Climate Technology
All Stories
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Terminal Illness
Plans to build a new $350 million liquid natural gas terminal in Baja California were unveiled yesterday by the El Paso Corporation, but a Mexican city is withholding approval due to environmental and social concerns. The Rosarito municipal government has denied El Paso a land-use permit, and the city’s mayor has described the project as […]
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Malaise-ia
A proposed pipeline that would transport natural gas from the South China Sea through Thailand and into Malaysia is bringing only conflict to the region thus far. The Thai government sees possibilities for modernization, dependable energy, employment, and the economic unification of Southeast Asia in the pipeline, but many villagers see a threat to their […]
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Fuel for the City
Seeking to control sky-high summertime fuel prices, the U.S. EPA proposed new regulations for anti-smog gasoline yesterday. The EPA has been gradually phasing in a plan to combat summer smog in densely populated areas by mandating the use of cleaner-burning reformulated gasoline (RFG). The oil industry blames that plan for high prices at the pumps […]
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Cogito Ergo Summit
At an environmental summit being held this week in Rio de Janeiro, Latin American and Caribbean countries are forging an alliance to pressure developed nations to foot most of the bill for the planet’s ailing ecosystems. During the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, industrialized nations pledged to spend 0.7 percent of their gross domestic products on […]
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Special K-O
Like the rest of the country, the town of Kellogg, Idaho, is at war. But this one is a civil war over the Silver Valley Superfund site, the legacy of a century of mining and smelting in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin. The U.S. EPA is poised to decide this week whether to expand the […]
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Swedish Neatballs
Sweden is setting the world’s standard for balancing economic growth with environmental protections, according to a report released last week by the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Canadian International Development Research Center. The report used standards-of-living indicators such as quality of social services, infrastructure, education, and government, as well as assessing each country’s […]
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Flexing Their Muscles
The car-sharing company Flexcar is planning to expand beyond its Northwest roots and enter the Washington, D.C., market this fall, where it will compete with Boston-based Zipcar. Both companies work to reduce the number of cars on the road by enticing customers to share vehicles and avoid the hassles of car ownership. Customers pay for […]
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Celling Like Hotcakes
Canadian company Ballard Power Systems announced yesterday that it had signed a three-year, $22 million deal to provide Ford with fuel cells for a line of vehicles the automaker hopes to launch by 2004. Ballard is providing fuel-cell technology to DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Nissan, and Volkswagen, among others. General Motors expects to have a fuel cell-powered […]
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Bad Company
Commercial recycling is hit or miss in the U.S. — in some cases, for example, companies assume that recycling is occurring, but their cleaning companies are actually mixing recycling with garbage and throwing everything out as trash. From 35 to 45 percent of waste produced in the U.S. in 1999 was commercial, according to the […]
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The Slush of Mount Kilimanjaro
Many favorite vacation spots around the world are threatened by global warming. For example, the snow atop Mount Kilimanjaro may be around for just 15 more years and the glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana may last just 70 more, according to recent studies. Would you like to travel to an uncomfortably hot and […]
