C3 News Digest - March 23, 2011Cool Pick of the Week: Isobutanol shows promise as an energy-dense biofuel. According to this writer, it could be much better than ethanol. Today's televisions and computers use significantly less power than older generations. Hewlett-Packard says its products are 50 per cent more energy efficient than five years ago. In other corporate news, more than 6,200 U.S. commercial buildings earned an Energy Star label in 2010, a 60-per-cent increase over 2009. Johnson Controls says its U.S. public-sector building efficiency projects are guaranteed to save more than $4.7 billion over the next decade. Placing specially trained MBAs in companies has helped U.S. firms reap big energy-efficiency savings, the program's sponsor says. In Canadian news, the federal budget aims to keep the popular ecoEnergy Retrofit program alive for another year with a $400-million infusion of cash. Our boreal forests are a critical carbon sink and need global protection, a U.S. research organization says. Vancouver is a clear leader in a World Wildlife Fund ranking of Canadian cities taking action to fight climate change. Could a rise in the number of global earthquakes be tied to increasing glacial melt? Ice loss is accelerating in Greenland and Antarctica, a NASA-funded study says. Integrating natural gas and renewable-energy systems offers a smooth transition away from dirtier and more dangerous energy sources, this writer says. A federally funded pilot project in Utah will use carbon dioxide to harness geothermal energy for producing electricity.
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