Nanoengineered cement beat out a handful of other technologies in this year's MIT Entrepreneurship Competition, earning its creators a $100,000 prize.
C-Crete Technologies, which created a new type of cement that cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions and yet is stronger than any current cement, took home the top prize Wednesday night from the awards ceremony on MIT's campus in Cambridge, Mass. A panel of judges composed of fellow entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and industry executives chose C-Crete as the winner based on the execution of its business plan and presentation.
WASHINGTON--Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) are scheduled to formally unveil on Wednesday a compromise U.S. climate change bill they want passed this year.
Besides bringing down emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming, it would expand offshore oil drilling and nuclear-power production in a move to appeal to a broader number of senators.
Here are highlights of the bill, called the "American Power Act," according to a summary of the legislation being circulated to senators and obtained by Reuters:
Carbon emissions reductions By 2020, carbon pollution would be cut … Read more
Despite Google's lobbying on clean-energy policy and investments in renewable energy, it was Cisco and Ericsson who received Greenpeace's top marks in its ranking of computing vendors' activity on climate change.
The environmental watchdog group released its annual Cool IT Leaderboard on Thursday, which judges large IT and consumer electronics companies on a range of criteria related to climate change, including efforts to lower their environmental footprints and commercial efforts in energy and efficiency.
OSLO--The United States is asking for ideas about how to tackle global warming without raising expectations of breakthroughs in 2010 ahead of climate talks among the world's top emitters on Sunday in Washington.
A document obtained by Reuters on Friday listing U.S. questions to delegates from 16 other major economies shows the two-day talks will focus on the fate of U.N. climate talks, the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, and the Kyoto Protocol.
It does not answer key questions such as what the United States, the biggest emitter behind China, plans to do under any future U.N. plan. U.S. legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions is stalled in the U.S. Senate.
"The general focus of the meeting: what are the key issues that need to be addressed in order to have a successful outcome?" it asks of preparations for the next annual talks of environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, November 29 through December 10.
"What is the outcome we are all seeking in Cancun? A set of decisions; a legally binding agreement; something else?" according to the document, signed by Michael Froman, deputy White House national security adviser, and U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern. … Read more
LONDON--An inquiry cleared British climate researchers of wrongdoing on Wednesday after their e-mails were hacked, leaked, and held up by skeptics as evidence they had exaggerated the case for manmade global warming.
Former government adviser Ronald Oxburgh, who chaired the panel, said he had found no evidence of scientific malpractice or attempts to distort the facts to support the mainstream view that manmade carbon dioxide emissions contribute to rising temperatures.
The affair stoked the global debate on climate change and put pressure on scientists and politicians to defend the case for spending trillions of dollars to cut emissions and help … Read more
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.--The iconic environmentalist Stewart Brand has come around to the notion that the Earth can't solve its own problems any more.
Brand, the original publisher and editor of the "Whole Earth Catalog" in the late 1960s and early 1970s, is an ecologist and Internet pioneer who founded the online community The Well. When it comes to dealing with global warming, he thinks environmentalists need to push for things that many of them now oppose.
Specifically, he's an advocate of bio-engineered plants, nuclear power at large scale, and geoengineering, or ways to manipulate the … Read more
Senator John Kerry said a bipartisan climate change bill would emerge soon in the U.S. Senate, contradicting what he called the "conventional wisdom" that the legislation was dead this election year.
Kerry is working closely with the Obama administration and a bipartisan group of senators on a comprehensive bill to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide pollution blamed for global warming.
"We're on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation we intend to roll out," Kerry told a climate policy forum, without giving details of his proposals.
The U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass a comprehensive climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this year, according to a Reuters survey of 12 key Democrat and Republican Senators who could hold the swing votes.
While the Obama administration and a bipartisan core of senators still hope there is life for a climate change bill that would put a price on carbon emissions and help reinvigorate ailing international talks, the senators interviewed by Reuters this week were much more pessimistic.
The survey underscores that global warming--a scientific finding still hotly disputed by many Americans--could end up being … Read more
Updated at 11:15 a.m. PST: This article was updated to include data and comments from Amy Townsend-Small.
A report asserting that well-maintained parks in the Irvine, Calif., area were technically polluting the environment has been amended and its official results have been re-released.
The study led by Amy Townsend-Small, an Earth system science postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Irvine, originally reported last month that the amount of carbon emissions emitted from lawn-related maintenance was roughly four times the amount of carbon naturally collected and stored by the lawn itself.
The state of California has purchased seven monitors to measure greenhouse gas concentrations in the air statewide, as part of an effort to get accurate data for reducing emissions.
Until now, the maker of the monitors, Picarro, has sold its gas analyzers to scientists and government agencies for research purposes. This sale is thought to be the first installation where in-field hardware devices will be used to verify estimates of greenhouse gas emissions.
"There's a big shift away from just scientific use for our technology to using it to meet regulatory requirements," said Picarro CEO Micheal Woelk … Read more
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