Day: June 14, 2017

Webinar: The Secret to Managing a Successful Mandatory Recycling Ordinance

June 21, 2017 — noon CDT
Register at https://www.re-trac.com/the-secret-to-managing-a-successful-mandatory-recycling-ordinance-webinar/

Does your community use mandatory recycling to support its waste diversion goals? This presentation will teach you how to work with your community to increase recycling, improve compliance rates, and monitor progress. Register to attend this webinar to discover how local governments use technology to manage and measure their mandatory recycling programs.

After attending this webinar, you will:

  • be ready to apply the 3E Strategy to optimize your MRO
  • be equipped with best practices to improve compliance rates
  • be motivated to implement proven systems to help you manage your MRO
  • be armed with valuable lessons from experienced communities

This presentation is the second webinar in a two-part series about Mandatory Recycling Ordinances. The first webinar in the series had over 250 attendees and received rave reviews. You can read Resource Recycling’s article about it or sign up to receive a link to the recording and the MRO Starter Kit.

Illinois researchers explore ‘self-healing’ for energy storage batteries

Read the full story from Midwest Energy News.

Batteries — whether they’re powering a smartphone or storing energy on the grid — take a beating.

Repeated charging and discharging causes all kinds of wear and tear on the devices we increasingly rely on to keep our gadgets, cars and renewable energy sources running. But what if batteries could repair themselves automatically and fix on-the-fly the cracks that lead to dead laptop batteries, the limited range of electric carsand other modern woes?

That’s the idea behind the work of a team led by two professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). They’re taking self-healing materials research and applying it to a novel subject area: energy storage. The hope is that a better understanding of how nanoparticles bind and come undone will lead to more reliable, longer-lasting and higher-capacity batteries.

Survey finds farmers feel responsibility to protect land and waters

Read the full story from the Illinois Natural History Survey.

Agricultural producers are typically blamed for applying fertilizer that pollutes local waters and carries oxygen-depleting nitrogen and phosphorus to the northern Gulf of Mexico. However, a strong majority of Illinois farmers believe they are doing their part to protect the environment, according to a study from the University of Illinois’ Prairie Research Institute (PRI).

Reflecting well on Illinois

Read the full story from the University of Illinois.

A little over one year after installation, we are reaping the rewards of our university’s largest solar array.

Intern gets his hands dirty building Peoria rain garden

Read the full story from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.

As a new intern with Illinois Water Resources Center, I attended a workshop last month with about 30 people from organizations including Peoria Public Works Department, Peoria Innovation Team, and Illinois Master Gardener and Master Naturalists at the Peoria Public Works building to learn the fundamentals of rain garden design.

Michigan Health Chief Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter For Flint Water Crisis

Read the full story from NPR.

Michigan’s director of its Department of Health and Human Services, Nick Lyon, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office over the Flint water crisis. Both are felonies in the state of Michigan.

Chief Medical Executive Dr. Eden Wells will be charged with obstruction of justice. Four other officials, including the former Flint emergency manager and former director of public works, were also charged with involuntary manslaughter.

The 2017 Utility Energy Efficiency Scorecard

Download the document.

This first edition of the Utility Energy Efficiency Scorecard assesses the 51 largest US electric utilities across a range of energy efficiency metrics. The metrics fall into three categories critical to utility-sector efficiency: (1) quantitative savings and spending performance, (2) program diversity and emerging areas, and (3) targets, business models, and evaluation. Eversource MA and National Grid MA both performed best, tying for the top spot. The other top 10 utilities include Pacific Gas & Electric, Baltimore Gas & Electric, Eversource CT, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & and Electric, Commonwealth Edison, Portland General Electric, Xcel Colorado, and Xcel Minnesota. The Scorecard gives utilities, regulators, and other stakeholders a baseline and roadmap they can use to track performance and strengthen utility-sector energy efficiency.

 

Using machine learning to help people make smart decisions about solar energy

Read the full story from Google.

We want to make it easy for people to make informed decisions about whether to invest in solar. Project Sunroof already shows you solar potential and cost saving for more than 60 million individual homes. Today we’re adding a new feature, Project Sunroof Data Explorer, which shows a map of existing solar installations in neighborhoods throughout the United States. Now instead of driving street to street, it’s a little easier to see if houses around you and communities nearby have already gone solar.