Danny Hutson jumps down from the cab of his truck, grabs a giant yellow and black hose, and gets ready to deal with a familiar
smell: human waste and disinfectant. It’s all part of the job for Hutson, who cleans as many as 45 portable toilets a day
for Aardvark Tidy Toilets, a division of Indianapolis-based Gridlock Traffic Systems Inc.
A report from Purdue University suggests industrial customers in
Indiana could see disproportional rate increases in the years ahead as the state’s coal-intensive electric utilities are forced
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Indianapolis-based engineering and consulting giant RW Armstrong has become lead investor in an upstart ethanol firm that
would apply novel technology to make the automotive fuel without using corn as the key ingredient. It would be the first big
commercial plant in Indiana to make the alcohol fuel with so-called cellulosic material–the holy grail, of sorts, in the
ethanol
industry.
A former Silicon Valley sales executive and a Cincinnati investment manager have formed a venture fund here that’s trying
to raise $100 million to invest in the new darlings of the investment world: clean technology firms. Clean Wave Ventures founders
Scott Prince and Rick Kieser are banking on soaring energy costs attracting investors to the risky but potentially lucrative
realm of alternative energy and transportation and related fields.
Helped by a combination of plant closures and better emission controls, industrial air pollution in the nine-county region
has fallen 14 percent since the economic boom of the late 1990s, a federal database shows. But even with the reductions, the
metro area will struggle to comply with reduced ground-level ozone limits announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
March 12.
A former Indianapolis Water executive who spent the last six years helping the United Nations find food for the starving has
returned and assembled the country’s largest underground utility locator company.
in an uncommon move among Indiana manufacturers typically more preoccupied with foreign competition and deteriorating margins,
Knauf Insulation is rebuilding its research and development facility, destroyed in a fire last year, to make it 30 percent
more energy-efficient than a conventional office building of its size.
A small West Lafayette technology startup has quietly unveiled a product that might, just might, change the world. At the
TechAdvantage Conference and Expo in Anaheim, Calif., on Feb. 20, Kurt Koehler, CEO, co-founder (and, for the moment, sole
employee) of AlGalCo LLC, showed off a pre-production hydrogen-powered emergency generator.
A unit of Citizens Gas proposes building a natural-gas-fueled steam plant in Speedway to serve large employers in the town
of 12,800.
The fiercely competitive local telecommunications landscape should get even more heated, following Cincinnati Bell Inc.’s
$18 million acquisition of Carmel-based eGix Inc. eGix provides bundled voice and data services, as well as high-speed Internet
access and messaging products, to about 17,000 commercial customers.
The list of potential Hoosier ethanol plants is nothing short of astounding for a state that had just one ethanol-fuel distillery
as recently as 2005. Beyond the six ethanol plants now operating and six others under construction, Purdue University agricultural
economist Chris Hurt counts 27 others under consideration for Indiana.
In a case with huge financial implications for Indianapolis Power & Light and Virginia parent AES Corp., a labor union and
16 IPL retirees have asked regulators to force the utility to pay up to $115 million to back-fund a retirement plan it spun
off in 2001.
Citizens Gas & Coke Utility shuttered its coke manufacturing plant earlier this summer, much to the relief of neighbors and
health officials who warned that its benzene emissions were a cancer threat. But regulatory filings show closing the plant
at Keystone Avenue and Prospect Street could result in more pollution downtown.
The glacial-but-steady move to renewable-energy sources by Indiana’s coal-dominated electric utilities is picking up speed
and could spur demand for locally manufactured power-plant components.
In an effort to preserve Indiana woodlands , some property owners are transferring development rights to Central Indiana Land
Trust Inc., a not-for-profit environmental group. Owners can grant a so-called conservation easement in exchange for an impressive
array of tax benefits.
With the gospel of global warming raising the call for “green-ness” to a near-hysterical pitch, there’s a growing sense that
creating an earth-friendly image will bring companies a strategic advantage. Yet the contradictions between what companies
do day in and day out and what they do to improve the environment can create a marketing minefield.
Records show 17 percent of the 51 billion gallons Indianapolis Water treats and pumps from its plants never so much as moves
a digit on customers’ water meters.
A cold snap wiped out at least half of Indiana’s honeybee hives over the winter. For some beekeepers, the loss was as high
as 80 percent. Fortunately, most don’t look to bees for their livelihood.
The state’s 30-or-so independent payphone operators–a conveyance nearly made extinct by wireless phones–may begin receiving
refunds next month from AT&T Indiana and Verizon for excess charges the phone companies billed independent payphone operators
for dial tones from 1997 to 2004.
Citizens Gas & Coke Utility has revived its pitch for a regulatory plan that would fundamentally change the way it bills customers,
helping it cover rising expenses as gas sales fall. The plan would create an expanded energy conservation program that could
include rebates for customers who buy gas-efficient furnaces and appliances.
