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Green Notes - 03 Oct 08

By Chinthana ⋅ October 3, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

• The Palace of Westminster and the Bank of England have been exposed as some of the UK’s least energy efficient public buildings by a new law to measure carbon dioxide emissions from the national estate. Around 18,000 buildings, including town halls, museums, schools and job centres, are being tested to discover their energy efficiency on a sliding scale where A is the best and G is the worst.
• Australian scientists set sail later this week on a voyage that could lead to better data from the Southern Ocean, which plays a major role in acting as a brake on climate change. Oceans absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide and the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica plays the greatest role of all the world’s oceans, scientists say. The problem is there is no permanent monitoring of the Southern Ocean because of its wild seas and remoteness and scientists cannot accurately determine how a warming world is affecting the amount of CO2 the ocean is absorbing.
• Westport, Conn., this month became the latest of a handful of communities to ban some plastic bags. The bags, which have only a brief, useful life, can survive forever in landfills and are of enormous concern to not only environmentalists but local officials who are running out of places to put their trash. Westport’s ordinance will take effect in six months and applies to bags dispensed at checkout counters. Others, like dry cleaning bags, will be exempted. The aim is to reduce litter and encourage customers to tote their groceries in reusable cloth bags.
  Related: IKEA bags use of plastic bags
• Venturi Automobiles has taken the wraps off its latest car, the Volage, jointly developed with Michelin. The Monaco-based electric-car maker and French tire giant Michelin have created a two-seat roadster with a curvaceous, carbon-fiber body and individual in-wheel motors. Venturi and Michelin promised big technical and design innovations with their new car and the Volage looks to be an automobile of the digital age. The dashboard will feature a touchscreen that allows the driver to select settings that reign in speed to extend the car’s polymer lithium batteries to their estimated 200-mile range, or vice versa. Venturi has managed to boost output of the car’s electric motor to 300hp (225kW) and 380Nm (280 lb-ft) of torque while also lifting its efficiency to 92%.