Clipmarks | wildcat's environment, planet, earth collection

There's water in dem dar clouds!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:14:55 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

With seawater covering seventy-one per cent of the Earth’s surface, at an average depth of four kilometers, and another 1,000,000,000,000,000 liters of water in the first kilometer alone of the earth' atmosphere, water could hardly be described as a rare element. Its more a case of 'water water everywhere and not a drop to drink'. I'm going to highlight a few different ways in which renewable energy can be used to produce drinking water.

One of the readers last week commented that use of wind turbines or wave energy to power desalination would be a great idea. Well in Perth Australia they are doing exactly that. Perth Australia has now established one of the largest desalination plants outside of the Middle East and set up a wind farm to power it.

Speaking of windmills, another Australian, Max Whisson, an energetic septuagenarian inventor, believes he can solve the current water crisis with his Water Windmill invention

Tags: water, clean tech, wind power

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:34:51 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind,"

Clip Source: web.mit.edu

Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Daniel Nocera describes new process for storing solar energy
View video post on MIT TechTV

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years,"

Tags: energy, solar power, storing

Toward a Type 1 civilization

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:59:25 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Along with energy policy, political and economic systems must also evolve.
Michael Shermer, one of the most trusted voices in todays world.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

By Michael Shermer
July 22, 2008

Our civilization is fast approaching a tipping point. Humans will need to make the transition from nonrenewable fossil fuels as the primary source of our energy to renewable energy sources that will allow us to flourish into the future. Failure to make that transformation will doom us to the endless political machinations and economic conflicts that have plagued civilization for the last half-millennium.

We need new technologies to be sure, but without evolved political and economic systems, we cannot become what we must. And what is that? A Type 1 civilization. Let me explain.

Type 1 can harness all of the energy of its home planet; Type 2 can harvest all of the power of its sun; and Type 3 can master the energy from its entire galaxy.

Based on our energy efficiency at the time, in 1973 the astronomer Carl Sagan estimated that Earth represented a Type 0.7 civilization on a Type 0 to Type 1 scale. (More current assessments put us at 0.72.)

Tags: michael shermer, civilization, transformation

Facing the Freshwater Crisis

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:53:31 GMT

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clipper's remarks: As demand for freshwater soars, planetary supplies are becoming unpredictable. Existing technologies could avert a global water crisis, but they must be implemented soon

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Key Concepts

Global freshwater resources are threatened by rising demands from many quarters. Growing populations need ever more water for drinking, hygiene, sanitation, food production and industry. Climate change, meanwhile, is expected to contribute to droughts.

Policymakers need to figure out how to supply water without degrading the natural ecosystems that provide it.

Existing low-tech approaches can help prevent scarcity, as can ways to boost supplies, such as improved methods to desalinate water.

But governments at all levels need to start setting policies and making investments in infrastructure for water conservation now.

Scientists expect water scarcity to become more common in large part because the world’s population is rising and many people are getting richer (thus expanding demand)

Because lack of access to water can lead to starvation, disease, political instability and even armed conflict, failure to take action can have broad and grave consequences.

Tags: freshwater, crisis

Ocean Power Catches a Wave

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:36:55 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: spectrum.ieee.org

Europe and New Zealand to install commercial generators; U.S. lags

Sea Monster: A Portuguese utility plans to install wave-power generators like these.

The first commercial ocean energy project is scheduled to launch this summer off the coast of Portugal. Three snakelike wave-power generators built by Edinburgh's Pelamis Wave Power will deliver 2.25 megawatts through an undersea cable to the Portuguese coastal town of Aguçadoura. Within a year, another 28 generators should come online there, boosting the capacity to 22.5 MW. That may be a trickle of power, but the project represents a new push into wave and tidal power as governments eye the oceans as a way to meet their renewable energy targets.

Engineers have come up with a variety of schemes to harness the power of waves, the flow of currents, and the motion of the tides. The Pelamis generators, part of a class of wave-energy converters called linear absorbers, each comprise three long canisters that look like giant oxygen tanks

Tags: ocean power, wave

Super-Green City of the Future?

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:06:59 GMT

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Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Can San Francisco's Treasure Island live up to plans to make it the "Super-Green City of the Future"?
The island is set to become a model for eco-livinga model of urban sustainability, is an entirely man-made 400-acre property in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. Originally built in 1939 from sea bottom, quarried rock, and loam, it is currently home to an abandoned naval base and a small number of low- and middle income residents.

Among some of the plans include LEED-certified residential towers to increase urban density, a pedestrian-friendly downtown center, bike lanes, open green space to promote biodiversity, city-sponsored composting/recycling, "living machine" wastewater treatment, an urban farm, and solar/wind/tidal renewable energy generation.

The new Treasure Island proposal is a testament to what our world is capable of when the political will exists to make sustainability a reality.

Tags: green, super city, san fransisco

Future Human: The Evolution of Immediate Emotion

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:23:56 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Humans, apparently, are still in the early stages of evolving extended response mechanisms. But it seems likely that by the time we portion more of our brain to long-term dangers, there will be few grizzly bears around to worry about, and a whole lotta global warming.

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

Why a grizzly gets you shivering—but not global warming

In my Science Confirms the Obvious post today, I discussed the first psychological proof (so say the authors) that humans can indeed experience emotions without immediately knowing why. We do this, they say, because we evolved that way. True, scientists love that explanation, but here it’s quite intriguing.

“After all, you are likely to live longer if you immediately stop moving at the sight of a growling grizzly bear,”

“and do not need full awareness for such a response to be instigated.” Given the flood of unexpected stimuli we face moment to moment, quick reactions make sense for survival.

You, that bear, and other animals experience emotions such as fear, anger, or disgust. But only a few species are aware of their emotions. This ability helps humans judge and respond to the behavior of others in order to navigate social situations and, ultimately, grease the wheels of complex society.

Tags: future, human, evolution, immediate emotion

The Future Isn't What it Used to Be! (It's Going to be Better)

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:09:11 GMT

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Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The future continues to get better for most of the world, but a series of tipping points could drastically alter global prospects."

2008 UN State of the Future Report

We've seen the future ... and we may not be doomed. So says the UN 2008 State of the Future Report that finds life is getting better for people worldwide, but that governments are failing to respond to critical time-sensitive opportunities.

"This is a unique time in history. Mobile phones, the internet, international trade, language translation and jet planes are giving birth to an interdependent humanity that can create and implement global strategies to improve its prospects," reports 2008 State of the Future. "It is increasingly clear that the world has the resources to address our common challenges. Ours is the first generation with the means for many to know the world as a whole, identify global improvement systems, and seek to improve them."

Humanity stands on the threshold of a peaceful and prosperous future

Tags: future, we are not doomed, humanity

Global Coral Crisis Is In Full Bloom

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:55:26 GMT

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Clip Source: www.npr.org

Coral reefs around the world are in bad shape these days. But a new research paper in the journal Science says their problems may be getting worse. The paper says as much as a third of the world's coral species may now be headed toward extinction, thanks to problems ranging from destructive fishing boats to ocean waters warmed by global climate change.

Coral experts say these reefs hold 25 percent of the world's marine species. That list includes sponges, lobsters, turtles, shrimp, sharks and commercially important fish. Philip Munday, a reef expert at Australia's James Cook University, says that's why coral reefs are often called "the rain forests of the ocean."

"It's quite stunning when you get into the water on a lovely clear day and you drop down onto [healthy] reef," says Munday. "There are fish everywhere, hundreds of thousands of fish, the sort of things you almost don't see anywhere else."

Unfortunately, reefs like those are few and far between these days

Tags: global coral crisis, coral reefs, ecology, climate change

What Makes Earth Special Compared to Other Planets

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:10:09 GMT

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clipper's remarks: "The most impressive attribute of the Earth is the existence and amount of liquid water on its surface,"

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Earth is one special planet.

It has liquid water, plate tectonics, and an atmosphere that shelters it from the worst of the sun's rays. But many scientists agree our planet's most special feature might just be us.

"It's the only planet we know of that has life," said Alan Boss, a planet formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington, D.C.

Though other bodies in our solar system, such as Saturn's moon Titan, seem like they could have once been hospitable to some form of life, and scientists still have hope of eventually digging up microbes beneath the surface of Mars, Earth is still the only world known to support life.

"So far, we haven't found it anywhere else," said Alex Wolszczan of Pennsylvania State University, who co-discovered the first planets beyond our solar system. He agreed that life was Earth's single most impressive characteristic.

Tags: earth, us, water

A Tesla In Your Future?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:37:10 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

PayPal's cofounder hopes to produce a practical $30,000 all-electric car in four years.

The electric car has been pronounced dead many times, but Elon Musk is out to resurrect it. The South African-born Musk left home at age 17 for North America and made a fortune when PayPal, a company he cofounded, was sold to eBay in 2002. One of his new companies—he's chairman of three start-ups—is Tesla Motors, a San Carlos, Calif.-based electric-car manufacturer. Its first model, the Tesla Roadster, is a sleek, high-end sports car with an eyepopping price tag. It'll start rolling onto streets this summer. NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria spoke to Musk about the future of transportation in an oil-constrained world. Excerpts:

Musk: This car itself is not going to change the world—it's a $100,000 sports car being produced in quantities of about 1,800 a year. Where it really becomes meaningful is when we produce the next models, which will be lower-cost and higher-volume

Tags: tesla motors, elon musk, electric cars

Farms in the sky

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:49:57 GMT

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Clip Source: www.iht.com

What if "eating local" in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?

Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Despommier's pet project is the "vertical farm," a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president in New York.

Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000

Tags: farms, eating local, self-sustaining, skyscrapers

Bees Enlisted to Attack Crows in Tokyo

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:27:51 GMT

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Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

After years of being attacked by crows, a colony of seabirds nesting in Tokyo is getting an unlikely ally: the tiny honeybee.

Conservationists hope bees will repel the crows, based on the insects' tendency to attack anything dark-colored that approaches their hives.

This year beehives from rural areas were relocated to the top of a large water-treatment facility near Tokyo's international airport, where as many as 4,000 birds known as little terns nest after a long migration from Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea.

Although they are not endangered internationally, little terns are listed as "vulnerable" in Japan's Red Data Book of threatened species.

That's because the terns' nesting sites in the country are being destroyed by construction work and other human activities, so the birds are considered potentially at risk in the future.

The terns near the airport have long been victims of Tokyo's crows.

Tags: bees, crows, tokyo

The Do-Good Imperative

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:22:01 GMT

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clipper's remarks: How about a windup flashlight crossed with a cell phone charger? It's low tech meets high tech with rugged, toylike charm. Or charcoal made from plant waste instead of wood, developed for Haiti by MIT's D-Lab? Talk about a greener way to barbecue. (The technology might also help save endangered African gorillas. A new study published in Science links organized crime rings cutting trees for charcoal in Congo with a spate of recent gorilla murders.)

Clip Source: www.technewsworld.com

Many of the products designed for altruistic reasons, such as the XO Laptop, turn out to be just good products because of the amount of innovation required to pull off the job. Products designed for the limitations of the developing world are of higher quality because of those limitations.

When I first read about the computer designed for the One Laptop Per Child project, I wanted one. Not because it was adorable, cheap or a means of doing good (to buy one you had to buy a second for a child in a poor country). I coveted its screen, designed for use in full daylight. Even my Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) MacBook Pro, with all its clever tricks, can't manage that.

Add the LifeStraw water filtration system to the list of do-gooder objects I crave. This little wonder, a water filter outfitted with a straw, made the cover of the Design for the Other 90 percent show catalog at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum last year. It could as easily have graced the cover of an REI mailer.

Tags: do-good, imperativetech products

Forests to fall for food and fuel

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:19:59 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Demand for land to grow food, fuel crops and wood is set to outstrip supply, leading to the probable destruction of forests, a report warns.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) says only half of the extra land needed by 2030 is available without eating into tropical forested areas.

A companion report documents poor progress in reforming land ownership and governance in developing countries.

"Arguably, we are on the verge of a last great global land grab," said RRI's Andy White, co-author of the major report, Seeing People through the Trees.

"It will mean more deforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, more climate change and less prosperity for everyone."

Rising demand for food, biofuels and wood for paper, building and industry means that 515 million hectares of extra land will be needed for growing crops and trees by 2030, RRI calculates.

But only 200 million hectares will be available without dipping into tropical forests.

Tags: forest, food, fuel, report