Word: nitrogen
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Their company, Aresa, a Copenhagen-based biotech start-up, has genetically modified a common weed called thale-cress so that its leaves turn red when the plant comes in contact with nitrogen dioxide - a compound that naturally leaches into the soil from unexploded land mines made from plastic and held together by leaky rubber seals. Aresa is growing large patches of the stuff on old army shooting ranges that have been seeded with land mines...
Aresa uses a seeding hose known as a "hydroseeder" - groundskeepers use such a hose to grow green grass on golf courses - to cover about a football field of territory in a day. After four to five weeks the thale-cress will have sprouted and turned red if it encounters nitrogen dioxide. Normally, plants neutralize nitrogen dioxide, which they recognize as harmful. But Aresa scientists, led by founder Meier, have genetically engineered thale-cress, fusing its nitrogen dioxide neutralizer with an enzyme that creates red pigment (plants naturally produce red pigment, which isn't visible until the green disappears in autumn...
Aresa has had mixed results. The thale-cress does indeed turn red when it meets nitrogen dioxide. But Aresa can't get the weed to grow large enough to be easily visible. Aresa has experimented with only one of the more than 1,600 varieties of thale-cress. Following the summer letdown, the company ordered 174 different strains, and is awaiting seeds from Libya, Norway, the Caucasus, Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere...
...Honda's clean diesel car engine. Diesel is the choice of fuel-guzzling 18-wheelers, but it burns as much as 30% more efficiently than gasoline. It's also dirtier. But last month Honda unveiled an engine that uses a new catalytic converter to block pollutants like soot and nitrogen oxide, a greenhouse gas. Honda says the engine, which it expects to market in the U.S. by 2009, will meet California's new emission regulations, the toughest in the world. That could translate to a competitive advantage, since big states like California can shape the global market...
...wonders how anybody could oppose a plan to build 11 new plants--and retrofit old ones--while lowering overall emissions 20% (that's right, 20% below their current level). TXU would also beat by five years emissions-cap guidelines for the second phase of a federal program to reduce nitrogen oxide by 2010. "I'm worried I'm not being an effective communicator here," he says in frustration during an interview at the company's Dallas headquarters. Although it's the state's biggest buyer of renewable capacity, TXU is now heavily reliant on natural gas, which is subject...