GE Says Smart Panel to
Cut Power Bills
by Timothy Gardner, ENN
NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co said it is developing a
control panel that should allow homeowners to trim rising utility
bills by helping manage power and water consumption.
The "eco-dashboard" will be available in December in new home
developments in southern and western U.S. states, areas where power
and water supplies are particularly stressed, Juan de Bedout, a
renewable energy specialist at GE's global research center in
Niskayuna, New York said late last week.
The panel is designed to show ratepayers how much money they would
save if, for example, they pre-cooled or pre-heated their homes
before electricity prices went up during periods of peak load,
typically in the early evening. They also could set the panel to
turn up the air conditioning, or run the clothes drier only when the
power price gets below a certain level...
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New York May Join
Crackdown on Plastic Bags
by
Edith Honan, ENN
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City may
follow an international trend and crack down on plastic shopping
bags, seeking to cut their use with a plan officials hope will be a
model for other cities.
A proposal introduced on Monday requires stores larger than 5,000
square feet to set up an in-store recycling program and sell
reusable bags.
Some 700 food stores plus large retailers such as Target and Home
Depot would have to collect used bags and provide a system for
turning them over to a manufacturer or to third-party recycling
firms.
Stores would be required to use bags printed with a reminder to
consumers: "Please return this bag to a participating store for
recycling..."
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Scientists Link
Extinctions, Rising Temperatures
by Nick Wadhams, National Geographic
News
A team of British scientists contends
that, within 200 years, Earth's temperatures may become hot enough
to kill off half of all existing plant and animal species.
The researchers from the Universities of York and Leeds in Britain
base that dire possibility on a new analysis of the
520-million-year-old fossil record, which links past mass
extinctions with cycles of high temperatures.
"We could be in the temperature zone in which mass extinctions have
occurred by the end of this century, [or] more likely in the next
century," said Peter Mayhew, the study's co-author and an ecologist
at the University of York...
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Government to Capture
Endangered Mexican Gray Wolves: Could Reduce Wild Wolf Population's
Genetic Viability
from the Center for Biological
Diversity
SILVER CITY, N.M. — Today the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service authorized the trapping of two genetically
vital endangered Mexican gray wolves from the wild in the Gila
National Forest of New Mexico.
The wolves are the alpha male of the Aspen Pack and his yearling
daughter, whose removal may exacerbate the genetic problem known as
“inbreeding depression” that has recently been documented among
Mexican gray wolves — just the latest blow in an ongoing battle
against this beleaguered animal.
“The Aspen Pack may hold the golden genes to enable the Mexican gray
wolf to survive in the face of long odds,” said Michael Robinson of
the Center for Biological Diversity. “Trapping these animals will
worsen inbreeding depression and may push birth rates downward in a
population that is already under siege from government shooting and
trapping...”
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