Category Archives: Awareness and Hype
Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Every destructive hurricane has something beautiful come to life in its aftermath. Well at least the hurricane Katrina did. New Orleans is busy building back its bubbling community after having suffered the wrath of the terrible forces of nature. This time though, they seem intent on respecting nature a lot more than they used to. American BuildingStudio thinks this really to be a good time for New Orleans to go green, while being built up again. Rainwater harvesting, solar power and gray water reuse could help out a lot. Keeping that as a thought, the New Orleans Botanical Garden recently commissioned a small demonstration pavilion to show how technologies make the life of a homeowner simpler, cleaner and greener.
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An oil baron probably wouldn’t support a green cause, like the promotion of solar energy, unless he really had a green heart. Well, if you do remember the scheming oil baron from Texas on the television show “Dallas”, here’s news for you. The actor, Larry Hagman chooses to play J. R. in an advertising campaign now that will promote SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker, and solar energy too. The commercial has Hagman speak about his switch to solar energy, with him walking past a portrait of J. R. in younger days and a TV showing images of an offshore oil rig and blackened waters, probably a news report on the Gulf disaster.
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The United States Army is going green, greener than the green on their green camouflage uniforms that is. And to do so, the force is soon to release a list of five candidate installations for conversion to net-zero status. In short, the force will have five of its bases go completely green, self-sufficient, and plugged off the grid. As a start, four army houses at Fort Bliss base in Texas will pull the plug from the grid, and the families in them will keep note of the affect. The Fort Bliss has currently shed three megawatts of power consumption and is looking forward to do more. It aims to go net-zero, meaning that it will create as much energy as it consumes.
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Americans are in need of employment, clean energy and a better environment too. And an answer to all this comes in form of the Department of Energy’s $1.8 billion award to Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing as a funding for new solar power plants. This is part of the $862 billion the United States has kept aside to reduce oil dependency, protect the environment, and create sustainable jobs. Based in Arizona, Abengoa Solar, will build the world’s largest solar power plant that will keep away 475,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Ground breaking will start from this fall, with construction completion dates set in mid-2013.
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Putting out fires is what the guys at the fire station do, while the unbeatable flame, the burning sun, now powers up their work place. The state’s first solar-powered fire station at West Sayville, New York, is all set to go greener with a lot more solar power and is gearing up for an extension of its solar-energy system. The West Sayville-Oakdale Fire District, as announced by U.S. Representative Steve Israel, will receive funding for a 10-kilowatt solar array that will help reduce the fire station’s electricity bill by a sweet $2,000 per year.
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It isn’t just our usual street cars going greener by the day. The quicker ones zipping around tracks with professional racers behind the wheel are turning a shade greener too! Formula One, the beloved sport that has given birth to some of the fastest people behind a wheel, including Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, is going green, planning to turn its act into a cleaner one in the next 3 years. The Formula One cars in future will have their emissions reduced by a sweet 15%. That’s a lot for a race car.
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If you live in London and think the air around you to be sparkling clean, hit yourself on your head. You are completely delusional! The city is one of the most polluted in Europe. For the 36th time this year, pollution monitoring equipment in the city displayed some pretty shocking and dangerously high levels. No more than 35 such days are allowed in Britain, and London has crossed that mark by one more polluted day. This breach of EU levels has left the government pink with embarrassment. Just three weeks ago, a final warning was sent to improve the quality of air, and now this.
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Maybe the oil spill in the Gulf doesn’t bother you too much. Maybe you’ve heard of it, and shrugged it away. Maybe it has bothered you, but not too much to keep you on your toes. This has been a considerably large oil spill and an environment disaster in the making, destroying sea life and the environment. People all over the world have expressed their concern and anger regarding the issue, though a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports has thrown up some thoughts of what people think of oil dependency.
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Now you probably haven’t realized this, but California is leading the way to a greener future for the United States. No-one does it better than good old California, especially when it comes to staying green and environment friendly. This is probably why the rest of the US and the world should look up to California, and follow closely in its footsteps. Until now, the Californian air is ridden with smog and pollution. But give the place a few years, and with all the efforts they’ve been putting into EVs, this sure should be a problem of the long forgotten past.
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Marriot International is thinking green, and has pulled up a whopping sum of money for a water conservation program in China. The firm will provide $500,000 to support Conservation International’s water conservation program to help protect the largest source of fresh water on the planet. Located in Southwest China, this water source quenches around 2 billion throats. The program aims to help rural communities in Sichuan Province with sustainable businesses. The program called “nobility of Nature” will boost mushroom farming and honey production and help reduce erosion and sedimentation. This in turn will better the quality of water too.
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