EcoGeek News

Eco News!!! Yay!!! All things Green and Economy-Friendly and Non-World Suck!! (basically, taking the Eco-Geek Newsletters and posting them here, in my blog.)

This week's news includes a couple of big milestones in wind power, a nation setting the goal of being carbon neutral within the next decade, and some European countries are now buying back old, polluting and inefficient cars to get them off the roads. And Envirowonk has a story of two federal departments getting along in order to help facilitate the development of new off-shore power.We are going to be resuming our series of interviews with science fiction authors with an upcoming interview with three-time Hugo award nominee Paolo Bacigalupi. We hope to be able to bring you other authors with both an eye toward the future and an environmental sensibility in the coming months.


Will The Green Jobs Come?

The green jobs debate rages on. Some argue that all the stimulus money being poured into green efforts - like renewable energy and building retrofitting – will create millions of new jobs, and will revitalize the economy. Others are not so sure. The latest opinion to be voiced comes out of the Institute for Energy Research, which just published a study challenging the rosy predictions of people like the Center For American Progress (who predicted that $100 billion worth of green investment would create 2 million jobs).


Maldives Going Carbon Neutral

The Maldives announced yesterday a plan to go carbon neutral within the next decade. The project will cost $1.1 billion to install renewable energy across the nation's 250 inhabited islands. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said that the nation would achieve carbon neutrality through 155 1.5-MW wind turbines, a half-square kilometer solar farm and forgoing fossil fuels. Since much of the nation's economy is based on tourism, greenhouse gases emitted by air travel will have to be offset with EU carbon credits. The nation is privatizing their electric utility to open up funds for the effort and it will be looking for outside investments as well.


Germany and UK Paying Citizens to Get Rid of Old Cars

Germany recently announced a program which gives money to citizens to scrap old polluting cars and buy newer, more fuel efficient ones. The program pays 2,500 euros ($3,500 USD) for each car scrapped. The result has been an incredible success story. Over 150,000 applications have been received, getting polluting old junkers off the road and boosting auto sales by 21.5 percent in February in Germany – all while sales to foreign markets dropped an incredible 51 percent. In short, by getting people to ditch their old cars Germany may be saving their auto market as well as protecting the environment. Now another European superpower, the United Kingdom, is considering adopting similar scrap-for-cash incentives to boost its struggling auto sales. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, an industry group, has submitted a plan for a similar scheme to the British government.


Spain Sets World Wind Record

Last week, during a spell of particularly strong wind gusts, Spain set a world record by having 40 percent of their energy requirement generated by wind power. The high winds in the northwest of the country generated a whopping 11,180 MW during the strongest gust. While the U.S. is still number one in wind power, we only get 1 percent of our energy from the resource. Spain, ranked third in the world, has been incredibly ambitious in their wind plans. They hope to be generating 20,000 MW from wind by 2010 up from the 16,000 MW they're currently producing.


Seawater Could Be Used to Clean Ship Exhaust

The shipping industry, like the airline industry, is responsible for a large chunk of greenhouse gas emissions, but it has been hard to regulate because standards would have to be approved and enforced globally. It hasn't faced much pressure to clean up until the UN and European Union recently began calling for lowered emissions. Luckily, a Singapore firm thinks it has a solution to the problem. Ecospec has developed a method to remove carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and soot from ship exhausts with a widely available resource for ships - seawater.

Don't forget to check out the news on the other EcoGeek Network blogs, too:
Carectomy - http://www.carectomy.com/
EnviroWonk - http://www.envirowonk.com/
Envirovore - http://www.envirovore.com/
And be sure to check in for more information about all the latest green technologies at EcoGeek.org