If you’ve seen a big box store or an office building under construction, you’ve likely seen a deep hole in the ground, for the parking spaces that will be underground, etc. It is not unusual to dig a lot deeper than 5 feet when building office buildings: the magic spot for ground heat exchange geothermal power.

Yet, few of these projects incorporate geothermal (or ground heat exchange) pump technology. Yet low-carbon heating and cooling using the naturally mild and stable temperatures more than 5 feet down could cut energy costs by up to half.

IKEA is working with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado to change all that, and possibly make geothermal heat a common energy reduction technology used in more commercial buildings in the US.

To reduce energy use in all 415,000 square feet of their new two story IKEA store in Centennial, Colorado, they are drilling 130 5 ½-inch diameter holes 500 feet deep below two parking levels underneath to tap into the moderate temperatures below ground with a geothermal piping system.

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In yet another sustainable step forward for NASCAR, the racing organization has just gained the first entry in its new “green” sponsor category. Liberty Tire Recycling has been tapped as the official tire recycler of the MAKE #50 Motorsports Chevy Silverado race team, in the Camping World Truck Series.

The high visibility green sponsorships are just the latest forward-thinking move for NASCAR, which is emerging as an important force in the mainstreaming of recycling, conservation, toxic chemicals reduction, renewable energy, and other key sustainability concepts.

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A new chewing gum recycling campaign has started up across the pond, and if it takes off perhaps it will mean the end of those unsightly gum spots on paved surfaces.  That’s no trivial matter, because cleaning gum off concrete takes money and energy (pdf). It’s usually done with high pressure steam, which can end up eroding the surface and shortening its lifecycle, taking up more money and energy in repairs and replacement.

The campaign is called Gumdrop, and Lucy Siegle of The Guardian reports that its creator, Lucy Bullus, came up with a method for converting used gum into a polymer while studying design at Brighton University.  The polymer, aptly titled BRGP for Bullus Recycled Gum Polymer, can be used to make a variety of plastic products including the distinctive pink bubble-shaped Gumdrop gum recycling bins.

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The Indian Parliament building, Sansad Bhavan, will soon be installed with solar PV systems, solar heaters and a biomass plant in an attempt to promote renewable energy technologies.

On the behalf of the Parliament, the Punjab Energy Development Agency has invited bids for installing 80 kW solar PV system. The power system would not only provide battery back up for the Parliament building but more than 50 percent of the generated power would be fed to the grid.

Some of the major companies submitting bids for this project are Reliance Industries’ Solar Energy Group, Wipro Ecoenergy and construction giant Punj Lloyd. This is a novel initiative by the Indian government which is trying to initiate a massive country-wide solar energy revolution which could eventually result in ballooning of the total installed capacity to 20,000 MW in the next 12 years.

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The U.S. Army’s a new best friend when it comes to recycling waste, conserving energy and keeping hazardous materials out of the waste stream is a chipmunk – a Kurt Chipmunk, that is.  The Kurt Chipmunk is a new energy efficient metal compactor and recycler installed at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, and its success there could mark a big step forward in defense-related waste reduction initiatives.

In terms of green tech a metal compactor is not quite as glamorous as other U.S. military programs such as microbial fuel cells or portable solar power, but in addition to environmental goodness the Chipmunk offers significant bottom line benefits that could motivate private industry to invest in sustainable new technology sooner rather than later.

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We are always on the lookout for sustainable new developments in the burgeoning field of wastewater recycling, so of course this item from New Zealand caught our attention.  A PhD project by a Victoria University student is undergoing commercial development as a means of reclaiming water, high-pressure steam, fertilizer products, and acetic acid from wastewater.

The  project offers a sustainable management solution for wastewater and runoff from dairy farms, wineries, and meatworks in New Zealand, which as Lord of the Rings fans know has some spectacular environments worth protecting as well as lots of sheep.  Here in the U.S. there is a similarly motivated push by the EPA and Department of Agriculture to promote methane biogas production in the dairy industry.  It’s the high pressure steam and acetic acid  that give the New Zealand venture a new twist.

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Students at Northeastern University in Boston are working on a process that breaks down recycled plastics to create fuel, providing enough energy to run itself with some left over, too.  Because it vaporizes plastic rather than burning it, the process also creates less emissions than conventional combustion.  The students and their professor, Yiannis Levendis, envision utility-scale versions of the process, which could be installed at plastic recycling facilities.

The world is awash in plastic waste of all sorts that could be converted to fuel, to say nothing of emerging renewables such as wind and solar energy.  In the not too distant future the world can wash its hands of the practice of creating widespread environmental damage for the sake of harvesting virgin petroleum, merely to burn it.

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Britain would start exporting domestic waste converted into fuel pellets to mainland Europe as it struggles to recycle the growing amount of household waste.

The generation of domestic waste seems to have exceeded the capacity of the British municipalities to recycle them. In addition, with limited land the solution of landfills is also completely exhausted. Thus the municipalities have decided to turn the domestic waste into fuel pellets and export them to neighboring countries like Germany and Holland.

Europe is a big importer of energy resources which has been proved to be a major strategic thorn in the recent past. Russia consistently flexed its muscles by refusing to supply gas to Europe. This pushed the EU to prepare plans for an unprecedented project in the African Sahara.

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The U.S. EPA is working on new rules for the disposal of coal fly ash, which is the stuff left over when coal is burned at power plants.  And not a moment too soon!  For the past few weeks attention has been focused on British Petroleum’s devastating oil spill, but it wasn’t too long ago that a manmade lake holding 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash slurry gave way in Tennessee and released a flood of coal ash that smashed through 300 acres of rural neighborhoods and into the Emory River.

Cleanup for the Tennessee disaster alone is estimated to total about $1.2 billion over the next few years and with about 900 other coal ash landfills and liquid impoundments peppered across the U.S., that’s a lot of expensive accidents waiting to happen.  The race is on for EPA to establish some kind of order in what has been a regulatory free-for-all.

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Here’s a truly great business idea. Maybe even the next Craigslist or eBay. Rent your car to a neighbor when you don’t need to use it. You could be earning money from your car.

What a timely idea: over the next few years, as long-awaited electric cars become available, with their high initial costs; many of us are finally going to buy a car again. We know an investment in an EV is the right thing to do for the planet, and over the long term will pay back those initial costs, but how to cover the upfront higher cost?

In London; WhipCar is just opening its virtual doors for business this week. They expect to be able to help participants earn back some of the nearly $8,000 a year it takes to operate a car in London. In San Francisco, serial entrepreneur Sunil Paul is working on the same idea, but he has a small hurdle to overcome first. The law.

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