The stigma of solar as only one of many solutions needed to satisfy our energy needs may not be true. David Mills, chairman and chief scientific officer of solar company Ausra, recently presented a paper at the International Solar Energy Society conference saying that solar thermal plants could indeed solve all of our energy problems, including nighttime electricity. I know...all our energy problems??? Well, I guess it's worth taking a look.
The plants use mirrors arranged in a Fresnel configuration to heat tubes of liquid rather than solar cells that convert the sunlight directly into electricity. The steam produced by the heated liquids power turbines that create electricity. While not a new technique, Mills says the technology will allow liquids to hold heat and produce steam during the night also. The paper calculates that 92 square miles of solar thermal farm could power the entire country.
Despite the optimistic results of their calculations, they warn that a plan like this requires a complete revamping of the current electric infrastructure. The country's AC grid would have to be converted to High Voltage DC in order to decrease transmission loss from 50% to around 3% while moving the power from the sunny Southwest to the power-hungry North East. Miles says this would be a huge undertaking that would help move the country from "capital-intensive fossil fuel plants that need to run 24/7" to "electricity created by people's and the economy's daily rhythm," which solar and wind energy follows closely.
In the meantime, Ausra plans to develop a 175-megawatt solar power plant with their solar storage technology, hitting the market mid-2009. We're inclined to think that the proposal is more of a thought experiment, and while it's an exciting one, we don't see the US grid switching to DC....ever. But while the South West's abundant sunshine is certainly a resource to be tapped, I'm pretty sure a more distributed system will be best in the end anyhow,
Big ideas require big changes, right? Maybe rethinking the carbon-biased infrastructure is as important as the sources of our electricity.
Hydrogen trains are more feasible than hydrogen cars. Why? Because instead of having to retrofit millions of gas stations to use hydrogen pumps, and distribute hydrogen to all those pumps, only train depots need to be retrofitted and served. Trains don't end up in the middle of nowhere with no gas stations around. Hydrogen makes a lot more sense.
It still doesn't make perfect sense, mainly because we still have no carbon-free way of producing it. But that's not stopping the Premier of Ontario from suggesting that they're in talks with a train manufacturer, Bombadier, to build a hydrogen train. Clean Break speculates that there should definitely be a grain of salt included with this statement, as he is running for re-election.
The train would possibly link Montreal and Toronto, which is currently a popular rail link. And if you're wondering where the hydrogen might come from...likely from excess baseload power from two nuclear plants that conveniently lie along that very line.
Wal-Mart is officially releasing its own brand of compact fluorescent light bulb. Cheaper is certainly better for these things, as American consumers still haven't widely adopted the bulbs. Reasons as to why? They're more expensive (though save money in the long run) they're shaped funny, and their light isn't as pleasant (which, as far as I can tell, is complete B.S.)
Anyhow, Wal-Mart is trying to nip away at that first problem by cutting out the middle man and producing its own brand of the bulbs. The "Great Value" brand CFLs will be about 25% cheaper, though no word on the quality. I've had problems with CFLs from Wal-Mart before. Certainly, no one will be happy with their weird new bulbs if they don't work properly.
Wal-Mart's plans to sell 100 million of these things by the end of 2007 might be in jeopardy, because of low adoption rates, but we'll have to wait and see. No doubt, we'll know by the end of the year.
EcoGeek's recent coverage of An Off-Grid Vertical Farm for Downtown Seattle garnered some attention and generated discussion. But we should recognize that it is far from the first or only really interesting concept for going vertical in growing food in urban areas.
A Columbia University microbiologist, Dickson Despommier, advocates 30-story skyscrapers that would, each, be able to grow food for 50,000 people, taking up roughly one city block. From Plenty Magazine, The Farmer in the High-Rise
"It's not just a way of generating food," says Despommier. "It's a way of dealing with municipal waste, recycling water, and using methane digestion to help a city be sustainable."
While it is not happening, to me this concept is not "science fiction," but more an innovative concept waiting for the confluence of events that will make it into reality.
In 2001, the Dutch agriculture minister supported building a vertical farm in Rotterdam called Deltapark, in response to flooding farmland, livestock diseases such as swine fever, and growing agricultural pollution. Though the park hasn't been built, the idea of linking several industries together to reduce the environmental burden of agriculture has become increasingly popular, says Jan Broeze, the Wageningen University scientist who dreamed up Deltapark. "If you cluster various activities, like greenhouses, fish farming, and manure processing, then you create a sufficient scale for more sustainable food production," says Broeze, who is working with a group of farmers in Holland to link a chicken farm, a manure processing system, and greenhouses. "The idea is to use wastes from one industry to sustain another."
What this discussion suggests, however, is potentially one of the serious obstacles before this project would go forward: stove-piping of costs and benefits need to be broken, with a holistic understanding (and accounting) so that payoffs can be fully understood and valued. Producing more food closer to consumers would help the nation reduce oil usage in the face of peak oil. Is there a financial valuing of this additional security that could go to the builder/operator? This type of production potentially would reduce traffic on streets and highways (fewer food delivery trucks from out-of-state). Could the builder/operator be credited with some of the savings on highway maintenance and reduced congestion on the roads? Being able to monetize these "external" costs and benefits would enhance the value of pursuing such projects. Some countries and societies are prepared, it seems, to pursue this system-of-system calculation, with not just the Dutch in active conversation with Despommier.
Urban farming has always been a slightly quixotic endeavor. From the small animal farm that was perched on the roof of the Upper West Side's Ansonia apartment building in the early 1900s (fresh eggs delivered by bellhop!) to community gardens threatened by real-estate development, the dream of preserving a little of the country in the city is a utopian one. But nobody has ever dreamed as big as Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental sciences and microbiology at Columbia University, who believes that "vertical farm" skyscrapers could help fight global warming.
Imagine a cluster of 30-story towers on Governors Island or in Hudson Yards producing fruit, vegetables, and grains while also generating clean energy and purifying wastewater. Roughly 150 such buildings, Despommier estimates, could feed the entire city of New York for a year. Using current green building systems, a vertical farm could be self-sustaining and even produce a net output of clean water and energy.
150 buildings? Feed all of New York City? Perhaps, it is time to consider this seriously. Consider the physical footprint for this. And, well, consider the 3 billion additional people to be living on the planet by 2050.
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?
Could the Vertical Farm Project offer a real window on how not just to feed 9.2 billion people, but to feed them well while reducing everyone's "footprint" on the Earth?
The Vertical Farm Project is the home site for this concept and offers a very robust and sophisticated look at the opportunities and options for going vertical with food production. There is a lot of tremendously interesting material there, with serious looks at challenges and benefits.
Just one more way in which the car culture screws bicyclists: traffic lights. With the advent of inductive loop traffic sensors, traffic lights suddenly knew when there was a car waiting to go, and could keep the light red until there was a car. But that means indefinite waiting and eventual required law-breaking by bicyclists.
Well, screw them. Watch the video above and learn. Strap a simple inexpensive neodymium magnet to the bottom of your bike frame and, voila, you're now a recognizable presence in the automated car culture.
I don't know why we haven't talked about Miles Automotive here at EcoGeek yet. It always seems that we're waiting for them to make their next big announcement. Well, let's just end that now. Rubin Miles is another really rich guy who's decided to stop making money and start making a difference. And he's planning to do it with electric vehicles.
While touring a Chinese factory making lithium ion cells, Rubin asked them to scale up for the automotive market. Meanwhile, he drummed up support for some early models here at home. He's already got a few production cars, but so far they aren't exactly competing with alternatives. His $15,000 hatchback charges overnight, but can only hit about 25 mph. While another, faster model is on the way, it will be a while before his $30,000 four-door sedan hits the road at 80 mph.
Yes, that's the goal, but the road to that goal isn't going to be simple. But Miles Automotive is making a name for itself in EVs, and the cars are selling fairly well. But we'll see if he can beat the major manufacturers to the showroom.
In your quest to outfit yourself with eco-friendly gear, how far would you go? Have you considered what you carry the gear in? Targus, a maker of laptop computer cases and accessories, is betting the bag you use should make a statement about your beliefs. It is thus unveiling the EcoSmart series of messenger bags, backpacks and top-loading laptop carrying cases.
The EcoSmart line of bags is made of PVC-free material. The plastics used on the bags are all recyclable and the metal hardware is nickel-free. Four bag styles — Sling (TSB109US), Messenger (TSM068US), Convertible Messenger/Backpack (TSB110US) and a Top Loading case (TST022US) — will be available this holiday season and offer up all the pockets, straps and pen loops you need to geek out in style.
Targus added this EcoSmart title as part of a larger initiative to bring green practices into its fold. Perhaps the one most interesting for consumers is a plan to bring a "more eco-friendly approach to product packaging." That would be nice — how about first doing away with those evil, deadly, plastic-sealed packages which don't recycle and attack your hands as you try to open them? Mother Nature and I would both thank you for that!
Burning coal could soon become a little friendlier if Dr. John Zhu from the University of Queensland has anything to say about it. He hopes to develop a carbon nanotube (CNT) membrane that can filter carbon dioxide out of coal plant emissions, allowing the pure carbon dioxide to be sequestered. The membrane blocks carbon dioxide, while letting other gases through.
While similar technology exists, they separate gases too slowly to be effective in power plants. The CNT isolates "moving gases up to 100 times faster than other gas separation techniques."
In addition, the same technique can be used to separate methane that is removed during coal mining. Usually other gases dilute the methane too much to make it useful, but by using a CNT membrane, the other gases can be filtered out.
With plans to commercialize CNT membranes in as little as 10 years, the dark reality of coal energy may soon improve. Now if only they can get it out of the ground without destroying half of Appalachia.
The CarChip is pretty frikkin' cool. I don't know why no one's done this yet but...it's a $70 device that plugs into your car's onboard data port (in most cars produced since 1996) and measures the way you drive. Additionally, the CarChip E/X can be set to tell you when you're driving like a glutton. If you break too fast, accelerate quickly or speed, the CarChip E/X will beep, letting you know that you're wasting gas.
Of course, if you like to waste money, this will just be annoying. But folks who want to increase their MPG without getting a new car should definitely check out the CarChip.
Radioactive waste is only a problem when it remains radioactive for vast amounts of time. Unfortunately, many of the byproducts of nuclear fission have half-lives of millions of years. Right now, we have no idea what to do with this stuff. It's hard to imagine next century, let alone 15 million years from now. Do we really want to leave this stuff lying around? It will almost certainly escape from anywhere we put it.
Luckily, scientists are working on ways to avoid these long-term problems. British scientists have "transmuted" iodine-129 into iodine-128 with a high-powered laser. Now, dropping one neutron might not seem like a big deal, but the half-life of iodine-129 is 15 million years while the half-life of iodine 128 is 25 minutes.
They've done it by focusing a high-powered laser on a pellet of gold for an extremely brief amount of time. The gold ionizes, becomes plasma, and emits gamma rays. The gamma rays then smash into the iodine, forcing out a neutron and making the material safe.
Now, scientists just have to figure out how to scale the process up to levels necessary in disposing of nuclear wastes, while keeping costs lower than the planned facility at Yucca Mountain. I wish them luck.
Here in America we've got several vast deserts that are perfect for installing gigantic solar thermal power plants. But not every country has so much free space. At the end of the day, most of the sun's light hits the oceans, because most of the Earth is ocean, but the United Arab Emirates has just contracted with a Swiss firm, CSEM, to purchase a floating solar island.
The island, which will basically float on a ring-shaped raft, was conceptualized a while ago by CSEM, but until now they haven't found any buyers. The prototype being comissioned by the UAE will first be tested in a nearby desert before the concept is moved onto the ocean.
It's one-tenth the size of the concept pictured above, only costing $5M and about 100 meters wide with a peak power generation of roughly 1 megawatt. The plant will produce energy by concentrating solar power onto pipes containing water. The water will boil, and be used to spin turbines. Once shipped off-shore, the islands could be used to convert seawater to hydrogen, allowing them to be autonomous and untethered to the shore. They hydrogen could be picked up by barges, instead of having to transport the electricity to shore via a physical connection.
This pilot project is being designed mostly to test the feasibility of the solar islands; CSEM says that the islands so far look like they will be cost-effective as long as they are deployed in areas with more than 350 days of sunlight that are near the equator. That's a lot of sunlight, but the area of the coast of the UAE fits the bill. Of course, it's also necessary for the structures to be able to survive a serious storm either by motoring to shore to avoid it, or being resilient enough to live through it.
In any case, I'm pretty excited about the prospects of harnessing the seemingly limitless bounty of the sun hitting the ocean's surface.
A wooden Hummer sounds...well...aside from sounding like that... it doesn't sound like something Army would really be interested in, but there you have it. The Army is beating major manufacturers to the punch by looking into alternative materials in the construction of its automobiles.
The vehicle would be 900 lbs lighter than traditional Humvees, allowing for better gas mileage and more opportunities for armor without compromising the design of the vehicle. Current Humvees are not designed to be defensible against explosives, and so armor must be added. But the armor slows the vehicles, and they ride lower, making them even more susceptible to explosives.
The composite materials currently being tested are a combination of fiberglass, wood, foam, and carbon supports held together with resin. This is the kind of research the Army should be doing. Let's hope this ends up in the private sector too. It'd be nice to see a fuel-efficient America...as well as a safer Iraq.
The Frankfurt Motor Show is one of the year's biggest events in automobiles and while it's very sad that we can't all be there with them, but I'm glad that the Club of Pioneers has been able to head to the autoshow and provide some great video content on the green offerings of the big auto companies.
So far, they've got interviews with folks from GM / OPEL, Honda, Toyota and Mercedes. Watch the videos after the jump.
Science, technology gadgets and...baby seals. We're in a bit of an eco-mess, but we've got the brains to lick any problem. And that's why EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.
And if that sounds interesting to you, then congratulations, you're an EcoGeek.
Hydrogen trains are more feasible than hydrogen cars. Why? Because instead of having to retrofit millions of gas stations to use hydrogen pumps, and distribute hydrogen to all those pumps, only train depots need to be retrofitted and served. Trains don't end up in the middle of nowhere with no gas stations around. Hydrogen makes a lot more sense. 
EcoGeek's recent coverage of 
In your quest to outfit yourself with eco-friendly gear, how far would you go? Have you considered what you carry the gear in? Targus, a maker of laptop computer cases and accessories, is betting the bag you use should make a statement about your beliefs. It is thus 
Burning coal could soon become a little friendlier if Dr. John Zhu from the University of Queensland has anything to say about it. He hopes to develop a carbon nanotube (CNT) membrane that can filter carbon dioxide out of coal plant emissions, allowing the pure carbon dioxide to be sequestered. The membrane blocks carbon dioxide, while letting other gases through.
A wooden Hummer sounds...well...aside from sounding like 