Author: Chris

A group of British explorers were hit by a three minute rain shower at their ice base off Ellef Rignes Island, 2420 miles north of Canadian capital, Ottawa. According to scientists, events like this are a clear indication of the temperature rising in the Arctic. A three member team studying the absorption of CO2 in water further north has reported that the ice cover is becoming thinner, and has decreased every year since 2007. Scientists blame this effect on greenhouse gases causing global warming.

The main aim of this team is to study the absorption of CO2 in ocean water, which makes the water acidic. Global warming is a problem having disastrous effects, if not dealt with in time.
[msnbc]

Almost 42,000 gallons of oil are being leaked into the ocean every day since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank last week. Though the direction of wind, and water currents are favourable, it is estimated the oil will reach areas with high marine life habitat by Friday. The options available apart from burning the oil are either not feasible or will take too long to implement. As a result, the Coast Guard have decided to burn the oil slick which is about 20 miles east of the mouth of Mississippi river, an area having hundreds of species of wildlife.

Apart from environmental concerns, this disaster has caused huge economic losses as well. Though burning the oil will save marine life, it will cause a lot of pollution.
[aolnews]

There have been many reports in the recent years which question the impact of global warming on the environment. Commenting on this widely debated topic, Hollywood actress Brooke Shields says that irrespective of the fact whether global warming has an impact on the environment, it is in everyone’s best interest to adopt eco friendly practices such as conserving water and electricity, and switching to green products. Her new film “Furry Vengeance”, a family comedy, also focuses on the subject of human encroachment in areas inhabited by wildlife. The makers have also teamed up with Participant Media, a Los-Angeles based company, to integrate a social action campaign to co incide with the release of the film.

This campaign will focus on spreading the message of wildlife and habitat preservation by educating children in more than 16,000 schools across the country.
[foxnews]

Portuguese telephone service provider TMN has joined the list of companies making an effort to protect the environment. TMN has collaborated with sim card suppliers Incard and Toppan to make sim cards from recycled paper to be supplied with the new eco-friendly phone, Samsung Blue Earth. Although you might think that making a sim card out of paper won’t have a great effect on the environment, but when you consider the plastic card which it is punched out of and the huge numbers in which sim cards are manufactured, this scheme seems to work.

This sim card is currently only available for Samsung’s Blue Earth but there are plans to make it available for other phones too in the near future. Samsung’s Blue Earth, having the unique feature of a solar panel at the back in addition to standard features is available for about $318 in Portugal.
[slashgear]

Reports suggest that many cars in London are used for less than an hour per day and people would gladly pay for renting cars from their neighborhoods. Founder of Whipcar, Vinay Gupta designed an ingenious solution. After the car owner and the renter have registered themselves on the site, Whipcar runs some background checks on them. When the renter has selected a car, an e-mail is sent to the owner and depending on the rate offered the owner can accept or reject the renter’s offer. Once the owner accepts the offer, the appropriate amount is deducted from the renter’s credit card and the owner is provided with the last four digits of the renter’s driver’s license for verification purpose. After this, both parties agree to meet a chosen location for the renter to pick-up the car and drop it off at the return time.

The car is automatically insured for the renter during the hired period in addition to its existing insurance. Though, it is only available in London for now, Whipcar offers an innovative solution to reduce requirement, thus reducing production and in turn saving huge amounts of energy.
[psfk]

Nissan’s, much hyped, all–electric LEAF seems to have hit the right cord with consumers. The LEAF is supposed to be the first ever electric car to be mass produced and made commercially available. According to a Nissan executive more than 6,635 people have booked the LEAF just within two days of opening bookings. However, the more staggering statistic is that Nissan got around 2,700 bookings within the first two hours itself. While, a majority of the bookings are coming in from the western coasts, everyone’s only motive seems to be ‘going green’.Considering the fact that this reservation system has been made available only to the 115,000 people who had registered themselves on the “interest list” until May 15th, Nissan will achieve its target of 50,000 vehicles sooner than estimated.

Looking at the numbers, it seems that anyone who wants the LEAF in the first year will have to book it as fast as possible. The success of this car will also have a great effect on the environment as it will reduce carbon emissions by thousands of tonnes.
[gas2]

FedEx Ground, a unit of FedEx that ships small packages has collaborated with BP Solar to build a huge rooftop solar power generation unit. This project is situated in Woodbridge, New Jersey, at the company’s distribution hub. This power plant is supposed to be the nation’s largest solar rooftop installation. It consists of 12,400 solar panels spread over approximately 3.3 acres of roof-space. With the ability to generate 2.42 megawatts of power, this installation is estimated to satisfy about 30% of the total energy requirements of the entire facility.

According to the terms of the collaboration, BP Solar would install and operate the plant and FedEx would buy the energy generated from it. FedEx sets an excellent example for other organizations to follow through this policy.
[greenbiz]

Thursday, April 29th
7:00-9:00pm
FREE
Gowen Hall Room 201 at the University of Washington, just north of Suzzallo Library

Josphat Ngonyo Executive Director of African Network for Animal Welfare, a lead organization in the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, is coming to Seattle!  Kenya is currently at a crossroads between burgeoning organic movements, and its participation in the “New Green Revolution” for Africa, financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their partners. As a representative of farmer organizations in Kenya, Mr. Ngonyo will discuss the social, economic, and environmental consequences of the new green revolution agricultural model. He will also share stories with us of resistance to this approach and information about actual alternative agricultural practices.

Josphat Ngonyo is Founder and Executive Director of African Network for Animal Welfare, a lead organization in the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC). CAGJ’s Director, Heather Day, recently met with Josphat and many of his colleagues in KBioC, who are taking the lead in resisting the introduction of GMOs into Kenya, and promoting agroecological alternatives.

Other ways to catch Mr. Ngonyo:

April 29^th Tune in to hear Mr. Ngonyo on KUOW’s The Conversation 12 – 1pm

Join Brown-Bag luncheon with African Studies Program, UW Thomson Hall Rm 317, 1:30 – 2:30

Questions?  Contact 206-405-4600 or email AGRA Watch

Sponsored by Community Environment and Planning, Anthropology, African Studies Program, UW Bothell, and Community Alliance for Global Justice

Studies conducted by the department of physics of the University of Turku claim that the report submitted International Panel on Climate Change, which says that carbon dioxide emissions are solely responsible for global warming, is erroneous. According to their analysis, man-made CO2 emissions are only responsible for 5-10% of the total global warming observed. This value is only one-tenth of what the IPCC’s report claims it to be.

Though the IPCC has had its share of criticism from other sources and it has also made erroneous forecasts in the past, like the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, the veracity of this report still remains to be confirmed.
[climaterealists]

The volcanic eruption in Iceland, which disrupted air travel in Europe, began a few months ago through a series of fissures which had developed on the eastern side of the volcano. According to experts, volcanic eruptions give out a large amount of sulfur and related compounds such as sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. These compounds reflect sunlight, thus causing an overall cooling in the climate of the entire region. The sulfur dioxide also creates smog. The ash that is released during these eruptions is spread out at high altitudes where it can cause damage to the aircrafts due to the abrasive silicate compounds present in it.

Though this eruption did not do much immediate damage, according to statistics it will have an adverse effect on the climate and will also affect travel.

[digg]

Aptera has designed an all electric, three wheeler futuristic vehicle called ‘2e’. Aptera had to overcome many financial and technical hurdles to develop this car from scratch. The ‘2e’ is a futuristic looking 3-wheeler bubble car. It uses a phosphate based lithium ion battery developed by A123 Systems to power its motor. Aptera claims for the ‘2e’ to have an efficiency of around 200 miles per gallon.

The 2e is in its pre-production stages now. A prototype is going to be sent to Michigan, where it will be rigorously tested for several months.
[digg]

When Jerry and Judy Bohl saw the plight of the people in the poor regions for clean drinking water, they decided to do something about it. They built an affordable water purification unit with the help of their son’s teacher Paul Flickinger, a Western Michigan art professor. The purifier costs around $750 to build but the Bohl’s organization, ’Clean Water for the World’ donates it for free to the people in the poor regions for community use. The purifier works like a normal purifier, but it has the additional advantage of using UV light to clean the water. After passing through a cotton filter which removes the bigger impurities, the water is made to pass through a metal chamber fitted with a UV bulb. Since the UV rays travel with a very high frequency, they are able to penetrate the cell walls of bacteria and kill them.

The Bohls have taken this initiative to inspire other people donate and help the less fortunate in any way they can.
[discovery]

In view of the policies adopted by certain clubs to use renewable energy, to recycle waste and to educate fans regarding environmental issues in collaboration with the NRDC, the MLB is going to collect data regarding various usage patterns from different venues and analyze it from an environmental point of view. The Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Seattle Mariners are some of the clubs whose programs are selected for this purpose. The data collection scheme will focus on, calculating the total energy used, sources of energy, and amount of renewable energy used. Apart from this it will also calculate, the amount of the waste generated, the fraction of waste sent for recycling, and cost of disposal. The program will also look to quantify, the total amount of water used, the amount of water conserved and will suggest optimized usage patterns according to the cost. The data collection will also focus on the amount of paper required and the amount of recycled paper used.

This data collection policy is a great way to conserve resources because monitoring is the first step in reducing.
[environmentalleader]

A massive building made using more than 1.5 million PET bottles has recently been unveiled in Taiwan. This building named, ‘EcoARK’, is built by the Far Eastern Group at a price of US$3 million on the principles of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. This three-storey structure is supposed to be the lightest building in the world, yet it is strong enough to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. The building will also feature an amphitheatre and an exhibition hall. It will use a screen of falling water collected during the rainy season for air conditioning purposes.

The EcoARK is an excellent example of the fact that recycling does not compromise aesthetic beauty.
[treehugger]

The High Speed Solar Airship (HSSA) is designed to utilize solar energy for flying. Made using thin-film solar panels producing 67.2kW of power and other commonly available components, the HSSA promises to deliver high speed air transport while consuming no fossil fuels. The HSSA claims to have flying speeds of 182 miles per hour during the day and 165 miles per hour during the night which are further increased during west to east travel due to jet streams. It uses an envelope of expandable gas cells which help the airship go from sea level to an altitude of 30,000, which is well above cloud cover and hence provides unhindered sunlight to the solar panels.

According to specifications this airship will have a cargo capacity of 120,000 pounds and will cost about $5 million. Although, it is currently being tested on a smaller scale, this invention shows great promise to reduce fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
[inhabitat]

BMW has developed a 1 series hatchback which uses hydrogen hybrid technology. According to specifications, it uses a 5kW fuel cell to power an 82kW (109 horsepower) motor. The fuel cell will store electricity in a bank of ultracapacitors. It also has a conventional internal combustion engine. The electric motor which is powered using the hydrogen fuel cell will be used in city driving, while the internal combustion engine, using regular gasoline, will come into play under hard acceleration.

This is a very brilliant idea by BMW which utilizes the environmental benefits of using hydrogen fuel cells without compromising on performance.
[wired]

Chinese automaker SAIC have developed a new green car, called the ‘Leaf Concept’ to be showcased in the upcoming Beijing Motor Show. This car is supposed to be powered by using a solar panel placed on its roof and in-wheel turbines using wind energy. Although, there is no information as to how it will happen, but SAIC claims that the solar panel will also emit oxygen in the process. However, physicists seem to have major concerns regarding the practical usability of this car. According to them the size of the solar roof panel is not big enough to generate sufficient power for the car. They also say that according to the law of conservation of energy, the in-wheel turbines will create more drag than the power they produce.

Although the idea is very environment friendly, it would have been more useful had it been equally practical.
[jalopnik]

The Livestock Power Mill, designed by William Taylor of Northern Ireland, works by placing a cow on an inclined non-powered belt. To avoid sliding down, the cow will start walking forward. Once it does that, the belt starts turning, causing the gearbox attached to start spinning. This gearbox in turn, drives a generator which produces electricity. A feed box is kept at the front of machine to lure the cow to keep moving. A single cow can generate about 2 kW of power, which is enough to power four milking machines.

Although this method has the disadvantage of reduction in the amount of milk produced, it also solves the problem of the cattle not getting enough exercise during winter while producing energy.
[trendhunter]

Ceramatec has developed a new battery which can be used to store large amounts of energy at a low cost. The reason most of the houses having equipment to harness solar and wind energy are still connected to the grid is due to the high cost of batteries that are required to store energy when these factors are not available. However, Ceramatec’s new battery made up of solid materials claims to store 20 to 40kW of power. This battery can release power continuously at the rate of 5kW per hour for 4 hours, and it will have a life of 3650 charge cycles. When calculated using the estimated price of the battery which is about $2,000, it will provide power at only 3 cents per kilowatt hour, which is drastically less than the average 8 cents charged by the electricity company. For those of who don’t know, this much energy is sufficient for running, a vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, trash compacter, food processor, electric burner and thirty three 60-watt light bulbs.

Apart from this, the battery is also safer as it stores energy at temperatures of 90 degrees Celsius, while in conventional batteries liquids can be heated to up to 600 degrees Celsius. These batteries can help to remove major hurdles existing in further popularization of concept of generating and using energy from renewable sources.
[naturalnews]

Gilberto Esparza has designed a self sustaining hybrid robot that derives energy from bacteria present in polluted water. These robots are called ‘Plantas Nomadas’ or Nomadic plants because they carry plants on them and use the water to nourish them. These robots use microbial fuel cell technology. The bacteria present in dirty water is broken down and converted into energy required for sustaining the robot while the excess energy is used to sustain the plants it carries.

These robots can play a major role in helping riverside communities to deal with the problem of polluted water in a green way.
[treehugger]