EPA Calls for Nominations for 2011 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting nominations for the 2011 Annual Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. This year the agency is encouraging nominations for the design of safer and more sustainable chemicals, processes, and products that will protect the public, particularly children and other sensitive populations, from exposure to harmful chemicals. Nominations are due to the agency by December 31, 2010. The awards recognize innovative technologies that incorporate green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture and use and help advance the protection of human health and the environment.

“EPA’s green chemistry program has long been a catalyst for new approaches and innovation,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “This year, EPA is encouraging green chemistry award nominations that will help achieve our goal to ensure that chemicals are safe for use in products, homes, schools and workplaces.”

The 2011 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards will mark the 16th year of the program. Throughout the first 15 years, EPA received more than 1,300 nominations and presented awards to 77 winners. Winning technologies alone are responsible for reducing the use or generation of more than 198 million pounds of hazardous chemicals, saving 21 billion gallons of water, and eliminating 57 million pounds of carbon dioxide releases to air

For the 2011 awards, nominated technologies should reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances from a chemical product or process. Companies, non-profit organizations, public academic institutions, and their representatives may nominate green chemistry technologies for the awards. Self-nominations are welcome and expected. Typically, one award is given each year in five categories: greener synthetic pathways, greener reaction conditions, designing greener chemicals, small business, and academic.  More information on how to submit entries: Please read full story




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Kohl’s, Motorola, TD Bank, Whole Foods Named as EPA Green Power Partners of the Year

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the winners of the agency’s 10th annual Green Power Leadership awards that honor 18 Green Power Partners in four categories: Green Power Partners, Green Power Purchasing, On-Site Generation, and new this year, Green Power Community of the Year.

Together, these award winners are using more than 5 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually, equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of more than 700,000 vehicles, according to the EPA.

EPA has named Kohl’s Department Stores, Motorola, TD Bank, and Whole Foods Market as Green Power Partners of the Year for their achievements in using green power and cutting GHG emissions.

Here’s why these four companies top the list.

Kohl’s increased its green power purchase from 2009 to 2010 by 60 percent from approximately 850 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) to more than 1.3 billion kWh, achieving 100 percent green power use. Kohl’s also tops the EPA’s Top 20 Retail List and National Top 50 Purchasers List.

Kohl’s is one of the world’s largest retail solar hosts, with almost 100 solar systems activated in California, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Connecticut. The company retains renewable energy certificates (RECs) for one-third of these installations. Ten additional systems are under construction. Kohl’s activated solar arrays provide 20 to 40 percent of the power to each store, generating approximately 15 million kWh of green power annually.

Motorola joined the Green Power Partnership in 2009 and has already increased its REC purchase by more than 50 percent, from approximately 78 million kWh to 119 million kWh. Motorola’s green power purchase represents more than 30 percent of its United States electricity use, which also earned the company a spot on the EPA’s National Top 50 Purchasers List.

In 2010, TD Bank purchased more than 240 million kilowatt-hours RECs. These wind-derived RECs supply 100 percent of the bank’s electricity needs. TD Bank’s purchase ranks among the top 20 in the Green Power Partnership.

Whole Foods Market was the first Fortune 500 company to purchase wind power for 100 percent of its electricity use across its United States operations, according to the EPA. In 2010, the retail chain increased its purchase to 815 million kilowatt-hours of wind-based RECs. The retailer also topped the EPA’s National Top 50 Purchasers List and Top 20 Retail List.

While the majority of Whole Foods Market’s green power consists of RECs, green power is produced through solar systems located on a distribution center and 14 retail stores across the nation. The retailer also has installed fuel cell systems at two of its stores, and is installing a 100 percent bio-fuel generator at one of its commissaries, and is evaluating on-site wind.

Other winners by category include:

–Green Power Purchasing: BD, BNY Mellon, Carnegie Mellon University, Chicago Public Schools, Harris Bank, Indianapolis Zoo, Intel, Pearson, Port of Portland, and the State of Illinois

–On-site Generation: City of San Francisco and Phoenix Press

–Green Power Communities of the Year Award: Park City, Utah and, Corvallis, Oregon
Courtesy  of  Environmental Leader


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U.S. Urges Global Cooperation

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) has established six international initiatives that will bring climate change adaptation, national security, sustainable development and public health at the forefront of pressing global concerns.

Lisa Jackson, the agency’s administrator, announced these priorities at a conference of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in Mexico. She urged for international collaboration to tackle global environmental issues in the next few years.

The agency aims to create strong environmental institutions and legal structures to highlight environment protection in current regulatory and enforcement systems. It will collaborate with countries such as India, Ghana, Kenya and Brazil to spur the stringent enforcement of effective environmental protection regulatory systems.

E.P.A. already set out a trade and environmental partnership with Chile through a cooperation agreement that will promote the development and implementation of environmental practices and technologies, especially in the business sector.

The agency will also team up with national governments to limit climate change pollutants, such as methane from landfills and black carbon from stoves. Such pollutants are damaging, especially in vulnerable regions such as the Himalayan glaciers and the Artic.

In line with this, the agency will strive to improve air quality in rapidly developing urban areas to reduce pollutants that aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases.

E.P.A. will also work with the United Nations Environmental Programme to reduce the effects of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, as well as collaborate with the United States Congress to strengthen chemical laws.

To ensure the availability of clean drinking water to the local population, the agency will install wastewater treatment and sanitation systems, particularly in overburdened and underserved areas such as those along the United States-Mexican border.

Lastly, the agency will deal with electronic waste by focusing on ways to improve the design, production, handling, recycling and proper disposal of electronic products.

“Pollution doesn’t stop at international borders, and neither can our environmental and health protections. The local and national environmental issues of the past are now global challenges,” Ms. Jackson stressed.

“These priorities will guide the E.P.A.’s work on our shared goals of facilitating commerce, promoting sustainable development, protecting vulnerable populations and engaging diplomatically around the world,”      Source : Ecoseed





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"Energy Star" Label Graces Churches for Efficiency

 Caring for the Earth and reducing energy expenses are two of the reasons some area churches are focusing on going green.

A church in Massachusetts is the latest to receive the EPA's "Energy Star" label for congregations as the agency pushes to make thousands of houses of worship more energy efficient.

Old and new intersect at First Parish church in Massachusetts, which holds 18th-century timber in its walls and displays proof of its 21st-century energy efficiency with an "Energy Star" plaque by the door.


"Energy Star" status, more commonly associated with dishwashers and refrigerators, is now available to houses of worship as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency looks to lower energy use at thousands of congregations nationwide.

First Parish in Needham is one of just nine congregations in the nation with the designation, which it won after a recent multimillion-dollar expansion and renovation.

Among its upgrades: temperature controls for each room so energy isn't wasted in areas that aren't being used; a ventilation system that adjusts to the number of people inside by measuring the carbon dioxide being exhaled; new insulation in the meeting house walls, which are partly supported by beams from the church's original 1774 building.

As churches consider new efficiency upgrades, the EPA hopes they tap into the same ancient religious principle - good stewardship of the earth - that drove First Parish.

"It's a spiritual issue," said The Rev. John Buehrens, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist church. "Stewardship of the planet and a realization of the fragility of the creation and our responsibility of preserving its beauty is absolutely central to our religious values."

The United States has an estimated 370,000 houses of worship, nearly the number of its K-12 school buildings.

Some buildings seem primed for big improvement, such as the stately churches with high ceilings and leaky windows that are common in buildings in New England town squares. But Michael Zatz, EPA Energy Star commercial buildings manager, said older churches aren't necessarily far less efficient than newer buildings. Instead, he said, focusing on churches can have broad impact.

"The people sitting in those congregations are workers in ... other places - teachers in the schools, managers of hotels - and they might learn through the congregation about what can be done in buildings in general and take it into their workplace," he said. "They also may take it back to their home."

The EPA has reached out to congregations since 1999. But it just began awarding the Energy Star label in October. Before then, a periodic federal building survey hadn't reviewed enough houses of worship to allow the EPA to draw up Energy Star scores for that building type, Zatz said.

So far nine congregations from Alabama to Michigan have won the label. Variables such as a building's size, location and energy use over a year are plugged into a formula. The building's actual energy usage is then compared to what the formula predicts it will use. If it's more efficient than 75 percent of similar houses of worship, it's eligible for the Energy Star label. A licensed engineer must also verify the numbers.

Montevallo Presbyterian Church in Montevallo, Ala., earned the label after an assembly hall renovation completed in 2008. The work included such changes as installing energy efficient appliances, switching to better insulated windows and putting the water heater on a timer so that it's on only when needed, said the church's "Green Team" leader, Bill Peters.

Peters said the church is heeding Biblical commands to care for creation, but also wanted to decrease the impact of a nearby coal-burning power plant.

"The more electricity we consume, the more that that power plant has to pollute our air," Peters said.

After its efficiency upgrades, First Parish in Needham saw a significant drop in its utility bill, which fell from $20,000 to $12,000 in a year. Even after such significant savings, it will take years to make a dent in what it paid to make energy efficiency a priority in its $3.3 million renovation. But good environmental stewardship was the point, not cutting bills, Buehrens said.

"You don't spend $3.3 million in order to cut your utility bill in half," he said. "You do it for a much bigger set of reasons."

Zatz said congregations generally don't need a lot of money to get big gains in efficiency. Simple steps often mean a lot, he said.

"The most common one you hear, and it sounds silly but many people don't do it, is: 'Turn off the lights when you leave,'" Zatz said.    Via Huffington Post





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E.P.A. Makes The Case For Affordable Climate Legislation

The United States Environment Protection Agency has confirmed that the proposed climate bill could help bring down global carbon emissions at safe levels by 2050 while being affordable for American households.

In an analysis, the agency concluded that the Senate bill sponsored by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman would cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year.

The bill, called the American Power Act unveiled in April, aims to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020 and by more than 80 percent by 2050.

The agency’s analysis of the Senate bill mirrors the price it gave to the House of Representatives’ version of the legislation passed in June 2009. The agency previously estimated that American Clean Energy Security Act is expected to cost $80 to $111 annually.

In addition, the analysis also showed that prices for carbon permits in the cap-and-trade market outlined in the Kerry-Lieberman bill should hit $16 per metric ton to $17 per metric ton in 2013 and $23 per metric ton to $24 per metric ton in 2020.

These prices are within range of the bill's initial floor and ceiling prices of $12 and $25 respectively.

Possible scenarios

The E.P.A. gave several scenarios to measure the global impact of passing the climate bill in reducing emissions. One scenario assumes concerted global action, where the country follows the carbon reduction plans laid out in the Kerry-Lieberman bill at the same time as developing countries try to meet their own targets.

Developing countries, along with the United States, are also expected to follow the pledges they made during the G-8 meeting in July 2009 involving emission cuts of 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. In addition, the scenario assumes that these countries have already adopted a policy that caps emissions beginning in 2025 based on 2015 levels and reduces emissions to 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

The agency estimates that there is a 75 percent chance of keeping global temperatures under 2°C under this scenario, which is in line with the temperature threshold by 2050 established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The E.P.A. also presented a more modest scenario where developing countries’ have not started any climate policy to curb down emission until 2050. Despite this, the agency forecasted that there is still a 50 percent chance of holding global temperatures under 3°C and an 11 percent chance of holding temperatures below 2°C.   Story Via 




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