Skip to main content

First Takes: Natural Gas Still Bad for the Climate, Nalco & Marriott Team for Water Savings & More...

<p>A new study pokes holes in the belief that a switch to natural gas will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Coca-Cola will add heavy-duty electric delivery vehicles in North America, and other news in our morning roundup.</p>

Natural Gas Won't Save Us: As natural gas prices plummeted in recent years, there's been widespread belief that using natural gas as a methadone-like substitute for oil would be a boon for the climate. But research soon to be published shows that a switch to gas would actually accelerate climate change slightly for the next 40 to 130 years (depending on how much methane leaks from gas-drilling operations). After that, there would be a slight cooling of the global temperature.

Coca-Cola to Add  EV Delivery Trucks to Its Fleet This Year: Coca-Cola has announced plans to expand its electric vehicle delivery fleet in five cities in the U.S. by bring six trucks to five cities this year. Each of the new eStar vehicles can save Coke up to 60 percent in fuel costs, is almost silent in operation, and is about 50 percent recyclable at the end of its life. All told, the new eStar trucks along with additional new alt-fuel vehicle additions to its fleet will give Coca-Cola more than 750 greener vehicles in its fleet by year's end.

Nalco Helps Marriott Mumbai Save 16M Gallons of Water: A new case study from Nalco highlights how the company's water monitoring and control technology is helping the 583-room Marriott Renaissance Mumbai hotel and conference center save 16 million gallons of water -- and 600,000 kilowatt-hours of energy -- per year. The case study is part of a larger partnership between Nalco and Marriott to apply Nalco's technology to save Marriott 450 million gallons of water over a three-year period.

• Doing Waste Recycling the Wrong Way: From the "news of the weird" file: The head of a waste recycling business in Devon, England, has been fined £6,300 (about US$10,000) for taking the annual November 5 Guy Fawkes Night celebration as an opportunity to burn hazardous waste in a bonfire.

Climate Scientists Seek Help Funding Legal Fight: Over at Climate Progress, Joseph Romm has reposted a plea for help from climate scientists whose email correspondence has been targeted by the American Tradition Institute. The scientists are asking for support for their legal fund to fight an FOI request that they fear will be used to turn their correspondence into another ClimateGate debacle.

[Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect that Coca-Cola is adding six electric vehicles and 100 overall alternative-fuel vehicles to its fleet.]

Photo CC-licensed by Tod Baker.

More on this topic