BWM manufactures cars in upstate South Carolina. And they use energy made from methane gas released in a nearby landfill to do it.

According to The Greenville News, methane gas generated from the Spartanburg County landfill in Wellford is piped nine miles to the BMW Manufacturing plant in Greer to run turbines that generate electricity for the facility. About 63 percent of the plant’s energy use is fueled by the landfill gas project.

Landfill gas is produced when microorganisms break down organic material in a landfill. It is composed of between 50 percent to 60 percent methane gas and the remainder is carbon dioxide. Usually, these gases are burned off. However, the landfill gas plants collect the methane and use it to fuel engines or turbines generating electricity, thereby creating a new revenue stream for the landfill.

Earlier this year, BMW Manufacturing won an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency award for its use of methane.

Black Box Wines is confident it can transcend the limitations of bottling wine and change consumers’ opinions about the non-sexy wine box.

Forget the old stereotype - quality boxed wine is finally here! You can now enjoy excellent tasting wine in our 3-liter box for about half the price you would pay for a bottled wine of the same quality. As an additional bonus, our bag-in-box package protects your wine, keeping it fresh for at least 4 weeks after opening.

According to Derrick Lepin, a box of Black Box retails for about $24 at Safeway. Each box contains the equivalent of four 750 ml bottles.

“A whole fish steamed, poached, baked, grilled, fried or braised is perfection” - Hsiao-Ching Chou

Black Book Magazine writer Katherine Faw Morris agrees.

Last weekend I decided to cook a whole bluefish. After scraping weirdness out of its belly, cramming it bent in half into the oven with a few garlic cloves, and waiting for-ever, what emerged was something that tasted pretty much like, well, chicken. That’s when it occurred to me, it’s kind of a challenge to make a tasty piscine. It ain’t exactly bacon—just throw it on the skillet and yum. There’s a real art behind a simple, lightly seasoned whole fish. Luckily, Sea Salt has recently arrived on the lower Second Ave. resto scene to learn me a few things.

A new venture from Sip Sak impresario Orhan Yegen, Sea Salt is a Turkish take on the wave of spruced-up fish shacks that first hit our shores via the West Village’s Pearl Oyster Bar. There are no little sacks of oyster crackers on the tables here though. This place is more about slick banquettes and polished butcher-block tables than rickety bench seats and faux sand between the toes.

Sea Salt is located at 99 2nd Avenue in New York City.

How I love the action-packed rush of college sports, particularly during football season.

Here’s the article that caused the coach’s head to explode.

[UPDATE 9.30.07] Selena Roberts of The New York Times examines the Oklahoma State situation and finds a college program acting very much like a pro team, thanks to the influence of alum T. Boone Pickens and the $300 million he has contributed to the school, 90% of which is earmarked for athletics.

According to International Herald Tribune, the National Basketball Association is ramping up to serve basketball fans in China.

This week the league hired Timothy Chen, chief executive of Microsoft’s operations in China, to head a new NBA subsidiary there. NBA China will combine all the league’s broadcast, merchandising and other operations in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

The formation of the subsidiary, the first of its kind in China by a major American sports league, and the appointment of Chen, one of the best-known executives in China, signal the growing importance of the country to the NBA and to basketball.

China has become the NBA’s largest market outside the United States. Nearly a third of the traffic to NBA.com comes to the Mandarin Chinese side of the site. Branded NBA merchandise is now sold through more than 50,000 outlets here.

Tom Doctoroff, the chief executive of greater China operations for the JWT advertising agency, said that basketball was particularly suited to the current tastes of young Chinese for activities showcasing agility, ingenuity and individualism. “In China, the quickest and cleverest guy is also the sexiest,” Doctoroff said.

Quarterlife Trailer

According to The New York Times, Hollywood producers, writers, directors and production crews are slumming on MySpace.

Hollywood has been dipping its toe in original online content. Two seasoned producers are about to take a full plunge.

Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick — who have made films like “Blood Diamond” and “The Last Samurai” and whose ABC series “Thirtysomething” helped to define television drama in the 1980s — have made a deal with MySpace, the online social network owned by the News Corporation, to produce an original Web series called “Quarterlife.”

A day after their original MySpace posting, the episodes will be available on quarterlife.com. A week later, they will be generally available on the Web. And, if all goes as planned, they will eventually find their way onto conventional television screens.

The program debuts Nov. 11.

Pepsi has introduced a red can in China.

According to The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.), the move is meant to support China’s national sports teams as the Olympics near.

But the new can, which is all red except for a blue stripe on one side, has raised at least a few eyebrows because of its resemblance to Coca-Cola’s Olympics-themed cans.

Pepsi can on left. Coke can on right.

Cao Ling Ling, a 24-year-old Pepsi drinker, was taken aback Monday as she picked up the new can for the first time in a supermarket. “This is so weird,” Ms. Cao said, turning the can around and around in her hand. “I usually just go for the blue can; it’s easy to spot…the red can just doesn’t look right.”

Leo Tsoi, marketing director for Pepsi in China, said the company’s decision to “go red” had nothing to do with Coke. Instead, he said, it was in response to positive feedback the company got from a survey of Pepsi drinkers, who he says supported the campaign as a “bold move” and appreciated Pepsi’s support of their national team. “We are going red for Team China,” Mr. Tsoi said. “We wouldn’t be doing a program that is simulating the competitor.”

Coca-Cola company officials appeared mostly amused by Pepsi’s move when shown photos of the red can. “Red? Great idea. Why didn’t we think of that?” said Kelly Brooks, a spokesman for Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta.

[DISCLOSURE STATEMENT: Coca-Cola is a BFG client]

In 2002 Geordon Nicol, 23; Greg Krelenstein, 28; and Leigh Lezark, 23 — self-styled D.J.’s known more for their post-new-wave aesthetics than their turntable skills — started their nightlife careers with a one-off at Luke & Leroy. Since then Misshapes has worn its hipster party mantle as snugly as a pair of skinny jeans. Though the Misshapes themselves will go on, as in-demand D.J.’s (up next: London fashion week), and as a marketing juggernaut (a clothing line is in the works), the weekly party came to a neon-tinged end at Don Hill’s, the SoHo nightclub, on Sunday.

“They came to New York and they set it ablaze,” Jimmy Webb, 50, the wiry manager of the East Village punk boutique Trash and Vaudeville, said of the trio. “I was around for the Studio 54 days, and this is the only thing that ever matched it.”

Added Eri Wakiyama, 20, a design student at Parsons: “I’m sad. I’m really, really sad. When they leave I’ll have nowhere to go.” Next Saturday, she said, “I’ll probably be at home. I’ll have homework or something.”

But since a central tenet of hipsterism is an avowed disdain for all things hipster, and since half the fun of Misshapes has always been making fun of Misshapes, some people were ready for the denouement. Jeremy Lipkin, a short-shorts-wearing art director from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and two of his friends left before midnight. “We’re all adults here,” Mr. Lipkin, 23, said. “It’s time to move on.”

“The new hot party is the dinner party,” he added.

[via The New York Times]