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August 25, 2008
- Wireless Electric A Reality Of The Future
Imagine a life with no outlets, no cords, but ample electricity. This is the life Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner hasn’t just imagined, but actually demonstrated on Thursday at an annual developers forum in San Francisco.Rattner showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say “could revolutionize modern life” by removing the need for transformers, wall outlets, and cords all together. Rattner, on stage, wirelessly sent electricity to a lamp, lighting a 60 watt bulb that uses more power than a typical laptop computer. You may be asking yourself, “Wait a second, isn’t safety a concern having these electric fields all around us?” Worry not, friend. According to Intel researcher Josh Smith, “It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by elective fields. So what we are doing is transmitting energy using the magnetic field not the electric field.” Wireless electricity could be a true reality of the future and raises many interesting questions—especially, “How will I charge my PHEV?”
- 2 months
source: (Ecotality Life) - Ideal Bites’ B.I.G. Awards Recognize Green Favorites
Have a favorite green company or product that you want to spread the word about? The folks over at Ideal Bite have created a way to recognize the best of the best in green products with their first-ever Best In Green (B.I.G.) Awards. You guys know Ideal Bite, right? They’re the ones sending you those simple tips to greening your life direct to your e-mail. They’ve gathered info on all the products and companies they’ve recommended during the life of Ideal Bite, and all those folks will automatically be considered for B.I.G. Awards, along with reader submissions. Details after the jump…
- The Green Mission Statement
You probably have a mission statement. At a minimum you probably needed one in order write a business plan. But, too often the websites of company’s that sell green products and services bury their mission statement in the deep recesses of their content. It seems standard to prominently display green-themed graphics and customer testimonials about how services surpass expectations and yield cost savings or LEED certification points. What often does not happen, however, is the public sharing of the green mission statement.It is a missed opportunity not to put it at the forefront of your corporate communications. What should you do with your mission statement? Lots.
- How To Avoid Eco Fatigue – What Ecopreneurs Need To Know
It’s important for growing companies to keep an eye on the overall market. While much of what makes entrepreneurs great is their ability to think out of the box, it’s what’s happening overall and how they fit into the general scheme of things that determines whether they succeed or fail.So, I like to highlight some of the greater market trends in this blog. One of those of particular interest, one might say overwhelming interest, to green entrepreneurs is the looming scare of “eco fatigue”.
Is it real?
Will it impact green businesses?
Are you seeing it impact your business?
Here’s some tips from AdAge designed for large established companies but equally relevant for ecopreneurs. What do you think?
- The Body Shop Taps Green Roots in Ad Campaign
The "Nature's way to beauty" campaign coincides with an expanded launch of a product line called "Wellbeing" that reportedly will be sold in 100 percent post-consumer recyclate (PCR) plastic bottles.- 2 months
source: (GreenBiz.com Green Business News) - Google and Aussies to Sink Millions Into Geothermal Energy
The hunt for renewable energy took a turn beneath the earth’s surface over the past week as Google and the Australian government announced multi-million dollar plans to explore geothermal technology.- 2 months
source: (GreenBiz.com Green Business News) - U.K. Manufacturers Increase Green Focus, Gaps Exist Between Large And Small Companies: Survey
Manufacturers in the United Kingdom are overall more focused on recycling and energy efficiency, but smaller companies are finding more difficulties spending time and money on such issues.- 2 months
source: (GreenBiz.com Green Business News) - The ROI of Sustainability
It's no secret that going green can boost a company's bottom line in more ways than one; now businesses are exploring all corners of the booming green economy.- 2 months
source: (GreenBiz.com Green Business News) - Red State or Blue, Green Conventions are on the Way
In their quest to have the greenest national convention ever, Democrats and Republicans have both gone further than those in the past. Both vow to leave behind a legacy for future convention planners of how to do it better and greener.- 2 months
source: (GreenBiz.com Green Business News) - Biden on the Record
An interview with Joe Biden about energy and the environment
Photo: Michael Millhollin
( editor’s note: Biden was recently picked by Obama. Some of the the references made in this interview might not be relevant and current)
During his 34-year Senate career, Biden, now chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been known more as a chieftain of foreign policy than a champion of environmental protections (though he has earned a respectable 84 percent lifetime voting score from the League of Conservation Voters). These days, he’s emphasizing how closely geopolitics and environmental stewardship are intertwined. To solve what he sees as the defining challenge of our time, Biden has been pushing for more U.S. involvement in international climate negotiations, more compact fluorescent light bulbs, more-stringent fuel-economy regs, and a whole lot more biofuels.
How well will Biden be able to balance his energy-independence goals with an ambitious climate agenda? I tracked him down on the campaign trail in Iowa to find out.
(For more info on his platform and record, check out the previous post.)
Listen to a clip of this interview:
Why do you consider yourself the strongest candidate on energy and the environment? What sets your platform on these issues apart from the rest?
I would be most capable of getting this country back into an international climate regime, getting us back to the table the fastest and with the most prospect for success, because of my extensive engagement in foreign policy. I’m also in the best position to make it clear to the United States Congress that this is not merely an environmental issue, it is a security issue. I held hearings this year pointing out that if we do not do something of consequence about global warming, drastically and soon, we literally are going to find ourselves reconfiguring our entire military to deal with occasions for new wars, which are going to be about territory and arable land. You see what’s happening in Darfur now — that’s part of the problem. You’ve said that your first priority is “energy security.” Can you clarify what this goal means and how you’d achieve it? If the predictions of the scientists are correct, you could see ocean levels rise three feet. If that occurs, you’re going to displace over 35 million people just in South Asia, and they’re going to physically be looking for a new place to land. Just that, all by itself, is going to initiate major new conflicts relating to war. You’re going to have nations fighting over arable land, more border disputes, and, as a consequence, a great deal of instability. How would you achieve energy security? What specifically do we need to do to get there? To deal with global warming, you have to change the attitude of the world, particularly China and India, the two largest developing nations. But in order to do that, to have any credibility, you have to begin here in the United States by capping emissions, increasing renewable fuels, establishing a national renewable portfolio standard, requiring better fuel economy for automobiles. I would cap emissions at 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and set a national RPS of 20 percent. I would announce an executive order that the federal government would not purchase one single automobile for its fleet that gets less than 40 miles to the gallon. And I would not build a single solitary federal project without it being a green project. That would have the effect of getting states to do the same thing, and that would create a pot of somewhere between a third and a half a trillion dollars that would be a lure to every major business in America to go green.These measures would put us in a position to be able to actually attempt to lead the world. But we have no credibility right now.
How would you bring China and India to the table on a global climate treaty? By engaging in significant joint ventures with them both on new technologies. You’re already having an awakening awareness in China about the consequences of pollution. Sometimes the goals of achieving energy independence and reducing climate change are at odds. Would you – Exactly right. You’re the first one who’s ever asked me a question that way. Would you, as president, oppose subsidizing technologies that would worsen global warming, even if they would reduce our reliance on foreign oil? Yes, I would, because at the end of the day it’s a net loser for us. What role does “clean coal” play in your vision for energy independence and climate security? I don’t think there’s much of a role for clean coal in energy independence, but I do think there’s a significant role for clean coal in the bigger picture of climate change. Clean-coal technology is not the route to go in the United States, because we have other, cleaner alternatives. But I would invest a considerable amount of money in research and development of clean-coal and carbon-sequestration technologies for export. China is building one new coal-fired plant per week. That’s not going to change unless there’s a fundamental change in technology, because they have about 300 years of dirty coal, and they’re going to use it. Would you impose a moratorium on the development of old-style coal power plants in the U.S.? I believe that all new coal-fired power plants should be built with carbon capture and sequestration capacity. What’s your position on liquefied coal? Again, I don’t think it’s the way to go in the U.S., but we could invest in technologies for export. I don’t think there’s any reasonable prospect that China, as it continues to grow to 1.4 billion people, is not going to use their coal. What role do you see for nuclear power? I see a role for nuclear, but first you’ve got to deal with the security as well as the safety concerns. I’d be spending a whole hell of a lot of money trying to figure out how to reconfigure the spent fuel into reusable fuel. I would not invest in [growing our nuclear-power capacity in its current form], but I would invest in sorting out the storage and waste problems. What fuel-economy targets do you support? I think we should be able to get to 40 miles per gallon by 2017. I think we should have every single vehicle in America have to get one mile per year additional fuel economy, based on the class and size of the automobile, not on CAFE standards. Where does ethanol fit into your plan? Ethanol is a good start. Because of the amount of [resources] that go into producing corn-based ethanol, it has only marginally less impact on the consumption of fossil fuels. But it has two real advantages: it begins to give us the margin of flexibility we need to deal with being held hostage to any one of the seven unstable countries that supply 35 percent of our oil — Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, etc. No. 2, it’s a transitional means by which you’re going to be pouring billions of dollars into the fields of the Midwest, rather than the sands of Saudi Arabia or the pockets of Chavez. How would you structure policies to shift the ethanol industry away from corn and toward cellulosic or other more climate-friendly fuels? With considerably more research and incentivizing. Right out here in Iowa, where I am right now, you already have producers and cattlemen and the rest saying, this is not such a good deal for us having this corn-based ethanol orgy that’s going on here, because long-term it’s not sustainable. Corn ethanol will always be a part of the alternative fuel mix, but it is not long-term sustainable as the only feedstock for ethanol because we can only produce around 12 billion to 17 billion gallons of ethanol from corn grown in this country. But we can produce 86 billion gallons of ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks, which could replace more than half the gas consumed by this country. An awful lot of these farmers are already looking for the next step, and they know it is cellulosics. What environmental achievement are you proudest of? It took me 10 years to protect all of the beach on the Delaware coast from Cape Henlopen down to Rehoboth Beach, and put it in trust for the people of the country so that no development can take place on any of that area. I’m also proud that I convinced the state of Delaware to take the entire White Clay Creek watershed and turn it into a scenic river, stop the development in that whole region, and purify that watershed. Who is your environmental hero? Russell Peterson. I was a young [county] councilman in 1970 when he was a Republican governor of Delaware. I introduced legislation saying that Getty Oil and these other companies could not build any refineries within one mile of the high-water mark of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay. He turned that into the first coastal zone act in the United States of America. He later left the Republican Party and became a Democrat, but that’s not why I admire him. He was for years the president of the National Audubon Society, where he did a great deal for the environment. What has been your most memorable outdoor or wilderness adventure? My most memorable outdoor adventure was traveling 1,500 miles in Alaska with the National Guard, going from Prudhoe Bay to the Tongass Forest and all the way out into the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea. I found it an absolutely remarkable, fascinating, incredibly moving event. I landed in a Mustang suit up in the North Slope when they were trying to talk me into allowing more drilling. Two of the great things I’ve fought for in my career were protecting the Tongass National Forest and preventing more drilling in the North Slope. What have you done personally to reduce your energy and environmental footprint? A little thing we’ve begun to do is replace all the traditional light bulbs in our house with fluorescent light bulbs. I introduced a bill to promote compact fluorescent light bulbs. If every family in America changed just one bulb, we could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 7 million tons per year. There are a lot of little things we can do to make a gigantic change.(Update: Joe Biden was chosen as Barack Obama’s running mate on Aug. 23, 2008. (He dropped out of the presidential race on Jan. 3, 2008.)
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- 2 months
source: (4 entrepreneur) - Joe Biden on Green Technology
A look at the environmental record of Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s running mate
Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s running mate, has earned an 83 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters during his 35 years representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate, voting fairly consistently with environmentalists and the mainstream of his party. In 2007, while running for president, he said “energy security” was his top priority, and argued that he was well-suited to deal with the challenge thanks to years of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he now chairs. Biden is also a big booster of biofuels.
Read Grist’s 2007 interview with Joe Biden.Key Points
- Primary cosponsor of a “Sense of the Senate” resolution calling on the U.S. to participate in U.N. climate negotiations. He introduced it with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in the current Congress and the previous one.
- Cosponsor of the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the Senate. It would establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse-gas emissions and require the U.S. to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. (Biden became a cosponsor of it more than three months after it was introduced and just days after both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama signed on.)
- In 2007, during his most recent run for president, called for raising fuel-economy standards for automobiles to an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2017 by increasing fuel-economy targets within vehicle classes by about one mile per gallon per year.
- Called for increasing ethanol and biodiesel production by upping the national renewable-fuel standard to require that the fuel supply include 10 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2010 and 60 billion gallons a year by 2030.
- Called for 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply to come from renewable sources.
Video & Audio
Watch Biden ask: What are you willing to do to break our dependence on oil?
Watch Biden answer a question about biofuels at a campaign event in New Hampshire:
Watch Biden answer a question about moving toward renewable energy at a July 20, 2007, campaign event in Iowa:
Watch Biden explain what he would do as president to address global warming at a March 3, 2007, rally in South Carolina:
Listen to a clip of Biden’s interview with Grist and Outside:
- 2 months
source: (4 entrepreneur)
August 24, 2008
- How To Grow A Brand - Plant a Tree! Leed’s Teams AmericanForests.org
This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.
Leed’s is teaming up with AmericanForests.org. “Leed’s makes a donation to American Forest’s Global ReLeaf program for every EcoSmart imprint order we produce”.
The thing I like about this new deal is that you don’t have to do anything extra. If the client purchases Leed’s EcoSmart promotional items the donation is automatically made.
Simple. But….
- Who is Joe Biden?
WASHINGTON (AP) - — Joe Biden has lived a life of second chances, a cycle that’s been cruel and redemptive by turns. Now he’s starting over once again.
Deeply private yet in-your-face, collegial yet ideological, the Delaware senator brings a wealth of foreign policy experience to Barack Obama’s Democratic ticket, plus wisdom in the ways of Washington and an infectious enthusiasm for political donnybrooks.
He adds suspense, too, over the question of when - not if - he’ll put his foot in his mouth. Biden’s agile mind comes with a loose tongue that cannot always be properly restrained.
Back in his hometown of Scranton, Pa., Biden’s Catholic schoolmates nicknamed him Dash because he stuttered so much his speech sounded like Morse Code. Biden overcame that rip at his confidence, smoothed his talk and doesn’t seem to have quieted down since.
The strongest sign that Obama was seriously considering Biden for his running mate, despite some differences over national security, energy and more in their voting records, was Biden’s odd absence from the public in recent days. Normally he’s a sucker for a microphone.
And it was a sign of those Washington ways that when he told reporters, “I’m not the guy,’ no one believed him, just as no one believed him when he said of the vice presidential slot last year, “I would not accept it if anyone offered it to me.”
That’s how people talk in politics - a different sort of telegraphing code. And after more than a third of a century in Washington, and two short-lived presidential campaigns of his own, Biden has it down pat.
He came to Washington as a wunderkind, elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29 - the earliest possible age - and just meeting the rule that one must be 30 when sworn in. The knock against him used to be that he was more sizzle than steak, articulate but perhaps not all that deep.
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source: (4 entrepreneur)
August 23, 2008
- original entrepreneur tv series: a venture capitalist’s perspective
Venture capital (also known as VC ) is a form of private equity typically provided to a start-up yet high-potential start-up companies. Venture Capitalists take the risk in hope for a substantial return in the forms of IPO (Initial Public Offering) or trade sale of the company. Venture capital investments are generally made as cash in exchange for shares in the invested company.
I wanted to have a non-biased, an expert take to offer a clear perspective on venture capitalism in the states. Andy Wilson is the managing director of Momentum Venture Management, a Pasadena based Venture Capital firm that invests on mainly local businesses, but has great experience working on high profile companies. He was one of the original members and a senior VP of Overture Services, another Pasadena based advertising company acquired by Yahoo for whopping 1.7 billion dollars in 2003. This was the original idea that changed the way search engines capitalized on pay-per-click advertisement, now famously known as Google adsense.
Here is his take on various topics, including entrepreneurship, the types of ventures his firm is seeking, interesting anicdotes on negotiating with Sergey and larry from Google . Good stuff for entrepreneurs - especially for the novices who are curious about how billion dollar companies like Google are formed. Take a look!
- 2 months
source: (4 entrepreneur) - Advertise with us!
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- 3 months
source: (4 entrepreneur) - Why party conventions still exist
By Bill Schneider
CNN Senior Political Analyst
Bill Schneider has covered political conventions for more than 30 years and has covered them for CNN since the 1992 election.
(CNN) — Conventions are relics. They don’t decide the nominees anymore — that’s been turned over to primary voters. No one pays much attention to party platforms except a few ideological activists.
So why do we still have them? Two reasons: money and publicity.
Parties can raise big money at conventions. Major contributors are treated to endless receptions and special events.
The actual convention business — nominations, acceptance speeches, platforms — could easily be completed in a weekend. But the process is stretched out over four days to provide plenty of time for fundraising.
The convention has evolved into a four-day “infomercial,” a slick production aimed at promoting the candidate and giving the ticket a bounce in the polls.
In 1972, it was sensational news when the press discovered a detailed, minute-by-minute script for the Republican convention. The Democrats had no such script. The 1972 Democratic convention was far more democratic — and chaotic. The nominee ended up giving his acceptance speech in the middle of the night, with disastrous results.
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source: (4 entrepreneur)
August 22, 2008
- ConAgra Buys RECs, Joins Climate Leaders
ConAgra Foods’ Lamb Weston business has purchased renewable energy certificates from Bonneville Environmental Foundation to offset 100 percent of the electricity used to power Lamb Weston’s administrative offices in Kennewick and Richland, Washington, and Eagle, Idaho, as well as the electricity used to produce 30 million pounds of ConAgra Foods’ Alexia-branded potato products. In total, the [...]
- 3 months
source: (Environmental Leader) - Raw Sourcing: Glass, Plastic or Aluminum?
As a former packaging manager of a large beverage company, when it came to beverages I always wondered which was more environmentally friendly. Much like the old “Paper or Plastic” argument at the grocery store, which is better or is anything actually better for the environment?
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition defines four life cycle phases of [...]- 3 months
source: (Environmental Leader) - Resort Expects to Make $161,000 From Its Wind Turbines
Jiminy Peak resort announced its one-year anniversary of the connection of its new 1.5 megawatt GE wind turbine to the grid, Daily Tech reports.
The turbines were installed last year and are touted as the first installation of a megawatt-class turbine by a private company. Standing at 253 foot tall, with three 123-foot blades, the turbine [...]- 3 months
source: (Environmental Leader) - California Businesses Campaign Against AB32
It turns out, California Assembly Bill 32, also known as the Global Warming Solutions Act, which aims to cut GHG emissions by 30 percent by 2020, is popular until people learn how much it could end up costing them, according to a new poll by EMC Research commissioned by AB32 Implementation Group, a group of [...]- 3 months
source: (Environmental Leader)