The European Commission (EC) has outlined a host of proposals to update its energy strategy, boosting energy efficiency and security in the region, while reducing emissions.
The new measures are needed to reduce Europe’s reliance on energy imports, which currently make up over half of the region’s usage, help address rising prices and ensure that the region meets its 20-20-20 targets, said Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Europe’s 20-20-20 targets aim to achieve 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency, 20 percent renewable energy and 20 percent greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2020.
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Work-related Injuries and Illnesses on the Decline
from Reliable Plant
Both the rate and the number of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses requiring days away from work decreased from 2006 to 2007, according to the U.S. Department Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 2007 rate was 122 per 10,000 full-time workers, a decrease of 4 percent from 2006. There were 1.2 million cases requiring days away from work in private industry out of 4 million total recordable cases as reported by the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses. The number of days-away-from-work cases in 2007 decreased by 24,630 cases, or 2 percent, as compared to 2006 levels. Median days away from work – a key measure of the severity of the injury or illness – was seven days in 2007, the same as the prior three years. More
South Africa Set to Re-embrace the High Rise
from Engineering News
Balancing the desire for icons with good sense will be key as South Africa warms to the high-rise once more. The evolution of cities and their skylines is never fixed or static. Take Johannesburg. Over the past few decades, the fundamental look and feel of the city’s skyline has changed markedly. It has reached a point where, from certain vantage points, three central business districts (CBDs) are now observable: downtown Joburg proper, Rosebank and, increasingly, the Sandton skyline is starting to dominate. More
Better Wind Turbines
from Technology Review
ExRo Technologies, a startup based in Vancouver, BC, has developed a new kind of generator that's well suited to harvesting energy from wind. It could lower the cost of wind turbines while increasing their power output by 50 percent. The new generator runs efficiently over a wider range of conditions than conventional generators do. When the shaft running through an ordinary generator is turning at the optimal rate, more than 90 percent of its energy can be converted into electricity.
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Product Showcase: LogiSon Acoustic Network
 More than 70 percent of employees say they would be more productive if their workplace was quieter. The LogiSon Acoustic Network increases speech privacy and reduces disruptions by introducing a masking sound that makes conversations and noises more difficult, or impossible, to hear. It’s a cost-effective method of improving overall acoustic comfort. More info
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The Win-Win Way to Play Office Politics
from The New York Times
You’ve been told that to succeed at work, you have to play office politics. You don’t care to play games; you just want to get your work done. What should you do?
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How Bright is a Green Building?
from Market Watch
Motivated by the urgency to protect the global environment, and by the benefits and the desire to attain "Green and Sustainable" certification, commercial building owners, operators and manufacturers eagerly adopt "Green Technologies." Companies put forth great effort to obtain "Green and Sustainable" certification and assess the impact, benefits and sustainability of intelligent technologies and processes. The presentation will illustrate how green building is profitable and bright.
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Burj Tower: The World's Tallest Cloud Buster
from Times Online
When you stand under the Burj Tower, it doesn't look that tall at all. Bizarre. Alone on the flat desert landscape of Dubai, apart from the generic glitzy towers of the Sheikh Zayed Road, it seems slightly abstract, with nothing for your eye to compare it with. It could be 250 meters. It could be 305 meters. Or 750 meters. Who knows? Skyscraper internet chat rooms are ablaze with speculation about its final height. For the most famous fact about the Burj - apart from that it's the first piece of architecture to be both the tallest building and man-made structure in the world - is that its final height is a closely guarded secret until it opens next June, for fear of some rival stealing its thunder with an extra bucket of quick-drying concrete. More
LEED for Existing Buildings Helps Owners Compete in Tough Market
from Daily Commercial News
While the LEED for Existing Buildings (EB) program isn’t up and running yet in Canada, green-conscious building owners here can pursue a certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) version of LEED EB.
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How to Interview Over the Internet
from Forbes
Up until last year, mining company Rio Tinto used to spend $20,000 per candidate to fly them and their spouses to the diamond mine in Yellowknife, Canada, just a few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle for in-person job interviews with mine managers. That added up to real money when Rio Tinto was trying to fill 100 jobs a year and needed to fly up three or four candidates for each position. Inevitably, Rio Tinto found that many candidates--and/or their spouses--didn't have the personalities or the enthusiasm for living on the edge of nowhere. "We wasted time and money," says Steven Price, director for recruitment and talent for Rio Tinto Americas. Enter the webcam. Last year Rio Tinto and dozens of other companies ranging from software giant Cisco to Nike to Educators Overseas, an organization that hires people to teach English as a second language around the world, used the Internet to handle the first and second rounds of interviews. More
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How Green is Your Computer?
from Fox News
We're so dependent on our computers these days that most of us would be lost without them. They make communication, work and entertainment much easier — yet their negative effects on the environment are often overlooked. More
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AgilQuest Corporation
 Most office systems end with hoteling, but that’s just where we get started. We’ll help you make your entire workplace as agile as your workforce. More |
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The European Commission (EC) has outlined a host of proposals to update its energy strategy, boosting energy efficiency and security in the region, while reducing emissions.
The new measures are needed to reduce Europe’s reliance on energy imports, which currently make up over half of the region’s usage, help address rising prices and ensure that the region meets its 20-20-20 targets, said Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Europe’s 20-20-20 targets aim to achieve 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency, 20 percent renewable energy and 20 percent greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2020.
More
