For this week's upcoming posts, the green blog will have more plastic updates to coincide with this week's plastic feature from ICIS Chemical Business (ICB). Included in the feature is the state of plastic recycling as well as new regulations driving plastic research and development.
The blog will also look at the recently passed Cash for Clunkers bill, the emerging issues in the US organic industry, and maybe some tidbits from this week's Green Chemistry conference by the American Chemical Society. Stay tune!
For now here are this week's news roundup:
New bioplastic company
Bioethanol producer BioEnergy Int'l. has formed Myriant Technologies LLC to incorporate all of its biobased chemicals business and intellectual property. Myriant will encompass the same team of molecular biologists, engineers and chemists that developed BioEnergy's D(-) lactic acid, which started production at commercial scale in June 2008 for use in polylactic acid (PLA).
Dow's GHG reduction project
Dow Chemical and Gazprom Marketing and Trading Ltd. formed a deal to develop and implement greenhouse gas reduction projects on a global basis. They will identify projects that could cumulatively reduce millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions through the implementation of Dow technologies and other cooperative efforts.
Carbon capture contract
E.ON UK plc picked Foster Wheeler AG to perform the pre-front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) for a post-combustion carbon dioxide capture plant proposed as part of E.ON's new supercritical coal-fired power station in Kent, England, UK. Foster
Wheeler's consortium partner for the project is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. of Japan.
Biofuels work with jet engines
Boeing and a team from across the aviation industry released a study
that shows that sustainable biofuels analyzed in a series of pioneering
test flights performed favorably in comparison to petroleum-based fuel.
The study involved ground and flight tests conducted between 2006 and
2009.
Energy solutions from Honeywell
Honeywell launched its Energy Management Solutions,
a customizable portfolio of new and existing hardware, software and
services to help improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. It is targeted to a wide range of energy-intensive
process manufacturing facilities.
And in ICIS news (subscription required):
Environmentalists charged
that both Democrats and Republicans were trying to weaken proposed
expansions of the federal chemicals facility anti-terrorism security
mandate.
Belgium-based producer Solvay plans to complete the construction of its new glycerine-based epichlorohydrin (ECH) plant in Mab Ta Phut, Thailand, in the second quarter of 2011.
Bayer MaterialScience will start selling polycarbonate (PC) products made from renewable feedstock, the first such bio-based resins the company has marketed.
Most of the cars that are currently donated to charity will be eligible for a voucher under the cash for clunkers program. Since the tax deduction for donating a car is only $500 or what the car sells for, charities won't be able to compete. A better idea would have been to go back to allowing the donor to claim the book value for their car donation. This way all vehicles are eligible, the government doesn't have to spend $4 billion on vouchers and trying to administer a program with rules that are not enforceable! Since many of the cars donated to charity are recycled there is an environmental benefit as well!
Karen Campese
Co-founder
Cars4Charities
www.cars4charities.org