Echo

Michigan’s Thumb could be in line for water technology project

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(MI) The Mudpuppy – Two Israeli companies have agreed to start water technology pilot projects in Michigan, says Lt. Gov. John D. Cherry Jr.

Cherry recently returned from a week-long overseas trade mission to the Middle East, making stops in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Dubai, and bringing back news of the deals. More

Water

Recession in recycling

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Battered by falling prices for recycled commodities, one of the Twin Cities’ best-known recycling firms is asking the cities it serves to renegotiate recycling contracts to help the company survive. Officials with Eureka Recycling, one of the largest nonprofit recyclers in the country, say the business is not in immediate danger. Tim Brownell, Eureka’s co-president, said the changes are meant to prepare the company for the future. More

Echo

Wixom plant will get new life as renewable energy park

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(MI) The Detroit News – Two out-of-state renewable energy firms have selected Ford’s shuttered Wixom plant for an ambitious $725 million redevelopment project, creating what officials are calling the nation’s largest renewable energy park, company officials said Thursday. The companies, Xtreme Power of Austin, Texas, and Clairvoyant Energy of Santa Barbara, Calif., plan to retool the aging factory, which once built such icons as the Lincoln Town Car and Ford Thunderbird, to manufacture solar panels and utility-scale batteries used for generating renewable power. More

Echo

Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge

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(NY) The New York Times – When Congress passed a new energy law two years ago, obituaries were written for the incandescent light bulb. The law set tough efficiency standards, due to take effect in 2012, that no traditional incandescent bulb on the market could meet, and a century-old technology that helped create the modern world seemed to be doomed. More

Echo

Where PCBs come from and their dangers

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used in various mixtures in hundreds of industrial products starting in 1929. A thick liquid containing PCBs was used in the electrical industry as a cooling and insulating fluid for transformers. More

Echo

Five more solar job openings in Midland

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(MI) The Mudpuppy – A new Evergreen Solar facility in Midland is hiring, again.The company has posted openings for five jobs so far this month. The openings are for three process technicians and two production shift supervisors.  The plant will make a patented product called String Ribbon for use in photovoltaic panels. More

Echo

Making solar panels requires old-fashioned coal-fired power

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(MI) Bay City Times – Michigan’s solar industry has a dirty secret: It needs a lot of coal-fired power. The process of manufacturing base materials and panels to capture electricity from the sun is energy-intensive, utility officials say. And that energy comes mostly from fossil fuels in Michigan, where up to eight new coal-fired power plants are on the drawing board.  More

Echo

Shoreview experiment may eliminate storm drains

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(MN) Minnesota Star-Tribune – Shoreview is betting on a new “green” concrete paving method that lets rainwater pass right through the street surface to prevent damaging runoff. Pervious concrete — made of gravel and cement minus the sand that gives regular concrete its impenetrable density — has the porous quality of a Rice Krispies bar. Because it will allow water to drain straight to the ground below, Shoreview will install about a mile of pervious concrete streets without storm sewers in the Woodbridge neighborhood on Lake Owasso. More