Chrysler On The Green Way

Having endured a painful restructuring, Chrysler Group LLC for now is on the path towards recovery. The company, of which Italy-based Fiat owns a majority stake, released its first ever sustainability report last week.

The 100-plus page report, written using the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) sustainability reporting framework, is a solid first start towards Chrysler sharing its environmental, social and governance performance. The report lucidly responds to its internal and external stakeholders, and answers a bevy of questions on issues from concerns over its long term viability to fuel economy and vehicle emissions. Environment Clean Generations

Some of Chrysler's recent highlights and achievements on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) front include:

- Employees, don't text and drive: telling your peers to not steer the wheel while typing on a minuscule QWERTY board is one thing. But Chrysler went a step further and implemented a corporate-wide ban on texting while driving—the first automaker to do so.

- Improving recyclability: incorporating recycled materials into an automobile is a huge challenge for any manufacturer. Addressing concerns over the global food supply, Chrysler replaced soy-based polyol, a material that is the base of foam, with one that is sourced from what would otherwise be landfill waste.Environment Clean Generations

Having endured a painful restructuring, Chrysler Group LLC for now is on the path towards recovery. The company, of which Italy-based Fiat owns a majority stake, released its first ever sustainability report last week.

The 100-plus page report, written using the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) sustainability reporting framework, is a solid first start towards Chrysler sharing its environmental, social and governance performance. The report lucidly responds to its internal and external stakeholders, and answers a bevy of questions on issues from concerns over its long term viability to fuel economy and vehicle emissions.

Some of Chrysler’s recent highlights and achievements on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) front include:

• Employees, don’t text and drive: telling your peers to not steer the wheel while typing on a minuscule QWERTY board is one thing. But Chrysler went a step further and implemented a corporate-wide ban on texting while driving–the first automaker to do so.Environment Clean Generations
• Improving recyclability: incorporating recycled materials into an automobile is a huge challenge for any manufacturer. Addressing concerns over the global food supply, Chrysler replaced soy-based polyol, a material that is the base of foam, with one that is sourced from what would otherwise be landfill waste.Environment Clean Generations
• The launch of its cutting-edge Trenton South Engine Plant, a LEED-certified Gold manufacturing facility that was built on a brownfield site. Chrysler claims that the plant, which opened last year, will eliminate the annual CO2 output of the equivalent of 1000 homes.
• Chrysler’s factory in Saltillo, Mexico, is another green building that generates some of its power needs from a solar farm built in its roof.
• The company re-engineered its automotive painting process in several factories so that now 85 percent of paint actually ends up on its cars; previously conventional paint guns had a 55 percent efficiency rate. The move has saved the company almost US$900,000 annually while reducing solid wastes by 24,500 pounds (11,000 kilograms).Environment Clean Generations
• Chrysler has also received favorable reviews from several diversity activist organizations for its women and minority hiring practices. The company has pledged a commitment to supplier diversity as well.

As for the Motor City, Chrysler and other Michigan companies have a way to go before demonstrating further commitment to Detroit. The company, which is based in suburban Auburn Hills barely mentioned Detroit at all. Advocates passionate about Detroit’s rebuilding will be deflated by the scant reference to the city. Chrysler, however, has committed to more shifts at its Jefferson North Assembly Plant, one of five that is within Detroit’s city limits.Environment Clean Generations

Hybrid and electric car enthusiasts will also be disappointed by Chrysler’s scant discussion of these vehicles; currently the company describes its commitment as “a significant amount of resources” towards research and development. Considering the company’s long experimentation with hybrid, electric and alternative fueled cars, Chrysler’s mere mention of these cars is surprising.

Nevertheless, Chrysler’s first sustainability report is a solid first step in discussing Chrysler’s rebirth and shift towards becoming an even more responsible company.

by "environment clean generations"

The Forest in the Sky

he ultimate green architecture project is underway in Milan, Italy. These two towers will be the first constructions to house not only people, but living trees. The towers are dubbed Bosco Verticale -- which translates to "Vertical Forest."

The towers, according to the website of the designer Stefano Boeri are "a project for metropolitan reforestation that contributes to the regeneration of the environment and urban biodiversity without the implication of expanding the city upon the territory." Each 27-story tower will house 900 trees including oaks and amelanchier as well as a wide range of shrubs and floral plants.

Were this forest to be on land it would cover a little over six square miles. The towers will use the latest in green technologies including water reclamation, wind and solar.

Beroni's website says, "The diversity of the plants and their characteristics produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, [while] producing oxygen and protecting from radiation and acoustic pollution; [thus] improving the quality of living spaces and saving energy."

by "environment clean generations"

Climate Warming, Animals and Plants Shrinking

Contradicting a century-old hypothesis, increased global carbon dioxide levels seem to be shrinking plants instead of fostering their growth. Animals from polar bears to marine iguanas are being stunted too.

In 1896, Svante Arrhenius published calculations predicting that doubling CO2 levels would trigger a global temperatures increase of about 5-6 degrees C.

"We would then have some right to indulge in the pleasant belief that our descendants, albeit after many generations, might live under a milder sky and in less barren surroundings than is our lot at present," Arrhenius said during a lecture that same year.

But it seems reality hasn't lived up to Arrhenius' verdant dreams of vigorous vegetation.

"Plants were expected to get larger with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide," but changes in temperature, humidity and nutrient availability seem to have trumped the benefits of increased CO2, said researchers from the National University of Singapore in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Forty-five percent of the species studied now reach smaller adult sizes than they did in the recent past. The researchers, led by Jennifer Sheridan and David Bickford, point to climate change induced warmer temperatures and changing habitats are possible culprits in the case of the shrinking creatures.

"We do not yet know the exact mechanisms involved, or why some organisms are getting smaller while others are unaffected". "Until we understand more, we could be risking negative consequences that we can't yet quantify."

Environment-Clean-Generations

The change was dramatic in cold-blooded animals. Only two decades of warmer temperatures were enough to make reptile runts.

An increase of only one degree Celsius caused nearly a 10 percent increase in metabolism. Greater use of energy resulted in tiny tortoises and little lizards.

Fish are smaller now too. Though overfishing has played a part in reducing piscine proportions, the researchers also point to experimental results showing that warmer temperatures also stunt fish growth.

Warm-blooded animals weren't immune from the climate change caused size change.

Many birds are now less bulky, including passerines (the order that includes cardinals, blue jays, and crows) as well as goshawks and gulls.

Mammals have been miniaturized too. Soay sheep are scrawny. Red dear are runts. And polar bears are puny, compared to historical records.

This isn't the first time this has happened in Earth's history.

Fifty-five million years ago, a warming event similar to the current climate change correlated to beetles, bees, spiders, wasps and ants shrinking by 50 to 75 percent over several thousand years.

Woodrats and squirrels also shrunk by about 40 percent.

That event, the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, happened over a longer time than the current global warming.

The speed of modern climate change could mean, "organisms may not respond or adapt quickly enough", especially those with long generation times.

 by "environment clean generations"

Rocket Nozzle Could Be Repurposed To Efficiently Capture CO2

From Rockets, Carbon-cleaning Tech By pressurizing coal plant emissions and running them through high-speed rocket nozzles, engineers think power plants could cheaply scrub carbon dioxide from exhaust. NASA

 

It's not exactly rocket science, but the same company that builds the rocket boosters that launch the Space Shuttles into orbit has a novel idea for bringing down the cost of carbon capture. Aerospace and defense company ATK wants to pressurize the exhaust emissions from such high-carbon polluters as coal-powered electrical generators and run it through rocket nozzles that will freeze the CO₂ into dry ice, causing it to fall out of exhaust gasses.

 

Such a process could replace the chemical processes used to scrub CO₂ from gas emissions. Those chemicals make up a large part of the expense of scrubbing carbon dioxide form emissions -- a full 80 percent of the cost per kilowatt hour of electricity produced at a coal plant, ATK's vice president tells Discovery News. A rocket nozzle approach could reduce that to more like 30 percent.

 

The science is pretty simple: when you pressurize something like coal plant emissions and then run them through a high-speed aerodynamic accelerator nozzle, the gasses will compress and then expand rapidly on the other side of the nozzle. That rapid expansion can cause some molecules to freeze. In the case of water vapor, the gas would turn to regular water ice. In the case of CO₂-laden coal emissions, the carbon dioxide should freeze into dry ice -- at least in theory -- allowing it to be culled from the other gases for sequestration or other uses. 

 

Considering that coal plants make up for more than a third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, the ability to effectively pull CO₂ out of coal emissions could restore coal's place as a viable alternative to foreign oil and as a cleaner bridge to a renewable energy future. Of course, the technology has to work first. ATK wants to get it working smoothly in the lab within 14 months and have a pilot program for the technology installed on a working power plant shortly thereafter.
 

 by "environment clean generations"