Green Leaf Report

Money and clean technologies have two things in common here in the US- the color green.  In spite of the recession talk, the funding still continues, with Fat Spaniel closing $18M for their Series B round of funding today.  Fat Spaniel offers performance monitoring systems for renewable energy providers and users, with over 800 installed users and customers including […]

After more than a decade of working in various engineering and technology management roles, I’m tired of the argument that a great technology is its own marketing and sales team.  This is especially a problem when recession fears start cropping up, and the knee-jerk reaction of many leadership teams is to cut marketing and sales teams […]

 Several years ago, some friends bought an adorable craftsman style house in a desirable part of Dallas.  Because they jumped so quickly on the deal, they didn’t have a house inspection until after the house was purchased.  The inspector told them to not use the 2nd bathroom because the shower drain dumped straight into the […]

I love love love the concept of mining our trash for valuable components.  Umicore is highlighted in an excellent article for their processes in removing valuable materials from cellphones:
After explaining the final stages, Thierry Van Kerckhoven, Umicore’s e-scrap manager, handed me another of the end products from this process: a one-kilogram bar of gold. It felt […]

I spent the first twenty two years of my life in New Orleans, living the culture of locally harvested seafood cooked to perfection.  I miss those years, but I can no longer guarantee the source of my seafood, and have stopped eating it.  Europe is also having problems verifying the source of their seafood, though […]

 I’m trying to figure out how Bush’s recent meeting with Saudi’s leadership asking OPEC to increase oil production makes any sense to OPEC.  The underlying argument appears to be that if the oil prices get too high, it will hurt the US economy and we’ll buy less oil.  So why should OPEC care?  If they […]

The recent front page issue for local and national newspapers has been the possibility of another recession.  Everyone is worried, it’s the talk of the office, the worry of managers.  What does it really mean?  Certainly, since 2007 we’ve seen the  continued increasing of oil/gas and heating costs, as well as the meltdown of the […]

The average useful life span of a plastic grocery bag is estimated at about 20 minutes.  Even with recycling, more energy and chemical are required to process the bags for reuse, and there will always be waste of some sort from the reprocessing. China has recognized this problem and acted, leaving the US in the polluted dust:
Starting […]

I heard an interesting pet peeve today: 14 cars idling in line at the drive-through window for Starbucks coffee.  So how much carbon dioxide can people generate while waiting on their butts for their 800 calorie lattes?
Technorati tags: Starbucks, drive-through, wasting+fossil+fuel

As part of my quest to reduce my environmental footprint, I recently visited a nearby Costco, and was disappointed.  I’ve never been a member at the warehouse giant, but I’m trying to reduce the amount of packaging I purchase with my dry goods, and my theory was that if I buy in larger bulk sizes, […]

Happy New Year to everyone- I hope we’ve all resolved to make 2008 an even better year than 2007.  I watched the very interesting Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose recently and have decided to approach environmental 2008 with her words from Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien:  I won’t worry about the good or bad […]