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US Air Force Aims to Cut Petroleum Use, CO2

The U.S. Air Force believes it can approach a near-zero carbon footprint in the years ahead, according to a top Pentagon official. “We can get ourselves very close to a zero carbon footprint,” said William Anderson, an assistant Air Force secretary during a briefing at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center last Friday. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But maybe a decade or so down the road.” Anderson said the Air Force intends for its entire aircraft fleet to burn a domestically produced 50-50 blend of synthetic and petroleum based fuel by 2011. The goal is to reduce dependence on foreign oil, develop cleaner power sources and use carbon capture for commercial purposes, such as the growth of bio-fuels or increased oil well production. As evidence of the commitment, Anderson stated that a C-17 Globemaster cargo aircraft, which burns more jet fuel than any other plane in the U.S. fleet, flew for the first time earlier in the week with only a coal-derived synthetic blend fuel onboard. Coal-produced jet fuel produces 1.8 times more carbon dioxide than jet fuel from oil, according to Anderson, but he claims most of the additional amount can be captured during production. He said the Air […]

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Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National, Alamo, Begin Carbon Offset Program

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car, owned by the Taylor family of St. Louis, announced they will implement a customer carbon offset program. The 20-25 million customers of the three companies will be offered the opportunity to offset CO2 emissions generated by their car rentals. By opting in during the reservation process to pay $1.25 per rental, customers can fund certified offset projects that work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Customer offset purchases will be matched by the company dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million. Beginning in January 2008, the program will be offered at participating locations in the U.S. and Canada; it will be extended to Enterprise’s European customers in mid-2008. TerraPass will administer the program funded by customers’ offset purchases. Customers will be able to purchase their carbon offsets while booking their reservations through call-in reservation centers or online. Terrapass says that if every renter opts into the program, along with the company match, about half the carbon produced by the combined Enterprise, National and Alamo fleet could be offset. The group has the world’s largest fleet of fuel-efficient vehicles – more than 440,000 cars in the combined Enterprise, National and Alamo worldwide fleet […]

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Congressional Energy Bill Run Aground?

Bi-partisan goodwill for proposed energy legislation seems to be drying up quicker than Georgia groundwater. Texas’s two Republican senators have blocked energy legislation, which would increase alternative-fuel production and vehicular fuel-efficiency standards, and mandate that 15 percent of utilities’ power come from renewable sources of energy. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) placed a procedural hold on the bill, saying it would hurt oil, gas and agricultural sectors. She and John Cornyn (R-TX) are against repealing tax incentives for oil companies and believe the bill, which calls for the doubling of ethanol production, favors Midwestern farmers at the expense of energy and livestock interests in their home state. They are joined by three other Republican senators – Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Larry Craig of Idaho and Jim DeMint of South Carolina – in opposing the bill. Although Democrats could continue to work the bill behind closed doors and present it to lawmakers at a later time, chances of passing an energy bill before the end of the year seem to be shrinking. Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) told reporters Friday the Lieberman-Warner bill, which calls for green-house gas emissions to be cut 15% by 2020, exceeds the abilities of current technology. He […]

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Carbon Partnership Hopes to Go Global

The International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) has been formed by a coalition of European countries, US states, Canadian provinces and New Zealand. The Partnership’s goal is to lead in the creation of a global carbon trading market. Some of its signatories include British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Norway, the Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. ICAP says it wants to send an important signal to others states and countries that by working together, the world can reduce emissions. ICAP plans to create incentives for cleantech investment and economic growth while avoiding criticisms of carbon markets – that they let polluters off the hook. At least 16 states in the U.S., New Zealand, Australia and seven Canadian provinces are thinking about following Europe’s lead and establishing carbon trading.

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IBM to Recycle Silicon Wafers for Solar Industry

IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced an innovative new process to recycle semiconductor wafers that can then be used to construct solar panels. IBM uses a specialized pattern removal technique to repurpose scrap semiconductor wafers — thin discs of silicon material used to imprint patterns that make finished semiconductor chips for computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics — to a form used to manufacture silicon-based solar panels. The new process was recently awarded the “2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award” from The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR). Through this new reclamation process, IBM can efficiently remove the intellectual property from the wafer surface, making them available either for reuse in internal manufacturing calibration as “monitor wafers” or for sale to the solar cell industry, which is in short supply of silicon. IBM intends to provide details of the new process to the broader semiconductor manufacturing industry. It is currently in use at its Burlington, VT, facility and in the process of being implemented at IBM’s East Fishkill, NY, semiconductor fabrication plant. IBM and others in the industry use silicon wafers both as the starting material for manufacturing microelectronic products — from cell phones to computers to consumer electronics — and […]

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AMSC Establishes China Division

American Superconductor Corp (NASDAQ: AMSC) has formed the division “AMSC China” to serve the growing wind energy, power grid and industrial markets in China. The company recently received an enterprise business license from the Chinese government to form a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise in Suzhou National New and Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone (SND), located 80 kilometers west of Shanghai. The business license allows for domestic manufacturing and sales of AMSC’s power electronics and superconductor products. AMSC also has expanded its sales and field service office in Beijing to support and grow its business in China and the broader Asia-Pacific region. “With its rapidly growing economy and increasing energy demands, China has become a key target market for AMSC in recent years,” said Greg Yurek, AMSC CEO. “Today, approximately half our revenues are coming from the Asia-Pacific region, with China accounting for the largest fraction of those sales. By serving these markets locally, we believe we will foster stronger ties with our current customers and more rapidly develop new customers in the region. We also expect to be able to reduce costs for standard products like our PowerModule” power converters by locally sourcing, assembling and testing certain non-proprietary components.” AMSC’s PowerModule […]

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