The question for businesses used to be “Can we afford to go green?”  Now it is ” Can we afford NOT to go green?”  The upcoming Greener by Design 2009 conference, to be held May 19-20 in San Francisco will focus on helping industries learn to cut costs, create efficiency, and move towards sustainability through a series of focused hands-on innovation sessions, small-group consultative sessions, and demonstrations of new materials and tools.

Keynote speakers are from Terracycle and McDonough partners, and corporate attendees include Microsoft, Walmart, HP, BP, 3M, Dell, Dupont, and General Motors.  

Unfortunately, the early bird discount deadline is past - and the conference now costs $1999.  The good news is that if your company registers 3 people, the 4th is free! 

Last years conference was rated very highly - and this looks like a MUST ATTEND for any business wanting to harness some of the green economic momentum that is gathering daily.  

Did you know that the Rocky Mountains contain more oil than Saudi Arabia? Most people don’t. The problem is that, unlike the easily accessed and processed oceans of liquid oil under Middle Eastern sands, the Rocky Mountains’ petroleum is found in rocks called oil shale. Oil shale, which must be mined, is a type of sedimentary rock that releases oil when heated in specific types of chemical processes. The problem, according to environmental groups, is that producing energy from oil shale is even less environmentally friendly than using normal, liquid oil or even coal.

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Late in the Bush administration, the president lifted an executive order banning offshore drilling. A few months later, facing skyrocketing gas prices, Congress allowed a congressional moratorium, dating back to 1982, to lapse. Offshore drilling has been blatantly polarizing national politics ever since.

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The good folks at ZapRoot give two nods to Red, Green, and Blue this week with their usual brand of critical eco-snark; featuring a piece by Tom Scheunemann about scrapping the eleventh-hour Bush offshore drilling plan; as well as a piece by Amanda Peterka reporting on a pollution fine doled out to ExxonMobil. Also in this episode are pieces about unlikely causes of roadkill, and one at our sister blog, Planetsave. Stay up to date with ZapRoot episodes by subscribing to their newsletter.

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In his weekly address, President Obama explained how he would pay for the economic stimulus and his recently announced budget. Obama said he was elected to enact an agenda of change and is preparing to fend off the powerful special interests intent on blocking it. He said:

“…I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:  So am I.”

Watch it:

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Full transcript of Pres. Obama’s address after the jump…

If good things come in small packages, then a $70,000 small-business grant from the U.S. EPA could rock the fast food world.  The pea sized grant will go to develop a low cost pollution control retrofit for commercial underfired charbroilers like the one at your local burger joint.  Innova Tech, the company that won the grant, is developing an energy efficient system that combines a filter, vapor condenser, and continuous grease removal system.  If the technology proves successful, it could provide a key to reducing the impact of commercial cookeries on rapid glacier melt.

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Over the last 4 years Dr. Steve Sweetman has discovered many ancient species previously unknown to humans. He has unearthed and identified eight dinosaurs, many reptiles and six very small mammals - all from the time of the dinosaurs. One of the dinosaur fossils is a type of velociraptor that he measured as 6 meters in length.

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As an alternative energy innovation junkie I used to get my climate cooling news from scouring the web, but recently made a green job transfer into California’s very innovation-driven alternative energy industry and have been on such a very steep learning curve (for me) that I got out of that reading loop a bit.

But I am learning how to estimate and design solar systems, so now I get emailed inside news as it breaks from within the solar industry, and…

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