Climate Technology

Kodak, Wal-Mart partner on photo kiosk recycling

Wal-Mart continues on the “Seriously? They’re still doing good stuff?” path with a new partnership with Kodak that will bring recycling to those handy in-store photo kiosks. The printer ribbon, […]

Mr. Straight Talk voted against requiring double-hulled tankers after the biggest oil spill

You’re likely aware that the notorious Exxon Valdez case is back in court yet again. Yesterday, the Most Profitable Company of All Time argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that […]

Chinese bosses could see salary cuts for water pollution

China is considering a law that would cut a head honcho’s income by up to half if his or her company was found to be “directly responsible for causing severe […]

Wal-Mart wants your cleantech ideas

Wal-Mart wants your help: We are trying something new at Wal-Mart…amidst the crazy fast, rapidly growing space of clean/green technologies we have found it pretty difficult to do two things: […]

Large water utilities form climate alliance

Eight of the largest water agencies in the U.S. have formed the Water Utility Climate Alliance to strategize about dealing with climate change. Together, the eight members provide water to […]

Portfolio magazine lists eco-saint and eco-sinner companies

The magazine Condé Nast Portfolio has produced a “Toxic Ten” list of companies that claim to be green, but really ain’t. Among those called out: Cargill, in part for egregious […]

GM’s Lutz can think whatever he wants, but the record shows his actions hurt the climate fight

Yesterday, a post on the Wall Street Journal’s energy blog discussed the controversy over GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz calling global warming a “crock of shit.” It said: Some, like […]

A chat with Philip V. Adams of the World Green Exchange auction system

Last week, World Energy Exchange, an online energy trading platform, officially launched a new marketplace for renewable-energy certificates and greenhouse-gas permits. The World Green Exchange employs an auction system -- think eBay -- to bring buyers and sellers together. In theory, auctions create a more transparent marketplace and drive out cost inefficiencies by directly connecting the buyer and seller and removing the middleman.

We caught up with World Energy President and COO Philip V. Adams last week to find out how the launch went and why he thinks WGE will stand out in an increasingly crowded field dominated by the Chicago Climate Exchange in the U.S. and European Climate Exchange and European Energy Exchange overseas.

Grist: Congratulations on launching the World Green Exchange. I know it's only been up and running for a couple of days, but is it attracting users and working as you had hoped so far? How will you measure success longer term?

Adams: Thank you. The World Green Exchange was formally launched last week, but in fact we have been conducting transactions on the platform for the past several months. We're a bit of a conservative firm, and took the view that we would have real client success in the marketplace before making an announcement of our capabilities. As we suspected, the auction approach is performing very well. In several transactions conducted to date, we have significantly bettered benchmark prices that were derived to our clients who were using brokers or bid-ask exchanges.

Massey incest redux

So, remember how two justices on the W. Va. Supreme Court have recused themselves from the Massey case? One was photographed frolicking on vacation with Massey CEO Don Blankenship on […]

GM exec defends calling climate change a ‘crock of shit’

A couple weeks back, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, at a roundtable with reporters, casually mentioned that he thinks global warming is a "crock of shit." (His point was that […]