Dana Childs's blog

Is this clean tech?

Maybe not, but we couldn't resist writing about it.

The Polymer Group, a self-professed leader in the consumer and industrial wipes industry, today announced it will invest in technology to introduce an entirely new category of high performance, cost-effective engineered materials for wipes and other uses.

"As the industry leader in wiping products, the market looks to us to lead innovation. Just as we have done in the past, this technology promises to revolutionize the wipes industry," said interim CEO William Hewitt.

The company's statement says its new technology will offer a "better value proposition than traditional manufacturing methods."

First, layoffs last week (see Ethanol layoffs - harbinger?)

Now, a lawsuit.

Poor Convergence Ethanol is in the news these days for all the wrong reasons.

Shareholders Daniel K. Moscaritolo and Charles L. Christensen today announced that they have taken action to compel the company to hold an annual meeting of shareholders.

Despite an apparent provision in the company's bylaws that annual meetings are to be held on February 18 of each year, the board of directors of the company has failed to call an annual meeting for the past three years, they allege, thus avoiding a shareholder vote on the election of directors.

Finding it perhaps not quite as clever as first thought, the board of Wataire International Inc., an air-to-water (read "dehumidifier") vendor announced today that it's changing the company's name.

The company says that it hopes a corporate name change will "more accurately reflect the world wide market potential for its atmospheric water generator products."

A number of names are being considered, it says. When a final choice is made, it will be announced along with a new CUSIP number and trading symbol. Hopefully not in the running are similarly cutesy names like, oh say:

Companies often make like pufferfish, announcing alliances and partnerships in a bid to garner attention and look larger. Sometimes... even to sell more!

So it was unusual to come across word of a company terminating one of its joint ventures. (Aim. Squeeze. Blammo!)

Seems things didn't quite go as planned for industrial emissions control systems vendor MPM Technologies of New Jersey and its joint venture with Sunic Corp., a Chicago based U.S. company. A company in China established by the joint venture is in the process of being dissolved.

Leading U.S. military battery vendor EaglePicher has introduced a breakthrough innovation for its military batteries that many of us have gotten used to on our personal electronics: a power meter.

Added military benefit: perhaps they blow up
like grenades when tossed into a fire?

Soldiers can now press a button to have LEDs light up showing the remaining charge in the battery. Which means they now have a better idea of when to throw them away (or at an enemy.)

Not to be outdone by California's fuel cell-powered Christmas tree, the traditional nativity scene at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, London, will this year be fuel cell-powered.

Okay, so these aren't the real lights.

According to an announcement on the website of the London Hydrogen Partnership, the lights for the display will be powered by the London Hydrogen Partnership Fuel Cell Trailer.

Ethanol and methanol aren't really moonshine, and shouldn't be blended in alcohol products, two men in South Africa found out after being charged by police.

Johan van der Heever and Dan Padowitz have pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and contravening the Liquor Products and Liquor Acts after authorities found liquor products on store shelves that contained what they called lethal amounts of methanol and quantities of ethanol.

The two men are currently on trial.

The prosecution believes methanol was used because it is subject to a lower rate of customs and excise duty than alcohol.

You've heard of BioWillie, Willie Nelson's biofuel brand.

Well, what if Martha Stewart, Al Gore, Britney, Hillary Clinton, Madonna, George Bush and others were to start brewing their own?

Wish we'd wrote this...

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/12/13/celeb_fuels/

Heard of GM's Hummer 02 concept?

GM designers used a far-future Hummer design to win a competition at the L.A. Auto Show to design an environmentally sustainable vehicle of the future.

What you're looking at will likely never be built - it's a 2D design only. Not even a small scale mockup has been made.

Greentech goes bang, bang.

American Ammunition, Inc. announced today that it has added 7.62mmx39mm rifle ammo to expand its ECO-AMMO™ line of products. ECO-AMMO™ is a lead free projectile with reduced lead pollutants sometimes referred to as “green” ammo. ECO-AMMO™ is ideal for indoor ranges since it disintegrates upon impact and therefore no ricochets.

I'm not sure "frangible" ammo that "disintegrates upon impact" leaves me feeling that warm and fuzzy.