Author: admin

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Dept. of Transportation sent draft rules to the White House that would for the first time cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from heavy trucks and buses.

EPA regulates emissions, while DOT regulates mileage. On Friday (Aug. 13), the agencies sent proposals to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, according to OMB’s website.

Details concerning the draft rules are not available, but the Website notes that DOT sent OMB a draft proposal for “Commercial Medium-and Heavy-Duty On-Highway Vehicles and Work Truck Fuel Efficiency Standards.” Meanwhile, the EPA sent the White House a proposal for addressing carbon emissions from heavy-duty trucks and buses.

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a web-based discussion forum to gather public input on how the agency can improve protection of drinking water. The information will be used in implementing EPA’s new drinking water strategy announced by Administrator Lisa P. Jackson in March.

“We look forward to reviewing the ideas and feedback from the public,” said Peter S. Silva, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Water. “This online discussion is for anyone who wants to share their input on protecting drinking water and improving public health.”

EPA seeks input from water professionals, advocates, and anyone interested in drinking water quality issues about best solutions for issues facing our nation’s drinking water—planning, developing scientific tools, controlling water pollution and use of resources.

The discussion forum will feature a series of topics based on the four segments of the drinking water strategy: addressing contaminants as groups rather than one at a time, fostering development of new technologies, using the existing authority of several statues to protect drinking water, and partnering with states to share more complete data.

The forum will be open for discussion for about a month, with each topic area being discussed separately.  Addressing contaminants as groups will also be discussed separately at a web-based meeting at the end of July.

To join the discussion:

More information on the new Drinking Water Strategy:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2010) — As much as 12 percent of the world’s human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That’s more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a study published August 10 in the journal Nature Communications.

The study is the most thorough and comprehensive analysis to date on the global potential of biochar. The carbon-packed substance was first suggested as a way to counteract climate change in 1993. Scientists and policymakers have given it increasing attention in the past few years. The study was conducted by Dominic Woolf and Alayne Street-Perrott of Swansea University in Wales, U.K., Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Stephen Joseph of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Amonette.

Biochar is made by decomposing biomass like plants, wood and other organic materials at high temperature in a process called slow pyrolysis. Normally, biomass breaks down and releases its carbon into the atmosphere within a decade or two. But biochar is more stable and can hold onto its carbon for hundreds or even thousands of years, keeping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide out of the air longer. Other biochar benefits include: improving soils by increasing their ability to retain water and nutrients; decreasing nitrous oxide and methane emissions from the soil into which it is tilled; and, during the slow pyrolysis process, producing some bio-based gas and oil that can offset emissions from fossil fuels.

Read the complete story at Science Daily.

Why Measure Anyway?

Well, the two old axioms state that “you are what you measure” and “what gets measured gets managed.” Without a way to establish an internal benchmark for continual improvement, it becomes harder to innovate, advance and proactively respond to stakeholder expectations. Key advantages to monitor and measure environmental and organizational performance include:

• Setting Effective and Value-Added Priorities
• Benchmarking to Continuously Improve
• Encouragement of Bottom Up, Organization-wide Innovation
• Reinforcing Personal and Organizational Accountability
• Strengthening Strategic Planning and Goal-Setting Processes
• Improved Internal and External Communication

Metrics can do one of two things: They can tell you what you should do, or they can tell you what you should have done. If you use them to tell you what to do, you’ll be using them to measure your successes. But if you use them to tell you what you should have done, you’ll be using them to measure your failures. So clearly it’s the first approach, not the latter, that forward-thinking companies should focus on.

Read the article at Environmental Leader

A recording of the August 4th webinar: Help Save and Improve Energy Star Hospital Rating is now available online.

More than 3,000 hospitals have used EPA’s Portfolio Manager to rate energy performance, manage energy and water consumption, and track carbon emissions, making it the most widely used performance tool of its kind in the industry. The algorithm used to create the acute care hospital ratings is based on hospital energy data that was collected in 1997.

While this was the largest publicly available dataset on hospital energy use at the time, EPA is becoming concerned that it may be out of date.

In order to protect the credibility of the ENERGY STAR brand, EPA may consider discontinuing the hospital rating if new data cannot be collected.

EPA began collaborating with ASHE on a new expanded energy survey to avoid this outcome. This recorded webinar shows how you can participate in the ASHE energy survey and help maintain and improve the only publicly available, free-of-charge, national energy performance rating system for hospitals.

Users of Portfolio Manager need to fill out the survey – even if they are already tracking their energy use – because the survey helps assess possible new energy drivers like the presence of diagnostic medical equipment, patient census, and medical service compositions.

New ENERGY STAR scores will be more accurate, provide greater value for economic decision-making, and better reflect the latest trends in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. But before that can happen, ASHE needs your data! All surveys shared by ASHE to the EPA will be anonymous.

To implement an effective corporate energy management system, businesses need a combination of senior management support, good data, clear targets and technical, managerial and economic resources, as well as consistent implementation over decades, says energy expert Peter Garforth in an article written for Plant Services.

However, the reality is that other business priorities typically take precedence over the energy challenge and few companies can keep up with the implications of a changing energy world, says Garforth. This often means that companies continue to use tried and tested approaches using data and assumptions that may be out of date.

In addition, engagement at the start of a program can fade, which jeopardizes the sustained consistency needed for successful energy management, he says.

Garforth’s recommendation is to use regular detailed benchmarking to ensure that your company’s energy management strategy is “refreshed, challenged and adjusted.” He cited a recent meeting between sustainability and energy teams of major U.S. corporations, which shared their different approaches to energy management.

Topics included energy metering and reporting systems, employee motivation and incentives, low-cost and no-cost efficiency practices, climate change legislation, efficiency and clean supply technologies and the energy efficiency in all major procurement decisions.

While each company was building its own energy management expertise in different ways, they “all recognized the importance in understanding the direct and indirect carbon footprints, as much for avoiding business risks associated with climate legislation as for mitigating climate change,” says Garforth.

It also reenergized their programs by sharing their approaches with other companies.

The upshot: “Systematic benchmarking of energy management programs keeps them relevant and successful,” says Garforth.

Courtesy of Environmental Leader