edited by Bonnie Harper-Lore and Maggie Wilson. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2000. Softcover, 665 pages, $25

Roadside Use of Native Plants may sound somewhat obscure, but it's a gem. Originally published by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration, this book is targeted toward people involved with... Read more

Newsbriefs

For the first time ever,

a hole in the stratospheric ozone layer opened up over a populated area. During two days in early September the South Pole ozone hole extended over the Chilean city of Punta Arenas, a city of 120,000 people. Residents were exposed to very high levels of ultraviolet radiation, significantly increasing... Read more

The Worldwatch Institute Board of Directors has named

Christopher Flavin as the second president of the Institute. Flavin replaces Lester Brown, who wants to cut back on his level of activity but will remain Chairman of the environmental research and policy institute he founded in 1974. Flavin has been with Worldwatch since 1978 and is... Read more

Insuring the Green Premium for Electricity

A joint effort between the renewable energy industry and federal and state agencies proposes to leverage public funds to dramatically advance the generation of electricity from new renewable energy sources. The Green Power Initiative from the Renewable Energy Alliance (REA) aims to help bridge a... Read more

Using a computer program that simulates North American weather on an hour-by-hour basis plus detailed information on

dioxin releases from 40,000 sources, scientists at Queens University in New York City have pinpointed specific sources of dioxin reaching the Arctic. They found that just 35 municipal waste incinerators, cement kilns, and... Read more

Capstone Turbine

(see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 10) announced in September that it had received two orders for a total of 350 microturbines. One order will provide 250 microturbines to Hazra Energy LLC, a new energy services company that will focus on power systems and distributed generation. The other order, from the Hanover Company, is... Read more

by Rick Karg and John Krigger, 2000. Limited number of hard copies available through the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, Boston, Massachusetts.

Free download at

www.CEEforMT.org. Spiral-bound soft-cover, 62 pages plus supplement

As more efficient HVAC equipment has been developed, quality installation and maintenance have... Read more

In early August, the Rockville City Council in Maryland voted to

ban “big-box” retail stores. Two existing stores are grandfathered, but a proposed 128,000-square-foot (11,900 m2) Costco store has been rejected.

Bark-Based Panel Adhesive

Supported by a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (newly renamed LP) has teamed up with Ensyn Group, Inc. to develop an adhesive from tree-bark for use in OSB and plywood. LP produces about one-quarter of the OSB manufactured in the U.S. and consumes a similar... Read more

by J. William Thompson and Kim Sorvig. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2000. Paperback, 350 pages, $45.

Those of us who have been promoting a stronger “sustainability agenda” within the landscape architecture profession have been anxiously awaiting this book.

Sustainable Landscape Construction provides, in one place, a thorough reference... Read more

The

Collins Pine Company, based in Chester, California, has just harvested the two billionth board foot (4.7 million m3) of timber from its 94,000-acre (38,000 ha) Collins Almanor Forest. Harvesting activities in their northern Sierra forest began in 1941 when the company had approximately 1.5 billion board feet (3.5 million m3) of standing... Read more

Product Briefs

Glass manufacturer

Pilkington was awarded the 2000 Crystal Achievement Award for the Most Innovative Glazing Component by

Window & Door Magazine for the newly launched Solar E™ sun-control low-e glass. Like the company’s Energy Advantage™ glass, introduced in 1989, Solar E has a durable hard-coat (pyrolytic)... Read more

Home of the Year from

Natural Home magazine’s first competition is an 800 ft2 (75 m2) home in the Arcadia cohousing community in Carrboro, North Carolina. The attached unit, including a host of environmental features, was built by architect Giles Blunden. In keeping with the tendency to recognize the value of modest size, one of the runners-up... Read more

Scott Sklar

, who directed the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in Washington for 14 years, has left to start his own strategic marketing and political consulting firm. The Stella Group, Ltd. will initially focus much of its attention on three clients: Energy Conversion Devices/Uni-Solar; Duke Solar; and STM Power Corporation. Sklar... Read more

Canada’s government is taking action to stem climate change. On October 6, Canada’s federal cabinet formally approved a $500-million, five-year

plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The plan will achieve about one-third of Canada’s greenhouse gas emission reductions called for in the Kyoto climate change treaty. Under the plan, the... Read more

Termi-Mesh

, reviewed in the September issue of

EBN (Vol. 9, No. 9) is now available in Austin, Texas. For information, contact Manny Martinez at Termi-Mesh, LLC, a joint venture company formed per the marriage between Termi-Mesh Australia and ABC Pest & Lawn Services of Austin (512/997-0066).

The Chicago architecture firm

Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates won a recent competition to design a large “sun wall” for the south-facing rear wall of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Washington headquarters. The winning design, if built, will span two-thirds of an acre (0.27 ha) (see rendering below) and generate enough electricity to... Read more

New York’s First Green Residential High-Rise at Battery Park City

A residential tower now being designed for the southern tip of Manhattan will be the first to implement a comprehensive set of green guidelines established for such projects by the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA). To create the building, a team led by Albanese Development... Read more

The Brookings Institute reported in August that 18 acres (7.3 ha) of open fields or woodland in North Carolina are

being developed every hour. Most of this development is occurring around the state’s seven largest metropolitan areas.

A big water controversy is bubbling up in the community of Sandy Valley, Nevada, where the La Jolla, California-based Vidler Water Company hopes to

extract 600 million gallons (2.3 million m3) of water per year. The water would be pumped 600 miles (965 km) and across a mountain range to a cluster of condominiums near the California-... Read more