Day: July 19, 2018

DOE Launches New Lab Partnering Service

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has officially launched the Lab Partnering Service (LPS), an online, single access point platform for investors, innovators, and institutions to identify, locate, and obtain information from DOE’s 17 national laboratories. This tool will provide industry with a more efficient way to harness technical expertise and intellectual property housed at DOE’s labs.

The DOE Office of Technology Transitions’ (OTT) Lab Partnering Service gives energy investors and innovators direct access to the vast array of expertise, research, and capabilities across all 17 National Labs. LPS will allow users to submit inquiries to the Technology Transfer Office at each lab. This office can answer and/or direct questions from the users and provide an invaluable navigational assistance through the DOE R&D ecosystem.

“The launch of the Lab Partnering Service represents a big step in reducing barriers that often limit energy investors from partnering with our National Labs,” said Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “The LPS consolidates information and capabilities at the National Labs to increase public access, allowing industry and academia to fully utilize these vital scientific resources.”

The LPS has three parts:

  1. Connect with Experts: Unprecedented access to top national lab researchers will allow investors and innovators to connect with relevant subject matter experts, and receive unbiased and non-competitive technical assessments.
  2. Technical/Marketing Summaries: Direct access to pre-validated, ready to license, and commercialize technologies.
  3. Visual Patent Search: Dynamic online search and visualization database tool for patents associated with DOE laboratories.

DOE is one of the largest supporters of technology transfer in the federal government. The 17 national labs have supported the critical research and development that lead to many technologies in the marketplace today, including the batteries powering electric vehicles and the foundation of Internet servers.

Information about the Lab Partnering Service, including how to use the suite of online tools, can be found HERE. More information on OTT can be found HERE

How to Steal 50 Million Bees

Read the full story from Bloomberg News.

Every winter, apiarists from all over America rent their hives to farmers in California, attracting the attention of some very specialized thieves.

Where can climate activists find common ground?

Read the full story in Wired.

Sometimes the most vicious fights occur over the smallest differences. Brutal battles have pitted Catholics that kneel in prayer against Protestant sects that stood before the same God. There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story from the US House of Representatives about a senior politician explaining that internal conflict between Congressional chambers was more important than fights between Republicans and Democrats. “Republicans aren’t the enemy,” the Democratic old timer says in one version of the story. “Republicans are the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.”

The scientists and activists working to reverse climate change are no different. The infighting can be savage.

Are invasive mussels helping the Great Lakes?

Read the full story at Great Lakes Today.

Invasive mussels don’t get a lot of love around the Great Lakes, because they take food from other animals and carpet much of the lake floor.

But Michigan State researchers say quagga mussels may actually doing some good.

Spray Paint Efficiency Training to be offered in Indianapolis on August 23

This training will help painters and managers in any kind of paint shop save money and protect worker health.

Participants will learn how to reduce paint material costs, save money, improve air quality, and meet environmental standards. Participants also receive a five year 6H Certification as well as an understanding of NESHAP and 6H surface coating regulations.

A virtual paint booth will be utilized to improve technique.

This workshop is for painters and paint shop managers of all kinds and sizes—from collision repair and auto shops to industrial paint shops and fleet management facilities. The training is in English, but Spanish language services are available.

Upon completing the training, painters improve their spray efficiency by an average of 20 percent. For most shops, this improvement makes a significant difference. In 2014 PPRC’s spray efficiency program saved businesses over one million dollars in material and other costs as well as preventing over 18,000 pounds of air emissions. An average shop of 10 painters can expect VOC reductions of about 2600 pounds and annual savings of 5,000 to 50,000 dollars.

The head trainer, Ken Grimm, has provided train-the-trainer courses to more than two dozen Community and Technical Colleges in the Pacific Northwest, as well as training to more than 150 collision repair shops and industrial facilities.

Two sessions are offered: an afternoon session from noon to 4:00 p.m. EDT (registration and lunch at 11:30 a.m.); and an evening session from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. EDT (registration at 4:00 p.m and dinner at 6:00 p.m.)

Both sessions will be held at:

Speak Easy Downtown
47 South Meridian Street
Indianapolis, IN

Website: https://speakeasyindy.com/

Registration fee is $130 per person for each session. Registration deadline is August 20, 2018.

This training event is being offered through funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) through the collaboration of P2Rx centers facilitated by the Environmental Sustainability Resource Center (ESRC) and the Great Lakes Region Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR), presented by the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC), and hosted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM).

Major CPGs Launch Sustainable Food Policy Alliance

Read the full story in Progressive Grocer.

Danone North America, Mars Inc., Nestlé USA and Unilever United States have banded together to form the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, a new organization focused on driving progress in public policies that shape what people eat and how it affects their health, communities and the planet. The first areas of focus will be nutrition labeling and carbon emissions.

MA Senate Passes Bill To Ban Toxic Flame Retardants

Read the full story at Beacon Hill Patch.

The Massachusetts Senate voted unanimously on June 21 to ban 11 toxic flame retardants from children’s products, bedding and residential upholstered furniture sold or manufactured in the Commonwealth. Public health advocates hailed the vote as an important legislative victory and called upon the House to pass the bill before the end of the Massachusetts Legislative session.

Chemical Hazard Data Commons

The Chemical Hazard Data Commons provides resources to assess and compare human and environmental health hazards of different chemicals, plus tools to collaborate to find safer alternatives. The goal of this effort is to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals and improve the inherent safety of materials and products. Their mission and vision is further detailed in a series of whitepapers.

The Data Commons integrates the following data sources and analyses to show what is known about the hazards of chemicals and facilitate comparisons:

  • Hazard listings – Associations between chemicals and 25 specific human and environmental health endpoints identified by governmental and professional authorities. Largely based on the Healthy Building Network’s Pharos Chemical and Material Library. The Data Commons aggregates over 40 authoritative hazard lists. Sources to keep them up to date. For a list of all the hazard sources and to learn more, check out the Pharos system description. They also include select data that manufacturers have submitted through REACH registration dossiers in addition to the authoritative body listings.
  • Restricted substance lists – Listings of chemicals whose use is restricted and/or managed by regulatory or corporate policy or subject to voluntary program guidance. Data Commons hazard tables reference over 30 restricted substance lists. To learn more, check out the Pharos system description, starting on page 20.
  • Exempt & Positive lists – Listings of chemicals that have been exempted from regulatory actions (such as EPA VOC exemptions) or are preferable for use for certain applications based upon an assessment of lower hazard (such as the EPA SCIL list). Beware, these lists generally have constraints – exemptions of preferences based on a limited set of health endpoints or for limited uses
  • List Screening – The Data Commons is an approved GreenScreen Automator assessing all chemicals in the database against the GreenScreen List Translator to generate LT scores identifying known chemicals of high concern.
  • Hazard assessments – Toxicological assessments using the GreenScreen™ protocol that benchmarks the inherent hazards of chemicals across a broad range of health endpoints. The Data Commons provides access to all GreenScreen assessments published for public use.
  • Identification – Over 85,000 substances are listed in the Data Commons, searchable by over 260,000 CASRNs and synonyms utilizing the NIH PubChem and ChemIDplus databases.
  • Physical properties – chemical formulas and some key physical data are drawn from the NIH PubChem database.
  • Compound groups – The Data Commons is the home of the Compound Group Population Project which creates structural or other definitions for the chemical compound groups referenced by authoritative hazard lists. They use those definitions to associate relevant CASRN with those groups to ensure comprehensive list screening.

NIOSH publishes workplace guidance for protecting workers who handle nanomaterials

Workplace Design Solutions: Protecting Workers during Nanomaterial Reactor Operations
DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2018-120
The controls described in this document include enclosures for large and small reactors during harvesting as well as an approach for controlling exposures during reactor cleaning.

Workplace Design Solutions: Protecting Workers during Nanomaterial Reactor Operations
DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2018-120
The controls described in this document include enclosures for large and small reactors during harvesting as well as an approach for controlling exposures during reactor cleaning.

Workplace Design Solutions: Protecting Workers during Intermediate and Downstream Processing of Nanomaterials
DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2018-122
The controls described in this document include local exhaust ventilation (LEV) such as annular exhaust hoods, enclosures around the emission points, and down flow booths for larger scale processes.

Controlling Health Hazards When Working with Nanomaterials: Questions to Ask Before You Start
DHHS (NIOSH) Publication Number 2018-103 (poster)
A poster designed to guide workers on how to prevent exposures to nanomaterials

 

Webinar: Understanding Refrigerants: Challenges and Best Practices

Thu, Aug 9, 2018 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CDT
Register at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1114431293051566083

Hydro-fluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and the food retail industry is one of the largest emitters of these super-pollutants. As a result, refrigerant end-users are facing more and more regulations, and compliance is becoming increasingly challenging. While supermarkets are generally aware of their compliance obligations, other smaller food retail sectors may not be, and they don’t have resources readily available to help them understand what is required.

Recent technology advances provide options for refrigerant end-users to remain compliant, save money, and provide high-quality for their customers. Are you prepared to discuss the compliance challenges and opportunities to improve their bottom line with food retailers? Join us for a free webinar hosted by the Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC), and co-sponsored by KW Refrigerant Management Strategy and the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, to learn about refrigeration regulations and how to connect refrigerant end-users with the right resources.

Webinar topics will include:

  • Current state of refrigeration regulation;
  • Real-world examples of compliance software, technology selection, and leak prevention and repair; 
  • Natural refrigerant alternatives to HFCs; and
  • Resources for refrigerant end-users and how technical assistance providers (TAPs) can help

Primary Presenter: Keilly Witman of KW Refrigerant Management Strategy

Additional presenters: Morgan Smith, North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council and Ben Jarvis, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality