University in Tokyo unveils solar panel-covered building
A new building at the campus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology is almost self-sufficient in power use. The walls and rooftop of the seven-story Environment and Energy Innovation Building in Meguro Ward is covered by 4,500 solar panels. The total capacity of the panels is 650 kilowatts. The building also has 100 kilowatts of fuel cells. The building, which also has two basement floors, uses about half the power of a conventional structure of the same scale.
Big Oil Donates over $500,000 to Congress in First Quarter of 2012
The political action committees (PACs) of five of the biggest players in the oil and gas industry donated just over $500,000 to Congressional incumbents and candidates during the first quarter of 2012. Public Campaign has just released new analysis of data filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Some key findings: Exxon’s PAC was the biggest donor, giving just over $250,000. Chevron came in second, with donations totaling $113,500. The American Petroleum Institute gave just under half that amount – $51,000., Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was the top recipient, having received $18,500. Top recipients in both the Senate (Hatch) and House (Eric Cantor (R-Virginia), Dave Camp (R-Michigan) and Kevin McCarthy (R-California)) all voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Tax on salt is a good thing
The study set out to assess the cost-effectiveness of two interventions — voluntary salt reduction by industry, and taxation on salt — in 19 developing countries, that represent more than half of the world’s population. The analysis found that both strategies would be save money by reducing the number of people needing treatment for hypertension and CVD events such as myocardial infarction (heart attacks) and stroke. Moreover, the study found that these two strategies could reduce the incidence of myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) by up to about 1.7 per cent and 1.47 per cent in China and India respectively. Reductions would also been seen in the incidence of stroke of 4.7 per cent in China and 4 per cent in India.