General Electric

According to Reuters, “Pricing systems that encourage households to use energy more efficiently are the best way to help consumers to protect the environment, a senior General Electric Co executive said on Tuesday.

Bob Gilligan, GE’s vice president of transmission and distribution, said the development of appliances that adjust their own energy use in response to signals from utility companies would be a key step in achieving this.

“As consumers … we speak from our heart, we express concern about the environment but we respond from our wallet,” he told a conference on the future of cities at Chatham House, the London think-tank.

“If we really want to drive consumer behavior we have to have pricing mechanisms that encourage us to change.”

Gilligan said investment in a smarter energy infrastructure was important in ensuring a more sustainable future.

Last year the British government said smart meters, which provide real-time information to consumers about energy use, would be installed in all British homes by 2020.

Smart meters are seen as the first step toward creating “smart grids,” where consumers can adjust electricity use to benefit from cheaper energy at times of low demand and reduce consumption at peak times.

GE are working to develop household appliances which would go one step further and adjust their own usage, Gilligan said.

Refrigerators, for example, could reduce their energy use by about 25 percent during times of peak demand though changes such as adjusting the timing of their automatic defrost.

“We are developing devices for the home that will take a pricing signal, that will go into an eco mode and help the consumer save money when electric costs are at the peak.”

The right regulatory framework would also need to be established to encourage utility companies to want to reduce demand, he added, decoupling the incentive to deliver more from the incentive to be efficient.”

Source: Reuters

According to the Press Release, “Bunge Limited (“Bunge”) (NYSE: BG) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to become the 100% owner of Usina Moema Participacoes S.A. (“Moema Par”). Moema Par is a holding company that wholly owns one sugarcane mill in Brazil and has ownership interests in five others. Together, the cluster of six mills (“Moema Group”) has an annual crushing capacity of 15.4 million metric tons. With this transaction, Bunge will have a 60% effective share of the total capacity, representing Moema Par’s wholly owned mill and its interests in four of the five other mills.

The transaction will be structured as a share exchange, and under the terms of the agreement, shareholders in Moema Par will be entitled to receive approximately 7.3 million common shares of Bunge Limited, which includes a payment of approximately $36 million in respect of working capital. Based on yesterday’s closing price of Bunge’s common shares, the value of the transaction is approximately $896 million, including approximately $480 million of net debt and excluding this working capital amount. The final number of shares to be issued will be based on the amount of net indebtedness and working capital of Moema Par at closing.

In the coming weeks, Bunge may enter into agreements to secure some or all of the remaining interests in the mills that constitute the Moema Group. These transactions would be on economic terms consistent with the Moema Par transaction.

If, in addition to completing the Moema Par transaction, Bunge secures 100% of the remaining outstanding interests in the Moema Group mills, shareholders in Moema Par and other shareholders in the mills would receive a total of approximately 13.4 million common shares of Bunge Limited, which includes a payment of approximately $60 million in respect of working capital. Based on yesterday’s closing price of Bunge’s common shares, the total value of all transactions would be approximately $1.48 billion, including approximately $710 million in net debt and excluding this working capital amount, subject to adjustment as described above.

Bunge expects that all of these transactions would be accretive to earnings per share in the first 12 months.

“This transaction fulfills Bunge’s strategic goal of building a large-scale, fully integrated business in sugar and bioenergy,” stated Alberto Weisser, Chairman and CEO of Bunge Limited. “It adds significant scale to our current milling operations and enables us to vary production among multiple sugar and ethanol products, according to market conditions. The Moema Group cluster is also strategically located near large domestic markets in Brazil and has excellent access to export logistics systems. All of these strengths make it a perfect fit with our global trading and marketing operations.”

The Moema Group cluster is located on the border of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais states, the two largest domestic ethanol markets in Brazil. The mills benefit from cost savings due to their cluster configuration, and have favorable road and rail access to three of Brazil’s largest export ports (Santos, Paranagua and Vitoria). The cluster can produce two types of sugar (raw and crystal) and two types of ethanol (hydrous and anhydrous). It has co-generation facilities, is self-sustaining in terms of energy requirements and sells excess power to the grid. A majority of the cluster’s sugarcane is harvested mechanically, and the topography of the region should ultimately allow for approximately 95% mechanization.

“For sugar and bioenergy, Brazil is an ideal location in which to invest,” continued Weisser. “It has a fast-growing domestic market for ethanol and, because it boasts the world’s lowest-cost production, is well-positioned to expand its exports of both sugar and ethanol. Bunge is pleased to build on its commitment to the economy and people of Brazil.”

Bunge Limited has agreed to file a registration statement for the common shares issued to the new shareholders, which will allow the shareholders to resell their common shares from time to time. In addition, the shareholders participating in the transactions have agreed, during the 18 month period after the closing, to certain volume and other restrictions with respect to sales of their common shares.

The closing of the transaction announced today is expected to occur within the next 45 days, subject to certain conditions, including reaching satisfactory agreements with the shareholders in the Moema Group mills not wholly owned by Moema Par.

Credit Suisse AG is serving as financial advisor to Bunge, and Itau-BBA is serving as financial advisor to the Moema Par shareholders.”

Source: Press Release

Sample Cork Floor from Globus Cork Inc.

For those looking to remodel their homes in the near future, or for others who are looking into buying a new domicile, look at your feet. Not at your shoes, but what resides beneath them. There are many different materials that have and are being used for flooring, though few of them are “green” and they often destroy parts of our environment. There is however, a variety of floor, one whose relative you can find throughout the wine drinking world. Far from being a new invention, the use of cork as an ecologically friendly alternative to other flooring products has begun to catch on.

The process of creating a cork floor is simple, the excess material from the creation of cork wine stoppers that appear in many wines all over the world is used. In essence, a cork floor is already a recycled product that causes no harm to the trees from which it comes. The cork tree is trimmed every 9 years for its bark, leaving the tree unharmed and living. In addition to the non-impact on the environment, cork is a natural fire inhibitor, due to the substance Suberin. For those who enjoy the odd pyrotechnic show, or bonfire in their living rooms, cork is certainly the way to go for flooring.

Cork floors come in a variety of colors and are usually made in tile form. Cork is a naturally very durable surface, and is both soft and flexible underfoot. For those looking to improve the insulation in their homes, cork is the natural solution due to its properties of insulation. Cork floors lose less heat than floors made of wood, vinyl and ceramic. Cork floors are resistance to termite damage as well as rotting due to the Suberin, a waxy substance which finds a home in cork.

According to Reuters, “U.S. electric sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.

An IPO filing from the six-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, is expected any day, said one of the sources. The person did not give a specific time frame, although IPOs typically take several months.

Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes declined to comment on what he called “rumor or speculation.”

Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Co debuted its shares in 1956. The IPO represents a landmark in the resurgence of electric car technology that most carmakers had dismissed as impractical until recently.

The company’s chairman Elon Musk said early last year that an IPO was a possibility in either late 2008 or 2009.

But the financial market turmoil following the collapse of Lehman Bros. in the latter half of 2008 virtually shut down the IPO market. The appetite for IPOs has picked up since mid-September this year with a robust pace of new filings.

Tesla’s IPO would follow the successful debut of lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems, whose shares rallied 50 percent on their first day of trading on Sept 25.

Analysts have said that the success of A123, the first green technology IPO this year, would encourage more venture capital-backed green companies to go public.

Tesla will compete with established automakers like Ford, General Motors and Nissan Motor Co, all of which are racing to launch electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Tesla, by contrast, is a small player with a high-end market and limited production.

A combination of factors has driven the recent interest in developing electric, or partially electric vehicles, including the Obama administration’s push to have one million rechargeable vehicles on US roads by 2015 and low-cost Department of Energy loans for manufacturers.

VENTURE FUNDS BACK GREEN CARS

The carmaker is developing a second, lower-cost model, an electric sedan known as the Model S, which will have a base price of $49,900.

Tesla said in September it delivered 700 Roadsters since February 2008. The Roadster, which is built on a Lotus frame, can go from zero to sixty miles an hour in less than four seconds, making it faster than a Porsche 911 or a Ferrari Spider.

The electric car start-up was offered $465 million in low-cost loans by the U.S. Department of Energy to help build the new Model S. Tesla said it will build the new car in California.

Tesla’s investors include Google Inc founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Other investors include Daimler AG; Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments, which owns a stake in Daimler; and venture capital funds Valor Equity Partners, Technology Partners, The Westly Group and Compass Venture Partners.

Tesla said it had achieved overall corporate profitability in July with about $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million. But like established automakers, survival in the hyper-competitive U.S. automotive market has not been easy for Tesla. The company had to face cost overruns and production delays for the Roadster.”

Source: Reuters

Long before the idea of creating power from the motion of the oceans, the Japanese have had a fascination with waves and weather. Ever since the kamikazes (divine wind) saved them from Mongol invasions under the command of Kublai Khan in the 13th century, the Japanese have honored the sea and its power. In more recent times, the wood-block artists Hiroshige and Hakusai have brought this love of the sea to life in their artwork. Now, the Japanese are taking their love of the ocean to a new level.

Besides providing large amounts of fish to the population of Japan, the Japanese are now planning on having those same bodies of water that provide them with food, also supply them with power. Ocean Power Technologies have reached an agreement with Japan to build a sea-based power station that will obtain energy via wave riding buoys that convert the motion of the ocean into electricity.
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) operates globally, and focuses on assisting first world countries with their renewable energy needs. In the case of the Japanese, OPT have teamed with Idemitsu Kosan, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding and Japan Wind Development to help build the power station. OPT has already built a wave station near Portland, Victoria to demonstrate how much power can be created by the seas, in this case enough to power 7,000 homes.

The station to be built in Japan is likely to at first power 3,000 homes, and is successful more stations and buoys could be built to provide more power to Japan. This new energy project is in line with what new Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama pledged, a 25% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. It’s hoped that this pledge will lower the amount of fossil fuels and other brown energy sources being used by the Japanese. While this is an important first step towards sea-energy, the Japanese still have to uncover a solution to their trash problem. Gaining energy from natural sources is an excellent option for Japan, as there are many places where there is no arable land to sustain living, these places can be the new home to energy producing technologies. However, there is still the problem of over-population on the islands of Japan, as well as a consumer based economy that relies on the buying of items that are soon to be thrown out. While the nation of Japan lays claim to one of the best recycling programs in the world, what doesn’t get recycled is incinerated and provides major Japanese cities a layer of bluish smog. While Japan may cut their greenhouse emissions, focusing on consuming less must also be of paramount importance.

When it comes to research, the universities of the San Francisco Bay Area are some of the finest institutions devoted to that task. Due to this incredible amount of advancement in a geographically small area, many businesses have developed in fields of scientific advancement, thus giving graduates a place to apply their skills. The U.S. Department of Energy recently approved a $151 million dollar stimulus package for transformational energy research projects, and the San Francisco Bay Area received a sizeable portion.

Companies and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area will receive 10% of the total stimulus amount, with Stanford University taking a third of that with 5 million. The funds will go to help the university conduct research in the field of building efficiency, using different methods to track how humans use electricity and how that amount can be lowered.

The rest of the stimulus money in the bay area goes to four other projects that deal with: energy storage, desalinization, wind power and carbon capture.

At the Argonne National Laboratory in Hayward, Envia systems is conducting researching on Lithium-ion batteries that can store up to 3x more energy than their current counterparts.

NanOasis Technologies Inc., in Richmond, California is focusing on developing new ways to reduce the cost of desalinization, which historically quite expensive. Using new green methods they hope to lower the costs, creating more water that can be used for human and crop use.

In San Rafael, PAX Streamline is working on a new kind of wind turbine technology. Using federal stimulus money, they are developing an improved airfoil that can maximize power despite weather conditions. This new airfoil will also cost a fraction of what one traditionally costs today.

Porifera Inc., working with UC Berkeley at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working on ways to create cheaper carbon by using carbon nanotubes with polymer membranes. This would capture more carbon.

We can see that the stimulus money is trickling down to green startups and that green businesses are getting a chance to sprout.

The US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) promotes the theme of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, in efforts to create less waste on Earth. Many companies and corporations have taken this theme to heart, Nike in particular. While the athletic shoe/clothing provider has come under fire in the past few decades for their labor practices, their system of recycling old shoes has proven to be a diamond in the rough.

In the spirit of reusing and recycling, Nike has been helping the environment through putting their old footwear through the grinder, not the landfill. The Reuse-a-shoe program has lead to reduced impact on the environment, and increased the amount of recreational facilities across the United States.

The Reuse-A-Shoe process is simple, yet industrious. When a pair of shoes are old and no longer wearable for the purpose they were designed for, the wearer brings their “kicks” to a Reuse-A-Show collection center. Any brand or type of shoe is fine, though no cleats of shoes with metal in them are accepted. From there, Nike separates the shoes and grinds them up into three types of raw material.

The types are:

• Rubber from the outsole
• Foam from the midsole
• Fabric from the upper part of the shoe

All three of these different are used in different types of new sports equipment and playing surfaces. Nike calls the result of this shoe grinding process, Nike Grind.

Instead of simply leaving these dilapidated shoes to rot in the landfill, Nike has created many different uses for the recycled Grind. The foam and fabric from the midsole and upper parts has been used as cushioning for basketball and volleyball courts. The rubber from the outsole has been integrated with other varieties of rubber to create both indoor and outdoor running tracks. The rubber has also been used on artificial turf surfaces, such as football and soccer fields.

For more information about the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program, please visit: www.nikereuseashoe.com