Thursday, March 24, 2005

[Alternative fuels] New DOE Hydrogen Portal The DOE has launched a new Hydrogen Program website. The new site links the four DOE Offices ( Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EE), Fossil Energy (FE), Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (NE), and Science (SC))  that participate in... [Green Car Congress] 1:59:33 PM Google It!    [Alternative fuels] New, Safer Catalyst Boosts H2 Production from Syngas Ohio State University researchers have developed a chemical catalyst that increases hydrogen production via coal gasification without using a toxic metal common in other catalysts. [Green Car Congress] 1:57:15 PM Google It!    [Alternative fuels] New Materials for Hydrogen Storage Storage is one of the Grand Challenges for using hydrogen in transportation, and researchers are rising to it. While storage of compressed gaseous hydrogen or liquefied hydrogen in high-pressure or cryogenic tanks is one option, finding an advanced solid-state or... [Green Car Congress] 1:56:39 PM Google It!    [Green design] Toyota Brings Electric Personal Transit Concept to New York: the i-unit Toyota is bringing its i-unit concept electric personal transit vehicle to the 2005 New York International Auto Show for its North American debut. [Source: Green Car Congress] 1:54:32 PM Google It!    [Green building] Solar Decathlon takes eco-friendly building to the extreme Teams from Canada, the U.S., and Europe are taking part in the Solar Decathlon, a contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. See http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/ for more information about the competition. [Source: Boulder (CO) Daily Camera -- need login/pw?] 1:52:22 PM Google It!    [Grants] Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) Program Applications due: May 20, 2005 SUMMARY: This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits proposals for financial assistance to eligible entities through the new CARE program. CARE is a new and unique community-based, community driven, multimedia demonstration program designed to help communities understand and reduce risks due to toxics from all sources. The CARE program will empower communities to form collaborative partnerships, develop a comprehensive understanding of all sources of risk from toxics, set priorities, and identify and implement projects to reduce risks through collaborative action at the local level. CARE's long term goal is to help communities build self-sustaining, community-based partnerships that will continue to improve local environments into the future. Two types of agreements will be awarded under this solicitation as part of the CARE program. The objective of these grant programs is to investigate whether this new cross-Agency, multimedia program provides greater environmental benefits than either non collaborative or single media approaches. Level I cooperative agreements will support the following types of activities: forming community-based collaborative partnerships; developing a comprehensive understanding of toxic risks; and, setting community risk reduction priorities. Level II agreements will fund activities to identify and demonstrate actual risk reduction projects on-theground in their community. FUNDING/AWARDS: The total estimated funding expected for all awards under this solicitation is $1.65 million for FY 2005. EPA anticipates awarding six Level I cooperative agreements ranging in expected value from 60,000 to $90,000 with most Level I agreements being funded at the level of about $75,000. EPA also anticipates awarding four Level II cooperative agreements ranging in expected value from $150,000 to $325,000. Most Level II awards will be funded at about $275,000. The estimated project period for awards resulting from this solicitation is two years. Applicants are not required to have been a recipient of a Level I agreement in order to receive a Level II agreement. The CARE program is very competitive. Limited funding is available and EPA expects to receive many applications. EPA reserves the right to increase or decrease (including to zero) the total number of awards or, change the ratio of Level I to Level II cooperative agreements it awards. Such change may be necessary as a response to the quality of applications EPA receives, the size of the awards to the selected applicants, or for other reasons. 1:46:14 PM Google It!    [Statistics] A Treasure Chest of Stats: OECD Factbook 2005: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics Resource of the Week by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor OECD--Factbooks Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD Factbook 2005: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics We apprised you of this compendium about a week ago here on ResourceShelf . Now we're going to take a more detailed look at it. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , headquartered in Paris, identifies itself as "a unique forum where the governments of 30 market democracies work together to address the economic, social, environmental and governance challenges of the globalising world economy, as well as to exploit its opportunities." Its 30 members together produce some 60% of the world's goods and services. Basically, it facilitates information sharing among the membership, and it generates its own data, analyses and forecasts. It came into existence as "an economic counterpart to NATO," set up after World War II "to co-ordinate the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe." If you're interested, a detailed overview of the organization is available. The OECD Factbook 2005 is the first edition of a new annual publication that "will draw on the OECD's data bank of statistics to present a unique overview of economic, social and environmental trends in the OECD's 30 member countries." It is structured around "100 indicators" grouped into 11 topic areas:  Population and migration , covering demographic trends and international migration  Economic globalisation , covering international trade and foreign direct investment  Labor market , covering employment and unemployment  Environment , covering air, water and land, and energy use  Public policies , covering government deficits and debt, public expenditures and aid, and taxes  Macroeconomic trends , covering gross domestic product, economic growth, productivity, and commodities (production and supply)  Prices , covering consumer and producer prices, and purchasing power and competitiveness  Science and technology , covering research and development, and information and communications technology  Education , covering expenditures on education and outcomes  Quality of life , covering health, work and leisure, crime, and transportation A special Focus on Energy topic contains a wealth of statistical data on such things as the world energy supply , oil prices , energy production and consumption , and world electricity generation . When you click on one of the many, many specific data links, you get a page offering a general discussion of that topic and links to related graphs, charts and tables, additional commentary and related resources from the OECD. Under each chart and graph, a statlink takes you to a direct download of the relevant data in Excel spreadsheet format. If you prefer, the last link on the righthand side of these pages allows you to download all the information in the main topic heading as a PDF file, such as this one for Quality of Life . These are attractively formatted for printing...or you can just go ahead and order a dead.tree version of the factbook , which costs $63 (in U.S. dollars). OECD says the factbook will be available in French in early April, and it can also be accessed via SourceOECD (PDF), a portal which aggregates online OECD books, periodicals and statistical databases. The OECD Factbook is not searchable itself, but the OECD website is; enter a keyword in the text box at the top righthand side of the page and choose the resource you want to search from the dropdown menu: all publications, books, periodicals, databases, other site content. - Shirl [ResourceShelf] 1:38:00 PM Google It!    [Climate change] Climate change and ants Global warming and... ants! Very many, very tiny ants. [New Scientist]: Global warming might shrink ant workers by as much as a third, says Michael Kaspari at the University of Oklahoma, US, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, who carried out the study: 'And since ant species with small workers appear to be particularly successful at invading, ant invasions - already destructive - may become more common in a warming world.' Who'd o' thunk it. (I'm going to guess this story will be ridiculed by those ideologically opposed to global warming -- and science -- and added to the ledger by the big insurance companies' actuaries, who need to take risk seriously.) [Gil Friend] 1:37:25 PM Google It!    [Air pollution] DOE Releases Revised Greenhouse Gas Reporting Guidance DOE released revised guidelines for voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, sequestration, and emission reductions on March 22nd. [EERE Network News] 1:30:39 PM Google It!    [Phytoremediation] A seaweed soaks up TNT - and may help clean oceans Genetically engineered seaweed can neutralize the pollutant. But is the cure riskier than the problem? [Christian Science Monitor | Sci/Tech] 1:29:49 PM Google It!    [Government regulation] Reviving Regulatory Reform: Options for the President and Congress Regulatory Policy--United States Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute Reviving Regulatory Reform: Options for the President and Congress "This report has a twofold purpose: reinvigorate public debate on regulatory reform, and help policymakers fashion a more affordable, effective, and accountable regulatory system." Full Report (PDF; 5.64 MB) [ResourceShelf's DocuTicker] 1:28:03 PM Google It!    [Climate change] Fish Out of Water: A Guide to Global Warming and the Pacific Northwest Rivers Global Warming--Fish Source: National Wildlife Federation Fish Out of Water: A Guide to Global Warming and the Pacific Northwest Rivers (PDF; 1.4 MB) From press release: "By 2040 more than 20 percent of the Pacific Northwest’s rivers could become too warm for salmon, steelhead and trout if global warming is left unchecked, an analysis released today by the National Wildlife Federation shows." [ResourceShelf's DocuTicker] 1:27:30 PM Google It!    [Search engines] Science.gov Offers Alert Service Science.Gov has begun a new e-mail based alert service, which you can access at their home page: http://www.science.gov . If you don't have an account on the Science.gov site, you'll have to register -- registration requires only a user name, password, and e-mail address -- and then confirm your e-mail. Once you've registered and logged in, you can choose to create a new alert. Choosing a new alert entails picking a search query, whether or not you want HTML or text e-mail, and the name of the alert. But the best part is that you can specify what you want to be searched -- everything from the entirety of Science.gov to categories like Health and Medicine to sources within categories like PubMed. Once you've selected your search term and your source, Science.gov will confirm the alert and let you know that you'll receive alert results once a week -- every Monday morning. [ResearchBuzz] 10:50:50 AM Google It!

© Copyright 2005 Laura L. Barnes. Last update: 10/25/2005; 12:09:44 PM.