Anecdotal evidence suggests that cheese and biogas go together like - aw heck, let’s cut the cheese jokes and get straight to the point.  The Holmes Cheese Co. is installing a wastewater treatment system at its Millersburg, Ohio factory that will double as a sustainable biogas recovery plant, thus joining a growing number of cheeseries that are generating their own sustainable energy to power equipment.

The new system is a proprietary process called the Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket.  It was developed by Biothane, a subsidiary of leading wastewater treatment company Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies.  As an added bonus, N.A. Water Systems (another Veolia subsidiary) is installing high-tech filtration and treatment equipment that will enable the effluent from Holmes Cheese to meet strict water quality limits for phosphorus.

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Lanner, a business software specialist, just launched a new version of its WITNESS software suite in order to help companies evaluate how their decisions will affect the environment.

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Tata Motors Chairman, Mr. Ratan Tata announced at the Delhi Auto Expo that his company is working on a Nano variant for the American market which could be ready in about three years.

Mr. Tata said that the American version will have a bigger engine and would undergo additional crash tests in order to answer the apprehensions about its safety. An electric version for the developed markets is also said to be in the works.

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A wind turbine efficiency breakthrough by Dr Markus Mueller and Dr Alasdair McDonald of the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Energy Systems has the potential to revolutionize the wind energy industry by making large turbines more failure-proof by cutting their weight in half.

It is expensive and hazardous sending workers out to off-shore wind farms for repairs when there is a mechanical failure. By reducing the weight, the researchers reduce mechanical failures, caused by the sheer stresses in these very large turbines.

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Puff is attached near the exhaust pipe of your vehicle. Its color changes dynamically, visualizing the amount of pollution your car is producing. Green indicates the lowest rate of pollution, red the highest.

Modern artists have often tackled environmental and ecological issues head on, such as through incorporating litter and refuse into sculptures, while other artists (such as photo, video and film artists) have sought to document industrial waste and/or have taken strong oppositional/advocacy stances in their works.

In recent years, many artists have sought to move beyond these “reactive”, commentary, and  documentary approaches and create objects and devices that serve practical purposes (if still a bit fanciful in appearance). One such artist/designer is Karolina Sobecka, whose car emissions monitoring device, ‘Puff’ , provides colorful feedback to the car owner on how “cleanly” (or efficiently) he/she is using/burning gasoline.

This author recently contacted Ms. Sobecka and asked her about this device (’Puff’) as well as her other designs, and her artistic/social/environmental goals.

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Zerofootprint has created a new “TalkingPlug” that will help you to better monitor the energy usage of different appliances and electronics. How? By making your electrical sockets smarter.

Zerofootprint already helps corporations and governments in evaluating and reducing their carbon emissions through various methods. It also helps households through innovative technologies such as this one. This new TalkingPlug is for corporations or households (or anyone with electrical sockets) and will have an initial price tag of about $50. The price may go down considerably if it can make the product on a larger scale.

How does it work? What are its advantages compared to Google’s PowerMeter and other similar up and coming technologies?

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The huge project to build a $555 billion renewable energy “belt” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, funded largely by German companies, moved another step forward a few days ago.

The articles of association for the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII) were signed by the joint venture group of 12 companies and the DESERTEC Foundation in Munich on October 30.

Additionally, a CEO for DII was appointed — Paul van Son.

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Have you ever done the math on commuting to work? Telecommuting saves money, it’s a fact. Yet most folks are fearful of stepping out of the in-person environment. Luckily the barriers have been broken by Adobe as their new Acrobat Connect Pro software has video, audio, and interactivity that create an almost in-person experience for meeting attendees.

In addition, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro online meeting software is now offering a free trial and every time someone signs up they donate twenty-five dollars to help a school go green. In fact, Adobe has partnered with the U.S. Green Building Council and the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco to help schools go green in their communities. Each city will receive up to $100,000 to create classrooms that foster learning alongside smart environmental practices.

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Have you ever done the math on commuting to work? Telecommuting saves money, it’s a fact. Yet most folks are fearful of stepping out of the in-person environment. Luckily the barriers have been broken by Adobe as their new Acrobat Connect Pro software has video, audio, and interactivity that create an almost in-person experience for meeting attendees.

In addition, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro online meeting software is now offering a free trial and every time someone signs up they donate twenty-five dollars to help a school go green. In fact, Adobe has partnered with the U.S. Green Building Council and the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco to help schools go green in their communities. Each city will receive up to $100,000 to create classrooms that foster learning alongside smart environmental practices.

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UK company AFC Energy claims to have developed fuel cell technology that can “generate and export electricity to a grid as efficiently as traditional electrodes.”

AFC tested its alkaline-based technology in Germany recently and found that its efficiency matched that of traditional platinum-based electrodes that cost more. This high efficiency moves the company one step closer to full-scale production of its fuel cell technology.

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