Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Tuesday a nationwide renewable-electricity standard, or RES, is “absolutely” in the mix as he tries to salvage energy legislation he introduced earlier this year, E2 Wire reports.

Before the August recess, Reid said he doubted a RES — which would require utilities to provide escalating amounts of power from sources like wind and solar energy — could win 60 votes. It was left on the cutting-room floor when Reid unveiled a modest energy bill in late July.

Reid told reporters on a conference call the energy bill is still a work in progress and said two Republican senators have expressed interest in a RES. He did not name them, however.

Reid also said in a Reuters article that within the next week he will set a time to speak to those senators.  He made his remarks on a conference call to promote a Sept. 7 clean energy conference that he is co-hosting at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Reid also suggested passing energy legislation could be more likely during a lame-duck session. He noted the Senate would resume work after the recess but added, “Maybe, after the elections, we can get some more Republicans to work with us,” E2 Wire reports.

The energy and oil spill response package that Reid unveiled in late July contained rebates for home-efficiency retrofits and measures to boost deployment of natural gas-powered trucks and electric cars.

But Reid is under pressure from renewable energy groups, environmentalists and many members of his caucus to include a RES.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year approved a RES as part of a broader energy package that cleared the panel with several GOP votes. That bill would require utilities to provide 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2021, although about a fourth of the requirement could be met with energy-efficiency programs.

A move to renewable energy sources has long been a pillar of Democratic energy plans, but the proposals face resistance from many Republicans and some southern lawmakers from both parties,which have expressed fear that their states lack enough renewable resources to meet the targets.

Some Republicans — notably Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — have floated a broader clean energy standard that would include nuclear power and electricity from coal plants that trap carbon emissions.

Reid was clear that the bill won’t include any sort of emissions cap on carbon emissions, because that idea does not have the necessary support for passage, he told the Washington Independent.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) and others had worked for months to craft a climate change bill that could pass. But negotiations on the bill collapsed earlier this year when it became clear the bill could not garner 60 votes.

The Stafford Park redevelopment project in N.J. plans to install 1,026 solar panels on the surface of a capped landfill that will produce up to 70 percent of the power needed to operate the business park when it’s fully built out, according to the Walters Group, the park’s redeveloper.

The 6.5-megawatt facility in southern Ocean County is one of the largest solar power projects being proposed in the state, according to the Walters Group.

Construction of the 1,026 solar arrays on 30 acres is expected to get underway this fall. The energy that will be produced by the solar farm will be enough to power about 1,500 homes and eliminate about 6,700 tons of CO2 emissions.

The park also includes a 112-unit affordable housing apartment building that has earned the first LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for an affordable housing project in the state. The retail portion of the park also has meet a minimum of LEED Silver certification.

Walters says that every structure in the park was designed with energy conservation in mind.

The Stafford Park Apartments and retail stores feature rooftop solar power systems that provide about 30 percent of the energy needs for the retail stores, and nearly 100 percent of the common area power needs for the affordable housing residents.

Walters is currently awaiting approvals for the construction of 216 apartments at Stafford Park, which will be the first apartments in the state to have their heating, cooling, and electricity generated by solar energy. The apartments also will be designed with a certification goal of LEED Silver and will be equipped with Energy Star appliances.

The 370-acre, $2-million brownfield redevelopment also entailed an environmental remediation process that included the clean-up of two leaching landfills that were contaminating groundwater. The landfill closure efforts were certified by NJDEP in May 2009, according to Walters.

The project developers also had to relocate rare plants and build a new habitat for tree frogs and northern pine snakes, along with implementing an extensive monitoring program.

The park also includes a storm water system, which retains all water onsite for infiltration, and the entire project is irrigated with recaptured rainwater.

In addition, a series of bio-retention basins was installed at Route 72 that captures over half of the untreated storm water from that highway before it can discharge into open waters. A wetlands system adjacent to the highway is being recharged by clean rainwater from rooftops rather than the dirty water that was previously being discharged to the wetlands system from the road.

Alfred Music Publishing, an educational music print publisher, has launched its “Alfred Cares” initiative, aimed at reducing the company’s carbon footprint. The program centers on decreasing the company’s natural resource consumption, recycling waste and reusing materials in the production processes.

Spearheaded by Alfred’s CEO, Ron Manus, the company’s environmental push began with printing about 95 percent of its books on 100 percent recycled paper, which then evolved into a formal corporate initiative. The environment has now become one of the deciding factors in the company’s strategic planning.

Alfred’s COO Bryan Bradley says all of its eco-friendly investments from the warehouse to the corporate offices and the production process pay for themselves and save the company money.

Other environmental projects include implementing a new voice-picking system in the company’s distribution center that eliminates approximately 170,000 pages annually, and installing energy-efficient fluorescent lights, which use roughly 50 percent less power.

The company also replaced traditional bathroom urinals with water-free urinals, which has saved an estimated 40,000 gallons a year per unit.

The green building sector will drive the adoption of building information modeling (BIM) software, according to a new SmartMarket Report from McGraw-Hill Construction.

The report, “Green BIM: How Building Information Modeling is Contributing to Green Design and Construction“, produced in collaboration with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA), Autodesk, and 13 other industry organizations, finds that the industry is only now tapping into the potential of BIM to meet their ‘green’ goals.

Case-in-point: The report finds that only 17 percent of Green BIM practitioners are currently realizing more than 50 percent of BIM’s potential for their green goals, but 78 percent of survey respondents who aren’t currently using BIM for their green building projects expect to within the next three years.

BIM has the potential to increase innovation, design and construction efficiency, just as green building has transformed design and construction in the U.S., says Harvey Bernstein, McGraw-Hill’s vice president, global thought leadership and business development.

According to the report, as green building become a larger share of construction, the benefits provided by BIM will also be more widely recognized. As a result, the use of BIM will increase as it delivers a more efficient way to leverage digital models for design, construction and operation of projects, according to the report.

Another finding shows that nearly half (49 percent) of Green BIM practitioners use BIM for more than 50 percent of their projects, compared to 28 percent of non-Green BIM companies. Green BIM practitioners are also more intensive users of the software since they both create and analyze models more frequently than non-Green BIM companies, according to the report.

McGraw-Hill Construction studies have found that energy efficiency is the most often cited green building benefit, yielding significant cost savings over a building’s full lifecycle.

Similarly, the Green BIM study expects strong growth for energy performance simulation tools. For example, 95 percent of firms practicing BIM for green projects will do energy performance simulations within two years, compared with 73 percent now, and 79 percent of firms using BIM, but not focused on green projects, will conduct the simulations, compared to 21 percent currently.

The two key areas that non-Green BIM companies would like to simulate over the next two years include whole building use (80 percent), lighting and daylighting (69 percent) and energy code compliance (65 percent).

Green BIM users also find the technology to be useful for green retrofit projects. Twenty-seven percent see BIM as highly applicable for use in green retrofits and 49 percent believe it has “medium applicability.”

 Based on a previous McGraw-Hill report that forecasts that green retrofit projects will increase from five to nine percent in 2009 to 20 to 30 percent in 2014, the market is likely to be a strong growth area for Green BIM, according to the report.

Global adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) as well as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is expected to takeoff over the next five years, with sales totaling 3.2 million vehicles between 2010 and 2015, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 106 percent, according to a new report from Pike Research.

The market researcher says these vehicles deliver improved fuel economy, lower emissions, and a quieter ride than comparable power internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, which will appeal to consumers in the North American market where fuel costs are rising and range anxiety in the electric vehicle market continues to be a concern.

Dave Hurst, senior analyst at Pike Research expects that China will be the largest market for electric vehicles, with more than 888,000 PHEVs and BEVs sold by 2015, representing 27 percent of worldwide sales. The United States is expected to follow close behind with 841,000 vehicles sold, or 26 percent of the global market.

Hurst also notes that PHEVs and BEVs will complement and not displace the market for conventional hybrid electric vehicles and most likely will be launched in the small car segment for consumer markets initially followed by the small SUV sector.

The report, “Plug-in Electric Vehicles,” which covers opportunities and challenges in the emerging market for PHEVs and BEVs, indicates that as automakers move into the plug-in vehicle market, they will find that U.S. consumers are still wary about high upfront costs for these vehicles despite the fuel savings. As a result, government incentives will continue to play an important role in the consumer marketplace for many years, according to the report.

Another finding indicates that many consumers may ultimately choose a plug-in vehicle that is aligned with a brand they already trust, which means Toyota and Honda are likely to benefit from their established positions in the HEV market. But GM’s early entry into the market is expected to boost its initial PHEV sales. Pike estimates that GM will have a 20-percent global PHEV market share by 2015.

A Pike survey released last year found that about 22 percent of respondents said they were “extremely interested” in plug-in vehicles, with another 26 percent “very interested.”

When it comes to recycling programs, U.S. municipalities have come a long way over the last thirty years. City leaders have spearheaded major programs to implement systems for paper, plastic and aluminum, and local citizens are participating in record numbers.

Innovative companies like RecycleBank, which partner with municipalities and haulers to reward households for the amount they recycle each week, has helped turn recycling into a family activity everyone can get excited about.

But city recycling programs can’t stop at bottles and cans.  There’s still a lot more local leaders can do to drive down the amount of waste sent to costly landfills each year.

Especially when it comes to textile waste.

The average American consumes 70 pounds of clothes, shoes and household textiles a year. According to the EPA, more than 85 percent of that is discarded with the trash, which means that for each of its inhabitants, the average city hauls 60 pounds of recyclable textiles to the landfill.

The long-term effects of land-filled textiles range from methane, a major greenhouse gas and a significant contributor to global warming, being released by decomposing clothes, to the formation of leachate that has the potential to contaminate both surface and groundwater sources.

Needless to say, discarded clothes are bad for the environment. But what is less understood is that they also damage city balance sheets. An urban area with a population of 50,000 annually pays for the handling and disposal of 3,000 tons of textiles.

A solid textile recycling program can save municipalities millions of dollars by cutting costs on waste transport as well as on the landfill real estate itself. Plus, with the right steps, a good textile recycling program can create new jobs — critical in today’s economy. All with little to no cost to the city.

So what should cities take into consideration as they plan a textile recycling program?

The first thing to remember is that cities don’t need to start from scratch. There are plenty of existing companies that partner with cities to launch citywide textile recycling programs.

These companies manage collections, educate communities to drive behavioral changes and oversee the start-to-finish process of recycling. They can also advise on everything, including the best strategic locations for placing textile recycling bins like public works facilities, community centers, libraries, and parks.

From there, there are several best practices cities must keep in mind as they proceed with a textile recycling program.

To smooth the way going forward, local governments should be sure to amend legislation to “add” textiles in their recycling programs. Textiles were in 2009 identified by the state of Illinois as one of the top-five priority materials to increase recycling. State and local government can support this process by revising solid waste and recycling legislation language to include textiles.

And as with any new initiative, there should be clear goals. A mandated diversion rate can play an important role to achieve recycling goals. While in some places, like The Netherlands, for example, a government mandate requires all municipalities to divert 11 lbs of textiles from the waste stream per inhabitant annually. But American cities need not wait for a state or federal mandate to take action.

Once the goals have been agreed to, and a company is contracted for the job, the most important next step is to make the collection system itself work well. Without it there is no program at all.

The model for running an efficient and productive textile collection system should be based on the following:

• Convenient Locations: Cities should make it extremely convenient for the largest possible number of local residents to drop off their unwanted clothes and shoes. Collection boxes at prominent places accessible 24×7 are critical to driving increased recycling rates.
• Low to No Cost: Recycling programs must be cost effective to be sustainable. If it’s costly to the city and its residents, it will never get off the ground. The right system is the one that costs little to no money to get going.

• Education and promotions: Cities must educate their residents about the importance of recycling clothing – especially because a pair of old jeans can seem less like a “recyclable” than an empty Coke can.  Communication pre-launch and as the program rolls out is critical so the public understands:

–Why it’s important to recycle used clothing
–What is appropriate to recycle
–How to prepare the recyclables
–Where to drop them off
–What happens to the collected materials once they’ve been dropped
Cities can get creative with this one: For the launch of its newly announced textile recycling initiative, New York City partnered with a video how-to website called HowCast to help push the concept of clothing recycling via online videos about recycling.

• Reporting: City officials should agree on the types and frequencies of reporting, the right official for the management of the program and the department he or she will report to.

• Measuring Success and Rewards: The program should be evaluated on ongoing basis. Appropriate rewards and recognition can further encourage residents to participate more enthusiastically.

Governments at every level are responsible for protecting their communities’ natural resources, promoting healthy living standards for their citizens, and controlling costs wherever possible. Textile recycling programs address all of these concerns, and should be at the top of every city hall agenda.

Mattias Wallander is CEO of USAgain, a textile collection company headquartered in Chicago. The company collects used clothing in major markets across the U.S. including Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Milwaukee and, soon, San Francisco.

The Delaware Valley Industrial Resources Center (DVIRC) and the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NJMEP) have been awarded a $1.5 million grant over the next three years to expand manufacturing of energy-efficient building technologies, reports IndustryWeek.

The grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) complements a larger U.S. Department of Energy project (PDF) announced in August that provides up to $122 million to the Pennsylvania State University for an Energy Innovation Hub at the Philadelphia Navy Yard Clean Energy campus. The hub will focus on developing energy-efficient building designs that save energy and cut pollution.

MEP said in the article that the project is the first time that federal, state, and local public and private resources will be used together to create a formal applied research/manufacturing cluster that covers the lab bench to production and implementation.

DVIRC and NJMEP will connect small and mid-size manufacturers to the project at all levels including R&D, design and testing of new products, materials, technologies, systems, and commercialization.

Both organizations also will leverage their relationships with regional companies to identify technologies such as sensors, new building materials, and computer simulation tools developed by the Energy Innovation Hub, which they can turn into products that can be licensed, developed and manufactured. 

In February, seven federal agencies announced funding of up to $129.7 million over five years to create an Energy Regional Innovation Cluster (E-RIC) centered around an Energy Innovation Hub focused on developing new technologies to improve the design of energy-efficient building systems.

This is one of the three proposed by the Administration and funded by Congress in the FY10 budget

Foothill Transit, a public transport provider that operates bus services in Southern San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys, in California, will soon be adding a fleet of all-electric, zero-emission buses and related fast-charging stations to its existing bus fleet and transit routes.

Foothill will launch the Proterra EcoRide BE35 buses on Sept. 3 with the goal of establishing a full fleet of clean-fueled vehicles by 2011. The launch also marks Proterra’s first deployment of the all-electric buses by a major transit agency.

The deployment of Proterra’s EcoRide BE35 buses, known as the “Ecoliner” by Foothill Transit, is expected to provide a real-world example of the benefits and ease of deployment of Proterra’s zero emission buses and charging solutions. They also will offer California transit agencies a solution to meet the Zero Emission Bus (Zbus) regulation, which requires large California agencies to purchase 15 percent of their annual bus orders as zero emission buses starting in 2012.

In addition to reducing air and noise pollution, the Ecoliner buses offer up to three hours of operation and the ability to recharge in less than 10 minutes on route. This will allow transit agencies to add these buses into existing routes without impacting their schedules or routes, says Proterra.

Other benefits include a 400 percent improvement in fuel economy and greater than $300,000 savings in total lifetime operating expenses.

Hybrid buses already have rolled out in pilot programs in New York City and Baltimore, where they are estimated to reduce fuel consumption by 40 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 percent. They are also up to 35 percent quieter than typical city buses.

There has been a migration of traffic from express and services to cheaper standard parcel services, according to the latest study of the courier, express and parcels (CEP) market by consultants AT Kearney.

Carpet handling and distribution is such a specialised area

Supply original spare parts to the Dacia, Renault and Nissan networks in Romania

Praised for capitalising on the concept of ‘fast fashion’ logistics

New position created to assist with rising commercial opportunities

Store and ship Whirlpool products to retail customers in the country

Accumulated strong expertise in Freight Management

Jim Lutes is the fourth new member of the Board in the last five years

Freight Forwarding division particularly boosted revenue growth

Gaining access to the growing India market

The InterAcademy Council recommends that IPCC improve review processes and transparency in wake of attacks on climate science.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have proposed new fuel economy labels for cars and light trucks that will score each vehicle with a grade from A+ to D, aiming to encourage adoption of more fuel-efficient vehicles.