Sustainable living developments

Top ten long term trends in clean technology in US

2011-07-03T08:31:00.000+05:30

(1) The United States Military Becoming Greener. In 2007, the Department of Defense was given orders by the Congress to have a minimum of 25 percent of energy sources come from renewable sources by 2025. Since then, the government has been taking deep strides toward becoming less dependent on fossil fuels. The 2010 Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan looks at immediate ways to improve greenhouse gas emissions, waste management, and energy efficiency.

(2) More Employment Opportunities Available. With the increase in the number of renewable energy companies, plants, and organizations, there has been an increase in the employment opportunities throughout the United States.

(3) Increase in International Cleantech Partnerships. The United States has created a number of partnerships with other countries for cooperation in the advancement of clean technologies. One of the biggest partnerships is with China.

(4) More Homes becoming Energy Efficient. With the advent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star rating for products, it is becoming a lot easier, and more affordable to purchase appliances for the home that use up less energy. These appliances need to meet very stringent standards when it comes to energy performance. As more homes use these appliances, they are saving money on their monthly electric bills, reducing the total amount of greenhouse gasses emitting from their home, they are a great return on investment, and there are many tax credit and rebate programs associated with these appliances. Not only that, but these appliances require less maintenance

(5) Increase in Sale of Hybrid Vehicles. Just about everywhere people on the road now look; they will see a hybrid vehicle.

(6) More Buildings Becoming LEED Certified. The United States Green Building Council makes all the standards for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification of a building. It is considered to be the foremost program in the nation for design, construction, operation, and overall maintenance of green buildings.

(7) Recycling Initiatives Get a Boost. Instead of just a national recycling initiative, numerous states are creating their own initiatives to get the residents of the state to recycle more. For example, Midwestern states Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin, in 2005 joined together to create a unified approach for the recycling and management of waste electronics.

(8) Exporting Clean Technologies around the World. The current Obama presidency had made two promises – to continue in investing in the clean technology sector and to invigorate the export sector.

(9) More Airline Companies becoming Greener. To keep up the trend of transportation becoming greener, a number of United States airline companies are stepping up the initiative to become more environmentally friendly and fuel efficient. A number of airlines, including JetBlue, Continental Airlines, and United Airlines all have carbon offset programs.

(10) Hotels Become Greener. Along with the transportation industry, the tourism industry is also looking to become greener. A number of them have implemented initiatives that include not laundering linens and towels everyday to save water and energy, promoting recycling, using Energy Star appliances, and even special parking features for tourists visiting in hybrid vehicles.

Ref: Top Ten Long Term Trends of Cleantech in the United States

Published on July 1st, 2011 by CleanTechies Guest Author

*

Five for sustainability

2010-11-15T09:35:00.000+05:30

The International Council for Science has narrowed down the following five top challenges the world needs to meet in order to sustain our planet.

(1) Forecasting: We need to have pertinent & accurate forecasts of future environmental conditions and their consequences for people.

(2) Observing: We need to develop better observation systems to record global and regional environmental change.

(3) Confining: Anticipating and recognizing disruptive environmental change to quickly manage it.

(4) Responding: Determine those institutional, economic and behavioral responses that will make global sustainability possible.

(5) Innovating: Encourage innovation in technology and policy to achieve sustainability.

Competition between biofuel and food production: Brazilian experience

2010-11-09T16:24:00.000+05:30

The Brazilian production of major food commodities increased fivefold between 1961 and 2008. In the same time, the area cropped with sugar cane increased with high growth rates, currently covering 3% of the area dedicated to agricultural production in Brazil. In order to assess a possible competition between biofuel and food production, the development of agricultural productivity and area expansion in the past was analysed.

Three scenarios were investigated, simulating possibilities of future changes in Brazilian agriculture. The results demonstrated that primary food production could be enhanced by 1.5 times while bioethanol production was enhanced simultaneously by 1.8 times over the years 2007/2008 and 2020. The generated bioethanol volumes would meet 38% of the total energy demand in Brazilian transport sector, applied to the year 2007.

The second scenario evaluated an agricultural development with a higher focus on biofuels. It was projected that the production of bioethanol could be increased by 3.0 times to 76.7 million m³ of bioethanol, while increasing at the same time primary food production with the factor 1.4 aligned to the projected population growth. This bioethanol volume represents 67% of the total energy demand in Brazilian transport sector in the year 2007.

A third scenario demonstrated that food production could be increased even with no area expansion higher than the projected population growth, due to a continued increase of productivity. At the same time bioethanol production would rise to 32 million m³ without occupying more area.

Ref: Martin Gauder et. al., "The impact of a growing bioethanol industry on food production in Brazil", Applied Energy, Volume 88, Issue 3, March 2011, Pages 672-679

Carbon dioxide to building materials

2010-09-22T16:44:00.000+05:30

MIT biological engineers, have found a way to convert carbon-dioxide emissions to useful building materials, using genetically altered yeast.

Every year, about 30 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are pumped into the Earth’s atmosphere from power plants, cars and other industrial sources (such as cement plants) that rely on fossil fuels. Scientists who want to mitigate carbon dioxide’s effects on global climate have started experimenting with storing the gas underground, a process known as carbon sequestration. However, there are still many unknowns surrounding the safety and effectiveness of that strategy.

Genetically engineering ordinary baker’s yeast, Angela Belcher, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy and two of her graduate students, Roberto Barbero and Elizabeth Wood, have created a process that can convert carbon dioxide into carbonates that could be used as building materials. Their process, which has been tested in the lab, can produce about two pounds of carbonate for every pound of carbon dioxide captured. Next, they hope to scale up the process so it could be used in a power plant or industrial factory.

The team plans to try scaling up the process to handle the huge volumes of carbon dioxide produced at fossil-fuel-burning power plants. If the process is successfully industrialized, a potential source for the mineral ions needed for the reaction could be the briny water produced as a byproduct of desalination.

Biomass for high-value chemicals

2010-09-20T04:35:00.000+05:30

ScienceDaily (2010-09-02) -- Chemist Walter Trahanovsky was trying to produce sugar derivatives from biomass using high-temperature chemistry. He was surprised when his research also produced significant yields of high-value chemicals.

The biomass conversion process is based on the chemistry of supercritical fluids, fluids that are heated under pressure until their liquid and gas phases merge. In this case, Trahanovsky said the key results are significant yields of ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and other chemicals with low molecular weights. He said the process also produces alkyl glucosides and levoglucosan that can be converted into glucose for ethanol production or other uses.

Uses for ethylene glycol include auto antifreeze, polyester fabrics and plastic bottles. Propylene glycol has many uses, including as a food additive, a solvent in pharmaceuticals, a moisturizer in cosmetics and as a coolant in liquid cooling systems.

The starting materials are cheap and the products are reasonably high-value chemicals.

Nanotechnology for water purification

2010-09-01T19:32:00.000+05:30

ScienceDaily (2010-09-01) -- Researchers have developed a water-purifying filter that makes the process more than 80,000 times faster than existing filters. The key is coating the filter fabric -- ordinary cotton -- with nanotubes and silver nanowires, then electrifying it. The filter uses very little power, has no moving parts and could be used throughout the developing world.

Instead of physically trapping bacteria as most existing filters do, the new filter lets them flow on through with the water. But by the time the pathogens have passed through, they have also passed on, because the device kills them with an electrical field that runs through the highly conductive "nano-coated" cotton.

Cholera, typhoid and hepatitis are among the waterborne diseases that are a continuing problem in the developing world.

Read more

US congress limits formaldehyde emissions from wood products

2010-06-27T20:02:00.002+05:30

The US Congress has approved legislation to limit allowable emissions of formaldehyde from composite wood products, specifically hardwood plywood, particleboard and medium-density fiberboard sold in the United States. The new limits in are based on the levels established for the State of California in 2007 by the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

This is good news for reducing the serious toll that this known carcinogen takes on human health through widespread exposures in homes, offices and schools from building materials. The legislation should serve as a strong wake up call to the industry and help increase availability of low-formaldehyde and formaldehyde-free materials for the green designer. It is, however, only one piece of the puzzle in getting formaldehyde out of our buildings.

Exemptions abound, including hardboard, structural plywood, structural composite lumber, OSB, glue-lams and wood I-joists, finger-jointed lumber, wood packaging, plus some exceptions for windows, exterior and garage doors, vehicles, boats and aircraft.

Other important areas of formaldehyde use in building products, such as insulation and textiles, are not addressed by the legislation.

Finally, the new federal legislation reduces formaldehyde emissions but does not eliminate them. The California Air Resources Board says bluntly that there is no known safe level for this carcinogen and avoidance is the best approach. There is a labeling option in the federal legislation for indicating “no-added formaldehyde-base binder,” but formaldehyde-based binders will still be widespread in products after this legislation goes into effect.

Beware, these five toxic chemicals are found everywhere

2010-06-14T13:01:00.000+05:30

Five everyday chemicals linked to ailments including cancer, sexual problems, behavioral issues: Bisphenol A or BPA; phthalates; Perfluorooctanoic Acid or PFOA; formaldehyde; polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PDBE. Tests reveal most of us now carry them in our bodies

BPA - Bisphenol A

It is found in water bottles, baby bottles, reusable food containers, plastic tableware, infant feeding cups, linings of infant formula cans and other cans, jar lids, CDs, electrical and electronic equipment, dental sealants.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, says exposure is so low there are no ill health effects. A new five-year Kaiser Permanente study of Chinese factory workers found higher BPA exposure linked to reduced male sexual function. This research joins a growing body of research on animals that suggests BPA poses a potential cancer risk and may mimic the female hormone estrogen and disrupt the extremely sensitive chemical signals in the body called the endocrine system. According to the Food and Drug Administration, BPA could affect the brain, behavior and prostate gland in fetuses, infants and young children.

To reduce exposure, buy stainless steel bottles and glass food storage containers. If you buy plastic, check for the recycle number on the bottom. If there is a number 7, assume the container contains BPA unless it explicitly says otherwise. Switch to fresh or frozen vegetables instead of canned. Other precautions include not microwaving or putting hot liquids in BPA plastic containers and throwing away baby bottles and feeding cups that are scratched.

Phthalates

They are found in shampoos, conditioners, body sprays, hair sprays, perfumes, colognes, soap, nail polish, shower curtains, medical tubing, IV bags, vinyl flooring and wall coverings, food packaging and coatings on time-release pharmaceuticals.

A new study by the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research found a statistical association between prenatal exposure to phthalates and incidence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder years later. Phthalates are considered endocrine disrupters, and studies have shown a statistical association between phthalate exposure and male sexual development. Research has also shown phthalates disrupt reproductive development of male laboratory animals.

Avoid shampoos, conditioners and other personal care products that list "fragrance" as an ingredient. These may contain phthalates. (Companies are not required to disclose the ingredients in their scents, and the industry says this phthalate is safe.) The federal government recently ended one source of exposure, banning the sale of toys containing any of six phthalates.

Perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOA

PFOA is present in Teflon and other nonstick or stain- and water-repellent coatings as a trace impurity. These coatings are used on cookware, waterproof breathable clothing, furniture and carpets and in a myriad of industrial applications. PFOA can also be produced by the breakdown of these products.

Almost everyone has PFOA in his or her blood. PFOA causes cancer and developmental problems in laboratory animals. The EPA concludes PFOA is suggestive of carcinogenicity but not sufficient to assess human carcinogenic potential.

You can reduce potential exposure by using stainless steel or cast iron cookware. If you use nonstick cookware, do not overheat, which releases toxic gas.

Formaldehyde

It is found in pressed wood products such as particle board, plywood, paneling and fiberboard; also, glues and adhesives and durable press fabrics like drapes.

Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen, causing cancers of the respiratory or gastrointestinal tract. Formaldehyde fumes can also cause nausea, skin irritation, watery eyes, or burning eyes, nose and throat.

Buy furniture free from formaldehyde eliminates much of the exposure we face from the chemical. One option to reduce "off-gassing": purchase "exterior grade" pressed-wood products, which emit formaldehyde at significantly lower rates. If you have wood products containing formaldehyde, increase ventilation, reduce humidity with air conditioning or dehumidifiers and keep your home cool.

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, PBDE

PBDEs are found in televisions, computers and wire insulation, and furniture foam. Over time, televisions and other products shed PBDEs, which accumulate in dust. More than 124 million pounds of PBDEs are produced annually worldwide and they do not break down easily.

PBDEs accumulate in the body. Toxicology tests show PDBEs may damage the liver and kidneys and affect the brain and behavior, according to the EPA.

Try to find products without PBDE flame retardants and be sure to sweep up dust.

Converting CO2 into BPA-free plastics

2010-06-04T21:30:00.002+05:30

Researchers say they have identified several classes of organic chemicals that can capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then be used to make more environmentally benign plastics. Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore used chemicals called imidazoliums and N-heterocyclic carbenes to couple CO2 with “epoxide” molecules to create polycarbonate plastics that can be used in a variety of applications, from drinking bottles to compact discs. Significantly, in addition to finding a use for carbon dioxide, these polycarbonates do not contain bisphenol A (BPA), a potentially harmful chemical found in most commercial polycarbonate plastics in use today. The imidazolium salts are stable enough that they can repeatedly “grab” CO2 molecules and incorporate them into larger molecules in the plastic-making process, according to a study published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. The process also eliminates the need for petroleum in the manufacture of plastics.

Ref: Zhang, Y and J Young Gerentt Chan. 2010. Sustainable chemistry: imidazolium salts in biomass conversion and CO2 fixation. Energy and Environmental Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/b914206a.

Eat vegetables

2010-01-19T07:37:00.003+05:30

On consuming more fresh vegetables and fewer or no processed foods, our body consequently responds better with cleaner and unclogged arteries, balanced blood sugar and a lower toxic overload in our bodies.

Taking advantage of the seasonal availability of vegetables and the flexibility in purchasing power of the same, sneak in vegetables in every meal. One reason we do not get enough vegetables is because many of us consider them merely a side dish to lunch and dinner. Sneak in leaves as purees in chapatti/parantha dough, fill in veggies in spaghetti or pasta sauce, drop finely chopped veggies into whisked eggs for your egg breakfast. Carrot and celery sticks, cucumber and raddish slices, string beans, peas, tomatoes, colourful bell pepper strips are healthy and contain virtually no calories. Served on a platter, they furnish antioxidants and micro-nutrients at the same time provide their unique taste and a satisfying crunch. Eaten before or along with the main course, they help substantially cut the consumption of calorie dense main course dishes.

German climate scientist sounds alarm

2009-11-03T12:40:00.009+05:30

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and chair of the German government’s Advisory Council on Global Change says:

“The window of opportunity to avert the most serious impacts of climate change is closing rapidly,”

The climate system has clearly started to drift away from the familiar domain where historic experiences apply. Outside that domain, the risk of highly nonlinear changes in environmental conditions, jeopardizing the livelihoods of billions of people worldwide, is sharply increasing. The Current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide of around 387 parts per million (ppm) is already exceeding the ‘safe’ boundary of 350 ppm recently proposed by researchers in the journal Nature. The concentration is much higher than the preindustrial concentration of around 280 ppm and probably higher than ever within the last millions of years.

The global warming of more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels is regarded as a “dangerous interference” that should be avoided. The temperature increase of more than two degrees Celsius is likely to push components of the Earth’s climate system past critical thresholds, so that these components may “tip” into qualitatively different modes of operation. The climate scientists regard Arctic sea‐ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet as the most sensitive tipping elements, but others, like the Amazon rain forest, monsoon systems and the El Niño phenomenon are candidates for surprising society by exhibiting a nearby tipping point.

To limit the risk of disrupting elemental processes in the Earth system and to stop global warming at 2° C, humans could release no more than 750 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide by burning oil, coal, gas and cutting down forests in between 2010 to 2050. Since large amounts of greenhouse gases have already been emitted by industrialized countries, only a small budget of carbon dioxide is left, pointing to the need for large reductions within the near future. The German government’s Advisory Council on Global Change has proposed to move this global budget to the forefront of considerations in creating a new global climate treaty, which is due to be negotiated at COP 15 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen in December.

Nanomedicine

2009-10-23T07:34:00.004+05:30

Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnoloy to medicine. It includes medical imaging, lab-on-a-chip, quantum dots and other novel diagnostic tools, biosensors, regenerative medicine, advanced and “smart” medical materials, drug targeting and delivery systems, nano-bio-electronic interfaces and novel devices. The study of nanomedicine also includes the associated risk, ethical and regulatory issues.

Greatly increased knowledge of how the human body and disease pathologies work at the molecular level is combining with the ability to manipulate materials at the nanoscale to provide much earlier and more accurate diagnoses, far less invasive procedures, targeting of smaller doses of more effective drugs to desired delivery sites and new paradigms of treatment where damaged tissues or even organs can be regenerated using the patient’s own cells.

Nanomedicine has a great future and a long way to go

PEV: plug-in electric vehicles

2009-10-07T07:38:00.004+05:30

Plug-in electric vehicles reduce overall carbon emissions by up to 70 percent (100 percent if charged by zero-carbon, renewable energy sources) and lower fuel costs by about 80 percent.

The vehicles running on renewables (like solar and wind) and electric vehicles don’t give a smooth ride. They come with hitches. One of the common problems they all share is the range. Solar power is only produced during daytime. Wind provides power when the wind is blowing. The plug-ins that come with vehicles have their range as well. It’s as far as the vehicle can travel between lengthy recharging.

If we pay close attention we can get rid of the common “range” problem of electric vehicles and intermittent renewables. This problem can be tackled by the two working together. Plug-in vehicles contain a battery pack for energy storage. There is no storage of energy for renewables. It is possible use electric cars and trucks to store energy from renewables. Another logical step can be to install enough renewably powered, high-voltage, fast-charge charging stations. It will ease off the tensions from vehicle owners and make charging more frequent so that long charging periods would not be necessary.

How green are the zero emission vehicles ?: Read and participate in a discussion on the subject

Carbon budget

2009-10-06T07:30:00.004+05:30

The carbon budget can be defined as the amount of tolerable global emissions over a period of time to limit the average global temperature increase to 2 deg C. The budget is from 1990 to 2050. Till 2008, we used up approximately 40 percent of the budget of 1990-2050. If we keep on doing what we're doing now, including the increase of emissions, we have wasted, not only time but we shall spend our budget by about 2025.

The report by Dutch energy consultancy Ecofys, commissioned by WWF, says:

* Rich nations must cut emissions by 80 pct by 2050

* Rich countries must help poorer ones to curb emissions

* Countries must adopt flexible carbon accounting system

Earth too has limits

2009-10-05T07:20:00.008+05:30

Out of the nine biophysical thresholds that must be observed in order to prevent disastrous consequences for humanity, we've already surpassed three, according to a feature article published in Nature (see Ref.). The report looked at nine different metrics including climate change, ocean acidification, and global freshwater use and estimated for each the degree to which we have approached or surpassed the critical threshold. Loss of biodiversity and alterations to the nitrogen cycle have progressed far past the point of safety, with climate change also exceeding its limit.

During the Holocene state, environmental change occurred naturally and Earth's regulatory capacity maintained the conditions that enabled human development. Regular temperatures, freshwater availability and bio-geo-chemical flows all stayed within a relatively narrow range. Now, largely because of a rapidly growing reliance on fossil fuels and industrialized forms of agriculture, human activities have reached a level that could damage the systems that keep earth in the desirable Holocene state. The result could be irreversible and, in some cases, abrupt environmental change, leading to a state less conducive to human development. Without pressure from humans, the Holocene is expected to continue for at least several thousands of years.

The authors tried to identify the Earth-system processes and associated thresholds which, if crossed, could generate unacceptable environmental change. They found nine such processes for which we believe it is necessary to define planetary boundaries, namely climate change; rate of biodiversity loss (terrestrial and marine); interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles; stratospheric ozone depletion; ocean acidification; global freshwater use; change in land use; chemical pollution; and atmospheric aerosol loading.

Ref: Johan Rockström et. al., "A safe operating space for humanity", Nature, Vol. 461, September 2009, pp 472 -475 | doi:10.1038/461472a

Five steps to sustainability

2009-10-04T07:44:00.003+05:30

The five steps to sustainability, as outlined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD):

Establish clear and transparent price signals that reflect the external environmental cost of greenhouse gas emissions
Incorporate life-cycle energy costs into all government and private-sector strategic plans
Remove regulatory barriers and provide incentives for innovation
Protect intellectual property rights, which are critical to private-sector investment and innovation
Educate and train citizens to develop and deploy cutting-edge sustainable energy solutions.

Brazil launches first fuel cell bus, with hydrogen station

2009-10-02T13:06:00.003+05:30

The Brazilian hydrogen-fueled bus project reached a major milestone recently in São Paulo, with the unveiling of the country's first fuel cell bus, as well as its first service station capable of supplying hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

The Brazilian hydrogen bus initiative is being deployed by a consortium formed by Petrobras Distribuidora, AES Eletropaulo, Ballard Power Systems, EPRI International, Hydrogenics, Marcopolo, NuCellSys, and Tuttotrasporti. The project was created in partnership with the Brazilian ministry of mines & energy, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the FINEP investment program of Brazil's science & technology ministry.

The project involves the acquisition, operation and maintenance of up to five fuel cell/battery hybrid buses; the fueling station, which will produce hydrogen by electrolysis; and the monitoring and performance verification of these vehicles.

The bus uses a hybrid power system that combines hydrogen fuel cells and batteries. This strategy can increase fuel economy, because the batteries are recharged by the fuel cell system while the vehicle is stopped, and through regeneration of braking energy. The power required is obtained by using two fuel cell systems in parallel, each rated at 64 kW, and which significantly reduces the bus production costs.

The station can generate up to 120 kg of hydrogen per day at a pressure of 440 bar (6400 psi), enough to supply up to three buses for a range of 300 km (190 miles). In the first stage, it will store enough hydrogen to fuel one bus, but when more vehicles go into operation, this capacity will be boosted.

Ref: Fuel Cells Bulletin, Vol. 2009, Iss. 9, Sept 2009, p2

Canadian roadmap for electric vehicles

2009-10-01T07:39:00.006+05:30

A roadmap containing a series of recommendations and strategic initiatives to help in the evolution of electric vehicles (EV) in Canada was formally presented to Natural Resources Canada Minister Lisa Raitt, on 28 September 2009. It calls for the combined efforts of governments and industry to achieve the timely and effective commercialization of electric vehicles. The report adds that consideration should be given to the supplementing of federal and provincial mechanisms to promote the development, public acceptance and procurement of personal and commercial EVs, and also the installation of charging infrastructure.

As per the estimates there will be at least 500,000 personal and commercial vehicles that rely exclusively or primarily on electric traction on Canadian roads by 2018.

The roadmap outlines 21 strategic initiatives, which touch on the areas of technology, standards and regulations, studies and assessments, education and outreach. One of the proposed technology initiatives calls on governments and the private sector to demonstrate vehicle use in real-world operation to assess the reliability and durability of energy storage and other components in Canadian settings. Educationally, the report proposes assessing the resource requirements for training, education and certification in skills related to the emerging EV industry.

As with all new technologies, the cost at the beginning is higher and because of the environmental and economic benefits of these vehicles, it makes sense for governments to offer financial incentives in the early stages. Once the sale volumes reach larger numbers, the unit costs will go down. There are no such incentives at the federal government level in Canada at this time as compared to other developed industrialized nations.

It is equally important to provide support to the battery industry to further research, develop more rapid manufacturing techniques and to generally advance the state of the art of batteries. The new battery technology - lithium ion, for example - is evolving and has not yet been demonstrated over long periods of time.

Climate negotiating position of the world's top emitters

2009-09-29T07:33:00.007+05:30

The following are the negotiating positions of the world's top five greenhouse gas emitters with regard to the new U.N. pact for combating climate change to be agreed in Copenhagen in December 2009:

CHINA (GHG Emissions: 6.8 billion t/a, 5.5 t per capita)

The "carbon intensity" goal is the first measurable curb on national emissions for China. China would try to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020. China wants developed nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to give far more aid and green technologies to developing nations.

UNITED STATES (6.4 billion t/a, 21.2 t per capita)

US President Barack Obama wants to cut U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. For 2020, that means a 14 percent cut from 2007 levels.

The bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2009 would require large companies, inluding utilities, oil refiners and others, to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 perrcent by 2050, from 2005 levels. The US feels we cannot meet the challenge unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together.

EUROPEAN UNION (5.03 billion tonnes, 10.2 tonnes per capita)

The EU leaders agreed in December 2008 to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 30 percent if other developed nations follow suit.

They agreed that developing nations will need about 100 billion euros ($146.8 billion) a year by 2020 to help them curb emissions and adapt to changes such as floods or heatwaves. As an advance payment, they suggest 5-7 billion a year between 2010 and 2012.

The EU wants developing nations to curb the rise of their emissions by 15 to 30 percent below a trajectory of "business as usual" by 2020.

RUSSIA (1.7 billion t/a, 11.9 t per capita)

Russia's emissions would be around 10 to 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. That means a rise from now -- emissions were 34 percent below 1990 levels in 2007.

Russia would reject any new climate pact that imposed restrictions on Russia but did not bind other big polluters such as the United States or China.

INDIA (1.4 billion t/a, 1.2 t per capita)

India is prepared to quantify the amount of greenhouse gas emissions it could cut with domestic actions to fight climate change, but will not accept internationally binding targets. India has said its per capita emissions will never rise to match those of developed nations.

Like China, India wants developed nations to cut emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020, saying they are most responsible for emissions since the Industrial Revolution.

JAPAN (1.4 billion t/a, 11.0 t per capita)

The New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wants to cut Japan's emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Japan is prepared to offer more financial and technical assistance than in the past, in accordance with the progress of the international negotiations.

Carbon nanotubes: How safe ?

2009-09-25T07:35:00.005+05:30

Carbon nanotubes are increasingly being used in everyday products such as sporting equipment, biomedical devices and aeroplanes. They also have promising applications in fuel cells. The questions remain as to how safe these nanotubes really are.

The main factor in nanotube toxicity are the metal contaminants that remain from manufacture, which are typically one to ten per cent by weight, say Martin Pumera and Yuji Miyahara at the National Institute for Materials Science, Ibaraki, Japan. The carbon nanotubes are often viewed as homogenous materials, which is incorrect. They often contain impurities which are not even listed by the manufacturers. The pair have used an electrochemical (biomarker) method to assess the effect metals have on nanotube toxicity. They say that their method is quicker and cheaper than laborious and expensive biomedical tests and could be more useful for initial assessments of carbon nanotube toxicity.

They found that just 100 ppm of iron was needed to dominate the reduction ability and therefore the toxicity. Pumera says this is very disturbing, as this value is significantly lower than the detection limits of the methods routinely used to assess nanotube purity. There is an imperative need for well-characterised and reproducible standardised carbon nanotube properties.

Ref:
What amount of metallic impurities in carbon nanotubes is small enough not to dominate their redox properties?
Martin Pumera and Yuji Miyahara, Nanoscale, 2009
DOI: 10.1039/b9nr00071b

Hundred most promosing global clean trechnology companies

2009-09-17T14:01:00.004+05:30

The Guardian and Cleantech Group recently announced the Global Cleantech 100. This is the first ever list of this scale highlighting the most promising private clean technology companies around the world. The Global Cleantech 100 recognizes companies at the forefront of cleantech innovation offering solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. The final list represents the collective opinion of hundreds of leading experts from cleantech innovation and venture capital companies in EMEA, North America, India and China, combined with the specific input of an expert panel of 35, drawn from well-respected organizations such as Altira Group, Crossover Advisors, Deloitte, Emerald Technology Ventures, Google, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, New York Stock Exchange, NGEN Partners, Nth Power, New Enterprise Associates, Sterling Communications, Tsing Capital and Vantage Point Venture Partners.

The panel decided on companies that are currently regarded as having the potential and likelihood to achieve high growth and high market impact. Their thoughts were then combined with insights from the Cleantech Network™, the de facto industry association of international clean technology investors, entrepreneurs, large corporations and other industry insiders. Some 3,500 companies were nominated/considered.

Gene therapy for colour blindness

2009-09-17T07:28:00.005+05:30

Researchers have used gene therapy to restore colour vision in two adult monkeys that have been unable to distinguish between red and green hues since birth — raising the hope of curing colour blindness and other visual disorders in humans.

About 1 in 12 men lack either the red- or the green-sensitive photoreceptor proteins that are normally present in the colour-sensing cells or cones of the retina and so have red–green colour blindness. If we can target gene expression specifically to cones, in humans, then this has a tremendous implication.

Three human gene therapy trials are currently under way for loss of sight due to serious degeneration of the retina. These phase I safety studies injected a similar type of virus vector (but carrying a different gene) behind the retina as in the monkeys, and people treated have shown no serious adverse effects more than a year after, with some participants reporting marked improvements in vision

References

(1) Mancuso, K. et al. Nature advanced online publication, doi:10.1038/nature08401 (2009).

(2) Cideciyan, A. V. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 361, 725-727 (2009).

Facebook UN Sustainable Development Group

2009-09-02T07:33:00.003+05:30

Basic Info

Name:	United Nations Sustainable Development
Category:	Organizations - Non-Profit Organizations
Description:	A group on Sustainable Development for sharing information on policy debates, publications and new initiatives, as well as on the latest sustainable development related issues and events.

Contact Info

Email:
Website:	http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/index.shtml
Office:	2 UN Plaza
Location:	44th Street New York, NY

This is an open group. Anyone can join and invite others to join.

New GM electric vehicle

2009-08-23T07:51:00.005+05:30

Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American, Aug 11, 2009, reports. The General Motors today announced that its Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle, set to begin production in late 2010.

The Volt will have two modes of operation. In "electric" mode, the Volt will not use gas (petrol) or produce tailpipe emissions because the car will be powered by electrical energy stored in its 16-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery pack. When the battery charge gets too low, the Volt is designed to automatically switch to "extended-range" mode and use a gas-powered engine-generator to produce electricity to power the vehicle. The energy stored in the battery supplements the engine-generator when additional power is needed during heavy accelerations or on steep inclines.

The EPA's plug-in electric vehicle federal fuel economy methodology assumes plug-in electric vehicles will travel more city miles than highway miles solely on electricity. At low speeds and short distances, the Volt is expected to operate solely on battery power, without touching the reserves in the petrol tank.

The Volt's actual gas-free mileage will vary depending on a number of factors, including how far the car travels, the weight of the cargo and passengers and whether the air conditioning is used. Based on the results of unofficial development testing of pre-production prototypes, GM reports the Volt can achieve 40 miles of electric-only, petroleum-free driving in both EPA city and highway test cycles, before needing a recharge, which can be achieved at a household outlet.

GM claims that the new vehicle shall achieve city fuel economy of at least 230 miles per gallon (mpg), based on a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formula. See discussion on the subject

Governments should support low-carbon initiatives:

The governments must maintain and improve the research and development tax credit scheme, which encourages investment in low-carbon innovation. Participate in the discussion .. ...

Groundwater depletion in India

2009-08-21T11:27:00.005+05:30

Groundwater is a primary source of fresh water in many parts of the world. Some regions are becoming overly dependent on it, consuming groundwater faster than it is naturally replenished and causing water tables to decline unremittingly, as reported in the recent findings published in Nature (see ref.).

Indirect evidence suggests that this is the case in northwest India, but there has been no regional assessment of the rate of groundwater depletion. The authors used terrestrial water storage-change observations from the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites and simulated soil-water variations from a data-integrating hydrological modelling system to show that groundwater is being depleted at the rate of 3-5 cm/year equivalent height of water (or 13.2 - 22.2 cubic km/year) over the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana (including Delhi).

During the study period of August 2002 to October 2008, groundwater depletion was equivalent to a net loss of 109 cubic km of water, which is double the capacity of India's largest surface-water reservoir. Annual rainfall was close to normal throughout the period and it was demonstrated that the other terrestrial water storage components (soil moisture, surface waters, snow, glaciers and biomass) did not contribute significantly to the observed decline in total water levels.

Although the observational record is brief, the available evidence suggests that unsustainable consumption of groundwater for irrigation and other anthropogenic uses is likely to be the cause. If measures are not taken soon to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, the consequences for the 114 million residents of the region may include a reduction of agricultural output and shortages of potable water, leading to extensive socio-economic stresses.

Ref: Matthew Rodell, Isabella Velicogna & James S. Famiglietti, "Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India", Nature advance online publication 12 August 2009 | doi:10.1038/nature08238

Watch Nature video:

Africa's biggest wind farm

2009-08-16T07:58:00.003+05:30

Alternative Energy reports the some of the African regions experience extremes of temperature. The extreme temperatures also generate extreme winds and therefore wind farms have great potential in Africa. Although blessed with one of the highest wind velocities in the world and fiercest exposures to sun, most African countries have been slow on getting on to the alternative power band wagon.

Morocco and Egypt have been making some strides towards harnessing wind power on commercial scales. Saharan countries Kenya and Ethiopia too are trying to bridge the enormous gap between demand and supply by tapping into wind energy. Ethiopia has commissioned a £190m, 120MW farm in Tigray region, representing 15% of the current electricity capacity. It intends to build several more projects like this. Tanzania has announced plans to generate at least 100MW of power from two projects in the central Singida region, more than 10% of the country’s current supply. To encourage wind power generate and reduce its dependence on coal-generated energy, South Africa has announce a feed-in tariff for wind power: people contributing to the grid by generating wind energy get paid. It is the first African country to do so.

Now some 365 giant wind turbines will be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya to create the biggest wind farm in Africa. Once completed — tentatively in 2012 — the £533 million project, backed by the African Development Bank, will have a capacity of 300 MW, a quarter of Kenya’s current installed power and one of the highest proportions of wind energy to be fed in a national grid anywhere in the world. For the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, the German consortium working on it has leased 66,000 hectares of the world’s largest permanent desert lake. The hot wind here consistently blows throughout the year through the channel between the Kenyan and Ethiopian highlands.

A good thing about such projects is that after the setup cost the energy is almost free.

The project of course has its share of problems. Transporting turbines to the remote site of Loiyangalani is going to take time and effort. The site is nearly 480 km north of Nairobi. In order to make trucks ply the roads and bridges will need to be mended. Then there are security issues: even the local tribesmen casually carry Kalashnikovs.

Global warming: why multiplicity of opinions

2009-08-14T17:50:00.004+05:30

Here is one of the confusing issues regarding global warming :There are variety in outlooks on the subject, why ?

Mark Maslin, director of the Environment Institute at the University College London and his colleague John Adams proposed one theory. They believe that human opinion can be explained by how we respond to risk and uncertainty.

In reference to global warming beliefs, they combine four possible beliefs or opinions with four characteristic traits of human nature

Here they are:

1) Nature is benign: Earth is predictable and robust, able to withstand or bounce back from any damage. This view corresponds with what they call individualists, entrepreneurial types, who don’t necessarily believe in control or intervention from others. Maslin uses the example of self-made oil barons.

2) Nature is ephemeral: Earth is fragile and it is in danger of collapse.This view is held by egalitarians, people who have strong democratic group loyalties but do not respect externally imposed rules. Radical environmentalists might also fall into this category.

3) Nature is tolerant: Earth can handle some changes, but major excesses will send it reeling. This is a view held by hierarchists, people who know their place, and adhere to strong social structures. Scientists or soldiers might be examples.

4) Nature is capricious: Earth’s reactions are so unpredictable that we cannot predict nor accurately plan our future. This is the view of fatalists, those who feel they have little control over their lives.

From this framework, Maslin says we can tell which person is likely to believe which view of nature. This is one way to look at why there are so many responses to the threat of global warming, despite us all having access to the same information.

—Christie Nicholson in Scientific American

Please note: these theories were explained with graphics in a book by Mark Maslin called, Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction.

Consumerism is unsustainable

2009-08-13T13:25:00.009+05:30

Andy Coghlan, in New Scientist, 07 August 2009, reports. Many of us think that there's nothing we can do personally about global warming or that the human race is over-running the planet like a plague. However according to leading ecologists, few of us realise that the main cause of the current environmental crisis is human nature.

More specifically, all we're doing is what all other creatures have ever done to survive, expanding into whatever territory is available and using up whatever resources are available, just like a bacterial culture growing in a Petri dish till all the nutrients are used up. What happens then, of course, is that the bugs then die in a sea of their own waste.

Like the accelerated growth of a cancer, the human population has quadrupled in the past 100 years and at this rate will reach a size in 2025 that leads to global collapse and catastrophe.

But there is worse. Not only are we simply doing what all creatures do, we do it better. In recent times we are doing it even faster because of changes in society that encourage and celebrate conspicuous and excessive consumption.

According to the biologists, natural tendency of living creatures is to fill up all available habitat and use up all available resources. That underlies the Darwinian evolution and species that do it best are the ones that survive, but humans do it better than any other species.

Although we think of ourselves as civilised, subconsciously we are driven by three basic animal instincts of survival, domination and expansion. These instincts find expression in the idea that inexorable economic growth will redress all the world's existing inequalities.

However we fail to recognise that the physical resources to fuel this growth are finite. We are driven by growing and expanding, so we will use up all the oil, we will use up all the coal and we will keep going till we fill the Petri dish and pollute ourselves out of existence.

The economists and the governments of the day decided to revive economic activity by creating a culture in which people were encouraged to accumulate and show off material wealth, to the point where it defined their status in society and their self-image.

The economist Victor Lebow said in 1955: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate". We define ourselves by what we consume. We have turned consumption into a necessity and how we define ourselves. The result is a world in which rampant consumption in rich countries is rapidly outstripping the resources in the world needed to satisfy demand.

Globally, we have already overshot the limit, consuming 30 per cent more material than is sustainable from the world's resources. At present, 85 countries exceed their domestic "bio-capacities", compensating for their lack of local materials by depleting stocks elsewhere, in countries that have 'surplus' because they're not consuming as much. The world can only supply 2.1 global average hectares per person. Some developed societies already consume four times what the earth can sustainably supply. therefore steps must be taken to free up the 'ecological space' for justifiable growth in the developing world.

There is hope, however slim, both from the top down and the bottom up. The hope from above is that governments will finally realise that never-ending economic growth is incompatible with the finite material resources Earth has to offer and begin to manage those resources more fairly and equitably through some kind of world government. Without global management, destruction will continue, producing food and energy "crunches" that make the credit crunch look like a tea party.

We need to learn to live within the means of nature. That means sharing and redistribution of wealth and for that we need leadership at the highest level to understand that the competitive instinct and the drive for power and more resources is mutually destructive, so governments must act in our collective interest.

We need a counter-advertising campaign to make conspicuous consumption or consumerism shameful.

Making our lifestyle sustainable:

We live in an imperfect world. Poverty, disease, lack of education, environmental destruction – the problems are all too obvious. Many people don't have clean water, let alone enough food and the unsustainable lifestyle of the wealthy few is storing up catastrophic climate change.

Can we do anything about it? Yes we can !!. Technology is a double-edged sword, but science and reason have made our lives immeasurably better overall – and only through science and reason can we hope to make a real difference in the future. Read more .. ..

Cellulosic biofuels mix well with biodiversity

2009-08-11T07:25:00.004+05:30

Brendan Borrel, Scientific American, Aug 5, 2009, reports, cellulosic biofuels—extracted from native switchgrass—could lend a helping hand to imperiled birds that depend on vanishing prairies in the Midwest.

With palm oil plantations overrunning Indonesian rainforests and corn-based ethanol in the U.S. spurring new deforestation abroad, it may seem like biofuels and biodiversity don't mix. That's why ecologist Bruce Robertson at Michigan State University's W. K. Kellogg Biological Station and his colleagues wanted to know how birds and bugs would fare if the U.S. switches from corn-based ethanol production to cellulosic biofuels based on grasses.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is pushing these biofuels to help achieve further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Switchgrass has been singled out for biofuel production because of its low water requirements and high nutrient efficiency, along with the fact that it is native to the U.S.

Robertson and his team went bird-watching in native prairie, switchgrass plantations and cornfields in Michigan. In the latter, bird diversity was limited to horned larks, killdeer and cowbirds. Large plots of switchgrass, on the other hand, supported 19 of the 20 bird species found on native prairie, including the Henslow's sparrow and the bobolink and were used as a stopover by migratory birds. The team also found more insect species on switchgrass than on corn—although they still fared worse than those in the native prairie.

According to Robertson, switchgrass production is going to have some measurable biodiversity benefits both for insects and grassland bird populations. The switchgrass harvest could occur in the fall, after the birds' breeding season, which would reduce its ecological impact. Switchgrass will definitely be better than corn. He suggests that interspersing native broadleaf vegetation in switchgrass monocultures could boost bird numbers even further.

Watch Video:

Cellulosic biofuels

Biodiversity (3D)

Comparison of US and China climate efforts

2009-08-09T07:40:00.009+05:30

Some in the United States argue Washington should not commit itself to specific reductions in the GHG emissions, which could boost energy prices, until China does so as well.

Here is a birds eye view of climate change moves by both countries:

CHINA:

(a) China's latest five-year plan calls for a 20 percent cut in energy intensity by the end of 2010, from 2005 levels. Chinese authorities estimate this would cut the country's carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 1 billion tons. However, the effort has fallen behind schedule.

(b) Beijing also has set a goal for about 15 percent of the electricity it generates to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.

(c)China's fuel economy standards for its rapidly growing passenger vehicle fleet are more stringent than those in Australia, Canada. Average fuel economy for new vehicles was projected at 36.7 mpg (miles per gallon) in 2008.

(d) Some energy-intensive products for export no longer qualify for special tax breaks in an attempt to encourage energy efficiency.

(e) At a summit in Italy, China joined rich and poor countries acknowledging that global temperature increases should be limited to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, a goal that would force deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

(f) However China would not commit to a goal of cutting world carbon emissions in half by 2050.

(g) Environmentalists also worry that China plans to significantly expand the number of coal-fired power plants that contribute to global warming.

UNITED STATES:

(a) No national carbon-reduction goals have yet been set but the House of Representatives has narrowly passed legislation calling for industrial greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels, and 83 percent by 2050.

(b) Senate leaders say they are considering similar legislation. While a bill might be debated in October 2009, the measure has not been introduced yet and a difficult fight is expected.

(c) If Congress fails to finish a bill, the Obama administration has indicated it will go ahead with regulations to control climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency, early next year, has the power to move ahead.

(d) Some states, such as California, have set their own goals for reducing emissions. Quite commendable !

(e) An economic stimulus measure enacted in February 2009 included $30 billion for investments in renewable energy technology and improved energy transmission.

(f) With no agreement among policymakers over whether to expand non-polluting nuclear power, mostly because of waste storage problems and high construction costs, many fear that continued use of dirty coal will hobble climate change efforts until alternative methods can be developed.

(g) The fuel efficiency standard in the US is 27 mpg now and will be 32 mpg in 2011. Progressive reform !!

There are around 28 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent emitted into the atmosphere in 2005 (US EIA), only 50% of them will be absorbed by ocean and land. Therefore it is clear that 14 billions metric tons of CO2 equivalent goes to the atmosphere in each year since 2005. The upward trend of concentration will not change unless the emissions reduction reaches a level, which is higher than 50% of current emissions. The reduction target for a nation has to be based on its economic condition.

True cost of energy:

China is racing ahead of the Unites States in Solar. But that is to only look at it on a superficial basis. The Chinese have 1.3 Billion people. Other than the Southeast part of the Country, they live in exceptionally poor conditions (or a very low standard of living). So they have a huge untapped labor force that is willing to work at 1/100th the cost of a worker in the West. Read and participate in the discussion .....

California takes a lead in climate change initiatives:

California became the national leader in Climate Change with the adoption of Assembly Bill 32. It establishes a GHG emission limit for 2020 at a level equivalent to the state’s 1990 emissions. Provides the means to achieve the Governor’s GHG emission reduction targets. Cleantech projects examined: NanoSolar Thin Film Solar Cells, Konarka Technologies, Inc. Organic Solar Cells, Greenvolts, Inc. Two Axis Carousel Solar Tracker, Brayton Energy, LLC Solar Energy Compressed Air Storage. Read more .. ..

Global warming: is two degress target realistic ?

2009-08-07T07:24:00.005+05:30

John Wihbey | August 4, 2009, reports in Yele Forum . The G-8, eight Northern Hemisphere industrialized countries, last month produced its first firm target for curbing rising global temperatures: no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), above pre-industrial levels.
The “2 degrees” has now been semi-enshrined as the consensus “magic number” for avoiding dangerous climate change. The idea of this two-degree limit Celsius has a long scientific history stretching back to the 1980s. It started to be cemented in policy circles after the European Union (EU) adopted the target in 1996.

Through 2008, the global average temperature had already warmed roughly 0.7 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels, meaning that by some measures we are already one third of the way toward hitting the 2 degree ceiling.The temperature is now rising faster than in earlier decades in the 20th century.

The meaning of that simple number is quite complex. It involves some subjective analysis. A Delicate Compromise and a Value Judgment. It is a delicate compromise between what is desirable and what may be feasible. The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has said that the whole issue of 2 degrees versus 1 degree or 1.5 degree is something based on a value judgment that essentially relates to what is dangerous, in terms of making it almost impossible for some people on this planet not being able to live in those locations. In other words, the temperature target may be too high for some people in the developing world, who are already vulnerable. Any number much above 1 degree involves a gamble, and the odds become less and less favorable as the temperature goes up.

The IPCC’s 2007 report states that even 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is likely to have serious impacts, especially in terms of stressing water supplies and creating more malnutrition, disease, and drought. The climate scientists believe that even a ‘moderate’ warming of 2 degrees C stands a strong chance of provoking drought and storm responses that could challenge civilized society, leading potentially to the conflict and suffering that go with failed states and mass migrations.

The tipping point idea has been debated in the media and in scientific circles, with no precise number or scenario agreed upon. But there are real worries.

James McCarthy, professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University and the current President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said that the closer the planet comes to a global average rise of 2 degrees Celsius, the less likely we are to be able to avoid climbing to even higher temperatures. Models suggest that feedback cycles could afflict both the tundra - where scientists fear a massive carbon release - and the Amazon forest ecosystem, which could rapidly dry up, McCarthy noted.

Some observers point out that the debate over 2 degrees involves two interrelated questions that are often blurred. First, how does the temperature goal stand up scientifically - i.e., would it still prevent perilous ocean level rise, large-scale drought, loss of ecosystems, dangerous weather, etc.?

Second, how does the target operate as a policy tool and as a piece of rhetoric in global negotiations?

We should be talking about emissions targets, and the right emission target is zero. We are going to solve the carbon-climate problem when we create an understanding that it is no longer acceptable to use the atmosphere as a waste dump. There should no discussion about targets, it should be a discussion about which kinds of objects people should be allowed to build.

There is indeed a vigorous debate between the developing world and the G-8 over this very question. The industrialized countries tend to talk about “common” goals in terms of reducing emissions. By contrast, developing countries focus on “differentiated” responsibilities - namely the need for the big industrial nations to take the deeper emissions cuts. The developing countries see the 2 degrees goal as a vague notion that does not put pressure on individual countries, since no one nation can control global temperature.

Author
John Wihbey, a regular contributor to The Yale Forum, is a producer for an NPR show. He previously reported on environmental issues for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. (E-mail: jpwihb@yahoo.com)

IPCC Report on Climate Change

Municipal waste: reduce-reuse-recycle-recover

2009-08-05T07:33:00.006+05:30

Kumar Manish, TNN , 25 July 2009 reports, tonnes of solid waste that lie unattended in large landfill sites in the Indian city of Ahmedabad will soon turn into a goldmine for Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). The civic body has signed a contract with Creative Co Ltd, a Japanese integrated waste management company, for a INR 500 million project to convert waste into green fuel pellets to fire captive power plants around the city.

The project will also help AMC gain carbon credits which the latter plans to share equally with the partnering agency. Carbon credits are given to enterprises in the developing world that shift to cleaner technologies, cutting energy consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The project will focus on the reduce-reuse-recycle-recover' standard in waste management and recycling industries. AMC will be providing 800 tonnes of solid waste per day for the project, of which 90 per cent will be recycled to produce an eco-friendly fuel for industry which can be used instead of conventional fuels.

Initially, pellets will be made as fuel. In the next phase, AMC will be generating electricity. The city produces 2,300 metric tonnes of solid waste a day which, at present, is dumped in Pirana dumping ground. The project will be coming up at Gyaspur where AMC has allocated 25 acres of land for solid waste management (SWM) projects.

The project will ensure a hygienic way of disposing solid waste and earning profits on it.

Watch a video:

Solid waste management in cities

Tax tobacco for good

2009-08-03T07:28:00.006+05:30

Despite expectations following the increased taxation on tobacco announced in the state finance budgets of Maharashtra and New Delhi, India, the central government has made no changes whatsoever in the taxation on tobacco and tobacco products in the Union Budget for 2009 2010. This effectively means that the tobacco companies already inducing a growing tobacco epidemic in the country can continue to sell their products at their current prices which make these products easily available for the masses. This simply contributes to the continuing tobacco problem in India, and hampers public health to a great extent.

Speaking on the unchanged tax rates on tobacco products, be it cigarettes, bidis or gutka, tobacco control associations in India have voiced their protests. The tobacco analyst is wrong. The cigarette production is increasing in India and given the low elasticity of demand, the revenue collection is not going to go down for a long time" said Dr P C Gupta, director, Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health . No country has yet reported that by increasing cigarette taxes, their revenue has gone down.

Increasing taxes on tobacco products could have benefited both the exchequer and public health. Increasing taxes on tobacco products has been shown to be the most cost effective tool for tobacco control and saves lives of people, especially protecting the youth and the poor. In India, 40 per cent of all diseases are due to tobacco use and the expenditure on its treatment, prevention and control costs around INR 400,000 million annually. Approximately 5500 adolescents start using tobacco every day, joining the 7.7 million young people under the age of 15, who already regularly use tobacco.

In the light of this, with an increase in taxes, a substantial increase in government revenue can be achieved. A 33 per cent increase in tax on bidis (rural version of cigarettes in India) and a 10 per cent increase in tax on cigarettes would result in 24.75 per cent and seven per cent increase in government revenue, respectively.

An increase in bidi taxation would also mean an increase in the part of the excise duty on bidis that goes to Bidi Workers Welfare Cess (BWWC), which aims to provide medical care, housing, social security, education and recreation facilities for bidi workers. The government should, therefore, make provisions for a substantial increase in taxation on all tobacco products across the country and take a step forward towards better public health.

Ref: Sakal Times, Pune, India, 31 July 2009

Ill effects of tobacco

Killer tobacco

Smart grid: prone to cyber attacks

2009-08-01T07:44:00.005+05:30

Brian Krebs from Washington Post , reports Tuesday, July 28, 2009. Electric utilities vying for $3.9 billion in new federal "smart grid" grants will need to prove US Energy Department that they are taking steps to prevent cyber attacks as they move to link nearly all elements of the U.S. power grid to the public internet.

The security experts express concern that many existing smart-grid efforts do not have sufficient built-in protections against computer hacking, such as new 'smart meters' that put information about consumers' power use onto the internet, grid-management software and other equipment.

The smart-grid spending in the federal stimulus package is intended to create jobs and improve the efficiency and reliability of the electricity grid by lowering peak demand, reducing energy consumption, integrating more renewable energy sources and easing the pressure to build new coal-fired power plants.

Many of those efficiency gains will be made possible by new technology being built on top of the existing power grid, such as smart meters, which provide real-time feedback on power consumption patterns and levels. An estimated 8 million smart meters are used in the United States today and more than 50 million more could be installed in at least two dozen states over the next five years, according to the Edison Foundation's Institute for Electric Efficiency

The security researchers have found that these devices often are the weakest link in the smart-grid chain. Smart meters give consumers direct access to information about their power usage and the ability to manage that usage over the Web, but that two-way communication also opens up the possibility that the grid could be attacked from the outside. Many such systems require little authentication to carry out key functions, such as disconnecting customers from the power grid.

Indeed, at this week's Black Hat , the world's largest cybersecurity conference held annually in Las Vegas, researchers from IOActive of Seattle shall demonstrate a computer worm that spreads by taking advantage of the software update feature built into a prevalent brand of smart meters. The worm could in theory give the attackers who launched it the ability to very quickly sever tens of thousands of homes from the smart grid.

Watch a video:

E-cigarettes: US FDA caution

2009-07-30T07:15:00.005+05:30

Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post , Wednesday, July 22, 2009 reports the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that an analysis of leading brands of electronic cigarettes (new type of "smokeless" nicotine product) showed carcinogens and a chemical used in antifreeze that are toxic to humans.

Electronic cigarettes, also called "e-cigarettes," are battery-operated devices that generally contain cartridges filled with nicotine, flavor and other chemicals. The electronic cigarette turns nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user. Since they produce no smoke, they can be used in workplaces, restaurants and airports. The products are relatively new and began appearing on the market about five years ago, sold over the internet, in mall kiosks and in stores. They often come in candy and fruit flavors.

The FDA and other public health experts cautioned consumers against using the products, saying that the health effects of electronic cigarettes are unknown.

The FDA studied the ingredients in the sample cartridges of electronic cigarettes. In one sample, it detected diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze. Other samples turned up carcinogens, including nitrosamines.

The FDA considers e-cigarettes to be drug devices and says that manufacturers must first get federal approval to market them. It has refused to allow imports of e-cigarettes

Watch FDA video on e-cigarettes:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Sustainable power makes a world of difference

2009-07-28T07:36:00.004+05:30

AFP , 13 July 2009, reports twelve European companies launched a 400-billion-euro (560-billion-dollar) initiative to set up huge solar farms in Africa and the Middle East to produce energy for Europe.

The massive project could provide up to 15 percent of Europe's electricity needs by 2050. The electricity could begin flowing to Europe within 10 years.

Engineering giants ABB and Siemens, energy groups E.ON and RWE and financial institutions Deutsche Bank and Munich Re are among the companies which signed a protocol in Munich.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) would build solar-power generators from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and pump electricity to Europe via underwater cables. It would also provide a substantial portion of the power needs of the producer countries, transform sea water into drinking and irrigation water for local populations. Many details must still be worked out however, including where to install the plants, when the power would come on and how much it would cost, potential profits, political stability in some areas and the financing. Under the protocol, a Desertec study office to be established by October will have three years to elaborate plans to create the network of solar farms.

Other companies invoved are the Spanish firm ABENGOA Solar and the Algerian conglomerate Cevital along with several German banks and engineering companies.

The Siemens estimate that the solar farms could generate up to 100 gigawatts of electricity, the equivalent of 100 power plants.

The German Social Democratic deputy Hermann Scheer opined that it was not necessary to go to North Africa to collect the sun's rays. We could invest the 400 billion euros in the recession-hit eurozone. He also preferred a network of decentralised operators that produced renewable energy from many sources rather than having one key project in the hands of major corporations. Others doubt that producer countries would fully benefit from a plan designed with Europe in mind,and warn of potential "eco-colonialism."

Lighting revolution

2009-07-25T12:10:00.007+05:30

ScienceDaily, July 22, 2009, reports development of a new substance, which emits brilliant light. The discovery could lead to a revolution in lighting for the home and office in five years, as claimed by a leading UK materials scientist, Professor Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University. The new substance, gallium nitride (GaN), is already used for some lighting applications such as camera flashes, bicycle lights, mobile phones and interior lighting for buses, trains and planes.

The new lighting material can reduce the typical electricity consumption for lighting of a developed country by around 75%, while delivering major cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from power stations and preserving fossil fuel reserves.

The GaN LEDs are incredibly long lasting. A GaN LED can burn for 100,000 hours, one hundred times longer than a conventional light bulb. In practice this means it only needs replacing after 60 years of normal household use. Also, unlike the energy-saving compact fluorescent lights now in use, GaN LEDs don't contain mercury so disposal is not such an environmental headache.

However to unlock these benefits, important barriers need to be tackled by scientists. The GaN LEDs are too expensive to manufacture for wide scale deployment in homes and workplaces. The harsh quality of the light produced is another limiting factor.

At the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride where Professor Humphreys leads the research, a detailed new theory that explains the mystery of why GaN emits light so strongly has recently been developed in collaboration with Professor Phil Dawson of Manchester University. The understanding is vital to improving GaN lighting's quality and efficiency. The centre is also working on an innovative technique for growing GaN on six-inch diameter silicon wafers, rather than the sapphire wafers used to date. That will result in a tenfold reduction in manufacturing costs and so help GaN lighting penetrate new market. Another of the centre's projects is investigating how GaN lighting could be made to mimic sunlight which could have important benefits for sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

The GaN lighting should start making its mark in homes and offices within about five years. It will also benefit consumers in terms of convenience, electricity bills and quality of life.

Looking further ahead, the possibilities for GaN light appear wide-ranging. Currently, GaN LEDs are phosphor -coated to transform the light from blue into white. There could be scope to remove the coating and incorporate mini LEDs, each producing a different colour, in the overall ‘light bulb'. Together the mini LEDs would produce white light but people in the home or office could alter the precise balance, for example to a bluish light, to suit their mood. This and other applications, for example in healthcare for detecting tumours, and water treatment for developing countries, might be achievable in 10 years, says Professor Humphreys.

More on LED

What is LED ? Watch a video

Bamboo bikes

2009-07-23T14:34:00.007+05:30

Jim Cornfield in the Scientific American , June 2009 Special Editions, reports
about the growing popularity of Bamboo Bikes. The versatile bamboo provides a green and renewable alternative to traditional bike metals

In the cycling world, the name “Calfee” evokes images of upscale, featherweight carbon-fiber road bikes, produced by California designer-manufacturer Craig Calfee. The bamboo now constitutes one leading edge of his portfolio, because the bikes have the lowest carbon footprint on the planet.

Bamboo’s versatility is no secret. Certain varieties are fast growing yet extremely rugged. There are bamboo bridges, dams, boats, even airplanes, thanks to its shape and remarkable vibration damping.

Today about a third of the 400 bikes that Calfee’s Santa Cruz factory makes are bamboo and getting strong reviews. At four pounds, the bamboo frames are heavier than Calfee’s signature carbon-fiber models but lighter than standard metal.

After he visited the West African nation of Ghana, Calfee established an outreach program and micro-industry there to manufacture bamboo bicycles for local sale. With his training and logistical support, Ghanaians have begun to produce serviceable cargo bikes, using their local bamboo, which sell at very modest prices. Calfee plans to expand such operations beyond Ghana.He has brought some jobs and optimism to the country’s poor. He thinks the project will become a self-sustaining.

Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Bamboo Bikes Grow."

Watch video on Bamboo Bike
Know more about Bamboo

Bike infrastructure:
It's no secret that bicycling is the most eco-friendly, inexpensive and efficient means of going about daily business in your dense community. Read more ....

Solar lantern

2009-07-21T12:38:00.005+05:30

Alternative Energy reports, a Kansas State University student is combining engineering and nature to design a more affordable and more sustainable lighting source, solar lantern, for those living without electricity. Tai-Wen Ko, Kansas State senior in electrical engineering, is working in collaboration with Justin Curry. Ko is aiming this product for people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. If one waits for providing them electricity in conventional manner then it will take considerable amount of time to light up this part of the earth. Solar lamps are greener and cleaner option than kerosene lamps. Solar lanterns are safe too because they don’t start a fire.

The new solar lantern consists of three main components: a solar panel, battery and a white light-emitting diode. It is is about 30 percent cheaper than the average market value. The usual florescent tubes are not used in these lanterns, because they consume lots of power. Ko is trying to find an alternative to lead-acid battery out of environmental concerns. He is researching on a recycling plan that could be implemented in the Sub-Saharan African region.

Solar panel roads:

Roads with glass solar cell panels capable of generating enough power to support local communities. Under the scheme, a US firm is currently working on a prototype panel that could be embedded into existing roads. The company has received $100,000 grant from the US Department of Transportation. Read more .. ..

Eco-towns

2009-07-19T07:26:00.005+05:30

Lowcarboneconomy reports that four sites have been approved by the UK government for the construction of low-carbon eco-towns. They will serve as a platform from which to pioneer and launch the energy-efficient design and infrastructure necessary for lower carbon emissions.

From 2016 all new residential buildings are to be built to zero-carbon specifications as part of plans to reduce the quarter of all UK emissions that come from housing. More than a quarter of CO2 emissions come from houses.

The eco-developments will be fully equipped with smart meters to measure electricity consumption, community heat sources and electric car charging points. Homes will also feature renewable energy technologies to draw power from the sun, wind and earth. All schools, shops, restaurants and public buildings in the eco-towns will also be designed to emit zero carbon. The government aims to have ten eco-towns under development by 2020.

They will be expected to deliver outcomes against the following criteria

* zero carbon and environmental standards
* sustainable transport
* design quality
* community involvement
* employment
* health
* use of land.

FAQ on eco-towns

Publications on eco-towns

Biofuel standards are needed

2009-07-17T12:56:00.004+05:30

ScienceDaily , October 9, 2008, reports that the policies needed to ensure that cellulosic biofuel production will not cause environmental harm. The paper, published in the October 3rd issue of the journal Science, urges decision makers to adopt standards and incentives that will help ensure that future production efforts are sustainable, both energetically and environmentally.

Cellulose-based biofuels hold promise, but we need to proceed cautiously and with an eye toward minimizing long-term ecological impacts. Without a sound plan, we could wind up doing more environmental harm than good. Grain-based ethanol has already served as a lesson in the perils of embracing energy solutions before their environmental effects are understood.

If cellulosic ethanol is to emerge as a feasible source of renewable energy, a vast amount of land will need to be used for its production. This land conversion, estimated to be as large as the amount of land in row-crops today, will change the face of the global landscape. Production standards and incentive programs could help minimize negative impacts and, in many cases, help farmers choose crops that provide valuable ecosystem services. There is the real potential for science to inform sustainable cellulosic crop strategies. It is about picking the right plant or assemblage of plants, for a given landscape and managing crops in a minimally invasive way.

Sustainable development: training future leaders

2009-07-16T06:59:00.005+05:30

Congratulations MacArthur Foundation for taking up sustainable development as a mission. In my opinion the sustainable development, besides other aspects, involves the following:

(a) Conservation of the natural resources

(b) Process developments, standards and controls to minimise the industrial and anthropogenic pollution and greenhouse gas emission

(c) Techniques of recapturing and recycling the pollutants and green house gases

In the first place there is a need to create an awareness about these aspects in the general public.

Reduce calories, live longer

2009-07-10T14:42:00.002+05:30

Cutting daily calorie intake by 30 percent may slow down the aging process, have beneficial effects on the brain and result in a longer life span, according to a new 20-year study on rhesus monkeys published in the journal Science. The findings of the study may well be applicable to the humans.

The calorie-restricted monkeys preserved volume in areas of their brain that have been linked to motor control, memory, and problem-solving.

Recent studies show that lighter diets can also keep memory intact in the old age

Delaney is an advocate of calorie-restricted diet. He says he is not starving, despite his low-calorie lifestyle.

He eats a hearty breakfast which includes a large bowl of low-fat granola and fruit, soy milk, nonfat yogurt and a cup of coffee. Delaney admits his 900 calorie breakfast is more than most people consume in the morning, but he then skips lunch, works for 8-9 hours day, eats a high-fiber, vegetarian dinner, keeping his total intake under 2,000 calories a day. An average adult male consumes about 2600 calories a day. As a result, Delaney may live a longer and healthier life than his peers, who consume more calories. The studies in mice, worms and flies have confirmed this finding. The calorie-restricted diet also results in lower risk of some cancers, heart disease and other illnesses associated with aging.

How a calorie-restricted diet helps stave off age-related diseases and extend lifespan is unknown, but controlling calories can help people lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. Obesity is a major risk factor for many diseases. Eating healthy, nutrient-dense foods can also produce important physiological changes in the body, which may lower disease risk.

However everyone does not agree with these findings. Some experts argue that it can lead to a lot of problems such as dizziness and fatigue in the short term. In the long term, there can be nutritional deficiencies, decreases in bone mineral density that can lead to osteoporosis and menstrual irregularities that can lead to infertility. Perhaps a milder version of 5 percent calorie restriction could be tried.

The first step is to get rid of high fat, high sugar foods in the diet and then move on to the quality of diet and make sure there are adequate fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and low-fat dairy in the diet

Green living: improving health today and tomorrow

2009-07-04T11:33:00.001+05:30

Much attention has been paid in recent years to what seems to be a growing environmental conscience in the United States. Going green used to be considered expensive and a luxury for those who could afford the trend. Now it appears that we are learning that not only is adopting more environmentally conscious attitudes good for our economic situation, but also our….health? Yes, if we dig a bit deeper we can see that dirty industries and backwards policy is actually harming the health of the earth for our children and the health of her inhabitants today.

How Does Environmental Policy Affect Public Health?

There are two levels of health consequences associated with dirty industry, both direct and indirect. The direct consequences are examples like increased asthma rates in areas with high smog indices. Chlorofluorocarbon release into the atmosphere has shown to decrease the filter of direct sunlight on the planet, resulting in more concentrated ultraviolet light reaching the surface of the earth. Perhaps it is no surprise then that in countries with depleted atmospheric gas, skin cancer rates are among the highest in the world.

The indirect health consequences are harder to see immediately, but closer examination reveals that these are, in fact, perhaps the most hazardous. Bi-products of dirty and backwards industries, such as coal and oil processing, include cancer causing substances like asbestos and benzene. A U.K. study conducted in 2002 indicated that coal and oil industry workers are at a much higher risk of developing mesothelioma (associated with asbestos exposure) and leukemia (traced to benzene and heavy-metal exposure). Dr. Valerie Rusch among many other doctors who specialize in this area understand that these are substances that can be directly traced to antiquated pre-regulation equipment in industries whose environmental hazards are even more inherent.

Can we really afford to continue on the path we were on before? Investment in clean industry means not a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren, but also a healthier place for us to live today.

--June 21, 2009 Written by Bill Hawthorne with the maacenter

A bamboo for global warming

2009-06-19T14:50:00.001+05:30

Taiyebpura, a small village in Matar taluka of Kheda district, has become a centre of attraction for farmers, environmentalists and the forest officials of the Gujarat government. Taiyeb Mohammed Zamindar, an 80-year-old farmer of the village, has become an advisor to many other farmers.

All this has happened because of the bamboo plants that Zamindar had planted 15 months ago in 25 acres of land. Usually, bamboo grows in forests, but Zamindar has succeeded in achieving this feat in an area where major crops are wheat and paddy. Bamboo, as a farm crop, takes at least four to five years before it is ready for harvest. However, Zamindar's bamboo crop will be ready next year. This is considered record time considering the local climate and soil conditions. The bamboo variety planted in Taiyebpura is bambusa balcooa. It is a clumping bamboo of Indian origin. The main advantage (of bamboo farming) is that farmers need not worry about any damage to the crop. It is simple and needs only water and manure

The bamboo farming project was carried out under the guidance of Dr N Bharathi, who is advisor to the Central and state governments on bamboo. He is also an advisor to Gujarat Bamboo Mission, and MD Growmore Biotech Ltd Bangalore, which has been the force behind the farming of the plant in Taiyebpura.

Bamboo is a no-death plant. It is an answer to global warming, as it absorbs the highest amount of carbon. Its growth is fast because of the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere and this makes it good for the environment as well.

According to the India's National Bamboo Mission, the size of the domestic bamboo industry is about Rs 6,505 crore and it is estimated to grow to Rs 26,000 crore by 2015. However, despite it being a big domestic industry, India has failed to make a mark in the global market.

The world bamboo industry is worth 10 billion dollars of which China's share is nearly 50 per cent. The world market for bamboo is expected to reach about 20 billion dollars by 2015.

Ref: Kamran Sulaimani, Yahoo News, Jun 18, 2009

Sustainable power: India makes a beginning

2009-06-17T16:36:00.002+05:30

In perhaps the first significant climate responsive project in South Asia, an abandoned thermal power plant has been converted into a mega solar power generating station. It’s quite likely the world’s only high carbon power unit being replaced by a zero-carbon one. It is poised to give a huge fillip to India’s renewable energy ambitions and marks the culmination of “solar man’’ S P Gon Chaudhuri’s dream. Six years ago, he won the Ashden award, popularly known as the Green Oscar.

The 2-MW project, under the West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC), is the first in solar sphere to cross the megawatt threshold. It has already catalysed commercial interest in solar power that has been shunned by private companies due to high capital investment and longer break-even period. At present, capital investment in a solar plant is Rs 15-18 crore per mega watt—four times that of thermal at Rs 4-5 crore/MW. The cost is expected to reduce by half and efficiency double when nanotechnology is integrated in solar cells in about five years.

The project, located in Jamuria, 20 km from Asansol and 210 km from Kolkata, is in the heart of India’s coal belt. The solar project comprises 9,000 crystalline type solar modules of 230 watt each. The plant will generate three million units of electricity a year, enough to light 2,000 rural or 500 urban households.

The facility will save seven lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide emission a day i.e. as much CO2 as 2 MW thermal projects emit daily. The unique project could help Bengal reclaim its pioneer status in the power sector after nearly a century. Way back in 1897, the country’s first hydel project of 600 KW was set up at Sidrapong in Darjeeling.

At present, half the project has been completed with the 4,500 solar modules generating 1.25-mw electricity. The WBGEDC is vetting proposals from several firms who have shown interest in setting up the other half of the project.

The DPSC Ltd. will buy power at Rs 5 per unit and the ministry of new and renewable energy resources will pay Rs 10 per unit as generation incentive. WBGEDC can earn a further 97 paise per unit through the sale of carbon credit that the project will accrue. Annual revenue is pegged at Rs 4.8 crore. The project is expected to play a crucial role in achieving the solar mission of 15,000 MW under the PM climate action plan. That is imperative with the Indian Planning Commission projecting a capacity addition of 6.5 lakh MW from thermal, nuclear, hydel and gas by 2030, leaving a deficit of 1.5 lakh MW that only solar energy can meet.

Ref: Subhro Niyogi, "It’s sunrise for solar industry:In World’s First, Defunct Bengal Thermal Plant Is Being Converted Into Solar Station", Times of India Mumbai, Jun 16, 2009

Solar energy for Himalayas

2009-06-02T15:18:00.000+05:30

A new lightweight, low cost, portable solar cooker called the SolSource 3-in-1 is poised to transform the health and prosperity of the Himalayan villages. The device can replace the traditional biomass-burning stove as a means for cooking and heating the home. It can also use its own excess thermal energy to generate enough electricity to light a home at night, charge cell phones and power other small devices. As the cooker's unique design targets specific local needs and materials, its manufacture and distribution could provide a new economic future for communities in transition from agricultural to manufacturing economies.

The satellite dish-shaped SolSource is developed by US-based nonprofit organisation 'One Earth Designs'. The reflective nomadic tent material, stretched across a bamboo frame, concentrates sunlight from a large area inward toward a focal point, where the user can place a pot stand for cooking, a thermoelectric device for generating electricity (at a lower cost than a photovoltaic panel), a heat module for heating the home, a solar water disinfector for treating drinking water or a thermal battery for cooking after dark. These interchangeable parts are each about the size of a laptop computer and the main platform is easily folded and disassembled for portability.

The SolSource generates enough heat at its focal point to bring a kettle of water to boil in about five to seven minutes – about the same amount of time as conventional gas stoves in homes throughout the developed world. While it is in use, the device generates heat to warm the home and can create and store about 15 watt-hours of electricity, enough to power the lights for about seven hours. This is adequate for the villagers' needs.

Although the villagers were already familiar with solar cook stoves introduced throughout the region via various government and NGO initiatives, these devices were not fulfilling the nomadic communities' unique needs. Many of these stoves are made from concrete and glass components, both of which are easily broken during distribution and everyday use. The rural communities lack the expertise and tools needed to repair broken devices. The stoves, which weigh about 95 kg, are not easily portable. Therefore they hinder the villagers' traditional lifestyle. The stoves are designed for cooking only, and the villagers rely on biomass burning to heat their homes, a need that accounts for most of the region's fuel use.

One Earth Designs is committed to helping rural Himalayan population achieve appropriate science and technology based solutions for living more sustainably.

Controling Climate Change: Carbon Sequestering

2009-03-21T22:23:00.001+05:30

Carbon Sequestering:

The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; anthropogenic carbon is only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere, within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. Any method to remove excess carbon dioxide must do six things:

(i) Move hundreds of megatons of carbon
(ii) Sequester that carbon for thousands of years.
(iii) The method should be repeatable for centuries.
(iv) It should be something that can be implemented immediately using methods already at hand.
(v) It should not cause unacceptable environmental damage.
(vi) It should be economical.

Lenton and Vaughan [1] analyzed 17 schemes for cooling the planet. Roughly half involve changing the reflectivity of the atmosphere or the ground, employing human made pollution, machines to alter clouds or schemes to lighten deserts or city roofs with plastic sheets or white paint. The other half would involve altering earth's carbon cycle to draw in CO2, either by growing massive amounts of new trees, boosting the growth of carbon-sucking algae at sea or creating machines that draw down the atmospheric carbon and store it underground.

Controling Climate Change: Land or the Oceans as the Carbon Sink

2009-03-21T22:17:00.002+05:30

One effective method of sequestering carbon is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants sequestered through photosynthesis - into non-biodegradable charcoal and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast. Farmers burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which is then then ploughed into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. The farmer gets a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which he can sell. This scheme needs no subsidy as the farmer makes a profit.

Another way is making bales of the crop residue – the stalks and such left after harvesting – and then sinking the bales into the deep ocean. With 30 percent of global crop residues, the build up of global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could reduce by up to 15 percent a year, according to one calculation [2]. The crop residue would be baled with existing equipment and transported by trucks, barges or trains to ports, just as crops are. The bales would be barged to where the ocean is 1,500 meters deep and then the bales would be weighted with rock and sunk. The ocean waters below 1,500 meters do not mix significantly with the upper waters. In the deep ocean it is cold, oxygen is limited and there are few marine organisms that can break down crop residue. That means what is put there will stay there for thousands of years.

Strand and Benford [2] carefully tallied how much carbon would be released during the harvest, transportation and sinking of 30 percent of U.S. crop residues and compared that to how much carbon could be sequestered. They say the process would be 92 percent efficient. That's more efficient than any other use of crop residue he considered, including simply leaving crop residue in the field, which is 14 percent efficient at sequestering carbon or using crop residue to produce ethanol, which avoids the use fossil fuels, but is only 32 percent efficient. Sequestering crop residue biomass in the deep ocean is essentially recycling atmospheric carbon back into deep sediments.

Conroling Climate Chage: Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS)

2009-03-21T22:10:00.003+05:30

40 percent of man-made CO2 emissions come from burning coal. One approach that is gaining currency among environmental scientists is carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), a form of carbon sequestration in which CO2 is removed from the waste gas of power plants, typically by absorbing it in a liquid, and subsequently burying it deep underground.

Indeed, CCS technology is already in use. Since 1996, the Norwegian company Statoil has been stripping about a million tons of CO2 a year out of natural gas from the Sleipner West field under the North Sea and injecting it at high pressure into a saline aquifer. Avoiding Norway's tax on CO2 emissions balanced most of the costs of the project. An even larger project, begun in 2000, takes CO2 from North Dakota and sinks it into an oil field in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. Here, selling the extra oil that the injected C02 squeezes out largely offsets the costs. These efforts and others show that the sequestered CO2 can be monitored, and that it largely stays confined underground. These cases notwithstanding, CCS is expensive. Capturing even a modest part of the 25 billion tons of CO2 emitted each year, experts say, will require economic incentives.The technology and technical know already exists. Whether it's adding chemical scrubbers to existing coal plants or building entirely new ones that gasify the coal before burning it (allowing the CO2 to be separated out).

At present, there are two such power plants in the world—one in China that is under construction and a small one in Germany that separates out the CO2 to store it in an abandoned natural gas field. Adding such CCS technology to coal plants adds roughly $ 65 per metric tonne of CO2 to the cost of electricity (2009 estimate), according to Howard Herzog, a research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Ref:
1. Tim Lenton, Nem Vaughan, "The radiative forcing potential of different climate geoengineering options", Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, Vol. 9, pp. 2559-2608
2. Stuart E. Strand, Gregory Benford, "Ocean Sequestration of Crop Residue Carbon: Recycling Fossil Fuel Carbon Back to Deep Sediments", Environ. Sci. Technol., 2009, 43 (4), pp 1000–1007

Low-cost LED:

2009-02-19T16:52:00.001+05:30

Dr J D Bapat

We are very close to achieving highly efficient, low cost white LEDs that can take the place of both traditional and currently available low energy light bulbs. That won’t just be good news for the environment. It will also benefit consumers by cutting their electricity bills. In addition to the environmental and cost benefits of LEDs, the technology is expected to enable a wide range of advances in areas as diverse as healthcare, transportation systems, digital displays and computer networking.

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor diode that emits light when charged with electricity. The LEDs are used for display and lighting in a whole range of electrical and electronic products.

A new way of making LEDs could see household lighting bills reduced by up to 75% within five years. Gallium Nitride (GaN), a man-made semiconductor used to make LEDs (light emitting diodes), emits brilliant light but uses very little electricity. Although GaN was first produced over 30 years ago, it is only in the last ten years that GaN lighting has started to enter real-world applications. Currently, the brilliant light produced by GaN LEDs is blue or green in colour. A phosphor coating is applied to the LED to transform this into a more practical white light. Until now high production costs have made GaN lighting too expensive for wide spread use in homes and offices.

With funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Cambridge University based Centre for Gallium Nitride has developed a new way of making GaN which could produce LEDs for a tenth of current prices. The Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride was established in 2000.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. The EPSRC invests around £740 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone’s health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC also actively promotes public awareness of science and engineering. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK.

GaN LEDs are currently grown on 2-inch sapphire. In comparison to that, it is possible to produce 10 times as many LEDs on a 6-inch silicon wafer. The processing costs remain essentially the same. The 6-inch silicon wafer is much cheaper to produce than a 2-inch sapphire wafer. Together these factors result in a cost reduction of about a factor of 10. This lower cost method could mean cheap mass produced LEDs become widely available for lighting homes and offices in the next five years.

Low-cost LED save huge energy:

2009-02-19T16:48:00.002+05:30

Dr J D Bapat

Based on current results, GaN LED lights in every home and office could cut the proportion of electricity used for lights from 20% to 5%. That means we could close or not need to replace many power stations.

A GaN LED can burn for 100,000 hours. Thus, on average, it needs replacement only after 60 years. Unlike currently available energy-saving bulbs, GaN LED does not contain mercury so disposal is less damaging to the environment. GaN LEDs also have the advantage of turning on instantly and being dimmable.

GaN LEDs, used to illuminate landmarks like Buckingham Palace and the Severn Bridge, are also appearing in camera flashes, mobile phones, torches, bicycle lights and interior bus, train and plane lighting.

If all of the world's light bulbs were replaced with LEDs for a period of 10 years, the following benefits would be realized:

Energy savings of 1.9 × 10²⁰ joules
Electrical energy consumption would be reduced by terawatt hours
Financial savings of $1.83 trillion
Carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by 10.68 gigatons
Crude oil consumption would be reduced by 962 million barrels
The number of required global power plants would be reduced by 280

Low-cost LED Long term applications:

2009-02-19T16:44:00.003+05:30

Dr J D Bapat

Parallel research is also being carried out into how GaN lights could mimic sunlight to help 3million people in the UK with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Ultraviolet rays made from GaN lighting could also aid water purification and disease control in developing countries, identify the spread of cancer tumours and help fight hospital ‘super bugs’.

• Cancer surgery: Currently, it is very difficult to detect exactly where a tumour ends. As a result, patients undergoing cancer surgery have to be kept under anaesthetic while cells are taken away for laboratory tests to see whether or not they are healthy. This may need to happen several times during an operation, prolonging the procedure extensively. But in the future, patients could be given harmless drugs that attach to cancer cells, which can be distinguished when a blue GaN LED is shone on them. The tumour’s edge will be revealed, quickly and unmistakably, to the surgeon.

• Water purification: GaN may revolutionise drinking water purification in developing countries. If aluminium is added to GaN then deep ultra-violet light can be produced and this kills all viruses and bacteria, so fitting such a GaN LED to the inside of a water pipe will instantly eradicate diseases, as well as killing mosquito larvae and other harmful organisms.

• Hospital-acquired infections: Shining a ultra-violet GaN torch beam could kill viruses and bacteria, boosting the fight against MRSA and C Difficile. Simply shining a GaN torch at a hospital wall or trolley, for example, could kill any ‘superbugs’ lurking there.

Deployed on a large scale, LEDs have the potential to tremendously reduce pollution, save energy, save financial resources and add new and unprecedented functionalities to photonic devices. These factors make photonics what could be termed a benevolent tsunami, an irresistible wave, a solution to many global challenges currently faced by humanity and will be facing even more in the years to come. It will open up a new chapter in photonics: Smart lighting sources that are controllable, tunable, intelligent, and communicative.

References:

(1) Schubert E. F. and Kim J. K. "Transcending the Replacement Paradigm of Solid-State Lighting", Optics Express, Vol. 16, Issue 6, December 22, 2008

(2) Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Concil (EPSRC), UK, press release 29 Jan 2009

(3) Science Daily, December 20, 2008

Launch economic green revolution now

2009-01-25T13:14:00.002+05:30

Launch economic green revolution now

Dr J D Bapat

That is the call given by Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. Here is the gist of what he has to say.

As the world faces the worst global financial crisis, since the 1930s, the economic case for tackling the global climate crisis is more compelling than ever. Fortunately, our ability to respond has also increased, as we embark upon a technological revolution that will drive sustainable growth and development of a low-carbon global economy.

The risks and potential costs of climate change are even greater than originally recognised. The global emissions of greenhouse gases are growing more quickly than projected. The ability of the planet to absorb greenhouse gases now appears lower than was assumed. The potential of temperature increase due to rising gas concentrations seem higher and the physical impacts of a warming planet are appearing at a faster rate than expected.

If we are to keep down the risks of potentially catastrophic impacts, which could result from average global temperatures rising by 4 °C or more above pre-industrial levels, the concentration of greenhouse gases should not exceed 500 parts per million.

That means that annual global emissions must peak within the next 15 years, before falling to half of their 1990 level by 2050. In addition, we will need to limit human additions to atmospheric greenhouse gases to under 10 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalent per year, compared with the current 45 gigatonnes.

Such reductions present a significant challenge but they are affordable and manageable, costing about 2 per cent of global GDP each year. Indeed, with good policy and increasingly rapid technical progress, the costs may be considerably lower.

The leading industrialised nations are due to meet in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the next annual gathering of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If they agree to cut their emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050, compared with 1990, this will be an essential step towards meeting the challenge. That agreement must be effective (on the scale required), efficient (keeping costs down) and equitable (recognising different resources, skills and historical responsibilities).

The key to these major reductions in emissions, whilst maintaining development and growth, is the rapid dissemination and use of low-carbon technologies. Already, innovation is advancing in many areas at a faster pace than anticipated. However such progress needs to be accelerated. We will need a revolution that surpasses the scale and impact of previous world-changing technologies such as railways and personal computers. This requires policies and measures that remove barriers and provide incentives for technological development.

First, action is needed to further spread existing low-carbon technologies, such as "green" household appliances. This can be done by creating carbon markets in which the price of emitting carbon reflects the potential impact of those emissions and by introducing energy-efficiency standards to incentivise innovation.

Second, we need more support for the development and scaling-up of technologies that could become commercially viable within the next 15 years, such as second-generation biofuels, which do not directly affect food production and carbon capture and storage (CCS). The CCS is crucial for countries with fast-expanding economies, such as India and China, which currently rely on coal-fired power stations for growth. We need about 30 CCS demonstration projects, on a commercial scale, carried out in developed and developing countries over the next 10 years. This technology needs to spread through international and public-private collaborations.

Third, more effort is required to stimulate new breakthrough technologies that will lead to major cuts in emissions beyond 2030. A well-functioning global carbon market would drive these but public funding for energy research and development should be doubled now from its present global level of about $10 billion per year, with a medium-term target of around 0.1 per cent of world GDP or about $50 billion per year.

While the global economic downturn could distract us from the bigger task of tackling climate change, it is also an opportunity to bring forward investments in low-carbon technologies while costs are lower. It can provide job opportunities in the short run in key sectors where resources are idle, such as construction. Investments that improve energy efficiency will also yield benefits. In the long term, investments in low-carbon technologies could provide sustainable and well-founded economic growth. The global economic downturn is an opportunity to invest in green tech while costs are lower.

Continued unchecked emissions and high-carbon growth are not sustainable. We have a real chance to set a path towards a low-carbon future. It is the only realistic future for growth and for overcoming world poverty. Number of 'green technologies' aimed at reducing pollution and/or greenhouse gas emission are available today. However it is necessary to show that these technologies are marketable and shall ultimately bring economic benefits to the common man. Launching green economic revolution will do that. So, launch it now !

Environemental challenges for 2009

2009-01-24T12:12:00.002+05:30

Environmental challenges for 2009

Dr J D Bapat

Tackling climate change and its consequences, reforming the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, improving air quality and reducing the environmental impact of biofuels will top the bloc's environmental policy debates in the coming year, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA). Looking at the issues, it appears that they remain same for rest of the world.

The EEA snapshot of key environmental policy debates in 2009 singles out "global diplomacy and the search for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol" as the main topic to be discussed, followed by adapting to climate change and water management issues.

As for upcoming reform of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), it is argued that current distribution of CAP funds is not very effective from the perspective of achieving EU environmental objectives, in particular on nature protection. It suggests that the review should consider widening access to financial support to farmland, particularly rich in habitats and species of conservation concern and particularly to high nature value farmland.

Intensive farms do not support biodiversity and are not all that dependent on CAP payments. Regarding biofuels, it is noted that the switch from oil to bioenergy is not risk free and a move towards large-scale bioenergy production would carry considerable environmental risk, particularly in terms of land-use change.

The EEA thus believes that Europe should progress further by beginning to research advanced second-generation biofuels seriously to account for their effects on soil, water, biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions.

Other hot topics in 2009 include marine management and international waste imports and exports.

The greenhouse gas emissions are just one symptom of a much deeper issue: our inability to live sustainably.

Source: EurActiv.com, 13 January 2009

Corn to cool the earth

2009-01-24T11:34:00.002+05:30

Corn to cool the earth

Dr J D Bapat

A new study finds that increasing the glossiness or reflectivity of crop surfaces could cool earth in the summer. The scientists view it as the most cost-effective geoengineering solution for global warming.

The waxy coating of crops such as corn and barley reflects solar radiation back into space--a property called "albedo." Without crop albedo, estimates suggest that Earth would be approximately a half a degree Celsius warmer than it is now. If researchers increase the crop albedo further, they could help cool our warming world. Increasing crop albedo by 20% could decrease regional temperatures by 1°C in the summer. Over 100 years, the effect would equate to eliminating 195 billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere, the equivalent of grounding 195 million plane flights from Los Angeles to New York. One way to increase albedo is to selectively breed plants with thicker waxy layers.

Modifying the crop albedo offers advantages not found in other geoengineering proposals, such as practicality and low cost to implement. However it should be noted that making crops more glossy will not solve global warming by itself. It is a simple, small step that we can take to start making a difference.

Researchers propose that one way of temporarily reducing global temperatures would be to replace existing crops with variant strains that reflect more solar radiation back out to space. The overall effect would be the same as making large areas of the planet more mirror-like. Their calculations suggest this could cause average summer temperatures in temperate zones to fall by as much as 1°C.

The politicians have generally adopted the aim of limiting global warming to 2°C above 19th century averages, so a 1°C is not something to be taken lightly.

Plants reflects short wave energy back out to space much like snow and other light surfaces do. As Arctic ice melts and is replaced by dark water, for instance, the region's warming is expected to accelerate . Plants have higher or lower reflectivity depending on things like the shape and size of their leaves and how waxy they are. Different varieties of a same species can have more or less albedo.

The crop yields would not suffer, if farmers preferentially planted high-albedo varieties. Indeed for some crops yields might increase. The farmers would need to be given incentives – most likely financial ones – to buy high-albedo varieties. The researchers say one way of setting up these incentives would be to make high-albedo farms eligible for carbon credits which could be sold on the carbon trading markets.

Source: ScienceNOW Daily News, 15 January 2009

Provide more incentives for renewable energy

2009-01-19T14:38:00.001+05:30

Provide more incentives for renewable energy
Dr J D Bapat

The world has seen an unprecedented explosion in growth. However majority of the developed world is now officially in recession. The spiralling costs of crude oil and natural gas have come to an end - oil is back below US $40 a barrel.

Overall, it looks as though domestic energy prices will remain higher than previously thought. This is particularly ominous when wholesale gas and oil prices slowly start their rise again when the recession lifts. There is an air of inevitability in the increase of the price of oil and gas, as the finite resource becomes ever rarer and more expensive to extract.

The Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) cells are the perfect way to establish independence from increasing power prices. The only other viable power generation would be a miniature wind turbine. These renewable power devices provide protection from power price increase. The major disadvantages with micro-generation of power using wind turbines are swirling wind direction in urban areas, particularly if not mounted on the tallest building in the vicinity and the obstructive planning laws in some countries.

Renewable technology cannot compete on the free market with fossil fuels unless carbon trading schemes are brought in to represent the global damage being caused by climate change. The UK has introduced Renewable Obligation Credits (ROC's) and one time grant towards the initial capital outlay of microgeneration. For solar photovoltaics this grant currently stands at £2,500 per household and ROC's provide about 5p/kWh of energy produced. Other countries should also follow the same path.

Wind energy in China

2009-01-18T16:30:00.002+05:30

Wind energy in China

Dr J D Bapat

China more than doubled its wind power capacity in 2008, installing 4.66 GW of additional capacity and surpassing the government's 10GW target two years ahead of schedule. China's wind power industry is dominated by the 'big five' state-owned electric power companies.

The impressive growth, widely projected by observers, was driven by an 88.10% year-on-year increase in capital investment. The increase reflects the success of China's policies to promote renewable energy, which includes the mandated target of 10GW by 2010 and a renewable portfolio standard that requires "non-hydro renewables" to account for 3% of the installed capacity of large power companies by 2010, and 8% by 2020.

China's central economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has also set a target for 30GW of wind power capacity by 2020. But last year's growth has observers projecting the industry outstripping the 2020 mark a decade sooner. The Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association unofficially projects that 25-30GW of wind power capacity will be installed by the end of 2010.

There is some concern by NDRC that wind power is growing too fast, so maybe they will use the "low target" as a way to emphasise the sustainable development of the sector and quality control.

Rapid growth has led to high incidence of wind turbine unreliability and underperforming installations. The industry is addressing the problem by doing more and more innovation and testing before installation. About 20% of installed wind power capacity is not currently connected to the grid.

Source: Environmental Finance magazine, 15 January 2009.
For more news and articles visit www.environmental-finance.com or subcribe to Environmental Finance

Halt all carbon emissions by 2050

2009-01-17T22:15:00.005+05:30

Halt all carbon emissions by 2050

Dr J D Bapat

In order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, world
carbon emissions will have to drop to near zero by 2050 and go

negative
after that, the Worldwatch Institute reported on Tuesday. The finding will
have far reaching repercussions

Limiting carbon emissions aims to keep global mean temperature from
rising more than 2 degrees C over what it was before the Industrial
Revolution. The global warming needs to be reduced from peak levels
to 1 degree Celsius, as fast as possible. The Global mean temperature has
already risen by 0.8 C since 1850. Hence drastic cuts in emissions of
climate-warming carbon dioxide are needed.

The global greenhouse gas emissions would need to hit the peak by
2020 and drop 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and keep
dropping after that. The carbon dioxide emissions would have
to "go negative," with more being absorbed than emitted, in the
second half of this century.

The burden of cutting greenhouse emissions should fall more
heavily on industrialised countries than the developing ones,
with industrialized nations reducing emissions by 90 percent by
2050, allowing developing nations to let their economies grow
and develop new technologies that will ultimately reduce
climate-warming gases.

2009: a pivotal year?
Even with these dramatic changes, the world may face an
additional rise of nearly 1 degree C because the impact of past
greenhouse emissions hasn't yet been felt on surface temperatures,
the report said. The year 2009 could be pivotal in the movement
against climate change.

The 2009 is a deadline for a global agreement to craft a successor
pact to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol. That is set to happen in
December at a meeting in Copenhagen. The Copenhagen meeting
could put in place a new "financial architecture" that discourages
greenhouse emissions and rewards actions that take these emissions
out of the atmosphere. This could take the form of a cap-and-trade
system or a carbon tax, and could also include "the best terms of
trade, investment and credit" for countries that make the transition
to a low-carbon economy.

We still have some precious time to safely manage human-induced
climate change. What is at stake is not just nature as we have always
known it but quite possibly the survival of our civilization.

The strongest message from State of the World 2009 is this: "If
the world does not take action early and in adequate measure, the
impacts of climate change could prove extremely harmful and
overwhelm our capacity to adapt." The Washington-based Worldwatch
Institute is an independent research organization.

Source: Worldwatch, 14 Jan 2009

Organic farming

2009-01-11T06:53:00.006+05:30

Organic farming

Dr J D Bapat

The Kheti Virasat Mission (KVM) launched a campaign against the report on organic farming released by the Punjab State Farmers Commission (India) recently. The KVM objects to certain issues raised in the report. The report states that the increased use of organic farming for growing wheat and paddy could prove counter-productive for Punjab.

The Mission organised a discussion on this subject, and another discussion has been scheduled for February. The report has been termed as as baseless. It was mentioned that there are many farmers who opted for organic farming and are cultivating their land with much success. On the contrary there are facts to prove the ill-effects of farming using chemicals. Due to the excessive use of chemicals in farming ground-water in Punjab has become contaminated. The water resources are depleting and productivity level has stagnated. The organic farming increases productivity by more than 50 per cent. At present the returns on agriculture are decreasing.

Source: Indian Express, Jan 11, 2009

Sustainable consumption

2009-01-04T17:21:00.001+05:30

Sustainable Consumption

Dr J D Bapat

Cooperation in business and consumers

Although people want to live more sustainably, there are still plenty of barriers keeping them from acting in tune with their thoughts. A sustainable society won't be born out of just consumer choices, but out of business actions as well.

Global consumption patterns are not sustainable, and have already had detrimental impacts on the earth environment. The world is experiencing rapid population growth and more people are consuming more, especially in emerging countries.

While survey after survey shows consumers are, on the whole, concerned about their impacts on the environment and willing to act, they do not always follow through with different behaviors. The reasons for that are numerous: some green choices are not cost effective, it is inconvenient to give up certain things and there is a general lack of understanding or confusion around areas like product labeling.

The role of business in moving the world towards sustainable consumption is to make sustainability commonplace. Companies must make green choices easy to make as well as easy to understand, affordable and comparable to conventional choices.

Businesses also need to innovate new products and service, harness the power of marketing and new forms of communication to influence consumer choices, and eliminate unsustainable products and services.

For many products, like cars, detergent and electronics, the biggest impacts come from their use. A company could have a LEED certified, energy efficient factory, but if the company makes laundry detergent that requires massive amounts of hot water when its used, it's still contributing to unsustainable actions, no matter how green its operations are. Making detergent that works in cold water, though, helps bring down the environmental impact of all end users.

Source: GreenBiz.com, 19 December 2008

Sustainable housing

2008-12-30T12:53:00.001+05:30

Sustainable housing

Dr J D Bapat

Combined vegetable and plastic waste to make low-cost, sustainable housing

In the poverty-stricken countryside of Paraguay, a landlocked country in the heart of South America, an innovative social activist has found a new use for an old vegetable. Elsa Zaldívar, whose longstanding commitment to helping the poor while protecting the environment has won her deep respect in her native land, has found a way to mix loofah – a cucumber-like vegetable that is dried to yield a scratchy sponge for use as abrasive skin scrubber – with other vegetable matter like husks from corn and caranday palm trees, along with recycled plastic, to form strong, lightweight panels. These can be used to create furniture and construct houses, insulating them from temperature and noise. About 300,000 Paraguayan families do not have adequate housing. Her work shows how making a simple change can transform people's lives.

She persuaded local women in Caaguazú to consider loofah as a means of generating income. When harvested before it completely ripens, loofah can be eaten. The women organized themselves in a cooperative and sold loofah sponges, produced from ripened loofah, as cosmetic products. They used loofah to manufacture mats, slippers, insoles and a variety of other products that were exported to markets as far away as Europe.

Zaldívar was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship in 2001 to continue her efforts to empower rural women to make products from loofah products and to set up a micro-enterprise.

Even with the women's efforts to grow the high-standard vegetables, roughly one-third of the loofahs they cultivated were of inferior quality and could not be exported. Nearly 30 per cent of the sponge material destined for the finished products was trimmed off during manufacture. Determined to find a means to recycle and market for the loofah waste, Zaldívar teamed up with Pedro Padrós, an industrial engineer, to search for a way to recycle the waste vegetable material to construct inexpensive panels for walls and roofing for building houses. She had realized that if the first step to improving the lives of the poor was increasing their income, the next was to help them find decent housing, which would dramatically raise their living standards. The initial efforts to mix loofah with different types of glues did not produce the desired result, mainly because of the high costs involved.

Then Padrós got the idea of using plastic waste with the loofah. He invented a machine that melted a mixture of three types of waste plastic and combined the resulting liquid with loofah and other vegetable fibres, such as cotton netting and chopped corn husks. After hundreds of trials, the results began to produce a working product. With the help from Paraguay's environment ministry, Base ECTA (a non-profit organization headed by Zaldívar) obtained a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank to construct the prototype of a machine to produce the panels.

Combining a melting unit, mixer, extruder and cutting unit, the machine can produce – in an hour – a half-metre-wide panel 120 metres long. Depending on the exact mix of plastics and fibres, as well as the thickness of the panel, the composite can have varying amounts of flexibility, weight and insulating qualities, making it adaptable to a variety of construction needs. Colouring can be included in the panel's plastic mix at the time of fabrication, so there is no need to paint the walls after construction, saving homeowners time and money. The panels with greater strength can be produced by using a honeycomb or earthen filler, as well as vegetable matter, to create a sandwich of two panels.

The composite panels are easier to handle than lumber or brick, and much better than conventional materials in an earthquake or other natural catastrophe. Combined with special metal connectors, it will bend but not break, in an earthquake .If a house collapses, human lives are likely to survive as the walls are lighter in weight than conventional materials. Using the panels will help spare the nation's forests. The fibers that are completely renewable and lumber can be spared. That's very important in Paraguay as the original forests have been reduced to less than ten per cent of Paraguay's territory.

As Padrós has refined the design of the panels, improvements have brought the cost down. The panels initially costing about US$ 6 per square metre to produce, have already dropped to less than half that figure, making it competitive with existing construction materials, such as wood. Zaldívar predicts the price will continue to fall as experiments continue. She is also involved in discussions with several companies interested in using the panels commercially, but her main aim is to make the construction material available at low cost to those who need them most.

Zaldívar believes rural families should be able to build their own simple house in just three to four days, supplementing the panels with other locally obtained materials such as bamboo and adobe. Even urban residents, who often have access to subsidized credit and other government assistance, will be able to use the panels in constructing decent housing.

The project's success derives from the unique combination of Padrós' engineering skills with Zaldívar's genius in creating an integrated system of cultivation, recycling the waste, production and distribution. In addition to the loofah producers, Zaldívar is working with recyclers in urban areas in order to guarantee a flow of appropriate plastic and with groups of women to provide the tonnes of corn and palm husks, for example, that will be needed – all materials that would otherwise end up as waste thrown in landfills.

Padrós says the panels are designed so that they will not generate any waste – should they wear out or break, they can be ground up and recycled into new panels. The process could be repeated several times until the composite becomes too rich in vegetable fibers, but Padrós says the mixture can then be used as a high-energy fuel. That means the recycled plastics used in the initial mix must be carefully selected to insure that they can be burned without producing toxic fumes.

As Zaldívar and Padrós finish testing the improved panel-making machine, the Rolex Award will finance a promotion centre near Asunción and the construction of three model houses where the panels' versatility will be displayed for both urban and rural audiences, as well as funding the production of a video that will be used to describe the project to people interested in using similar sustainable techniques in other countries.

Contact address:

Ms Elsa Zaldívar
Defensores del Chaco
350 San Lorenzo 2140
Paraguay

Tel: + 595 21 580 239
basedir@basecta.org.py