Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Sun worshippers


A Spanish solar thermal plant, PS20, has brought fresh proof of the efficacy of solar thermal power.

Abengoa Solar operates the new plant, which has a power capacity of 20 megawatts, enough juice to power about 10,000 homes. The plant uses 1,255 heliostats (motorized mirrors) to reflect sunshine onto a fixed focal point. The heliostats follow the sun’s path throughout the day to catch maximum rays.

With a surface area of 1,291 square feet each, the massive mirrors working together focus over a million and a half effective square feet of sunlight on the apex of the tower. That heat energy can be used to boil steam to turn turbines, or stored for later use.

Concentrating solar power (CSP) has also provided the answer for solar storage. Electrical batteries while affording an option for small units are expensive, and impractical for utility-scale power storage. In CSP, as it is the heat that is being used instead of light, the heated water or fluid can be stored in insulated tanks and used when required.

Current technology can store solar-generated heat for up to 7-12 hours.

Solar thermal not only can provide for stand-alone generation but can work with fossil-based plants by providing the heat and reduce the need for coal and help reduce emissions.

The potential for places in the tropics where the sun burns down powerfully cannot be over-emphasised. The land required, of course, is on a slightly large scale but technology is developing that is already showing optimum designing of the mirrors to cut space requirement by half.
If you have any experiential insights on this technology, let us know.

Money to go clean

Developed countries should pay at least 0.5 percent of their economic output to help less wealthy nations build wind turbines, solar plants and use other clean technologies, China, India and South Africa said. The three countries proposed this to the United Nations, which is leading negotiations for a new climate- protection treaty.

The US stand has been that the developing nations too must accept emission targets. The EU has in principle agreed to fund clean energy in the third world but not specified any amount.

The contention of developing nations is that 0.5 percent of the GDP is what the rich nations are already giving as aid to poor nations and it hardly constitutes a pinch. The demand for a specific fund may not be as tough to wrest out as a bigger demand on emission reductions.

Industrialized nations should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2020—which is more than twice most countries' targeted reductions. This will make room for the aspiring countries to "modernize their economies."

India and China have indicated willingness to consider differentiated reduction targets. But expecting the rich world to agree to double the reductions could be tantamount to asking for the moon!

As is well known, Kyoto Protocol notwithstanding, emissions have not shown any reductions but have been continuing the climb.Protocols can be made and re-made. What difference will it make unless these have teeth? Who will monitor for the planet?

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Lasting homes

Homes in the future could last forever. Well, almost! A concrete material developed at the University of Michigan can heal itself when it cracks. No human intervention is necessary—just water and carbon dioxide to heal and form a thin white scar of calcium carbonate.

Self-healing is possible because the material is designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines rather than break and split in wide gaps, as traditional concrete behaves.

Failures often occur when traditional concrete is strained in an earthquake or by routine overuse as it is brittle and rigid. But the flexibility of engineered cement composite, or ECC (which acts more like metal than glass), prevents this occurrence. The bendable ECC remains intact and safe up to tensile strains of 5 percent where traditional concrete fractures and can’t carry a load at .01 percent tensile strain.

At present, building structures are constructed using steel bars to keep cracks as small as possible. But they’re not small enough to heal, so water and salts can penetrate to the steel, causing corrosion that further weakens the structure. Self-healing concrete needs no steel reinforcement to keep crack width tight, so it eliminates corrosion. And costs! And energy!

Natural materials have long been shown to be the best when it comes to temperature modulation and costs. Bamboo, kemp, etc have been used effectively. But more and more traditional homes all over the country are being replaced by concrete structures – for its strength. Are we headed in the right direction?

Friday, April 24, 2009

Rivers drying up

Some of the world’s biggest and vital rivers are drying up due to climate change, according to US National Center for Atmospheric Research. That water is drying up has been known, but the study pins this down on climate change.

The study assessed 925 rivers using both satellite data and on the ground measurement, and found that while the flow in some rivers had increased as a result of changing rainfall patterns and glacial melt water, a significantly larger number had lost water.


Overall, the study found that from 1948 to 2004, annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about six per cent, while the annual flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about three per cent.

Among the rivers are the Ganges, the Niger and the Colorado.

Fast melting rates of glaciers have warned about impending water scarcity in the Gangetic basin. Is there any plan in place to address the drinking water, irrigation needs which are going to be dire?

The map shows areas of the globe where the situation is bad. Red indicates the regions that have witnessed a drop in the run-off. Blue at the other end indicates rise in water.

The groundwater situation is no better. India has over 22 million wells and a city like Bangalore has an estimated 200,000 borewells. Half of them no more yield water!

Recharging these deep wells with rainwater is among the damage repair measures suggested.
But more important is the need for a judicial management of these resources. Mapping aquifers, maintaining a log on the water availability across time, hiring hdro-geologists in water boards, putting in place a law that makes recharge mandatory while dropping borewells, etc could help.

Even as questions of ownership are hazy when it comes to groundwater, it is vital that people realize the value of water and not overuse or waste it.

Are you recharging the ground below your home?

China takes a lead

It is not yet official but according to a high-ranking official, the Chinese government is planning to impose a carbon tax to tackle emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur oxide and wastewater. Aimed at slowing global warming, it is directed at coal and petrochemical products.

An environment tax and an energy tax are also on the anvil. The energy tax would mainly target the coal industry because the petroleum industry already pays consumption tax. When the energy tax is put into practice, companies will pay at least 40 yuan ($5.85) per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted.

Not so bad after all, for the biggest polluter in the world today! Seventy percent of China's energy comes from coal, the largest contributor to carbon emissions. China plans to build 500 coal-fired power plants in the next decade, at the rate of almost one a week

Going by its announcements, China is doing a good job of the tight-rope walk between development plans and growing emissions. A February analysis by HSBC Global Research in Hong Kong projects that nearly 40 percent of China’s proposed $586 billion stimulus plan is going toward public investment in renewable energy, low-carbon vehicles, high-speed rail, an advanced electric grid, efficiency improvements, and other water-treatment and pollution controls.

This makes China, according to a recent analysis, “the largest alternative energy producer in the world in terms of installed generating capacity.”

This massive stimulus plan will spend over 3 percent of China’s 2008 gross domestic product annually in 2009 and 2010 on green investments. China has adjusted its stimulus spending slightly since the HSBC analysis and trimmed spending on water treatment and environmental cleanup, but maintained huge investments in upgrading its power infrastructure, and more than doubled investment in technical upgrading and research and development.

Clear indications of how serious China is in ‘using this economic crisis to position itself to be the world leader in efficiency, green transportation, and clean and renewable energy’. China is a leading manufacturer of photovoltaic (solar) cells, second only to Japan, and is set to be the world’s leading manufacturer of wind turbines by the end of 2009.

Lessons there for all aspiring powers?

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Shed a pound for the planet

Obesity is bad for you, and for the planet. The more mass you have, the more you need to eat to keep it going, and the more you tend to rely on transport. The connection is quite obvious but if you need proof, a recent study has concluded the same. Conducted in the UK, it found that more obese people meant more greenhouse gas emissions a year, almost 60 mega tones!

Greenhouse gas emissions from food production and car travel in the fatter population would be between 0.4 to 1 giga-tonnes higher per 1bn people, they estimated.

As noted, this is a global issue, not restricted to the UK. The fat population is growing everywhere. As the study notes, it would be good for all stakeholders, earth included, if we shifted to our 1970s eating habits. More veggies, less meat.

On Earth Day, some more alarming news: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases released through human activities, rose in 2008.

Collected from 60 monitoring stations from around the world, it shows that the concentration of carbon dioxide has reached 386 parts per million in the air. The pre-industrial peak in concentrations was 280 parts per million and the ideal level to avert disaster is 350 ppm. But given the trend, chances are it will exceed 450 parts per million this century.

Methane levels rose in 2008 for the second consecutive year after a 10-year plateau. Methane persists only a few years in the air, but is about 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

What can we do? Not to keep pressing the panic button, but just to start some action. Is there one activity you can choose to adopt from today that will ease the carbon load on the planet? It could be as simple as losing weight! Write in to us, share your thoughts, so others may be inspired and follow.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Earth Day Facts



Did you know how we are scarring the face of earth?

Just in a year,

3million tons of iron ore, 575 thousand tons of tin, 330,000 tons of bauxite (for aluminum), and 34,000 tons of copper will be ripped from the Earth.

Burning the oil and other fossil fuels will release 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

200 million tons of topsoil will be lost through erosion from croplands.

50,000 acres of forest will be eliminated.

Between 20 and 500 species will disappear from the planet forever.

Be the planet’s saviour. Consume less, waste lesser and plant more trees.

Recycled glass uses only 2/3 the energy needed to manufacture glass from scratch. For every soft drink bottle you recycle, you save enough energy to run a television set for an hour and a half.

A full bath tub requires about 70 gallons of water, while taking a five-minute shower uses 10 to 25 gallons.

Leaky faucets that drip at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water each year.

Pay Attention to Your Fridge. In an apartment building, 25% of your electric bill may go towards the fridge. Keep its compressor coils clean to ensure your energy bill stays low. Cover Your Food. Check the fridge's seal. Fill your fridge with water jugs to keep it full and colder.

If you have a window-mounted air conditioner, you can save energy and money by shading it from the sun. The cooler the air conditioner, the more efficient it runs.

On average a tree will absorb 730 kg of carbon over it's lifetime and releases enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings
.

EARTH DAY. April 22. DO YOUR BIT.

A long story, cut short

Almost 15 billion years ago, someone pressed a button and from what was a point of singularity, everything erupted and the universe was born. So the story goes. Of how there was only hydrogen around, which took a few knocks to form helium and from thereon raced to cook all the many elements we now read on the Periodic table!

In the process, matter condensed and exploded, alternately giving rise to the birth and death of stars and galaxies. In one such explosion some 5 billion years ago, the heavy elements formed were pulled into a nearby cloud of hydrogen gas and interstellar dust. There gravity got to work and created what is now our Sun. Around it swirled a disk of the same material, which eventually froze into small dust-size grains that formed clumps. These continued to collide and exchange material and finally with one more ignition of the sun was forced to settle into fixed orbits around the sun. That was 4600 million years ago.

The third such rock from the sun alone stood at the right place to nurture life. Planet Earth. But even that took its time. The right atmosphere and that essential ingredient, water, kept life waiting.

It was between 3800 and 2500 million years that life in the form of the bacteria first appeared. Some algae later, around 2000 million years ago saw the Cambrian explosion of a myriad of life, possibly due to abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere. From fish in the water to life on land took another few million years, then came reptiles and amphibians and the huge dinosaurs, and the flowering plants that came 130 m years ago. Finally about 65 million years ago a wayward asteroid hit saw the exit of the dino and the entrance of the burrowing mammals. The primate came 5 million years later. It was just yesterday, around 5 million years ago, the first hominid appeared.

Now, we have the ‘wise’ homo sapien who is so wise he has been doctoring and engineering anything he laid hands upon. Some marvelous inventions made life on earth a cool ride, while some spelled danger. Increasingly, he realized that he was changing the face of earth in ways that could affect his existence. Global warming. Water scarcity. Floods and droughts stare us in the face today.

What do we do? Is all hope lost? No. We can still limit the damage by cutting down our consumption, conserving and recycling resources, and managing them better. We better do it fast. Or else, the mercury will rise, freshwater will be gone, soils become unproductive, and life a survival of the fittest.

The third rock from the sun will still continue its jog around the sun, but there will be no homo sapiens or the many species we will have managed to extinguish.

Let us preserve the Earth and learn to live off it judiciously, not greedily. Our lives are tethered to its welfare.

Go slow, save fuel

Greenhouse gas emissions and heavy trucking go hand in hand. 18 percent of the transportation sector's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arise from these vehicles. It is the single fastest-growing source of transportation emissions. Naturally, ways to improve efficiency and decrease consumption help.

However, best efficiency need not always come from lessened consumption. Similarly, trucks with low fuel consumption do not necessarily have the best efficiency.

Gains in efficiency can be achieved with technologies like auxiliary power units, wide-base tires, hybrid powertrains, reducing overnight idling, regenerative braking and improved aerodynamic mechanisms. But simpler measures like increasing weight limits and length of trucks along with reducing the speed limit (from 65 to 60 kmph saves 8 percent of a truck's fuel) also helps!

Fortunately, long-haul trucks emit only a fraction of the SOx, NOx, and particulate matter that they emitted ten years ago.

Marketing new ideas is the ultimate challenge. Try telling a trucker that going slow on the accelerator is actually good! Even if a new technology has been proved, owners have to be convinced about their reliability and durability. Even if it is available, a mechanic might not know how to install it. This makes new fuel-efficient technologies hard to bring to market.

Do let us know any simple tips/techniques you have heard or developed that help reduce fuel consumption (and hence the emissions).

Monday, April 20, 2009

The scapegoat

Overpopulation is not driving environmental destruction at the global level; over-consumption is. That is what reputed journalist Fred Pearce says in a well-analysed post.

Referring to the famous environmental scientist Garret Hardin who had proposed in the 70s what he called “lifeboat ethics” where, “each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in.” If any were let on board, there would be chaos and all would drown.

Pearce makes a change to Hardin’s metaphor, by noting that ‘each of the people in the lifeboat was occupying ten places, whereas the people in the water only wanted one each’.

He cites Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, who calculates that the world’s richest half-billion people — about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. And the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions.

In ground covered earlier, he talks of the comparative costs of sustaining lifestyles of Americans, Canadians, Britons with the poor brethren. And makes a case for how despite increasing populations, the poor will still be consuming much lesser than their rich equivalent. And emitting much less carbon di-oxide!

Even if we could today achieve zero population growth, that would barely touch the climate problem — where we need to cut emissions by 50 to 80 percent by mid-century. Given existing income inequalities, it is 'inescapable that over-consumption by the rich few is the key problem, rather than overpopulation of the poor many', Pearce concludes.

Any counter-arguments? What about the rising consumption patterns in some of these developing regions?

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Tips from nature

Silicon based solar devices are believed to be nearing their performance limits which are not as efficient as one would like it to be. The search for new materials and new processes to increase efficiency of collecting photons is holding out some promise.

Like the latest research at Oregon State University on harnessing tiny, single-celled marine organisms called diatoms for the fabrication of solar power devices.

Tiny, single-celled marine organisms called diatoms have rigid shells in a kaleidoscope of shapes and patterns. Making use of this structure is how the team developed a solar system.

It starts with allowing a layer of diatoms to settle on a transparent conductive glass surface. The organic matter is then removed, leaving behind the diatom shells. A biological agent is then added to create tiny particles of titanium dioxide, which form a thin layer. As the photons bounce around more inside the pores of the diatom shell, the process becomes more efficient.

From diatoms to stringing up a few viruses to make a nanowire that acts as the anode of a battery may seem a simple jump but it took a lot of perseverance to a crazy idea.

The harmless M13 bacteriophage is attracted to inorganic materials. Each virus when coated with gold and cobalt oxide is transformed into a scrap of nanowire. When these are combined, they form a film that can act as anode or the part of a battery that carries a negative ionic charge.

Charging a battery requires flow of ions from the negatively-charged anode to the positively-charged cathode and discharging needs a flow in the opposite direction.

Using viruses that would be attracted to iron phosphate and carbon nanotubes the team made a cathode which is light. They generated a micro-battery capable of around 100 charges. The prototype was inflated to the size of a button cell battery which powers a simple LED. The new virus-produced batteries are no different from traditional batteries as far as the energy capacity and power performance is concerned.

The most advantageous aspect of virus-built batteries is they could be produced in an environmentally friendly manner and they would prove economical for the manufacturers too. The manufacturing process could be carried out at or below room temperature without the involvement of the harmful organic solvents. Battery materials are non-toxic.

The team is now studying ways to develop batteries having higher voltage and capacitance by using different materials such as manganese phosphate and nickel phosphate.

As is evident, there is much in nature which can show the way in the quest for new materials and methods.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A gust of energy

Places that relied overly on wind have often regretted the same. Sudden drops in wind have resulted in blackouts. Like in the spring of 2008 the Texas power utility operators struggled to keep the lights on due to a rise in demand and drop in wind.

Wind power, like most renewables is still considered fickle. To increase the efficiency, the generators must run on a single speed which is often not possible. To compensate, engineers design turbine hardware to have adjustable blade angles to shed surplus wind energy or to capture more.

Wind turbines often also employ a transmission to gear the shaft speed up or down to the required spot. But both mechanisms add weight, complexity and cost.

Critics point to the hidden costs and such technical challenges in the construction of expensive transmission lines and lack of a storage system.

ExRo Technologies in Vancouver is working on a generator that operates efficiently over a wide speed range. Retrofitted wind turbines could produce as much as 50 percent more power over time, the company claims.

Here, fast-acting electronic switches can engage individual generator coils as needed to harvest energy effectively at different wind speeds. An intelligent controller turns on only a few coils at low speed and connects more at higher velocities.

ExRo has successfully tested a prototype generator. It expects to start side-by-side trials of turbines with and without the new generators soon and plans to commercialize their product by the end of 2009.

In the final analysis, it is a combination of renewables with suitable storage options that will provide the answer. Costs can be high even for storage systems like fuel cells, thermal mass, batteries, etc but that is no reason to drop it. Especially as more crunching evidence comes in of global warming, the latest from NASA on thinning Arctic ice.

The largest contributor to emissions is fossil fuel based power plants. There are over 50,000 such plants globally and an average plant of 500 MW emits 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide daily! The world's emissions of carbon dioxide are predicted to rise over 50 percent to more than 42 billion tonnes per year from 2005 to 2030.

Any stronger reason why we need to take the less-trodden path now?

Sustaining efforts

The world’s first eco-city, Dongtan in China should have been completed by 2010 but as of today, nobody knows what happened to the city that was not to be!

However, the reasons for why it failed to take off are simple. Lack of understanding local needs, political overtones, miscommunication, inexperience, are some of these - in hindsight.

As detailed in the very interesting Yale blog, China has become a workshop for the world, a laboratory for new technology and global talent seeking to realize their futuristic visions. But sometimes grandiose plans remain grandiose on paper, but don’t see the light of the day.

The promised eco-cities of Dongtan and Huangbaiyu were touted as future models and drew upon expertise from some of the best international architectural and design firms. The Huangbaiyu project sought to transform a small village in northeast China’s Liaoning province into a more energy-efficient community.

Part of the vision was to use special hay and pressed-earth bricks for construction. Unfortunately, cost overruns due to the material used (not locally made) made the homes unaffordable to many villagers. Sometimes, although homes were available, the farmers refused to live in them as the yards weren’t large enough to raise animals and sustain a livelihood.

One of McDonough’s blueprints, for another planned eco-city in Liuzhou, called for farmers to use rooftop fields, connected by tiny bridges!

Zero energy buildings are another admirable concept that may just fall by the wayside unless deliberated more carefully. Ideas can be as out of the box as having storage space at each step or solar panels laid out on roads. But unless these are sustainable, they are best kept inside the box.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Bury it, forget it?

Till such time when nanotechnology and microbes that take in carbon dioxide and spew fuel (methane) step out of the realm of possibilities, most of the world will continue to rely on coal for their primary energy needs.

But, coal, everyone knows is not a honourable gas. That being so, how does one take the bite out of coal? CCS or carbon capture and sequestration. Here, the carbon emitted by thermal plants is captured and buried underground. Out of sight, out of mind.

But as some natural worriers have been pointing out, what if the buried carbon could cause problems?! Do we know our geology well enough to be sure the carbon we bury will stay put?

New research now sets that fear aside. The team led by the University of Manchester has shown through their study that for millions of years carbon dioxide has been stored safely and naturally in underground water in gas fields saturated with the greenhouse gas.

Naturally-occurring carbon dioxide either dissolves in underground water (like Coke) or it reacts with minerals in rock to form new carbonate minerals, essentially locking away the carbon dioxide underground. While much of this has been studied by simulation using computer models, the new study measured the ratios of the stable isotopes of carbon dioxide and noble gases like helium and neon in nine gas fields in North America, China and Europe. These gas fields were naturally filled with carbon dioxide thousands or millions of years ago.

They found that underground water is the major carbon sink and has stayed stable for millions of years.

Of course, one study is no guarantee. And there are other aspects to CCS.

Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide. The economy of scale and the costs are prohibiting.

Retrofitting old plants for CCS would mean laying pipes to carry the gas to nearest aquifers. For new plants the dilemma is whether to build the plant over aquifers or near the fuel source? Either way it spells more costs over pipes, transmission lines, etc. Money which could well be spent on renewables.

But coal is what is available in plenty (relatively), be it in India, China or the US. So how can we simply lump it?? Leave it all to the free market?

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Stop bleeding energy


Walk into your offices and there’s a rush of cold air that greets you. Right? That is exactly how your building is bleeding money and energy. A software company, Optimum Energy, in Seattle has a software ready that helps curb energy spent by slowing down the motors that power the buildings’ heating and cooling systems.

Motors and pumps that circulate the cold water around the buildings are often an ignored aspect of the energy bill. The company’s software products have the potential to halve the heating and cooling bills.

A massive network of cold water is required in many buildings for temperature control. High-powered motors and pumps drive the water around the building. As a hot building cools down, then the motor shuts off. If a surge in temperature occurs, then the motor starts off again. But this can be even a rise by one degree!

Their software product, called OptimumLOOP, controls the HVAC systems on site to keep them running only at the capacity needed to keep buildings at comfortable temperatures, instead of their maximum capacity.

The company estimates that there are 110,000 buildings in the US that are eligible for its system and that figure is big enough to have a strong impact on energy savings and the environment. “If our stuff was implemented across the United States, you wouldn’t have to build another power plant for ten years,” according to a spokesman.


The Empire State Building in New York is analyzing and retrofitting existing structures for environmental sustainability that will see its energy consumption reduced by 38 percent. As central elements of the $500 million upgrade program presently underway at New York City’s tallest building, the program is expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 38 percent. It will save $4.4 million in annual energy savings costs and repay its net extra cost in about three years.


Some 6500 windows will be refurbished into triple-glazed insulated modules, dramatically improving summer and winter efficiency while the insides will see upgraded lighting, lighting controls and lighting design; upgraded or overhauled furnaces, chillers, and air-handlers.


Commercial and residential buildings account for the majority of the total carbon footprint of cities around the world. Reducing existing building energy consumption and carbon footprint or retrofitting has a big potential in saving energy.


Every which way of saving energy is equal to making twice the amount available elsewhere. Any reason why such options should not be explored as aggressively as building new power plants?

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Clear the space above your head!

Danger from Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) generated by cellphones, routers, power lines and microwave ovens is a very controversial topic. Just when you have decided to relax and go on with life, the media highlights research that warns of dire consequences. Within a few weeks, another one contradicts this.

But an interesting study in Treehugger illustrates the danger from overlying power lines, as sensed by trees! (Remember the Indian scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose who had demonstrated that trees have life and feelings too? He was the first to recognize the importance of electrical signalling between plant cells in co-ordinating responses to the environment )

Maple trees growing up under power lines tended to develop a bifurcated "Y" formation as the limbs seemed to grow away from the lines themselves. This was seen in tree after tree. The limbs appear healthy but seem to be keeping a distance from clear and present danger!

The wires are rated at 22 KV, 60 Cycle. Proving the theory, the site notes how in the control group, normal maple trees do not take the bifurcated Y shape but branch randomly.

The team concluded that there is no question, tree limbs are distorted by the power lines, and the only thing that could be emanating from the lines is the EMF and not voltage (as proved). It was also seen that where the limbs could not grow away from the lines, they were sheared off as if by a chainsaw, and then exuded a brown protective coating to seal the wound.

The team concludes that it is ‘probably prudent to keep transformers, routers, cell phones and hair dryers eight feet from your head at all times’.

Useful tip for our builders to keep in mind during these days where space is at a premium and buildings jostle with transformers and host mobile phone towers!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

A carbon alchemy?

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University are coaxing sunlight and titanium oxide nanotubes to transform carbon dioxide into methane, which can then be used as an energy source. In one stroke, this will reduce the quantity of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere and provide a source of energy.

The team of researchers arranged the nanotubes vertically and covered them on top with a thin, reddish-brown layer of copper oxide. The copper and titanium oxide operate as catalysts that help convert the carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide in the presence of sunlight. Water molecules can also be split apart and the hydrogen that is freed from the water combines with carbon to form methane. Oxygen is also released as a byproduct.

Focusing the light collected from 1,100 square feet onto one of the membranes would generate more than 132 gallons of methane on a sunny day.

As the team believes, would you agree that formation of methane by this process is solar power by another name? As with any new technology, can this one be scaled up to commercial levels?