Friday, October 30, 2009

Power down the pipe

Water distribution is the most energy-intensive activity in high and dry places. An estimated one quarter (25%) of America's electricity consumption is associated with moving and treating water. Is it any different in your city? Let us know.

Southern Nevada used about 853.8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2008 to move 439,187 acre-feet of water into valley homes and businesses, according the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Another 119.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity was used that year to treat 22,501 acre-feet of water and send it back to the lake.

When the power is mostly from coal, that means something! Utah is 93% coal dependent and has the largest average household size (3.01) - meaning water consuming appliances will be used intensively in the average home. The per-capita water consumption average in Utah is 250 gallons, way over the 75 gallon national average, with 60% of all water consumed going for yard irrigation.

The national standard in India is around 200 litres per capita per day and even in its silicon valley, Bangalore, the availability is much lesser. Equity issues aside, to pump around 900 mld of water from 300-600 depth, the BWSSB spends about 65 percent of its income (Rs 140 crores) on power!

What can you as a citizen do? For one, harvest rainwater and use recycled water for cleaning cars! Not water pumped from such distances at such costs, such power! Reduce your water print. And share your ideas.

Wasting all that energy

The developing world, where 44 percent of people lack access to electricity, could soon be one of the biggest markets for solar power, according to participants at the Solar Power International conference in California. To date, just 1 percent of solar panel production has been installed in poor nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In addition to finding financing to help low-income residents install solar panels, a major challenge will be to purchase and replace the batteries to store electricity at night and on cloudy days, said the experts.

Meanwhile, US firm SunPower Corp. announced that it has produced another record-breaking solar panel with a 20.4 percent total area efficiency. The new 96-cell, 333-watt solar panel is comprised of SunPower's third generation solar cell technology that offers a minimum cell efficiency of 23 percent. In addition, the larger area cells are cut from a 165 mm diameter ingot and include an anti-reflective coating for maximum power generation. With a total panel area of 1.6 square meters, including the frame, SunPower's 20.4 percent panel achieved the highest efficiency rating of a full sized solar panel.

What do you think prevents solar from taking off in India? Why, despite so many studies and reports, are investors hesitant? What innovative financing will do the job?

Foul blows the wind?


The Normandy coast of France, once the scene of the combined onslaught against Hitler’s forces, and now a tourist attraction, is also in the center of another conflict. One that pits ecologists against renewable energy proponents. Windmills churning above the tidal flats of Mont-Saint-Michel will distract from the natural beauty of the medieval monument and potentially destroy the landscape in the future, say the former.

France has 2500 windmills producing 4500 megawatts per year; the goal is to have 8500 windmills producing 25000 megawatts by 2020. Recently, the EU recommended that it invest $ 70 million in clean energy over the coming decade, tripling windmill construction to produce 20 % of Europe’s electricity.

Interestingly, French law bans windmills closer than 1500 feet from historical monuments. The current court case concerns plans to build 300 foot high windmills on farmland in Argouges, on a plateau a bit more than 10 miles southeast of Mont-Saint-Michel. The monument attracts about 3 million visitors each year to admire the rock-top monastery.

If permitted, there are more plans for an additional 80 towers in farming communities across the entire ridgeline above Mont-Saint-Michel. Farmers embrace proposals to install windmills in their fields because of the payments they receive. They get stipends for use of the land and villages are provided tax revenue on income from electricity, which is sold to the national grid.

You can never win it all, as they say. Clean energy will require large expanses of land, whether for wind or solar energy. In India, there are accusations of fertile land being claimed as degraded land for such projects. Many question the labeling of 70 million hectares as ‘degraded land’.

But that is the price one must pay for clean energy. What do you think? Should windmills be set up regardless of any other criteria other than wind quality? Do you believe turbines affect bird life? Check out this site for a comparison on the loss of biodiversity due to climate change and windmills.

Friday, October 23, 2009

The power of the sun

Peak oil once again reared its head, this time at a lecture given by Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn in Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science.

Oil, which makes up around 35 percent of global energy use, and the other fossil fuels will soon be exhausted, as we ‘devour the laborious work of millions of bacteria over millions of years’. As world population will have increased by an estimated 30 to 40 per cent by mid-century, energy consumption will rise. What then? Energy prices will in two decades see a steep hike and unless something is done, life will get difficult, warned the professor.

So, as the vultures in Jungle Book asked, ‘what are we gonna do?’

Well, the professor believes solar and wind power are the most promising candidates. Although, at the present time they constitute only ~ 2 per cent of the global energy consumption, “their production has recently been rising by a spectacular 30 to 40% per year, or a factor 15 per decade and 225 in 20 years. This arithmetic suggests that the entire deficit stemming from the impending exhaustion of oil and gas might be compensated in about 10 to 20 years by continuing aggressive commitment to solar and wind energy.”

By 2021, he sees a world largely dominated by solar and wind energy. The trend aside, he believes the technology leaps will bring it all closer.

Solar power has been getting cheaper for years. Panel prices declined 31 percent from 1998 to 2008 because of lower manufacturing and installation costs and state and local subsidies, according to a study released Wednesday by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

But it did take a ramp up in US federal incentives to bring the cost within many people’s reach. Thousands of homeowners are finding they can pay off a rooftop solar system in just a few years and then start pocketing the energy savings. More than half the states in the U.S. and Washington D.C. offer enough incentives to cut the costs by 40 percent or more.

How many nations are willing to do that? And can afford to?

Meanwhile solar powered mobile phones are catching like fire in Africa and helping people unconnected to the grid make informed decisions.

And if land requirement was a big factor against big solar, things are changing now. The 4,500 acre solar thermal installation in California is being planned to enhance farming! From protecting tomatoes from rain (tomatoes do better if only their roots are fed), through shading cooler weather crops like salad and arugula as the climate heats up, to providing support for trellises and other crop infrastructure, symbiotic ways of harnessing food and energy are coming true.

So, do you think Prof Kohn is right?

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Zero cost homes?


Even without floods doing their bit, the numbers of homeless are millions. When they could easily be provided shelter simply by using the things the rest of us throw out as waste. Old tires. Old bottles. Beer Cans. Plastic containers.

So many birds in one stone! Turning waste into shelters. Reducing the dependence on scarce resources. Using less water and energy!

The ‘Earthship’ concept of American architect Michael Reynolds is slowly but surely catching up. The latest to join the crew is a small community in the San Juan Del Sur region of Nicaragua.

They have created an entirely off-grid, sustainable community, titled Casa Llanta ("Tire House"). In India, a similar concept was tried out at Kodaikanal.

Earthships use materials that can be found in the community to build "cheap" homes, coupled with rainwater catchment systems, solar panels and other construction techniques to develop a community with the lightest footprint possible.

Natural heating without electricity and a more reliable water supply through rainwater catchment and storage for cooking and for growing crops are some of its selling points. In addition, throwaway materials like tires, glass, plastic containers and aluminum cans are incorporated into construction, along with minimal construction materials like cement, for example, to create structures that are more easily reproduced.

The Nicaraguan project began back in December 2007 with preparation of materials, like packing tires with dirt as "bricks" and cutting/cleaning glass bottles. To get involved with Earthships in your local community, or by volunteering internationally, check out www.earthship.net

Home, as it was meant to be?? How about getting students at your nearby school to work on such ideas?

Between optimism & realism

The UK's Energy Research Centre recently released a study entitled "Global Oil Depletion - An assessment of the evidence for near-term peak in global oil production." (The report is available for downloading at the UKERC's website.)

The main conclusion of the British report is that there is a "significant risk" that conventional oil production will peak before 2020, and that forecasts which delay the event beyond 2030 are based on assumptions that are "at best optimistic and at worst implausible."

The IEA had in its reevaluation last year said that while conventional world oil production will peak around 2020, production of alternative fuels such as natural gas liquids and extracts from the Alberta tar sands will increase rapidly enough so that total liquid fuel production can keep growing through 2030.

It was the Deutsche Bank that last sent out a caution.

Going by conference-talk, a consensus has emerged that global convention oil production plateaued at the end of 2004 and is unlikely to ever grow very much again; that we are in brief period of balance between depletion from existing fields and production and this will last for another two to five years before world production starts to fall inexorably.

How prepared is the world today to tackle oil scarcity? How near do we need to reach before we apply the brakes?

New materials

Using the process of selective doping of a material, North Carolina State University engineers have created a new material that would allow a fingernail-size computer chip to store the equivalent of 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text!

The process could also be used for boosting vehicles' fuel economy and reducing heat produced by semiconductors, and thus more efficient energy.

The engineers added metal nickel to magnesium oxide, a ceramic. The resulting material contained clusters of nickel atoms no bigger than 10 square nanometers, a 90percent size reduction that could boost computer storage capacity.

By introducing metallic properties into ceramics, engineers could develop a new generation of ceramic engines able to withstand twice the temperatures of normal engines and achieve fuel economy of 80 miles per gallon. And since the thermal conductivity of the material would be improved, the technique could also have applications in harnessing alternative energy sources like solar energy.

The discovery will aid the emerging field of "spintronics," which is dedicated to harnessing energy produced by the spinning of electrons. By manipulating the nanomaterial the electron spin can be controlled, helping to harness electron’s energy.

Materials are the promise of tomorrow. But will technofixes alone help?

Monday, October 19, 2009

Indian rope trick

A sudden change of heart/mind? Or a political gimmick? Late wisdom? Or some more rhetoric? Or simply a blow hot blow cold exercise?

Take your pick but India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s now-leaked communication with Prime Minister Singh has spread like wildfire. Guarded as the global reaction is, the new stance is being welcomed as what could be the first tentative step towards a possible new climate pact.

From a strict no-no to emission reductions target to accepting one with no financial or technological support represents a wide chasm in the policy.

The minister has called for being “pragmatic and constructive, not argumentative and polemical ... India should listen more and speak less in negotiations."

India has been reiterating time and again that mitigation/adaptation aid money, plus facilitation of technology transfer, were prerequisites for participation in an international climate change agreement. But now, suddenly seems to have realized that mitigation is “in its own interests”.

And, now, it seems Ramesh has gone back on his statements and maintained there is no change in India's stand!

Even as India makes up its mind, new UNEP analysis that serves as an update to the last IPCC report on climate change from two years ago, after reviewing more than 400 studies done in the past two years, concludes that because of faster-than-predicted carbon emissions growth we are now committed to at least 1.4°C of warming by 2100 and as much as 4.3°C.

The report says that burgeoning economies in China, India, and other developing countries, coupled with a lack of emissions cutbacks in the industrialized world, have caused greenhouse gas emissions to grow more rapidly than the most extreme scenario presented by the IPCC.

Melting glaciers, dwindling water, increasing droughts and floods apart, research clearly indicates the rise of parasite borne diseases. Spasms of cholera have been correlated with rising sea surface temperature as also diarrhea! Malaria outbreaks can now be predicted with weather patterns. Do the viral outbreaks we have seen this year in India with so many mutants have any connection to climate change?

Houseflies at Himalayas base camp, and malaria in Kenya’s high altitudes suggest parasites and bugs are moving to new places thanks to the temperature rises there. That should make anyone sit up.

India could well make a difference at Copenhagen.

A new source?

If electric charges provide electricity, what will magnetic charges give? Magnetricity! This is not one of those elephant-ant PJs for sure, but a quote from latest research.

Magnetic monopoles that exist in special crystals known as spin ice gather to form a "magnetic current" like electricity. The phenomenon, dubbed "magnetricity", could be used in magnetic storage or in computing.

Predicted over a century ago, it was only in September this year that two research groups independently reported the existence of monopoles - "particles" which carry an overall magnetic charge. But they exist only in the spin ice crystals. When cooled to very low temperatures, they show tiny packets of magnetic charge. More recently, one of the research teams have showed that these charges can move, much like electric charge does!

So, will this help an ‘energy-starved’ world? Perhaps not. These charges move only inside spin ice and can at most be used for magnetic storage in computing, say the scientists. But you never know, with advances in materials, perhaps some new invention can imitate spin ices??

Sparkling windows, magic tiles

Vertical cities seem to be the future with migration increasing. Something as simple as cleaning the high-rise buildings can be a formidable task. Unless research at Tel Aviv university delivers the goods and self-assembling self-cleaning nanotubes become a reality!

Car windows and solar panels can be made of the material that repels water and dirt. While this property is already exhibited by titanium dioxide nanoparticles, self-assembly aspect gives an added advantage. In solar panels this can be a boon.

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates have developed a roof tile that remains white in summer to reflect the sun’s energy then turns black in winter to absorb the sun’s rays and heat buildings.

The “thermeleon” technology uses a common commercial polymer trapped between layers of plastic, including a black layer at the back. When the temperature drops, the white layer disappears, exposing the black layer. The tiles reflect about 80 percent of the sun’s heat when they are white, translating into a 20 percent savings in cooling costs. When the tiles turn dark, they absorb about 70 percent of solar energy.

Simple as it seems, the technology is costly. But the team is at it.

Innovation, and more innovation. Simply about looking at old problems with new eyes?

Think bizarre

Everybody has heard about Prof Anil Gupta’s National Innovation Foundation, which encourages innovations that can be used to make lives easier for rural folks. NIF also conducts a nationwide contest, IGNITE, for school children in partnership with CBSE. The results for this year are out. There are many innovative ideas, which take the grind out of some mundane tasks. There are also some which didn’t make it to the winning post but are proof of the fact that innovation is alive and kicking in the country.

Like the idea from 15-year-old Sarojini Mahajan to use the human pulse to charge a cell phone! After all, whether it be the urban or rural landscape, the cell phone is ubiquitous.

The idea was picked up by Stanford University, which plans to work on the idea. They have already given $1000 to NIF to develop a prototype in collaboration with them.

It was when her teacher asked her for crazy ideas that Sarojini started thinking about watches that run on human pulse and wondered if the idea could be extended! With her teacher she conceived a charging system in which sensors would be placed on the cell phone. Holding it in hand in a particular way would charge it using the heat of the palm.

Interestingly, Sarojini who is a class topper and loves science has no desire to become a doctor or engineer!

Ideas can come from anywhere and anyone, young or old, educated or ‘uneducated’. One only needs to think ‘out of the box’. Right?

We have our own BIG award at Enzen too for innovative ideas in the field of energy and environment. All you need to do is demonstrate proof of concept. Any idea, which brings to the fore unlimited, clean energy. Write in to us.

Friday, October 16, 2009

A thought for vanishing food

If there is one challenge bigger than that of climate change, it is that of poverty. The absolute number of poor people is still increasing (mostly in sub-Saharan Africa), and the projection is that 1 billion people will still be living below US$1.25 a day in 2015. To put it more vividly, every one in four lives in abject poverty. And when you talk poverty, the first requirement is that of food.

A recent FAO report talks of how declining aid and investment in agriculture has been increasing the number of undernourished people to a billion now.

Why has agriculture not been given priority? Global food output has to increase by 70 percent to feed projected population in 2050. What are we doing towards achieving that? Nothing. Merrily converting agricultural land to industrial purpose. Should the contribution of agriculture to GDP remain marginal? Can we not make investment in agriculture more attractive?

Equally important, how optimally can we use energy and water to increase food production? For as Michael Pollan notes, we have shifted from a food economy that yielded two calories of food for every one calorie of fossil fuel we burned to grow, harvest, process and distribute the food, to a food economy that yields one calorie of food for every ten calories of fossil fuel we put into obtaining it.
At the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $120 million in nine new grants to organizations and research partners to work on the effort, focusing primarily on small-scale farming in sub-Saharan Africa.

In his speech Gates called for an end to the ideological division over the future of agriculture: “Productivity or sustainability — they say you have to choose. It’s a false choice,” he said. Rather, we need farming techniques that are both environmentally responsible and highly productive, and technology will help bridge the gap, he said.

Projects including distribution of legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil and pest-resistant sweet potatoes, help for women farmers in India to manage land and water resources sustainably and programs to deliver information to farmers via radio and mobile phones, all can avail the grant.

The Gates Foundation has committed billions already for agricultural development efforts — promoting techniques such as no-till farming (explained in the video clip below), rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation. Companies are working on smart water management, soil moisture sensors and wireless networks, etc. Web marketplaces are helping small farmers sell their produce.

This could well be the true green revolution, right? New ideas in food, energy and water coming together! Write in to us if you have heard of successful experiments.

Fuel cell progress

Meanwhile, fuel cell technology is stretching to close the gap between its operability and commercial feasibility. UK based AFC tested its alkaline-based technology recently and found that its efficiency matched that of traditional platinum-based electrodes that cost more. This high efficiency moves the company one step closer to full-scale production of its fuel cell technology.

This fuel cell is based on an electrolyte called Potassium Hydroxide (KOH). KOH allows Hydroxil-ions to move freely while also cooling the fuel cell. Solid polymer electrodes don’t allow such movement. As a result, they create more resistance and “a less efficient transfer of transient matter from anode to cathode” than KOH.

Another benefit of the alkaline-based fuel cells is that they don’t need to be replaced too often. The AFC fuel cell technology will be best suited in stationary power generation and the waste-to-energy market.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Citizen power

Coming back to the power of the individual, on 26 September 2009, almost 4400 citizens from 38 countries participated in the world's first independent citizen consultation on climate change, World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews). The Centre for Social Markets organised one of two such consultations in India.

The message to negotiators from this non-political grouping of citizens was clear: Ninety percent thought that agreeing a global climate deal at COP15 was urgent. From high-income countries such as Australia, Japan and the USA, to middle-income countries such as China and Brazil, and low-income countries such as Malawi and Ethiopia, there was unanimity in thought.

Citizens believed that climate change was urgent and required immediate political action from developed nations. But almost 50% of participants thought that emissions from larger developing nations such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and South Africa should also be reduced commensurate with increasing income growth and emissions.

More than 80% said that a new climate deal should require all countries to pay for climate change impacts - especially on poor countries - with 55% specifying that least developed countries should not have to pay. Eighty-six percent said that a global financial system was needed to generate funds for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

Indian campaigners delivered a petition to Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, calling for strong leadership in the face of catastrophic flooding. Signed by 1462 Indians in under 36 hours, the petition was a rapid action mobilization by Avaaz.org and India's Centre for Social Markets (CSM), to bring attention to the worst flooding in 100 years in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka causing massive loss of life and displacement.

Nobody doubts the hand of climate change in these floods, do they? And nobody can doubt the power of collective thought and action.

Write in to us with your thoughts on how to meet energy demands without compromising on quality of life or on the environment.

Imagine it, first

All roads lead to Copenhagen. All discussions end there too. In this regard, it is worthwhile to ponder on the observations of someone who went to that city.

‘Copenhagen is not a city of magicians. The people there have no secret powers. What they have is a belief in their power to work together using their city as a tool for changing their lives and transforming the world. Each new bike lane, each new windmill, each new green building, each new design, each new public art project: each builds upon the success of the last, and offers promise to the next. It's that engaged, happy, progressive spirit that I think is Copenhagen's real message to the world: imagine it, build it, and the world will change.’

That is something truly inspiring. Surely we have it in us to attempt something like that? But is it time to give up on leaders and rely more on collective action at the grassroots?

Another expert, IPCC’s Pachauri seems to believe so, when he says, ‘Leadership demands that people with vision, people with a large sense of responsibility start informing the public on what needs to be done. But, I'm reaching the stage where you really cannot rely on leaders. You really need a groundswell of grassroots action and grassroots consciousness on what needs to be done.’

Well, there is hope. On 26 September 2009, almost 4400 citizens from 38 countries participated in the world's first independent citizen consultation on climate change, World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews). The Centre for Social Markets organised one of two such consultations in India. More on that in the next post.

In yet another heartening move, IYCN, the coalition uniting Indian youth and Indian youth oriented organizations who are concerned about climate change announced the launch of the Agents of Change team. The Agents of Change will engage both students and young professionals in massive lobbying, as well as campaigning and direct action at regional and national levels, to influence the political decisions leading up to and during the Copenhagen summit in December ’09.

Now whether direct action is desirable or not is another question, but individuals and organizations are getting their act together.

The Agents of Change team will be responsible for coercing governments to take swift and concrete action against global warming at regional, national and international levels. We will achieve this through direct action, policy suggestions, media pressure and negotiation. IYCN is currently seeking funding to support all of the above efforts. For more details on the Indian Youth Climate Network, its earlier projects and other ventures please visit www.iycn.in

Imagine it, and let us build it. That is a point where we will stop at. Do talk to us.

Plug the methane

In focusing on carbon dioxide, the world is overlooking a more dangerous candidate for warming – methane. A recent EPA study showed vast amounts of methane escape from landfills, livestock, coal mines and oil and gas wells, pipelines and storage tanks. The emissions are in many cases avoidable — at a profit.

The new total, again just from gas wells, has the climate-warming power in a year of the carbon dioxide emitted by eight million cars.

Changing practices are capturing growing amounts of landfill and coal-mine methane. Experts at the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged publicly for the first time that the flow from standard practices at gas wells, not including leaky valves and the like, is at least 12 times higher than the longstanding agency estimate.
And E.P.A. officials say the total could be many times higher than that.

Companies working to cut flows of the gas from oil storage tanks say that source of emissions is similarly grossly underestimated.

Methane, besides having 25 times the climate impact of carbon dioxide when the gases are compared over a 100-year period, is a fuel and chemical feedstock. So capping the leaks brings in two-sided advantage! Not just about belching cows!

The team at MIT that looked at climate benefits of cutting methane emissions says that reducing methane is a cheap, fast solution to the short term problem. Not to forget carbon dioxide which is still far ahead by virtue of its sources.

Disruptive innovations

At a recent Clinton Global initiative, participants stressed on the need for disruptive innovations to tackle the many challenges facing the race. Whether it be climate change, depleting resources, energy constraints, incremental or continuous innovation is no more enough, they felt. If talking of energy economy, this means knocking out coal fired plants and replacing them with renewables.

Al Gore spoke of ‘sustainable capitalism’ which would need to include placing an adequate cost on externalities, like emissions generated from burning coal and the byproducts of manufacturing. How can such a capitalism be achieved? Through more private partnerships and more social responsibility built into business models, was the opinion.

All this means the world is moving past the idea of conservation and regulation as the spearheads of the environmental movement. While recycling and reducing waste is still important, it means totally new ways of doing things, conducting business have to emerge. What do you think? Is it possible?

While infrastructure, human capital and financing are crucial, when it comes to energy, what the world needs today is innovation that leaps across boundaries. There is China, which is rushing ahead in solar PV manufacturing, wind farm construction, efficient and electric vehicles, etc.

What is special about China? Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris believes China has got it right by aligning education and workforce training with its national goals. Right back to the root - education. Have we got it right?

Droughts and floods


Hopefully we have seen the last of the floods for some time. Some time. And now we can look back at what we did and did not do. For instance, was there some effective way we could have harnesses all that rainwater? Did it help recharge groundwater? How much? Of course, we cannot wait for floods to do that!

With increased urbanization and industrial growth that demand more water, are we headed in the right direction? What about the abysmal way we use and waste water?

1500 is the number of plastic water bottles consumed in 1 second in the US! Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80% end up in a landfill, even though recycling programs exist. 17 million barrels of oil are used in producing bottled water each year.

Global warming will make the Indian monsoon even more variable and even less predictable. A recent study quoted by Down To Earth, used daily rainfall data between 1901 and 2004, to conclude that monsoon has become almost twice as difficult to predict.

Analysis of rainfall trends over the past half-century shows significant decreasing trend in the frequency of moderate rainfall events and an increasing frequency of heavy rainfall events - above 100 mm/day. Extremely heavy rainfall events of more than 150 mm/day will get more frequent.

When rivers run wild after a flooding the power situation is also jeoparidsed in many places. When power is disrupted, it means a loss to the economy, at the two ends of the spectrum. Do we have the infrastructure to deal with the emergencies as they arise? Can we turn the floods into an advantage in any way?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Check your fridge

Take a deep breath before you read this! According to the University of Western Sydney's Urban Research Centre, Sydney households throw out more than $600 million worth of fresh produce every year - and that does not include leftovers, which account for another $182 million in the bin. This can feed a small African nation while garbage bins can sustain a family or two.

The $603 million fresh food waste is close to the $660 million combined income of all the farms in the metropolitan basin.

This is for sure not restricted to Sydney but all rich consumer societies everywhere! Fresh food, vegetables and fruits and meat, is bought with good intentions but busy lives take over and people end up eating out more than at home. Three weeks later it is time to clean up the fridge of all ‘biological experiments’!

Sydney residents spent about $6.5 billion last year - or more than a third of total household food and beverage budgets - on takeaway, alcohol or dining out, which was 36 times what they spent on fresh vegetables grown within the basin.

Local produce and organic food lose significance. That is where community pooling up makes sense. The buying power of supermarket chains that do not rely on local produce works against the farmers.

Much as people are aware of the benefits of fresh food, the luxuries of life which include hours of watching television robs all good intentions. And you have all the food going down the drain. With that goes so much energy and water used to produce them.

How much food goes waste in your homes? What do we need to do? Buy less? Cook more often and in small measures?

In this connection, check out this interesting video that talks about how our food supplies shaped cities. From ancient times when certain markets were located based on how easy it was to get food to those areas to how cities expanded with the advent of trains, Steel shows us how urban planning revolves really around how we eat.

And more importantly, how we eat could be made more healthy and sustainable by a revisioning of cityscapes. Cities need to be revamped for sustainable, independent food supplies, for decreased reliance on fossil-fueled transportation and increased walk and bike-friendliness, and for energy efficiency.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

UK fast-tracks on efficiency

The UK Government has unveiled the final details of its Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which as of April 1, 2010 will require large public and private sector organisations to report and reduce their carbon emissions. This is aimed at boosting energy efficiency measures.

Organisations that consume at least 6000 MWh a year – equivalent to spending £500,000 on electricity – will be required to purchase allowances to cover their annual energy usage. At the end of the monitoring and reporting period, participants will have to surrender their allowances or buy extra ones to cover their consumption. Penalties on defaulters should act as a deterrent.

The scheme has been renamed as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme to sufficiently reward organisations’ investment in renewables through their separate listing of such measures.

To avoid cashflow problems, participants will only need to report their emissions and do not need to buy allowances in advance.

The scheme is expected to drive large organisations to invest in energy efficiency measures that they might not do otherwise. By 2020, Government figures put the potential savings at £1 billion a year.

The next step would be, like we suggested in this blog, to allow organisations to trade their allowances by cutting down on emissions. But as with cap and trade between nations, the issue is if this will merely transfer the emissions instead of reducing them.??

Between imposing committments and awareness campaigns, which is a better approach?

Water woes

Amidst the flood scenario in parts of southern India, talking of water scarcity may seem ironical. But new research shows that black carbon emitted from older diesel engines and from wood and dung used in traditional cook stoves is accelerating glacial melting in the Himalayas.

Concentrations of black carbon landing on glaciers in areas which are "supposed to be pristine, untouched environments" has alarmed the scientists.

What these particles do is to absorb sunlight that would normally be reflected from the snow and ice, accelerating melting.

One third of all the black carbon soot in the world is produced in India and China, with India lagging behind China in implementing procedures to reduce output.
Replacing older cookstoves with more modern ones and controlling traffic in the Himalayas, can both help manage the problem.

Estimates show that by 2035 many glaciers in the region will be gone. That will directly affect millions who depend on the glacier melt for their daily needs.

While on water, the UK Government is launching a new campaign urging Britons to stop wasting water and save 20 litres a day.

The average UK household uses over 100,000 litres of water a year, the equivalent of 150 litres per person per day – one of the highest usage figures in Europe.
Many parts of the country actually have less water available per head than many European countries, including Italy, Greece and France.

But in the long run, will campaigns be enough? Whether it be about cook stoves or wasting water? Shelling out a few more for a smokeless stove may seem the sensible choice except when every paise counts!

To many of the poor still relying on biomass, burning firewood is the easiest and cheapest option. AT least till hills lay bare!

The new economy?

We apologise if climate change has monopolized our blog quite a bit. It is inevitable because everything we do is linked with how it affects the climate, directly or indirectly. Every task draws up on energy which puffs out carbon into the atmosphere which traps heat and in turn warms the globe. If we are to offset this, we need to spend and since it’s all about cost, it’s time to update the economics of climate change.

That’s what “The Economics of 350,” a new study put out by Economics for Equity and the Environment, a group of climate economists put together by Ecotrust, suggests.

350 ppm is the ambitious target which we have already crossed over but we can stabilize at that if we take certain steps and this can be done at a cost of between 1% and 3% of gross domestic product, says the study.

As the group notes, the unprecedented challenge of global warming is a ‘civilizational challenge’.

The group proposes four organizing principles for a new, pro-environmental economics. These cover, Equal rights to health and environment; Investment, opportunity, and stewardship (as this is also about investment in natural and human assets); Complexity, uncertainty, and the need for precaution; the good life and the limits of efficiency.

‘With well-designed programs and regulations, there is no trade-off between environmental and economic well-being.’ This basic finding needs to be elaborated and widely publicized. Investment should be understood in long-range, socially oriented terms (think of children's education, not market speculation), they say.

‘Our task is to understand the linkages between natural and economic systems, which exhibit complex threshold effects, dangers of irreversible damages, and interactions between global changes and place-based, location-specific effects

‘The theory of public goods is again important to rebuild, since so many things that matter are not individual commodities. It is absurd to try to attach monetary valuations to priceless values, or to view all the multiple facets of life through the distorting lens of the market.’

E3 is seeking to organize economists to engage and work with environmental groups. Towards realizing the objective of building a new economic order.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

New light

Lighting accounts for approximately 50 percent of electricity consumed in homes, and homes account for around 30-40 percent of total electricity consumed in most cities. All of which makes the move to more efficient lighting imperative. CFLs and LEDs. While the former is disadvantaged by the mercury it uses, the LEDs are still to become commercially viable.

But is the mercury in CFLs really a concern? The European Commission cautions people to air out rooms and avoid using the vacuum cleaner if a CFL bulb with mercury in it gets broken. Although the quantity in the average CFL is no larger than the small tip of a ballpoint pen, direct contact with mercury can cause brain and kidney damage in humans and their animal pets.

CFL manucturers are adapting to this need. Some companies sell the light instead of the bulb; another prevents mercury contamination when broken.

But it is important to remember that fossil fuel based power generation also spread mercury in the air!

It has been estimated that with current U.S. power generation (which comes from more than 50 percent coal), switching to compact fluorescent bulbs in a big wave will reduce the amounts of mercury getting into our environment. At coal-fired plants (the biggest source currently of mercury emissions), 13.6 milligrams of mercury is emitted just to light up an incandescent bulb, while a CFL only would lead to (if incinerated, tossed out, or broken instead of recycled) 3.3 milligrams of mercury being emitted into the environment.

The mercury in a CFL is approximately one-quarter the amount emitted if an incandescent was used in its place, and that is if the CFL isn't recycled.

The answer lies in recycling of CFLs. Only 2 percent of CFLs have been recycled. The mercury in the bulbs also needs to be recycled given the need to stock on the mineral and prevent further mining. As nations switch to CFLs, it is necessary to have in place a recycling regulation. Does your nation have one?

Planet Inc.

New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to a paper published in the journal Nature

The melting along the crucial edges of the two major ice sheets is accelerating and is in a self-feeding loop. The more the ice melts, the more water surrounds and eats away at the remaining ice.

We need to remember rising temperatures are just the tip of the iceberg. Changes in precipitation (causing, for example, 75 to 250 million people in Africa to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change by 2020, with rain-fed agriculture yields falling by as much as 50%), disappearance of glaciers throughout the world, droughts in mid to low latitudes, increased sea level, loss of islands and 30% of global coastal wetlands, increased flooding (in all parts of the world, but greatest in Asia), and significant spread of infectious diseases already stare us in our face.

Cutting greenhouse gases cannot be avoided but neither will it be cheap. So, can nations afford it? Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard University and director of Harvard’s environmental economics program, says that what is needed are smart policies.

As leaders of nations continue to point fingers and evade commitment, the time is crucial for new ways out of the impasse. For example, a cap and trade between companies would make noble intentions a business prospective. Companies around the world would be issued rights by their governments to produce carbon, which they could buy and sell on an open market. Turning adversity into an advantage? You bet!

The scope of action beyond Kyoto Protocol could be expanded to include key developing countries, but with targets linked via an appropriate formula with economic growth. Or the developed world could be asked to pay up for their historical carbon accumulation. That is justice after all. The funds could help poor nations adapt quicker.

Smart thinking alone can help in today's climate. Do pitch in with your ideas.

Goodbye to oil soon

Deutsche Bank’s new report, “The Peak Oil Market” talks of a Peak oil scenario causes by underinvestment by the oil industry in finding new supplies. This will send oil to $175 a barrel by 2016—and will simultaneously put the final nail in oil’s coffin and send prices plummeting back to $70 by 2030.

That’s because of a global peak in oil demand. Deutsche Bank notes: US demand is the key. It is the last market-priced, oil inefficient, major oil consumer. We believe Obama’s environmental agenda, the bankruptcy of the US auto industry, the war in Iraq, and global oil supply challenges have dovetailed to spell the end of the oil era.

Deutsche Bank expects the electric car to become a truly “disruptive technology” which takes off around the world, sending demand for gasoline into an “inexorable and accelerating decline.”

Won’t cheaper oil in the future just lead to a revival in oil demand? No. Says the bank: Just as the explosion of digital cameras made the cost of film irrelevant, the growth of electric cars will make the price of oil (and gasoline) all but irrelevant for transportation.

Meanwhile ‘The Global Peak Oil Survey 2009’, carried out by the UK focused peak oil group Powerswitch suggests the effects of peak oil suggested will be wide ranging, with increases in crime, war and nationalism, and decreases in urban working, health and global population levels. A strong concern about climate change exists but the view is that peak oil will have much more of an impact on society over the next 25 years. But at the individual level, there is optimism.

The initial findings can be read at http://tinyurl.com/gpos2009-results-page, the raw data of the results have also been made available on the PowerSwitch website, www.powerswitch.org.uk.

Resource wars and rising nationalism. Governments unprepared. A reverse migration from cities. What do you think will be the consequences?

Friday, October 2, 2009

Ecological limits

Nature has published a lead article by a team headed by the Stockholm scientist Johan Rockstrom. Titled “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” it sets boundaries for nine interlinked planetary thresholds, arguing that if we crossed them we risked destroying the “unusual stability” that has marked the Holocene, the last 10,000 years.

Besides carbon dioxide and ozone, there is good evidence for some other as important thresholds: ocean acidity, freshwater use, the movement of nitrogen and phosphorus, the amount of land used for crops, aerosols (haze and other particles), biodiversity, and chemical pollution.

For example, as we spread fertilizer on farmland and burn coal, we are pumping far too much nitrogen into the environment. Human activity releases 121 million tons of nitrogen, much of which ends up polluting rivers, lakes and oceans and potentially pushing their ecosystems into irreversible changes.

Ecological models still can’t capture the entirety of Earth’s biological, geological and chemical processes, and it’s impossible to run whole-Earth experiments. What are the alternatives? So is it truly useful to create a list of environmental limits without serious plans for how they may be achieved?

These are questions to which answers are tough but many are beginning to believe that to stay within planetary boundaries is important, and for that we need social transformation at a massive scale. Is that possible when the problem is not really 'visible' to the large majority? Are these merely scare scenarios? What do YOU think?

No such thing as waste

A breakthrough in battery technology, which combines waste carbon dioxide with tiny microbes, could be the next best thing for wind and solar energy. Scientists at Pennsylvania State University are using a combination of tiny microbes and CO2. Placed under an electrical current – for example from an off-grid renewable power source such as wind or solar – the microbes convert the CO2 into methane.

The initial carbon dioxide needed for the chemical reaction could even come from industrial sources. CO2 is soluble in water, so the gas stream could be bubbled or transferred in pipes from factories, for example. The ‘battery’ is designed to work as a closed loop, capturing and reusing the CO2 that’s released when the methane is burned.

The energy conversion is about 80%, but scaling up will need to be worked on. Not only is carbon used up but more energy generated in the form of methane, and a storage unit created for intermittent energy.

Meanwhile, there is hope from what’s unwanted, dirty and a nuisance – waste. According to a recent study by the university of Singapore, fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution.

Data from the United Nation’s Human Development Index and the Earth Trends database was used to arrive at an estimate of how much waste is produced in 173 countries and how much fuel the same countries annually require.

The research team has calculated that 82.93 billion liters of cellulosic ethanol can be produced by the available landfill waste in the world and the resulting biofuel can reduce global carbon emissions in the range of 29.2% to 86.1% for every unit of energy produced.

With improvements in technology the numbers will increase. And make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future.

Not that there is reason enough to keep wasting! But waste for sure need not be waste, whether it be carbon dioxide or organic waste!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Boost for RE in India

India's Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) in New Delhi recently announced new regulations launching a system of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, including both wind and solar energy. The National Action Plan on Climate Change calls for five percent of electricity generation in India to be from renewable sources by 2010 and to increase one percent per year for the next ten years.

It is not clear whether CERC will set specific tariffs or whether each project would apply for tariffs individually. Usually, feed-in tariffs are specified for each technology or application.

CERC specifies the tariffs before tax which is unlike the practice in the US, where federal tax subsidies play an important part in project finance. CERC’s "normative return on equity" used in the calculations of 19 percent pre-tax during the first 10 years, and 24% after 10 years is comparable to the method used in Europe.
CERC also said that developers can approach the commission for project-specific tariffs as well as take the posted tariffs.

The new regulations spell out what assumptions need to be made to calculate the tariffs. For example, the regulations say that the discount rate used in determining the tariff will be the average weighted cost of capital. Further, the tariffs, defined as the levelized cost of energy, are derived from the specific "useful life" of each technology.

As successfully used in Germany and France and now proposed in China, India's new regulations will vary the tariff for wind energy based on resource intensity.
There is scope for discussions on the regulation with CERC inviting comments on its website. So folks, here is your chance to speak out!