Archive for November, 2009
Scientists Ask For (Copenhagen’s Spring) Higher CO2 Cuts
Scientists Ask For (Copenhagen’s Spring) Higher CO2 Cuts
The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change was held in Copenhagen between 10th to 12th March and organised by the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU): the conclusions will be published into a full synthesis report next June. Almost 1,600 scientific contributions of researchers from over 70 countries have been received, and more than 2,500 delegates attended the event.
Connie Hedegaard, Minister of Climate & Energy of Denmark said that we have “to avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable” and she pointed to their example: this European country has become a net energy exporter in 30 years, creating a green growth as a stable solution of the 70s oil crisis. The messages of the congress are various. The risk that current trends of the climatic system will accelerate has a more defined and significant meaning: more probable abrupt and irreversible shifts, and we are already above the worst scenarios published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001. Thus the big problem is trying to at least slow down these trends if not reverse them. The experts tell us that fast regional and global mitigation strategies are needed and that the more we wait the more expensive and ambitious actions will have to be taken in the future. The fact that scientists have come to the point of saying that “Inaction is Inexcusable” means also that people who studied relentlessly for decades are frustrated by the inaction of governments, businesses and people: it is understandable given that their work has not been considered and used enough, if not at all, up to now. They are speaking louder and clearer now. The different roles of politicians and scientists have to be combined. It is time for leaders to rely firmly on science as a basis for tough and unavoidable decisions. A “societal transformation” is being asked for by a wide group of the most intelligent people on the planet including diffusion of sustainable behaviours, innovative leadership, removal of subsidies and reduction of “vested interests”. These are all very explicit messages to politicians and public alike: there is a lot of work to do between now and next December’s COP15.
In the final debate the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, summarised the six messages given by scientists as 6 keywords: Urgency (of the climate change challenge), Direction (long term target to be defined), Action (short term targets to be set), Fairness (to the poorest and most vulnerable), Opportunity (to originate large benefits), Governance (creation of a new global multilateral era). He stated firmly that “Business As Usual is dead” and asked his colleagues to follow Obama’s call for a Green New Deal, already asked for by public opinion and by many political parties in the world.
After the final debate with the panel of scientists an impatient Rasmussen asked for clear words on the CO2 emission target to be set in the new treaty. Prof. Daniel Kammen, Obama’s Senior Policy Advisor, stated that an entire new industrial revolution is needed to cut 1990’s CO2 emissions by 80% in 2050 and Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf agreed on this point. The feeling was that the other panelists didn’t mind… At this point the Prime Minister concluded that the ambition for COP15 can be this -80% long-term objective following the precautionary principle to avoid worse impacts (than the ones presented in 2007 IPCC report) already hypothesized by new works. Overall a more direct communication between scientists and policy makers took place in this huge meeting: now it’s time for delegations to study and prepare the ground for brave steps forward to be made by the international community in Copenhagen’s crucial Conference of the Parties #15. Will we be able to navigate better our “ship” in the solar system during the over 200 rotations it will make before then?
Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding to Climate Change.
For further information on Climate Change please visit the Responding to Climate Change website –
http://www.rtcc.org
*Next event: Copenhagen, 24-26 May 2009. World Business Summit on Climate Change
Green Roof
How to NOT Be One of Them – Farmers Are Being Pushed to Increase in Size Or Get Out!
How to NOT Be One of Them – Farmers Are Being Pushed to Increase in Size Or Get Out!
It doesn’t matter what size it is, your farm is an ever increasing asset, even more so if you can provide chemical free, clean food.
Australian conventional food prices are forecast to quadruple in price over the next five years. The reason is Asia. We are in the middle of a global revolution in the way we think, eat and live.
This week I received this news from Craig Sobey who has recently toured China with representatives from five city councils, Austrade and Regional Development Victoria and reports that there is a real opportunity for all to take a significant market share in this period.
Basically, if it is Australian and premium quality there is a ready market. Australia is seen as a source of safe food regardless of whether it is organic or conventional. At this stage price does not appear in the conversation, just consistent supply and traceability. The interest in all products represented included convenience food packages (pre-cooked), meats, dairy, wines etc.
Did you know:
- This co-op now owns China’s fifth biggest supermarket chain with over 500,000 stores.
- There is a farmer’s co-op representative with over five million members?
- 6,000 of them over 30,000 sq metres. The supermarket turned over 18 billion dollars in 2007 with revenues growing by 150 % per annum on average.
- They have offered an entire Australian Pavilion for Aussie produce including organics in their premiere stores in Beijing and Shanghai. Organic Wines were the big attraction.,
- China creates 80,000 millionaires each year.
- There are over 350 million middle class and a niche market of super wealthy Chinese? (Craig told me that French wine is selling as much as $600 a bottle and even one watermelon cost $40!).
However there is real interest in China for organics (which they refer to as Green Food) and particularly food safety/ traceability which is the paramount concern for all serious buyers they met. A new Australian wide network (not for profit) company is being formed for all sections of the organic market. This is so that a pool of members can tackle the export markets together. Its goal is to give you an export premium to help make membership very appealing.
The time is ripe for all growers to stop and think about the future of their farming. What choice will you make? Your future will depend on it. Even if all of Australia’s certified organic farmers, processors etc. were to unite they could not supply the market in China alone and therefore there is untapped potential over the next ten to twenty years to be further developed.
Farming Secrets is a club for farmers who want to farm healthier and more profitably. Farming Secrets reconnects them with the experts through supporting them with one to one help and constant support from experts in order to fast track their farming goals that much quicker.
Hugo Disler
For More information about Natural and Organic Farming visit http://www.farmingsecretsblog.com
To discover the secrets of natural and profitable farming, visit http://www.farmingsecrets.com
2008- Granny Arrested/Greenest car
Home Bio Diesel Production
Home Bio Diesel Production
The flammability point of biodiesel.
I’ve mentioned that it’s biodegradable that it’s safe to use blah, blah, blah, all these different things, but I want to show you how safe this is. This biodiesel, I’ve made from canola oil, so I’m going to pour a little bit in here, and now it’s time to play with fire. We’re going to come down here. Light up our torch, notice I have my fire extinguisher people.
We now have a nice blow torch going. Notice I’ve got some nice biodiesel on the ground here. I want to show you that biodiesel is very, very safe to have around. I can’t light it on fire. This torch is a really hot torch. I’m actually using map gas. Map gas actually has a higher flame temperature. So I’m just trying to light this sucker on fire, and you know what, she’s not going. That’s because biodiesel isn’t actually that flammable. It has a much higher flash point than normal diesel, and I’ve just proven it.
And that’s one of the reasons people like biodiesel is because it’s so safe to use. In fact, if this stuff spills on the ground the MSDS and things that it calls for is get a garden hose and wash it off. It’s not going to light up. It’s as safe to have around as vegetable oil. No I have to cavy up that this biodiesel has been cleaned. We have got all the methanol out of it, and we’ll talk a little bit about that later, but I just want to show you that it’s very clean and it just doesn’t burn. That’s that little fun experiment. We want to show you that biodiesel will burn though. When it’s under pressure it does burn quite well. For this experiment I’m just going to start a fire, and I’m going to spray it into it. As you can see it will burn, so when it’s in your diesel and it becomes injected, it will burn beautifully. That’s biodiesel burning.
The DR Performance Diesel Products & Edge Diesel Products are both fully compatible with biodiesel- Nathan Young
Japan aims to build solar power station in space by 2030 | Raw Story solarenergyfromspace Japan aims to build solar power station in space by 2030 It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan’s space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, … Punj Lloyd forays into solar energy | Sindh Today – Online News New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) Punj Lloyd, a diversified construction and engineering group, has tied up with Singapore-based Delta Solar to foray into the solar utility space, the company said Monday. The joint venture, Punj Lloyd Delta … Solar Tour and Energy Efficiency Workshop in Sedona on November 21 … Come see the sun generate electricity free on the Sedona Solar Tour on November 21st â?? then go to the Sedona Public Library to learn how the government and utilities will help you save money improving your home. … Japan looking to space for solar power – zichi's arty posterous But Japan’s boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres (square miles) in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere … AJ Notebook – Architecture + Design : Design Inspiration. Selected by you, curated by the the Architects’ Journal.american idol - green brain
Green Technology
In my four-article series on water use (The Resource Matrix), I took you on a journey to reveal the layers of The Resource Matrix in order to help you understand how water will be a highly contested commodity tomorrow, possibly as much as oil is fought over today. You learned about your water footprint and a website where you can calculate it, virtual water and virtual water transfers, whereby choices here affect water availability elsewhere, to the point of some people not having enough water to drink in order to produce inexpensive dyed cotton, along with insane choices such as growing crops in the desert. You learned that on average it takes 1854 to 3000 gallons to produce one pound of beef. Yep, it’s it’s been a great journey through the sidetrip city of the Resource Matrix. Today, we’ve found the on-ramp to the Green Lighting Interstate and are driving to take a look at water use in generating electricity. For a simple reason. It takes a lot of water to produce electricity. How much? 5% of all US water? 10%? Can’t be as high as 25%? Electricity and water? I thought the issue was fossil fuels and greenhouse gases The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated water use in the United States in 2000. Their grand total: 408 billion gallons per day withdrawn for all uses. The number 1 spot, weighing in at 48%, was thermoelectric power. Irrigation earned the runner-up prize at 34%. The 195 billion gallons need to come from somewhere, and actions have consequences. Environmental ones, as in 40 million fish in the Great Lakes killed each year due to being trapped against water intake devices. That’s a lot of Friday night fish dinners. How much water is used in generating electricity? Large fossil fuel and nuclear plants require incredible quantities of water for cooling and ongoing maintenance. Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators. It uses 48% of all water in the US. According to the Pace Energy and Climate Center, the amount of water used for power plant cooling varies by each specific power plant’s electricity generating technology and size. Nuclear reactors require the most water for cooling, and baseload fossil fuel power plants come in second. The Salem Nuclear Generating Station alone takes 3 billion gallons a day from the Delaware Bay, according to the Pace Energy and Climate Center. Nationally: These numbers are starting to sound like the same ones the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank use. Imagine watching your favorite science program where astronomers explain that the universe is 78 billion light-years wide (78 billion units of 5,878,630,000,000 miles). There is absolutely nothing in our experience to help us wrap our mind around it. How much is 3 billion gallons per day? The Delaware Bay feeds Salem Nuclear Generating Station 3 billion gallons a day. Imagine this rectangle: a football field with end zones (360 feet long x 160 feet wide). Then add to it walls on each side of the rectangle to create a container to hold the 3 billion gallons you pour into it. How high do you need to make those walls to contain 3 billion gallons? 6915 feet high. Or 1.3 miles. Maybe 6915 feet high is still hard to imagine. So how deep do you cover the field in order to feed the Salem plant every minute? Answer: 5 feet deep. Every minute. 48% of all water use: We’re Number One! How much is 195 billion gallons per day? Using the USGS figure for 2000, thermoelectric power nationwide used 195 billion gallons a day, or 48% of all water used in the US. My guess is the water use has grown since then. How high are the walls on our football field now? 449,475 feet or 85 miles high. We’re back to US Treasury and astronomy numbers again. So, let’s get a higher-level view to help us. Lake Erie holds 116 cubic miles of water. Nationally, thermoelectric power uses 195 billion gallons a day – or 64.2 cubic miles a year. We drain Lake Erie every 22 months. But the water used is returned to its source. So what’s the issue about water use? Power generation returns 98% of the water back to its source (bay, lake, river, ocean). It’s the environmental consequences. The Pace Energy and Climate Center explains it neatly: Withdrawal of large volumes of surface water for either power plant cooling or hydropower generation can kill fish, larvae and other organisms trapped against intake structures (impinged), or swept up (entrained) in the flow through the different sections of a power plant. Examples include: The diversion of water out of the river removes water for healthy in-stream ecosystems: The cleanest kilowatt is the one never used: Back to those compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs PowerScorecard.org explains the solution: By re-directing electricity dollars to support environmentally benign energy resources, consumers are empowered, in states that offer supply choice, to influence the existing generating resources that are deployed to meet demand. They can also support the construction of new and cleaner electricity resources that will be built to meet overall growth in demand in the future. By supporting these power options, consumers can minimize many water use and consumption impacts. Still, directing your dollars to cleaner power products in no way helps remediate damages that already have occurred. Consumers can stop the construction of new hydropower facilities or alter conditions of siting and operation, but they cannot undo previous environmental degradation that occurred at existing hydropower facilities. In short, reduce your use of electricity. More Info: We used several sources for this article, including the PowerScorecard.org website, which is produced by the Pace Energy and Climate Center, which is part of the Pace University School of Law’s Center for Environmental Legal Studies, Pace University, White Plains, New York. On PowerScorecard, you can get: Thanks for letting us keep you updated . . . To your green, brighter future, Cinnamon Alvarez, A19 And now I would like to offer you free access to powerful info on energy efficiency that’s easy to read and cuts through all this “green” information clutter — so you can literally start making positive changes today. You can access it now by going to: http://www.a19.com/pub/articles/ From Cinnamon Alvarez: Founder, A19 — woman-owned green manufacturer of hand-made ceramic lighting fixtures
Green Technology
Water Used in Generating US Electricity
The Perfect Solar Storm – From A Global Disaster
The Perfect Solar Storm – From A Global Disaster
The average solar cycle lasts for eleven years. The cycle includes a minimum of solar activity and a maximum. The sun is unusually quiet right now and has been for some time but there should be an increase in solar activity at some point in the near future.
The best current scientific estimate for the next solar maximum is 2012. If this estimate is correct, there is still a few years to try and prevent the potential of a future global disaster. A disaster that would begin on the surface of the sun and could end with tragedy on earth.
The surface of the sun is a mass of plasma that contains highly charged energy particles. Once in a while, some of these particles escape the suns surface and a mass of plasma travels through space on the solar wind. This process is known in scientific terms as a coronal mass ejection but it can also be called a solar storm.
A disaster for the planet would occur if a solar storm reaches and hits the earths magnetic shield in just the right way. If it were to happen, millions of people would lose their lives and the planet would be thrown into chaos as the technology that has become crucial to every day living suddenly gets taken away.
The perfect solar storm will start with skies that will be filled with a bright red aurora. However, soon everything will become dark as every electric bulb becomes devoid of light. The storms damage to the electric grid would be caused through an increased DC current. The runaway current would knock out and melt hundreds of key transformers within minutes, cutting off power for hundreds of millions of people.
Those damaged transformers cannot be repaired only replaced and installing a replacement takes a well-trained crew a week or more. Its incredible to consider that most major electrical utilities have just one or two suitably trained crews available for these type of transformer repairs. In addition, there are only a few spare transformers available and the rest would have to be built to order. Its a process that can take nearly twelve months.
So, the power blackout from the perfect solar storm would last for months but its not just the absence of light that would be the problem. Drinking water would still come through the taps for maybe half a day after the storm. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there would be no more tap water after that.
The electric grid is necessary for almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines to operate. As a result, fuel and natural gas will quickly run out and without food delivery, supermarket shelves would soon become bare. Soon it would become necessary to control public hysteria and the military would have to be called in to restore civil order
There will be no power for heat, cooling or refrigeration until the grid is repaired and after their back up generators run out, hospitals will not be able to provide modern healthcare. A lack of water and food will result in spreading disease but Pharmaceutical companies without electricity will not be able to produce the necessary medicine.
Of course, many will say that this is absurd science fiction and it cannot happen here, but this chilling disaster scenario was outlined in a report released last January (funded by NASA) by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
The fact is that a storm from the sun did hit the earths magnetic field in 1859. The effect of this solar storm on earth became known as the Carrington Event. The event was named after the amateur astronomer who observed two patches of intensely bright and white light emanating from a large group of sunspots that may have produced the event.
The solar storm that produced the Carrington Event created a red aurora across the planet from the poles to the tropics. Throughout the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. It can happen again and the technology of the planet is now much more advanced and vulnerable.
The next solar maximum is estimated to return in about three years. A global disaster from the perfect solar storm can be prevented with proper contingency planning. There is still time for the government to be proactive and prepare to avoid disaster by creating a potential response to quickly repair the damage to the electric grid from the perfect solar storm.
James William Smith has worked in Senior management positions for some of the largest Financial Services firms in the United States for the last twenty five years. He has also provided business consulting support for insurance organizations and start up businesses. He has always been interested in writing and listening to different viewpoints on interesting topics. Visit his website at http://www.eworldvu.com or his daily blog at http://www.eworldvublog.blogspot.com
Hawaii students at Cornell compete in solar contest | Hawaii 24/7 Hawaii 24/7 – Hawaii247.org provides Hawaii’s news now with content continuously updated throughout the day. ARRLWeb: ARRL NEWS: The K7RA Solar Update This week’s Solar Update is written by Steve Nichols, G0KYA, of the RSGB’s Propagation Studies Committee in the English county of Norfolk. Tad Cook, K7RA, is out of town and will return next week for the November 6 bulletin. … South Africa's Move to Solar Power Threatened By Eskom's Problems … Eskom, the South African state owned electricity generator, recently announced that it has budgeted a billion dollars over the next ten years for a demonstration and pilot concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. … Worldchanging: Bright Green: Solar Power Potential Is Huge in … An online magazine covering tools, models, and ideas for building a better future. Obama Among the (Costly) Solar Panels Again – Hit & Run : Reason … Apparently, the White House communications staff thinks that reprising President Jimmy Carter’s fantastic solar power photo ops from 1977 is a really nifty way to signal to the public just how forward.Technology Summary