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Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 02/25/05

Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 02/25/05

This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles. (usually)

Titles here, abstracts below them:

1. Flame Retardant to Replace PentaBDE, January 2005
2. Engineering Thermoplastics "Empower" New Fuel Cell, January 2005
3. The End of Oil?, February 2005
4. Cefic and SMEs Disagree on REACH, January 2005
5. Chemist Leads UMass Green Machine, February 2005
6. A Fish Story, October 2004
7. German Industries Blast ELV Law, November 2004
8. Assessing the Sustainability Performances of Industries, March 2005
9. Geographic Analysis of Blood Lead Levels in New York State Children Born 1994-1997, November 2004
10. Coal-Fired Power May Get Cleaner: Utility's Plan to Build 1,000-MW Clean-Coal Plant May Change the World for Coal-Generated Power, September 2004

1. TITLE Flame Retardant to Replace PentaBDE
SOURCE Plastics Engineering, January 2005, vol. 61, no. 1, p. 10
ABSTRACT Albemarle Corp. has introduced Saytex RZ 243 flame retardant as a replacement for pentaBDE, which will soon be phased out of production. The company says that Saytex RZ 243, for production of flame-retardant polyurethane foam, meets the foam-manufacturing industry's need for high-efficiency flame retardancy and offers superior thermal stability and good anti-scorch properties for high-density and low-density foams used in furniture, bedding, automobiles, and packaging. Manufacturers who currently use pentaBDE, according to Albemarle, will find that Saytex RZ 243 performs well and is easily placed into existing formulations.

2. TITLE Engineering Thermoplastics "Empower" New Fuel Cell
SOURCE Plastics Engineering, January 2005, vol. 61, no. 1, p. 31
ABSTRACT Ticona reports that it has introduced the world's first fuel cell prototype made solely of engineering thermoplastics. The 17-cell unit contains injection molded bipolar plates of Vectra liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and end plates of Fortron polyphenylene sulfide (PPS). The Ticona prototype is a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell.

3. TITLE The End of Oil?
AUTHOR Williams, Mark
SOURCE Technology Review (MIT), vol. 108, number 2, February 2005, p. 81
ABSTRACT There are good signs that worldwide oil production is declining.
Best hold on tight.

4. TITLE Cefic and SMEs Disagree on REACH
AUTHOR Milmo, Sean
SOURCE Chemical Market Reporter, January 31, 2005, volume 267, number 5, pp. 4, 21
ABSTRACT The European chemical industry has gained the support of major producers in other industries, as well as some key European Union governments, for its stance on the controversial REACH legislation. But it is now in danger of losing the backing of downstream users, especially small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs), in a dispute over an important aspect of the proposed program for testing and registering up to 30,000 chemicals.

5. TITLE Chemist Leads UMass Green Machine
AUTHOR Hendrickson, Dyke
SOURCE Mass High Tech, January 31-February 6, 2005, vol. 23, no. 5, p. 2
ABSTRACT UMass-Lowell hosts the nation's only doctoral program in the emerging science called green chemistry. Professor John Warner, Director of the university's Green Chemistry Center, is making an impact in his drive to make industrial chemistry safer - and less expensive.

6. TITLE A Fish Story
AUTHOR Evans, Gareth
SOURCE In Business, Vol. 26, No. 5, September/October 2004, pp. 17-18
ABSTRACT Using clean manufacturing technologies developed by European researchers, processing fish skins into leather has given the shoe industry a viable material while solving fish waste disposal problems.

7. TITLE German Industries Blast ELV Law
SOURCE Business and the Environment, November 2004, vol. XV, no. 11, p. 12
ABSTRACT The German automotive and plastics industries have joined forces to
launch a fierce but unexpected attack on the EU's new End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive - which imposes sweeping new requirements on car producers to handle discarded products.

8. TITLE Assessing the Sustainability Performances of Industries
AUTHOR Labuschagne, Carin; Brent, Alan C.; van Erck, Ron P.G
SOURCE Journal of Cleaner Production, March 2005, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 373-385
ABSTRACT Business sustainability entails the incorporation of the objectives of sustainable development, namely social equity, economic efficiency and environmental performance, into a company's operational practices. Companies that compete globally are increasingly required to commit to and report on the overall sustainability performances of operational initiatives. The current indicator
frameworks that are available to measure overall business sustainability do not effectively address all aspects of sustainability at operational level, especially in developing countries such as South Africa. Social criteria, specifically, do not receive due considerations. This article proposes a new framework to assess the
sustainability of operations in the manufacturing sector.

9. TITLE Geographic Analysis of Blood Lead Levels in New York State Children Born 1994-1997
AUTHOR Haley, Valerie B.; Talbot, Thomas O.
SOURCE Environmental Health Perspectives, November 2004, vol. 112, no. 15, pp. 1577-1582
ABSTRACT We examined the geographic distribution of the blood lead levels (BLLs) of 677,112 children born between 1994 and 1997 in New York State and screened before 2 years of age. Five percent of the children screened had BLLs higher than the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention action level of 10 μg/dL. Rates were higher in upstate cities than in the New York City area. We modeled the relationship between BLLs and housing and socioeconomic characteristics at the ZIP code level. Older housing stock, a lower proportion of high school graduates, and a higher percentage of births to African-American mothers were the community characteristics most associated with elevated BLLs. Although the prevalence of children with elevated BLLs declined 44% between those born in 1994 and those born in 1997, the rate of improvement may be slowing down. Lead remains an environmental health problem in inner-city neighborhoods, particularly in upstate
New York. We identified areas having a high prevalence of children with elevated
BLLs. These communities can be targeted for educational and remediation programs. The model locates areas with a higher or lower prevalence of elevated BLLs than expected. These communities can be studied further at the individual level to better characterize the factors that contribute to these differences.

10. TITLE Coal-Fired Power May Get Cleaner: Utility's Plan to Build 1,000-MW Clean-Coal Plant May Change the World for Coal-Generated Power
AUTHOR Johnson, Jeff
SOURCE Chemical & Engineering News, September 20, 2004, vol. 82, no. 38, pp. 36-37
ABSTRACT A decision early this month by the US's largest electricity producer could pave the way for commercial use of a new generation of cleaner coal-fired power plants, changing the energy picture for the nation and possible the world. On Sept. 1, American Electric Power (AEP) announced it would build by 2010 a 1,000-MW integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power plant. Compared to pulverized coal plants, IGCC facilities emit far less mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants; they have nearly double the 35% efficiency of conventional coal-fired plants; and they make collection of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, far easier than it is in conventional coal plants.

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