put words into action. It is operated by New York City’s Office of the Mayor, in partnership with the Citizens Committee for New York City, Pratt Center for Community Development, ioby, and the United States Forest Service. ChangesbyUsNYC is the latest platform created by Local Projects – known for its innovative work on StoryCorps and the 9/11 Memorial Museum – and the urban think tank, CEOs for Cities. It is funded with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the Case Foundation. City officials described the project as “a social network for grass-roots leaders.” The overall goal is to exploit the opportunities offered by social media to spur professionals, volunteers, and city employees to share information about ways to improve conditions and team up for specific projects. Change by Us NYC will help users raise money to start projects like community composting or creating a new open space.
Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell
