CONTACT: TEP Contact: Joe Salkowski, Office: +1-520-884-3625, Mobile: +1-520-404-3164, jsalkowski@uns.com; AREVA Solar Contact: Katherine Potter Office: +1-650-963-8645, Mobile: +1-408-398-6611, katherine.potter@areva.com

Web Site: http://www.areva.com/EN/solar-220/areva-solar.html

Carrier, a leading manufacturer of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration systems, regularly offers incentives to customers who purchase energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, such as the Infinity system.
This same equipment may also qualify for rebates from one of Energy Star’s 600-plus local utility partners, located throughout the United States, or tax incentives provided by the federal government.
To save the most money on your next heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) purchase, it’s important to understand which energy-efficient products qualify for specific incentives, how to apply for those incentives and how much money to expect in return.
The experts at Carrier suggest that those planning to install energy-efficient technologies talk to a local contractor about potential HVAC purchases and take a look at www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm or www.dsireusa.org to learn about the rebate programs available in their area.
That’s just the beginning. Energy-efficient products can save you money every time you use them. For example, upgrading from an 80 percent efficient furnace to a 98 percent efficient Infinity furnace from Carrier will significantly reduce monthly utility bills.
The same is true when switching to a high-efficiency air conditioner. When paired with other cooling methods, high-efficiency AC can reduce a home’s energy use by 20 to 50 percent.
For more information on selecting the optimal furnace, air conditioner, heat pump or HVAC system for your home, check out www.residential.carrier.com.

PITTSBURGH, Dec. 26, 2011 /Coal Geology-PRNewswire/ — CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE: CNX) today announced a$16,000 donation from its employees to the Corner Cupboard Food Bank, which provides food assistance and hunger relief to more than 3,000 Greene County, PA residents each month. The employee donation brings CONSOL Energy’s gift to the Corner Cupboard to more than $49,175 this holiday season.

EPA

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first national standards to protect American families from power plant emissions of mercury and air toxics like arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide. These new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will slash emissions of these dangerous pollutants by relying on widely available, proven pollution controls that are already in use at more than half of the nation’s coal-fired power plants.

Today, leaders from across the country are still talking about these historic standards. Here’s what they’re saying about Mercury and Air Toxics Standards:

Larry Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation:

“Our children and grandchildren will inherit a safer world thanks to the leadership of President Obama and Administrator Jackson. At long last, these prudent and overdue limits on unchecked mercury and toxic air pollution will ensure our fish will be safe to eat, and our children can breathe easier.”

Gene Karpinski, League of Conservation Voters:

“Today is a historic day for the health and safety of our children. We strongly applaud the Obama administration for setting new limits on mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants – limits that will save lives, prevent illnesses like asthma and bronchitis and create jobs in pollution control technology.”

PJM:      

“PJM and four other RTO/ISOs proposed in comments to the EPA a process to ensure that reliability in our respective regions can be maintained as the final Mercury and Toxics Standards (MATS) Rule is implemented. The final MATS rule will have different degrees of impact in various parts of the country. We at PJM are pleased that the EPA Administrator has included the key elements of our proposed process to preserve reliability into documents accompanying the Final Rule. We at PJM intend to work with EPA, FERC, the states and others to ensure that process can be effectively utilized to address particular reliability challenges and ensure that the reliability of the electric grid is maintained during this critical period.”

Senator Patrick Leahy (Vt.):

“I commend the Environmental Protection Agency for doing the right thing, under tremendous special interest pressure, in standing up for the public’s interest. The Utility Air Toxics Rule to control toxic air pollutants such as mercury is a health and environmental breakthrough for the American people, and especially for Vermonters. Finally, after 20 years of dodging regulation, coal- and oil-fired electric power plants, the largest contributors of these toxics, will be held accountable for the pollution they emit, just as many other industries are.”

Senator Ben Cardin (Md.):

“Clean air is essential for the health of every American and it’s also good business. It’s time for the rest of the country’s electricity generation sector to catch up with Maryland and do what our power producers have been doing for years now to protect children from toxic mercury and air toxics pollution…Mercury is an extremely harmful neurotoxin that our country’s largest source producers, power plants, must act to address. The doomsday scenarios described by our nation’s power companies who irresponsibly continue to operate the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants are not based in reality. The rule being finalized today is the result of litigation demanding EPA to comply with the Clean Air Act.”

Senator Tom Carper (Del.):

“With this decision, I believe the Environmental Protection Agency has provided a reasonable and achievable schedule for our dirtiest power plants to reduce harmful air toxic emissions. At the same time, I believe the Environmental Protection Agency has given enough flexibility to industry and states to meet those targets and address any possible local reliability concerns. These clean air investments will be a win-win-win as we save thousands of lives, save billions of dollars in health care costs and work productivity, and create good paying jobs here at home by cleaning up these dirty power plants. In fact, this new rule is expected to produce 46,000 jobs in the near term during the installation of the needed clean air technology, and thousands more for long-term utility jobs.”

Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.):

“I strongly support the Clean Air Act standards announced today that will slash toxic air pollution, such as mercury and arsenic, from our nation’s power plants. We know from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that mercury can cause brain damage and is particularly harmful to infants and young children. We also know that installing the necessary pollution control scrubbers and equipment will create jobs as we update our power plants. This clean air rule is long overdue, and I commend EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson for protecting our families’ health and wellbeing.”

Frances Beinecke, Natural Resources Defense Council:

“The magnitude of these health benefits could make this rule one of the biggest environmental accomplishments of the Obama administration. I applaud the administration’s continued leadership in making our air cleaner and safer to breathe.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson:

“For business leaders, there are few challenges greater than uncertainty, and by issuing today’s ruling, this Administration has answered definitively a question that has hung over the U.S. energy industry for nearly 20 years,” Bryson said. “These new standards have benefits that far exceed costs, and the flexibility built into their adoption will help guarantee that implementation will proceed in a thoughtful, common-sense way that limits negative impacts on businesses.”

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack:

“By reducing emissions of highly toxic pollutants such as mercury, we are ensuring that our air and water are cleaner and American families are safer. Folks in rural America have a great appreciation for the land and work hard to preserve our environment for future generations. These standards support their efforts by improving millions of acres of polluted ecosystems that will create better habitat for fish and wildlife and provide more recreational opportunities for all Americans to enjoy.”

Energy Action Coalition:

“Young voters are thrilled that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the Obama Administration are standing up to big polluters to protect our generation’s health and spur job creation in the clean energy economy. This decision shows the Obama Administration’s commitment to stand up to Big Coal and Oil to protect the air we breathe. We hope the Administration will continue to stand up for the health and safety of Americans and the environment in the coming year.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.):

“Today, the EPA has taken an important step to protect public health, particularly the health of children. After years of Rhode Island receiving pollution from out-of-state power plants, the largest sources of toxic air pollution will finally be required to reduce emissions of these dangerous chemicals. I applaud our local utility, National Grid, for its support of these new clean air protections.”

Senator John Kerry (Ma.):

“The bottom line is, this will mean fewer heart attacks and asthma attacks, fewer kids exposed to mercury, and thousands of good jobs for the American workers who will build, install, and operate the equipment to reduce these toxic pollutants. Smart health and environmental protections go hand in hand with economic growth and reliable, affordable energy.”

Representative Elijah Cummings (Md.):

“These new standards, which have been twenty years in the making, will safeguard American families and protect our environment from dangerous mercury and toxic air pollution. I commend the EPA for finalizing rules that will prevent thousands of premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and other illnesses. These new national standards will create thousands of American jobs and generate health and economic benefits worth tens of billions of dollars.”

Representative Ed Markey (Mass.):

“This rule to limit mercury and other dangerous toxics is one of those times when you can truly say ‘we’re doing it for the kids. While the Obama administration wants to cut mercury pollution to protect kids and pregnant mothers, Republicans want to knife the MACT, stopping these standards from ever going into effect. The 91 percent reduction in mercury in Massachusetts since 1996 shows that these standards are attainable. The standards will reduce mercury by increasing innovation, as entrepreneurs and inventors will discover new and better ways to cut pollution and move to cleaner forms of energy that produce no pollution at all, like wind and solar power. I commend the Obama administration, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and the staff at the EPA for their dedication to the health and well-being of America’s kids.”

Business Council for Sustainable Energy:

“Uncontrolled toxic air emissions are real and sizeable threats, both to public health and to the economy. Families, companies and investors need certainty on air emissions policy for healthier living and for economic growth. The finalization of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards provides more certainty on emissions policy and will drive investment in innovative technologies and America’s energy infrastructure. American businesses can keep the lights on and grow the economy while protecting public health. Shifting to lower emissions technologies and resources while upgrading our nation’s electric generation infrastructure will help drive economic growth and create jobs.”

Senator Barbara Boxer (Calif.):

“Power plants are not only the nation’s largest source of dangerous mercury emissions, but they also pollute the air we breathe with lead, arsenic, chromium, and cyanide. These hazardous air pollutants are known to cause cancer, harm children’s development, and damage the brain and nervous system of infants. EPA estimates that this new clean air rule will annually prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks and many other health benefits. The science and methodology used to determine these benefits have been extensively peer reviewed by EPA’s independent Science Advisory Board and the National Academies of Science. The agency estimates that this clean air rule will also provide up to 46,000 construction jobs and 8,000 long-term jobs in the utility industry. EPA’s action today will generate jobs and protect the health and safety of families across the country.”

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn:

“In Illinois, we have seen the benefits of enacting stringent requirements for reducing mercury emissions over the last several years. As a result, thousands of pounds of harmful mercury emissions have been kept out of our air. The President’s action will protect millions of Americans from these dangerous emissions just like we have been doing in Illinois.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

“When the Environmental Protection Agency announced achievable new standards today for mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants, it took a critical step forward in promoting a safe and healthy environment where all families can raise their children free from dangerous chemical exposure. At the Department of Health and Human Services, we know that people’s health is not just determined by what happens in the doctor’s office. It depends on where we live and work, what we eat and the air we breathe.”

In March 2010, EPA announced its intention to conduct the study in response to a request from Congress. Since then, the agency has held a series of public meetings across the nation to receive input from states, industry, environmental and public health groups, and individual citizens. In addition, the study was reviewed by the Science Advisory Board (SAB), an independent panel of scientists, to ensure the agency conducted the research using a scientifically sound approach.

The initial research results and study findings will be released to the public in 2012. The final report will be delivered in 2014. To ensure that the study is complete and results are available to the public in a timely manner, EPA initiated some activities this summer that were supported by the SAB and provide a foundation for the full study.

The final study plan looks at the full cycle of water in hydraulic fracturing, from the acquisition of the water, through the mixing of chemicals and actual fracturing, to the post-fracturing stage, including the management of flowback and produced or used water as well as its ultimate treatment and disposal. Earlier this year, EPA announced its selection of locations for five retrospective and two prospective case studies.

This administration continues to take steps to ensure that we can rely on this abundant resource for decades to come, including taking steps to fully understand any impacts related to the development of this resource. This study is in line with the priorities identified in the president’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, and is consistent with the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board recommendations on steps to support the safe development of natural gas resources.

More information: www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing

The word Eco is shortening of the terms ecology or ecosystems. But I try to look at it from yet another angle. Although the word doesn’t have a standalone meaning in the dictionary, one can attach a meaning like this: ‘E’ stands for Environment and ‘co’ for Cooperation, so that the word as a whole can be plausibly used to mean ‘Cooperating Environment’. I am inclined to define like this, when I find that the prefix ‘co’ in the words cooperation, coeducation, coordinator etc. refers to the concept of mutual cooperation and working in harmony. Thus Eco-gifts are products that do not disturb the ecosystem, defined as the biological community and the physical environment associated with it.

My wife is a plant lover. Once on her birthday, I bought her a tropical plant of Croton genus grown in a pot. It was available in the market. She placed the pot in an appropriate position of our drawing room and maintained it routinely – watering it, trimming it, bathing it in the sun when needed, pouring rain-water on it collected in rainy season and patiently cleaning its every leaf on weekly basis with moist cotton. She simply fell in love with the plant. Later I realized that it was not only an eco-friendly gift, it added beauty to the room. In fact merely looking at it gave an aesthetic pleasure and a patch of green from that pot-plant soothed my eyes. Some gifts seem to be strikingly at odds with our perception but are certainly eco-friendly like my wife’s pot-plant. Other examples could be hand-made, cottage industry based products. Immediate examples that lurk in my mind are any kind of item made from paper like invitation cards or greeting cards or products made from plant-sourced ingredients. Through painstaking surfing of the net reinforced by window-shopping of a few local departmental stores, talking to boys/girls managing the counter, I found many such products are made in my country, in my India. Some of the items are tabulated:

These items need not be produced in large scale industry and therefore are free from its share of large scale pollution. Particularly striking in this context is the emergence of newly developed true green products that are made in factories which are environmentally friendly, such as facilities built from recycled materials, using solar panels for power and products made from components which are also good for the environment, like plant-sourced ingredients or recycled metal for electronics.

A cute painting adorned my drawing room. It featured a butterfly sitting on a deep violet rose with its wings wide open. It was a gift from one of my old friends, a businessman who had brought it from China in one of his business trips, a few years ago.  Being placed in the eye catching position of the wall, it caught attention of everybody stepping into the room. Friends and relatives frequent my small apartment. Thanks to my luck! This time my honored guest was my environmentalist friend, extremely serious in his profession. He is a cricket buff too. In course of our gossip on India’s triumph during last World Cup and how Mahendra Singh Dhoni took India past the target of 275 with a last ball six devastating the Sri Lankan bowlers, the beautiful looking Chinese art caught his attention and in split seconds it invited wrath of my specialist friend. “Calcutta sidewalks are flooded with these kinds of cheap Chinese articles” – he reacted, recognizing its origin. He paused and continued “In course of time the colors are bound to fade out which will simply imply that the dry color dusts, mainly of lead compounds, had escaped in the environment” – he added. His attitude gave me a feeling of misgivings in me although I couldn’t react to his comments. So I avoided the issue, quickly catching up the thread of earlier discussion on cricket, but a trace of his comments haunted in the back of my mind. No sooner had he left, I unhooked the article from the wall and held near. On close inspection, I discovered, to my utter dismay that it had really shed off its shine substantially. But I could not get rid of this beautiful looking gift as nostalgia and fondness coupled with the sentiments had filled my heart. The age of this nice looking art is just about seven years. I cannot part with it. It still hangs on the wall only to continuously prove the truism in the statement made some five years ago by my environmental specialist friend.

Green hunters, although small in numbers, are there in every society and in every country and they are always on the lookout for energy saving goods. Their thoughts are translated into technology into new range of energy efficient products. Fifteen years ago, one of my friends presented my wife with a small aluminium urn for making tea. My wife reported that the gadget took less time to make tea or for boiling water, so it saved fuel. I discovered that it had a copper base brazed into the body of the pot. Copper facing the burner, being a superior heat conductor, transmits heat faster into the kettle and that made the difference. What a grand idea! Subsequently we replaced all necessary cooking utensils equipped with similar features.

Taking into account the aforesaid distinct real life facts one is bent to think that one should be careful and thoughtful while choosing a gift, for that matter anything, so that proliferation of other forms of pollution can be minimized in an already carbon constrained world. Any product, may it be a small gift, a household item, office furniture, small gadgets like a mobile phone or vacuum cleaner etc. – everything under the sun is available at the cost of energy and bulk of this energy, perhaps 80% comes directly or indirectly from burning several tons of kilograms of fossil fuel. It is worth noting that only about 20% of the total global energy comes from green energy sources (16% nuclear energy + 5% energy from renewable energy sources).  And burning of fossil fuel adversely affects the ecosystem mainly by dumping carbon dioxide and traces of other inorganic pollutants resulting in GREEN HOUSE EFFECT. A short detour on the primer of green house effect at this juncture will be appropriate, I believe.

Originally only 0.04% of the air was carbon Dioxide. Photosynthesis by green plants takes carbon dioxide out of the air and respiration and burning put carbon dioxide back into the air. This process naturally balances each other maintaining more or less an equilibrium condition. But the breakneck industrialization, particularly by the western world, has caused increase in the level of carbon dioxide in the air by 30% since pre-industrial times. This cloud of carbon dioxide behaves rather like the glass of a green house. It lets the sun ray through the surface of the Earth but stops heat from escaping. So the surface of the Earth gradually gets warmer. This is what is called green house effect and it affects everybody, living and non-living on this planet as evident from the catastrophic natural disasters that has been taking place since last one and a half decade without any particular concern to geographical boundary and every time these events are occurring with greater frequency and in some cases with greater intensity. The international community recognizes the dangerous and explosive nature of the situation.

As science and technology advance, more and more finished products are flooding the market for luxury and needs making us consumers. Also as people are getting wealthier, the throwaway concept is causing irreparable damage to the environment. So, anthropocentric arguments as promulgated by our environment campaigners insist:

Get rid of luxurious life style and still maintaining a reasonably good quality of life. To make the world GREEN, we are expected to be green consumers with green conscience. You must think where your stuff comes from and where your waste ends up. Think a bit deeper to find out more about the stuff you take for granted. In a world of commodification and production that has no limits to its use of resources, one only has an opportunity and seizes it, no matter what the environmental consequences are. Here are some examples:

You end up with startling fact when you seek the origin of your gold wedding ring. Probably it traces back to the Earth’s deepest and greatest gold mine at Driefontein, South Africa. It took two tonnes of rock blasted from the Earth’s crust, transported tens of kilometers before being treated on the ground to recover enough of the metal for your 5-gm ring.  On top of that it required five tonnes of water, 30 tonnes of pumped air underground to keep the mine cool and an enormous amount of electricity that possibly comes from burning tonnes of fossil fuel. What a pitifully small reward when compared with input ingredients!!

Coming back to cotton, the shirt you wear. You discover that the raw material is grown in massive monoculture in an ecologically destructive manner.

Take the food item, the prawns that you relish in your week-end party. It is mainly exported from Bangladesh. Prawn farms have largely replaced the old landscape of mangrove swamps that once protected large numbers of wild life and acted as the nursery of fisheries. Monoculture of prawns has left a white glaze of salt over rice paddies and a nexus of middlemen, Mafiosi and rich land owners have bundled off millions of rice farmers.

This Sample survey point to some of the things we take for granted but is not quite what they seem.

Now, let us consider the new gadgets that form the essential part of modern, particularly, urban living. These are cell phones, laptops, digicams, etc. The metal Tantalum is the key element needed by these modern articles. We just take one example. A typical mobile phone weighing about 100 grams required mining 30 kilograms of rock. In addition, manufacturing of the chips required several hundred litres of water. It’s not the end of the story. It has invited a serious sociological problem. World’s 80% of Tantalum reserves are located in the provinces Kivu and Ituri in Congo. Depending on the market demand, the mining and the sale of the element is controlled by some rebel military leaders of the said provinces who are already involved in the vicious civil war in the region. One of the reports published by the Amnesty International says that the mining paid for a war that claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.

In another situation there is a simmering discontent and the grim reality of economic deprivation and social marginalization of a segment of the proletariat when we find child workers in third world countries dipping their hands in acid to retrieve trace metals from discarded personal computers for recycling purposes.

So the pollution contributing to eco disbalance coming from a paintwork using cheap and obnoxious oil paint is just the tip of the iceberg. The crux of the problem lies elsewhere. The main player in the game that heavily damages the ecosystem is carbon dioxide. One finds a huge range of products on shelves of departmental stores. It’s not possible to suggest what to grab. Choice is yours. With the vast variety of environmentally friendly gifts available, it is very difficult to narrow them down into few types. Only thing you have to consider is how much Mother Nature is burdened by your choice. Besides detailed description of energy consumed for production of some items like gold, Personal Computers, Mobile phones, cotton etc. a list is included to show how much carbon dioxide is released to shape a product. Products are manufactured using many of these items as raw materials. The list is not exhaustive. But it will act as an indicator while making your choice. Detailed lists, catalogued item wise, are available in the net. I think, with the guideline just mentioned coupled with thoughtful and conscious planning will help new visions bubbling up from inside through a strange landscape of varieties of available gifts and sheer apathy in this respect is not desirable.

Before I conclude, I can’t resist the temptation of raising a few more issues, which although, do not go exactly in line with the title of this article but neither they are irrelevant. Products are not the only thing which can be eco-friendly. Activities can also be friendly to the environment. With GREEN a trend that’s here is to stay, people who are really committed to the environment also need to modify their lifestyles, reducing the amount of resources they use by living more efficiently, as in the case of carpooling, composting, recycling things etc. whenever possible. .

Also it is customary in our society, particularly among the urban elites, to throw parties on auspicious occasions. With proper planning it would be great fun throwing a green party. How is it?? Here are some tips: As for menu, have at least one dish that’s completely animal-product free, particularly meat, as meat production is considered another strain to the environment (see table). For leftovers, instead of plastic wrap, use tin foil since it can be recycled. And for the tableware, other than using real plates, cups, silverware etc. (they need cleaning with soap solution before and after use) you can use biodegradable disposable tableware made from plant-sourced ingredients like sugar cane.

“We have to cut our carbon emissions in ways that do not impoverish the poorest – those whose personal carbon emissions are lowest. We need free traders not green patriots. We need to maximize our positive social footprint as well as to minimize our negative ecological ones. But we can do it.” – says James Murray while commenting on Fred Pearce’s famous book “Confessions of an eco sinner”. Fred Pearce is a noted environment writer. Perhaps the implication of what has been quoted is this:

One half of the world, the world of the white people, is in trouble for their affluent and luxurious lifestyle, using too much of energy, thus contributing negatively to the ecosystem. The other half is in trouble for using too little. Too much causes environmental problems that jeopardize human welfare, but too little, particularly in the rural areas of the developing countries, retards economic growth and the implementation of other benefits that bring welfare. So it’s a dilemma and the question focuses on the wider issue of how we can move to a sustainable lifestyle to minimize the ecological and social imbalance. One is not expected to turn to a green zealot overnight. But every socially conscious human being must be as concerned with other human beings as with his own ecological footprint… Clearly there are obvious limits up to which the production of material goods can be increased without destroying the course of nature… A balance need to be struck, that is neither too much nor too little. It’s time, the rich part with just a portion of their affluence, thereby luxury, for the welfare of the hapless and the helpless – a concept championed by none other than the great Mahatma Gandhi in the all pervading materialist and consumerist culture. The need for a common benchmark is the call for the hour. Green hunting should be the way of life for every world citizen to save this planet from disastrous consequences. It is the responsibility for the ecologically and socially minded people to propagate this message so that every living being can breathe fresh air on this beautiful and bounteous planet.  What you need is passion, practical sense and effective communication skills to succeed in this endeavour.

Reference

1. http://party-planning-services-review.toptenreviews.com/how-to-throw-an-eco-friendly-party-and-save.html

2. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-eco-friendly.htm

3. http://www.wisegeek.com/topics/eco-friendly-gifts.htm

   Author: Swapan Kumar De

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PITTSBURGH, Nov. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — CONSOL Energy’s (NYSE: CNX) Fola operations in Clay County, WV, recently celebrated the achievement of recording a second million exposure hours worked with no recordable injuries as they received the prestigious J. Brett Harvey Safety Award.

CONTACT: Cathy St. Clair, +1-276-498-8239

Web Site: http://www.consolenergy.com