There are a lot of reasons to end the reign of the penny. On the top of the list, of course, is that they are, in fact, worth more melted down than at the grocery store. If you got a hundred pennies and melted them down, you'd actually have $1.40 of metal...mostly zinc.
First, that's just not sound economic policy. Second, it's a waste of zinc, the mining of which is an environmental disaster. The demand for zinc, mostly due to growth in China, has skyrocketed, and wasting the metal on a coin that is, in general, a nuisance, is foolish economic and environmental policy.
Unfortunately, there's no quick fix. Switching to the nickel as our cheapest unit is confusing, especially in places with uneven sales tax. Transactions would, according on a bill proposed by Representative Jim Kolbe (R - AR), be rounded to the nearest five cents. But people aren't a big fan of paying more for a certain amount of stuff...even if it's just cents.
Of course, no one minds when the gas pumps automatically round up to the nearest penny...but who cares about a fraction of a penny, right? For that matter...who cares about a penny? The change would only affect monetary transactions. Credit card and interest payments would still be made to the penny. Australia underwent a similar change in 2002, eliminating both its one- and two-cent pieces, without much of a stir.
With the rising cost of zinc, and the slumping power of the dollar...the pennies' days are numbered. Already, they're difficult to keep in circulation because people don't like to carry them around, and they simply pile up in jars and car seats waiting for their CoinStar fate. Maybe Lincoln can find a new place, on a dollar...or two dollar coin. I'd hate to lose him all together.
Animals are adorable...but meat is tasty. So what is the solution? Well, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have decided that, indeed, they would be quite happy eating meat....just so long as it isn't grown on an animal.
PETA is offering a USD$1 M prize to the first research group who can create a way to grow commercially viable meat in the laboratory. Now, I'm all for this, but almost every single environmentalist I know finds it very creepy. To me, growing meat on an animal seems like an inherently inefficient process. I mean, you've got to pump tons of food into this living thing so it can create bones and brains and move around and have sex and think little thoughts and create, as almost a side effect, a small amount of food. In the end, you only get back a tiny fraction of the energy you put in.
Granted....it's a very tasty fraction.
Growing meat in the lab isn't a pipe dream. In fact, people are doing it right now. Already, skin grafts can be grown to assist burn victims. And, basically, we're just talking about frying that tissue instead of using it to help sick people. Also, theoretically, we wouldn't be using human tissue as a seed stock...though that opens up some interesting philosophical doors.
PETA's announcement comes on the heels of the completion of the first-ever in vitro meat symposium in Norway where scientists began to organize their efforts. One of the key challenges they faced, they said, was lack of funding (surprise!) Though PETA's $1M prize probably won't add all that much incentive...it is good press...and a good endorsement.
Many of the enviros I've talked to are somewhat repulsed by the idea, a sentiment I absolutely don't understand. But the real problem is technical feasibility. Creating a sheet of pure protein is one thing. But lacing it with the blood vessels, fat pockets, and complex proportions is another story all together. Chances are, the first in vitro meats are not going to be very tasty at all.
Theoretically, the meat could be grown from a single sample from an animal, allowing the possibility for new kinds of meats that could otherwise never be consumed. I don't know why this sounds so appealing to me...but if the pig can create so many fantastic flavors...what are we missing out on by not eating penguins and polar bears?
And, unless they're very cheap, probably won't be a simple thing to market either. In any case, fake meat is likely going to be a part of our future, and with farm animals contributing to the twin global challenges of massive habitat destruction and global warming, it can't come too soon.
There are about fifty things on my desk right now. Most of them are pieces of paper...business cards, a couple dollars, some tax forms. But there are also some CDs, a phone, a computer monitor, a camera, a guitar tuner, a printer cartridge, a knife...y'know....THINGS!
And then when I widen my view beyond the desk...things start to look really desperate. I'm surrounded by stuff. Probably 50% of it is made of paper...most of that being books. But there's also a heavy dose plastic, metal and good ol' wood. A lot of my things, strangely enough, exist simply to carry other things...book shelves, filing cabinets, etc. Frankly, I'm getting tired of it.
And so, in the spirit of EcoGeekiness, I hereby pledge to actually do something about it. This stuff has to go! It's pretty easy to get rid of stuff nowadays...with EBay and Craigslist and Freecycle. But some of it might not be so easy to part with. So I am hereby beginning a series in which I will be replacing hardware either with multiple-use items (trading scissors for knives) or with software. And, hoorah! I will free myself of these earthly ties....and increase that beautiful spiritual connection I have with this machine before me.
The first item to ditch...my guitar tuner.
Guitar tuners, after all, are just a microphone and some very simple software. Most laptops have microphones built right in, so why waste money on a hunk of plastic when you're computer can do the job for you?
After a quick search, I found this $15 shareware program for my Mac, which not only is simple to use, but is significantly more accurate than my physical guitar tuner.
And for my PC we've got Audio Tuner 0.5, which works on everything from Windows 95 to Vista and, while it's not as pretty as, and a little clunkier than the Mac ap, it is absolutely free, and tuned me up in no time. But even better is the free GuiTools, which not only has a built in tuner, but also helps identify every single chord and scale you can play with a six-string.
So I hope Freecycle is ready for my guitar tuner. Maybe somebody out there needs it for its portability. But I'm happy to say...I just don't need it anymore.
Its wheels are bigger than your car...the driver has to climb a flight of stairs to get to his seat. And, if GE has their way, they might soon be painting it (at least metaphorically) green.
Hybrid cars are generally most exciting when they combine their energy-efficient drive trains with small, lightweight bodies. This is the only way to see Prius-like mileage of 60+ mpg. But hybrid systems also work for larger vehicles like the 2WD Chevy Tahoe hybrid that brought home this year's Green Car of the Year award by getting 50% better city fuel economy than its non-hybrid counterpart.
But GE and the U.S. Department of Energy are taking the idea of making big vehicles more efficient to the extreme. They're working on a project to hybridize haul trucks which, when fully loaded, weigh more than 200 Chevy Tahoes.
Haul trucks are basically massive dump trucks used in mining operations. They, of course, consume massive amounts of fuel, and so increasing effiency marginally can save massive amounts of fuel. Already, most new haul trucks are electrically powered, like diesel locomotives. Their diesel engines power generators that power the electric motors. This is more efficient than traditional drive trains, and provides much more torque for moving such gigantic loads.
GE is working on a system to basically run the electric engines in reverse during braking and store the generated electricity in the same battery packs they use for their hybrid locomotives. They've already got a test-system in place and operating. They're trying to figure out how long the batteries will last in the harsh conditions of mines, and are still unsure how how much fuel they can save using the technology.
In general, mines don't have much to lend themselves to being environmentally aware. Maybe this is one technology that will change that...however slightly.
You can read more about the project straight from the horse's mouth at GE's Blog, where the leader of the project, Tim Richter, talks it up.
Recently, as excitement for alternative vehicles like electrics has grown, so has criticism saying that electric vehicles won’t be any better because they just shift the burden of pollution from the car to the power plant. What’s worse, some say, is that this shift could overburden an already ailing power system and cause more coal plants to be built.
But the above graph put together by Technology Review (reg recd) shows that just comparing plug-ins with each other using different power sources, in almost every case is the result better than standard hybrids, and all cases are better than conventional gasoline-burning engines.
Similarly, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory study shows that even if newer plug-ins will require energy from the grid, they will most likely be charging at night, when there is little demand for electricity and the extra use from plug-ins might actually be helpful to spread out peaks and dips in production and usage.
The most important thing to remember, however, is that because plug-ins do shift the burden from each individual car to the power grid, the overall system becomes easier to regulate and easier to influence as more sustainable power generation technologies become available. Every time a new wind generator goes up and a coal plant goes offline, your plug-in will become just that much cleaner. On the other hand, gasoline engines will just grow more inefficient and polluting with time.
Following the opening of a new four-turbine wind farm last week, Rock Port in North West Missouri has become the first U.S. town to get all its electricity from wind power.
The $90 million Loess Hills Wind Farm, built on bluffs west of the town, generates five megawatts each day, more than enough for the settlement of 1,300 people. In fact, the farm generates enough electricity to power another similar-sized town. This has led Missouri Joint Municipal Utilities to buy excess power from the site. The farm is eventually expected to generate 16 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.
The farm was built in a partnership between St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group and John Deere, who has been helping fund rural wind projects all over America. Speaking at the grand opening last Friday, project manager, Eric Chamberlain said, “Rock Port is making the burning of fossil fuels today’s alternative energy supply.”
It’ll be really interesting to see whether the success of this community-supported initiative will inspire similar projects elsewhere in the country.
Norwegian company Think Global has announced plans to sell its Think City EV in the US from next year.
Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference in Pasadena, CA, on Monday, CEO Jan-Oluf Willums announced that cars will arrive in the US in limited numbers later this year. The first cars are destined for utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric and "influential companies" such as Google, for test and evaluation purposes. Cars will go on sale to the general public in 2009.
The vehicle has a top speed of 65MPH and a range of 110 miles between charges. It is described as emissions free, 95% recyclable and compliant with all relevant US and European safety standards.
Cars will be brought to the US by Think North America, a joint venture between Think Global and venture capitalist firms Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and RockPort Capital Partners. The new set-up will be based in Menlo Park, CA.
The company expects the cars to cost in the region of $25,000, with anticipated annual sales of 50,000 units in two or three years. At that price, it looks as if Think is aiming to go head to head with Toyota for a slice of the market in affordable environmentally conscious cars.
Last week saw the opening of the first hydrogen fuelling station in England. The station is based at Birmingham University, where experiments are being carried out to test the viability of hydrogen in transport applications, as part of Birmingham’s ‘Science City’ hydrogen energy project.
Researchers will compare five hydrogen-powered vehicles with the university’s own fleet of petrol, diesel, and electric vehicles to learn more about efficiency and performance. The main aim is to work out exactly how the vehicles might need to be adapted to enable the cost-effective use of hydrogen vehicles in the future.
The Series-100 station has been specially designed by Air-Products, a Pennsylvania-based hydrogen producer and supplier. The fueller is made up of an integrated compression, hydrogen storage, and dispensing system, optimised to fuel up to six vehicles per day. Crucially, the system is portable, making it a perfect choice for start-up stations.
Looking ahead, the research team hope that the results of the project will encourage greater government support, particularly of the financial kind, and help kick-start the wider application of a hydrogen-fuelling infrastructure across the UK.
These days, many experts are saying that we’re not going to be able to stop climate change just by decreasing emissions. To dig our way out of this hole, they say, we’re actually going to need to take carbon dioxide out of the air.
The first instinct has been to bury the CO2. Just pump it into the Earth and try and forget how ashamed we are of these massive quantities of CO2. But a new breed of entrepreneur has sprung up, saying "If we have this CO2, why don't we do something useful with it!?"
Obviously, we've got to get rid of all that carbon, but if folks can make some money and lower the cost of sequestration while they're doing it...then that's just icing on the cake. So here are five of the ways in which people are hoping to make bank with the millions of tons of CO2 that are pumped out of coal plants and into the atmosphere every day.
Feed it to Algae, and then Turn the Algae to Fuel
You may know that biofuels can be made from algae. You may also know that algae thrives on carbon dioxide. A company called GreenFuel Technologies has put two and two together, and is using captured CO2 to grow algae, which will then be made into biofuels. But they aren't the only ones working on it. There are dozens of startups working to create different techniques and algal strains that will allow them to maximize carbon capture and minimize costs. Earth2Tech recently had a writeup on 15 of the top algae biofuel startups. Of all of the techniques listed hear, algae farming with CO2 is probably the most mature technology, and the first fuel-producing plants are already going online. And, of course, we don't have to worry about ever running out of a market for biofuels. As long as we're creating CO2 by burning fuels, there will be a place to burn biofuels.
Turn it into Plastic
Recently the American Chemical Society saw a proposal to use captured CO2 to produce polycarbonate plastics, like those used in CDs and DVDs. The idea is to take carbon dioxide emissions, and instead of sequestering them in the ground, trap them in resilient products. This approach makes sense, but because it relies largely on sequestering carbon in disposable products, like plastic forks and water bottles. So, basically, we'd be sequestering carbon every time we threw away plastic. Landfill sequestration seems like a pretty wasteful way to go to me, but it's certainly better than the alternative. But even with the amount of disposable plastic we consume in the world, we would have plenty of CO2 left over if all of it was turned to plastic.
Make Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)
Joe David Jones, CEO of Skyonic, has created a process that captures CO2 as it exits power plant smokestacks and mixes it with sodium hydroxide to form baking soda. This process, called SkyMine, also removes heavy metals and dangerous pollutants and coverts the CO2 into sodium bicarbonate. Baking soda has a variety of uses on the commercial market, and this process could help make carbon capture more economically viable. Even if the baking soda is not sold, because it is solid it is immensely easier to store it in old mines or landfills than it would be to sequester gaseous CO2 beneath the ground. The real question is whether the world can produce enough sodium hydroxide to keep the process going.
Calcium Carbonate
A company called Carbon Sciences has a new process called GreenCarbon, which, at the base of things, turns carbon dioxide into useful stuff. The GreenCarbon process mixes the CO2 with crushed calcium minerals, one of the most abundant elements in the earth's crust. The end result is calcium carbonate, an industrial chemical that's used in thousands of applications, from PVC to paper to toothpaste and, in its pure form, as wall board and chalk. Because calcium carbonate is used in just about everything, there’s a huge market for it, and depending on the quality, it can sell for hundreds of dollars a ton. The question remains, though...is there enough of a market? The CEO of Carbon sciences says yes, but we're skeptical as a single coal plant could produce millions of tons of calcium carbonate per year.
Convert it Directly into Fuel
Sandia National Laboratories is working on creating fuel directly from CO2 without any pesky biological intermediaries like aglae. The carbon dioxide would be super heated to around 1,200 C and mixed with water to create various hydrocarbons of the sort we're already burning in our cars. All of that heat, of course, is energetically expensive, but Sandia is hoping to use leftover heat from nuclear or utility-scale solar thermal power generating plants. The process basically reverses combustion, and is only economically viable if the energy can come from cheap, clean sources. The good news is that it can be scaled much more easily than algae production, which requires thousands of acres of space to soak up the CO2 from one coal plant.
In Conclusion
There's no one solution to this problem. We'll probably start out pumping most of it underground, while turning a good portion of it into fuel. But I expect that, in the next 20 years, power producers start having to pay the true costs of releasing CO2, techniques for creating useful products with that CO2 will multiply. Depending on where coal plants are and what resources they have around them, project planners will have to figure out what the most economically viable thing to do with the CO2 is. If there's a lot of calcium deposits around, they'll be creating calcium carbonate, but if there's a lot of sun and ample space, maybe algae farms will pop up around the power plant.
In any case, we'll see an entire economy spring up around actually using our societies primary waste product. And not only is that just good policy, it's a gigantic economic opportunity.
It's no secret that we at Ecogeek are fans of the e-ink display technology. The low battery consumption and superior readability compared to laptops and other mobile devices, not to mention the thin form factor, all combine to bring us closer to a digital literary future. With Amazon's Kindle doing the rounds in the US and the Bookeen Cybook constantly running out of stock, e-ink toting devices are inching their way into the public's hearts.
I still think that e-books have a ways to go before I'd personally get one, mostly in terms of price and features, and I have had a few of my own ideas on what would make a good reader. However, the group of thinkers and designers over at The Greener Grass have gone and created a concept that I could wholeheartedly get behind. The Papyrus.
The Papyrus is a concept for an education-centred e-reader device that would focus on making participation in courses easier and more interactive. The concept calls for a colour e-ink touch screen and presumably a Wi-Fi connection to connect the devices of all the students together. Collaboratively, they can tag, highlight and annotate their reading material and remotely help eachother understand the text and find the important parts in it. As a first-year university student who hadn't read a single academic text since the turn of the millenium, I can say I would have greatly appreciated such a feature in my textbooks, not to mention saving all the space and weight of all those books as I cart them around.
As far as pricing goes, they're setting their sights on a hundred dollars. This seems unrealistic, but they are convinced it could be realised with the removal of unneeded hardware features (audio, for example) and the help of publishers. These publishers would subsidise the device and could sell their text books directly to the students through a subscription service.
The concept also makes a case for the interactivity of lectures. Many students are afraid to ask questions when there's something they don't understand. If they could just shoot the lecturer a quick private message rather than pipe up in front of a hundred other students, the idea is that the lecturer would be much more aware of whether or not s/he is getting through to the students.
I suspect that if this device is to actually be made, the price tag will go the way of the OLPC and the Eee PC and end up at least double the initial goal. Even so, it would be a fantastic device in an increasingly digital world. If the resolution of e-ink screens get a bump up, the prices a bump down and the features a polish, I welcome a transition into a fully digital student life. There's still something to be said for the feeling of opening a book and reading it on the couch or in bed, but at least e-ink is getting us one step closer to that feeling without killing trees every time there's a new book (or, more likely, a very slightly altered new edition) to be published.
Hey, did you hear? President Bush gave a Rose Garden speech this week about climate change. As expected, we were underwhelmed. But that didn't stop us from writing all about it. Check out what we were up to this past week.
In non-speech news, the world's largest coal exporter (Australia) has promised the world's largest coal importer (China) $24 million to develop clean coal technology and carbon capture and sequestration for power plants.
Samantha Hulkower caught the pre-game show, where Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, discussed what Bush would be talking about. This doesn't strike us as having a lot of confidence in the President's speechmaking ability.
The speech didn't exactly go over well in Europe, where one German minister dubbed it "Bush's Neanderthal Speech." Ouch.
Finally, you may seen the most recent issue of Time about "How To Win The War On Global Warming." We liked the article. We hated the cover.
For the last few years, the costs of photovoltaic panels have been overwhelmingly controlled by the price of silicon. More than half of the world's constructed silicon crystals are converted into solar panels, and since solar power's recent resurgence, demand for silicon has far outpaced supply.
Building a silicon manufacturing plant is no small (or environmentally insignificant) job. But the higher prices have lead to a huge investment in production, and it's starting to look like we might actually soon have something besides the cost of silicon defining the costs of panels.
Many solar manufacturers have taken supply issues into their own hands by building their own silicon plants. It looks like 2009 should be a turning point for the supply of silicon. The result will be a fairly significant drop in the price of solar panels, and an increase in the amount of panels being produced.
But this silicon shortage has had broader implications than short-term price hikes. The introduction of new, thin-film technologies that don't use any silicon could make silicon panels less competitive at any price. But silicon remains the true high-volume photovoltaic technology. We'll have to wait until next year to see how the end of the shortage affects prices, and whether thin film technology can continue wheedling away at silicon's market dominance.
You haven’t yet begun bike commuting, but you’ve considered it. What’s putting the brakes on your brilliant plans? A handful of good excuses that have made cycling to work a mere pipe dream. But, whatever your reason for continuing to take the car, there’s likely a simple means to make bike commuting an efficient, reliable, and sustainable way to get to work. Here are eight common (however, lame) excuses—and how to overcome them with chutzpah. Prepare to dust off your helmet.
Leader of the Birmingham, UK City Council Mike Whitby commissioned a study to move the city towards sustainability and revitalize the city centre. Dubbed the “Big City Plan,” the goals include decreasing the city's carbon emissions by 60% by 2026, revamping mass transit systems, and moving the city towards self-sufficiency with livable and walkable neighborhoods, local produce and products sold locally, and homegrown industries to support the residents.
Paris-Roubaix is a “hard man's race.” If you never realized that cycling is one of the world's toughest sports – check it out. The event is so over-the-top difficult that it can't help but inspire everyday cyclists to stop making excuses and get out and ride.
Asphalt gardening is growing in popularity, as more green-thumbed urbanites reclaim the concrete and break ground to turn parking spots into lush, green space.
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.
There are a lot of reasons to end the reign of the penny. On the top of the list, of course, is that they are, in fact, worth more melted down than at the grocery store. If you got a hundred pennies and melted them down, you'd actually have $1.40 of metal...mostly zinc.
There are about fifty things on my desk right now. Most of them are pieces of paper...business cards, a couple dollars, some tax forms. But there are also some CDs, a phone, a computer monitor, a camera, a guitar tuner, a printer cartridge, a knife...y'know....THINGS!
Recently, as excitement for alternative vehicles like electrics has grown, so has criticism saying that electric vehicles won’t be any better because they just shift the burden of pollution from the car to the power plant. What’s worse, some say, is that this shift could overburden an already ailing power system and cause more coal plants to be built. 
Following the opening of a new four-turbine wind farm last week, Rock Port in North West Missouri has become the first U.S. town to get all its electricity from wind power.
Norwegian company Think Global has announced plans to sell its Think City EV in the US from next year.
Last week saw the opening of the first hydrogen fuelling station in England. The station is based at Birmingham University, where experiments are being carried out to test the viability of hydrogen in transport applications, as part of Birmingham’s ‘Science City’ hydrogen energy project.
These days, many experts are saying that we’re not going to be able to stop climate change just by decreasing emissions. To dig our way out of this hole, they say, we’re actually going to need to take carbon dioxide out of the air.
It's no secret that we at Ecogeek are fans of the .jpg)
Hey, did you hear? President Bush gave a Rose Garden speech this week about climate change. As expected, we were underwhelmed. But that didn't stop us from writing all about it. Check out what we were up to this past week.
For the last few years, the costs of photovoltaic panels have been overwhelmingly controlled by the price of silicon. More than half of the world's constructed silicon crystals are converted into solar panels, and since solar power's recent resurgence, demand for silicon has far outpaced supply.
