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First U.S. organic chocolate factory in Seattle

TheoChocolateSeattle, WA boasts the first organic/fair-trade chocolate factory in the United States.

Theo Chocolate took over an old brewery in the Fremont district of the Pacific Northwest city last January. It is a small operation compared to its mega (non-organic) counterparts, which produce the confection for companies like Hershey’s and Nestle.

Theo founder, Joel Whinney not only wants to pursue the fine art of chocolate, but also wants to improve the lives of cocoa growers around the world.

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U.S. power plants to control mercury emissions

The push is on to find a technology that will reduce mercury emissions 90% by 2015 in the state of Michigan – a regulation more stringent than the national standard, which calls for a 70% reduction. They’re hoping a big part of the solution will be Toxecon, a new sysem designed to keep gaseous mercury from escaping wth the rest of the power plant pollutants. While there are still bugs to be worked out, researchers are optomistic about the technology.

Toxecon injects activated, powdery carbon into the superheated gas from coal incineration. The carbon absorbs the mercury and flows into a newly constructed building called a “bag house,” where it’s trapped inside the network of fabric bags.

As a bonus, designers hope the process also will remove up to 70 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 30 percent of the nitrogen oxide from the gas, along with the 1 percent of fly ash from coal combustion that isn’t captured earlier.

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