Top news and views about Environment and Cleantech for 14 Apr 2017
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Coca-Cola U-turn could help UK catch up on can and bottle recycling
More firms are expected to announce bottle deposit return services after Coca-Cola unexpectedly came out in favour of the idea.
Pepsi, Nestlé, Unilever and M&S have already committed to producing more eco-friendly bottles by using plant-based materials or less plastic, and an uptick in that trend could now be on the cards.
“We expect that any beverage company announcing or taking steps would serve to encourage other companies to follow suit,” said a spokesperson for the UN Environment Programme.
Piotr Barczak of the European Environmental Bureau said: “If Coca-Cola are serious about this then we can expect other companies – particularly smaller competitors – to follow suit.”
Full story at http://bit.ly/2ovquwW
Early taste of summer sees UK renewables set new records
The UK’s suite of renewables set new records last weekend as the country basked in unseasonably bright conditions for much of Sunday.
Solar PV and wind generation assets benefitted from ideal conditions as much of the country witnessed unspoiled sunshine, followed by increased wind speeds.
Energy monitoring site mygridgb.co.uk, which collates data from various sources to conclude which generators are providing the UK grid with its electricity, claimed that Sunday afternoon saw a number of new records set for renewable and low carbon generators.
The site claimed that at 2:33pm yesterday solar set a new record for its contribution to the grid, providing more than a quarter (26.25%) of the UK’s total energy demand.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2o4WUvl
In New York, neighbors trading solar energy electrify community
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A quiet energy revolution is taking place in the homes that light up in the evening in the New York City neighborhoods of Gowanus Canal and Park Slope.
It isn't just power plant electricity that keeps this community lit at night, but also energy generated by neighbors across the street or a few houses away, who send one another their excess production of solar power.
The experiment, called TransActive Grid, aims to soon allow homes and businesses fitted with solar panels and "smart" meters to sell spare electricity to neighbors, rather than simply give it away as they do now.
The change could herald a revolution in the way power is produced and sold not only in New York but potentially across the country and around the world, with roof-mounted solar panels joined to become neighbourhood-controlled power plants.
Full story at http://reut.rs/2o5i4JM
The quest to capture and store carbon - and slow climate change - just reached a new milestone
A new large-scale technology has launched in Decatur, Illinois that, by combining together corn-based fuels with the burial of carbon dioxide deep underground, could potentially result in the active removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
It’s an objective described as crucial by scientists hoping to control the planet’s warming.
The facility operated by ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland, dubbed the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture Project, arrives at a time of uncertainty for the U.S. and global biofuels industry. It faces growing competition from electric vehicles, and continuing struggles to move beyond so-called “first generation” feedstocks like corn, which can create conflicts with food supplies.
Some critics have also questioned the technology — dubbed “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage,” or BECCS — that marries together plants that pull carbon from the air as they grow, and industrial applications that process or consume those plants to generate energy, but also capture some of the resulting carbon and stow it within the Earth.
Full story at http://wapo.st/2ovBSsp
Trump denies climate change, but could one day be its victim
**(CNN) - **Not far from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, one expert after another warned Monday about the dangers that rising sea levels pose to Florida's coast.
Not that surprising, except this was a Senate committee field hearing challenging the position shared by President Donald Trump and many Republicans in Congress that climate change isn't real.
The site of the hearing -- just four miles from Trump's weekend getaway in Palm Beach -- was clearly intended to send a signal: Much of Florida's coastline could one day be underwater, including some of the President's own prized properties.
"Today we sit at ground zero of the impacts of climate change in the US," Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said. "And while there are still some who continue to deny climate change is real, South Florida offers proof that it is real and it's an issue we're going to be grappling with for decades to come."
Full story at http://cnn.it/2ovHval
While Trump promotes coal, other countries are turning to cheap solar power
On the solar farms of the Atacama Desert, the workers dress like astronauts. They wear bodysuits and wraparound sunglasses, with thick canvas headscarves to shield them from the radiation.
The sun is so intense and the air so dry that seemingly nothing survives. Across vast, rocky wastes blanched of color, there are no cactuses or other visible signs of life. It’s Mars, with better cellphone reception.
It is also the world’s best place to produce solar energy, with the most potent sun power on the planet.
So powerful, in fact, that something extraordinary happened last year when the Chilean government invited utility companies to bid on public contracts. Solar producers dominated the auction, offering to supply electricity at about half the cost of coal-fired plants.
Full story at http://wapo.st/2o4WTrh
Prepared by @SydesJokes
Original posts from: http://SydesJokes.com