News/Events

BEP News

Posted: (03/01/2010)
Dry Cleaning Alternatives Webinar
There is a Dry Cleaning Alternatives Webinar scheduled for April 6 at 1:30 EST, details to follow. If you are interested in signing up contact Angela Miller at angela@p2.org. Presenters will be Michael DiGiore from New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Anna Zimmerman from San Francisco Department of Environment.
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Posted: (03/01/2010)
Green Building Partial Property Tax Abatement
The Nevada State Office of Energy is pleased to announce that after consulting with the US Green Building Council, NSOE Director Groth has decided that we will be accepting EB O&M LEED project registrations for partial property tax abatement. Since the change from EB to EB O&M does not include the introduction of a new rating system, there is no requirement to wait two years prior to adoption. Click on the link for additional information:
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Posted: (03/01/2010)
Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.
Thousands of the nation's largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act's reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising. The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation's largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials. Click on the link to read the complete story:
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Posted: (02/24/2010)
Highly Absorbing, Flexible Solar Cells With Silicon Wire Arrays Created
Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells. The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. Click on the link to read the complete article:
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Posted: (02/04/2010)
EPA Energy Star Leaders Saved $48M in 2009 Across Commercial Building Portfolios
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Leaders prevented the emissions of more than 220,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and saved more than $48 million across their commercial building portfolios in 2009. The EPA says these savings have quadrupled since 2008 and is the single greatest year of savings since the program's launch in 2004. In addition to energy savings, a report released by Ceres and Mercer in December last year shows that increasing a building's energy efficiency will increase occupancy rates, leasing prices and sales prices. Over the past five years, Energy Star Leaders have prevented greenhouse gas emissions equal to the emissions from the electricity use of nearly 39,000 homes annually, says EPA. Click on the link to read the complete article and learn more about Energy Star:
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Posted: (01/28/2010)
EPA Construction Stormwater Rule Takes Effect February 1, 2010
EPA has issued a long-awaited final stormwater rule, impacting nearly every construction and development project in the United States. The rule, published in the Federal Register on December 1, 2009, for the first time imposes an enforceable numeric limit on stormwater discharges from large construction sites, requires monitoring to ensure compliance with the numeric limit, and requires nearly all construction sites to implement a range of erosion and sediment controls and pollution prevention measures. While the non-numeric effluent limitations will apply to every construction site over one acre when the rule takes effect on February 1, 2010, the numeric limit and associated monitoring requirements applicable to large sites will be phased in over four years. Click on the link to read the complete article:
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