Day: May 22, 2020

Breweries, COVID-19, Food and beverage manufacturing, Food waste

Malort made from beer released Friday as a creative solution to a serious problem: Kegs expiring due to coronavirus

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

When a pandemic hands you old beer, you don’t make lemonade. You make Malort.

In this case, the old beer was 160 kegs of Revolution Brewing’s flagship Anti-Hero IPA that were about to fall out of code while most bars and restaurants remain closed to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

Rather than dump the beer, Revolution teamed up with Chicago’s CH Distillery to create a first: Malort made from beer.

The product, which goes on sale Friday at Revolution, CH Distillery and Binny’s, pairs two modern Chicago icons: the city’s top-selling craft beer and the city’s most iconic spirit, an intensely bitter liqueur that doubles as a civic badge of pride.

But it’s also a playful solution to a serious problem for breweries large and small: What to do with all those useless kegs?

Environmental law

Fresh Air and Fresh Start: Are Environmental Regulatory Penalties Dischargeable?

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story at JD Supra.

Two courts recently answered “yes,” finding that environmental claims brought against reorganized debtors by government entities were discharged under confirmed Chapter 11 plans of reorganization. In In re Exide Techs., 613 B.R. 79 (D. Del. 2020), the District of Delaware held that pre-petition, non-compensatory air quality penalties imposed on a Chapter 11 debtor by a state regulator were subject to discharge in bankruptcy. And in In re Peabody Energy Corp., No. 18-3242, 2020 WL 2176028 (8th Cir. May 6, 2020), the Eighth Circuit reached a similar result with respect to claims brought by municipalities against a Chapter 11 debtor for its alleged contributions to global warming.

Air quality, COVID-19, Environmental justice

Your ZIP code and your life expectancy

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story in the NYT’s Climate:Fwd newsletter.

For many, the past few weeks have been tough, but at least we’ve had a respite from pollution: With Americans staying home, emptying the roads and highways of traffic, skies have cleared across the country.

That, at least, feels good. But for neighborhoods with historically high levels of air pollution, a temporary clearing of the air won’t reverse years of damage wrought by the high levels of particulate pollution, ozone and other pollutants in the air they breathe.

I featured three such neighborhoods in my recent look at the effects of coronavirus and air pollution. Research has shown that polluting industries are disproportionately located in or near low-income, predominantly black or Latino neighborhoods. And, while the exact relationship between air pollution and Covid-19 is still unclear, research has shown that exposure to air pollution can make people more vulnerable to similar respiratory illnesses.

Auto industry, Patents, Solar

Could Ford’s New Patent Be Their Secret Weapon for Electric Overlanding?

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full post at Gear Patrol.

The clever folks over at Ford patent a lot of ideas. Some are cool and potentially revolutionary; others are just downright weird. But a new Ford patent application for inflatable solar panels that unforld from a vehicle’s roof could be a game-changer for passenger EVs — especially anyone using their electric SUV or truck for overlanding.

Oil and gas industry

Google Says It Won’t Build AI Tools For Oil And Gas Drillers

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story in the Brattleboro Reformer.

Google says it will no longer build custom artificial intelligence tools for speeding up oil and gas extraction, separating itself from cloud computing rivals Microsoft and Amazon.

COVID-19, Natural resources, Research, Workplace issues in STEM

COVID-19 is eroding scientific field work – and our knowledge of how the world is changing

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story at The Conversation.

Summer is prime time across much of North America for scientists to do field research outdoors. But this year the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many researchers to cancel or scale back their plans. We asked two scholars to explain the long-term effects of a missed or downscaled field research season.

Auto industry, Green lifestyle, Information tools, Product life cycle

Life cycle assessment of cars – new web tool helps consumers and researchers

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story from the Paul Scherrer Institute.

Decision support for car buyers: Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute have developed a web tool called the Carculator that can be used to compare the environmental performance of passenger cars in detail. The program determines the environmental balance of vehicles with different size classes and powertrains, and presents the results in comparative graphics. The entire life cycle of the passenger cars is taken into account, including the manufacture of the vehicles and the environmentally relevant emissions from driving.

Communicating science, Social media, Wildlife

A Biologist Explains Why She and 1.8 Million Others Are Role-Playing as Ants on Facebook

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story in Slate.

For many people around the world, everyday life—working, shopping, exercise, entertainment, even connecting with loved ones—now takes place on a screen. Some of the activities that have gone virtual would have seemed unimaginable just a few months ago, like attending funerals and graduation ceremonies, teaching elementary school, hosting television shows, and, recently, pretending to be ants.

Natural resources

RedTail LiDAR Systems Supports Wounded Vets through Stream Restoration

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story from RedTail LiDAR.

The adoption of drone-based 3D LiDAR mapping technology is an important advancement in the field of stream restoration and monitoring. Compared to traditional surveying and monitoring methods, the use of drone-based LiDAR allows for the rapid inspection and monitoring of miles of stream corridor in very short time periods, providing precise, accurate and consistent data.

Circular economy, Plastics

Expanding ‘Circularity’ through Advanced Recycling Technologies

by  •  • 0 Comments

Read the full story at Plastics Technology.

Recycling and achieving circularity for materials is at the core of the plastics industry’s evolving sustainable business model. Advanced technologies will play a big role.

%d bloggers like this: