The Department of Natural Resources has announced partnerships with 4 pilot biomass projects, including one involving IWF and our partner Atlas Pellets, the largest wood pellet producer in Washington State, to move renewable energy from woody biomass along in Washington State.  In a Press Release, Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark said that the four partnerships "will put their technologies to work using forest products they purchase from state trust lands to produce clean, sustainable energy and rural jobs".

Libby, Montana, is one of those old mining towns that got the short stick environmentally after the logging and mining companies closed down, leaving severely polluted earth and air behind them.  It was designated as a Superfund site in 2000 as a result of the asbestos-contaminated soils left in the area when W.R. Grace closed down the last vermiculite mine.  Much has been written and chronicles about the asbestos dangers to the population of 2900 remaining folks.

In Oxnard, California, an onion farmer, Steve Gill, has been using juice from the 40% of the discarded portions of onions that Gills Onions processes, about 150 tons of waste a day, to create energy to run refrigerators and lighting at the 14-acre plant.  By generating their own electricity from the waste of their production processes, the processing plant saves $700,000 each year on electricity costs plus another $400,000 a year on disposal costs.

When I hear people say that China isn't going to do anything to combat climate change so it doesn't matter what we do, I tell them that is old information.  China has figured out that they can't have their people drowning in their own pollution.  They have also figured out that they want to build the innovative energy systems that the rest of us will need to buy.  Tom Friedman has an interesting opinion piece, entitled "Can I Clean Your Clock?" up at the NYT on why he thinks that China will step up to making the changes needed to prevent horrendous greenhouse gas emissions.

A full 5% of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere today comes from the manufacturing of cement and concrete.  In the cement manufacturing process, about a ton of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere for every ton of cement that’s made.  Liv Haselbach, an Environmental Engineering professor at Washington State University, thinks that can be changed.  She is working on a process to develop concrete that will reabsorb the CO2 back into the concrete.  And then, the CO2 will be captured, or sequestered in carbon emissions terminology, and taken out of the atmosphere permanently. 

The 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago will soon get a $350 million retrofit aimed at reducing electricity use in the tower by 80% over five years.  The 4.5 million sq.ft. building will employ upgrades in the glass exterior, internal lighting, heating, cooling and its own green power generation utilizing wind turbines on its rooftops. 

According to an article in the NYT, "buildings are among the world’s largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions. After the retrofit, energy savings at the Sears Tower, which is to be renamed the Willis Tower this summer, would be equal to 150,000 barrels of oil a year, officials said".