SouthCoastAirQualityManagementDistrict
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EPA hands out $4.5 million to build better air pollution sensors
The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't just want to clamp down on pollution... it wants to develop the technology that helps spot that pollution. It's handing out a total of $4.5 million in grants to six research teams (including Carnegie Mellon, MIT and the University of Washington) to help develop lower-cost, easier-to-use air pollution sensors. EPA officials hope that this will help neighborhoods track their own air quality and improve health on a local level. You'd have a better idea of whether or not industry really is contributing to the smog in your neighborhood, for instance. Although it'll likely take a long while before you see results come out these grants, they could easily pay off if they lead to cleaner air in your neck of the woods.
Shell opens America's first pipelined hydrogen-fueling station in Southern California
Residents of SoCal's Torrance should consider themselves lucky, as they're now living in America's first-ever city to have a pipelined hydrogen-fueling station. You can thank Shell and Toyota for picking up this government-funded green project. Sure, while the few other hydrogen stations still rely on delivery by supply truck (presumably running on diesel, ironically), this nevertheless marks a new milestone for our squeaky clean fuel, and it's only a matter of time before more stations get piped up to Air Products' hydrogen plants. If there's any indication of a time frame, Wired reminds us that 2015 should see the arrival of many new mass-market hydrogen cars from Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz. Not long to go now, fellow tree huggers.
