Friday, October 29, 2010

Going extinct

Even as a deal to protect the world's biodiversity remained elusive in the closing hours of crucial UN talks as a typhoon approached the conference centre in Nagoya, a new study has warned that one-fifth of species face extinction.

The study, published in the October 28 issue of Science, says that the number of threatened species has grown dramatically in the past four decades, exceeding the normal "background rate" of extinction by a factor of two or three. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species currently lists 25,780 vertebrates as threatened, and an average of 52 species become more threatened (based on the IUCN's categories of risk) every year.

There is small amount of good news accompanying this study: The wide range of conservation efforts around the world has actually slowed this rate of extinction.

But current conservation efforts are far from adequate. According to a second study, also presented at the conference and published in the same issue of Science, the world would need to spend 10 times as much as it currently does on conservation in order to halt the pending extinction of many species.

If species are dying out, it is an indication of the long-term health of our own species, and we need to be aware of the impact we are having on our own ecosystem.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

CFL is the winner

Researchers with Swizerland's Empa have investigated the ecobalances of various household light sources. In doing so not only did they take into account energy consumption, but also the manufacture and disposal processes. They also evaluated usage with different electrical power mixes. The clear winner is the compact fluorescent lamp.

In order to evaluate the total effect of a lamp on the environment over its entire life the researchers prepared a life cycle analysis for each kind. This takes into consideration the raw material and energy consumption of a lamp during its complete life cycle, from the production and usage to final disposal. The total point tally is a measure of the sum of all the damage the product in question inflicts on human health and the environment, as well as the usage of resources incurred during its manufacture.

For those wondering about the mercury aspect of CFLs, the environmental effects reduce by as much as 15 per cent when they are recycled instead of being incinerated. But even when they are incinerated in a waste disposal facility the much criticized mercury release is quantitatively insignificant.

This is because the overwhelming proportion of mercury in the environment is emitted by fossil fuel burning power stations. Depending on whether it uses brown or anthracite as fuel, a power station emits some 0.042 to 0.045 milligrams of mercury for every kilowatt-hour of energy it produces. A plant generating 1000 megawatts of power therefore releases 42 to 45 grams of mercury into the atmosphere every hour.

Any disagreements?

Energy hungry sector

A team of scientists at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs have examined the energy consumption trends of communications equipment in use today and determined that gains in energy efficiency are not keeping pace with traffic growth. One consequence is that energy is going to become an increasingly important problem for communication networks.

The scientists estimate that power consumed per user could increase by seven-fold over the next 10 years.

More important, recent efficiency improvement rates of 20 percent per year are falling to roughly 10 percent. The findings also showed that optical transmission gear consumes more than a factor of 10 less than other network technologies such as cellular base stations and packet routers.

With communication the by-word of tomorrow, shows how more thought needs to be put into the efficient use of energy in this sector.

Monday, October 25, 2010

New small-scale hydro plant

In a number of newly industrialized nations, huge dams are being discussed that would flood settled landscapes and destroy ecosystems. In many underdeveloped countries, the funds and engineering know-how that would be necessary to bring hydroelectric power on line are not available. Smaller power stations entail considerable financial input and are also not without negative environmental impact. Until now, the use of hydroelectric power in connection with a relatively low dam height meant that part of the water had to be guided past the dam by way of a so-called bay-type power plant -- a design with inherent disadvantages.

Researchers at Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have developed a small-scale hydroelectric power plant that solves a number of problems at the same time: The construction is so simple, and thereby cost-efficient, that the power generation system is capable of operating profitably in connection with even modest dam heights.

Moreover, the system is concealed in a shaft, minimizing the impact on the landscape and waterways. Their approach incurs very little impact on the landscape. Only a small transformer station is visible on the banks of the river. In place of a large power station building on the riverside, a shaft dug into the riverbed in front of the dam conceals most of the power generation system. The water flows into a box-shaped construction, drives the turbine, and is guided back into the river underneath the dam. The core of the concept is not optimizing efficiency, however, but optimizing cost.

Shaft power plants could play a significant role in developing countries. Distributed, local power generation by lower-cost, easy-to-operate, low-maintenance power plants is the only solution. If turbines are not financially feasible, it is possible to use a cheap submersible pump and run it in reverse -- something that also works in the new power plant.

Any thoughts on the new technique?

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Extreme risk

Some of the world’s fastest-growing economies — including India and Bangladesh — are also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a new report. The nations at the most extreme risk are those already dealing with high poverty levels, dense populations, exposure to climate-related events, and a reliance on flood- or drought-prone agricultural lands, according the Climate Change Vulnerability Index compiled by a UK-based consulting group.

While India is already one the world’s largest economies, its vulnerability to climate-related events could scare off foreign investment in the coming decades, the report says. Among the 25 nations characterized as most at risk, 12 are located in Africa. Among the nations considered “low risk” are Norway, Finland, and Iceland.

Perhaps, some semblance of seriousness has come into the scene going by the fact that Indian government has pledged to publish an account of the nation’s natural wealth.

A valuation of such resources as forests, wildlife, and freshwater supplies that international officials call critical to avoiding the financial costs of biodiversity loss, it coincides with the release of a UN-backed Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity report that warns that failure to account for the value of nature to humankind — from clean air to healthy fish stocks — will contribute to increases in species extinction and the consequent financial costs.

Natural capital is a massive asset class, and developing nations’ biggest asset, as pointed by Pavan Sukhdev, an economist and lead author of the study. Time we finally set that right. It is hoped that other nations will follow suit.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Running out of a planet

New analysis shows populations of tropical species are plummeting and humanity's demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain, reveals the 2010 edition of WWF's Living Planet Report -- the leading survey of the planet's health.

The biennial report uses the global Living Planet Index as a measure of the health of almost 8,000 populations of more than 2,500 species. The global Index shows a decrease by 30 per cent since 1970, with the tropics hardest hit showing a 60 per cent decline in less than 40 years.

The Ecological Footprint, one of the indicators used in the report, shows that our demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966 and we're using the equivalent of 1.5 planets to support our activities.

If we continue living beyond the Earth's limits, by 2030 we'll need the equivalent of two planets' productive capacity to meet our annual demands.The top 10 countries with the biggest Ecological Footprint per person are the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Denmark, Belgium, United States, Estonia, Canada, Australia, Kuwait and Ireland.

The 31 OECD countries, which include the world's richest economies, account for nearly 40 per cent of the global footprint. The report also shows that the steepest decline in biodiversity falls in low-income countries, with a nearly 60 per cent decline in less than 40 years.

However, the Living Planet Report also shows that a high footprint and high level of consumption, which often comes at the cost of others, is not reflected in a higher level of development. The UN Human Development Index, which looks at life expectancy, income and educational attainment, can be high in countries with moderate footprint.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Making clean energy cheaper

In the war between reducing emissions and economic growth, the winner so far has been the latter. The reason is simple - too many people are far below the development index to ignore. As Yu Quingtai, China’s top climate negotiator through the Copenhagen climate conference, said during a recent speech at Peking University’s School of International Studies: “There are 600 million people in India without electricity — the country has to develop and meet that need. And if that increases emissions, I say, ‘So what?’ The people have a right to a better life." (Chinese champion for India!)

An analysis on the emissions scenario notes how climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort cannot succeed if that discomfort is perceived to be too great.

Any policy focused on decarbonizing economies will necessarily have to offer short-term benefits that are in some manner proportional to the short-term costs. In practice, this means that efforts to make dirty energy appreciably more expensive will face limited success. So, why not look at the alternative tomake clean energy cheaper, asks the author.

How can that be done? Consider that a $5-per-ton carbon tax or a $3-per-barrel oil tax would each raise about $100 billion per year worldwide, funds that could be invested in energy innovation. Some of the money raised could be spent in countries such as India on energy infrastructure deployment, with the result being expanded access to energy and potentially driving down costs through scale.

Governments must foster competition, pursue energy innovation using a public works model, and recognize the crucial role of demonstration projects. Governments should also become a major consumer of innovative energy-technology products and systems.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Efficiency know-how lacking

Many governments are hindered in their efforts to improve energy efficiency by a lack of technical capacity and know-how, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Two years ago, the IEA made a series of energy efficiency policy recommendations that could save 8.2 Gt of CO2 per year by 2030 – equivalent of twice the European Union’s annual emissions. To date, however, only around 40% of the 25 recommendations have been implemented, says the organisation.

In a bid to change that, the IEA this week launched Policy Pathways: Showing the way to energy efficiency implementation now, aimed at helping government implement energy efficiency policies.

The initiative provides practical ‘how to’ guides for designing, implementing and evaluating energy efficiency policies. The first Policy Pathway in the series deals with policies covering the performance standards of appliances.

Appliances currently account for around 15% of the total electricity used in IEA countries and is growing apace in developing nations. But the sector offers the potential to make significant savings in the short-to-medium term.

Key to achieving savings in this area is implementing monitoring, verification and enforcement (MVE) policies, says the IEA.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

A rare wisdom

We have written quite a bit about rare earths, perhaps making our readers wonder if they really rare! Well, the rare part is actually that which allows for economical extraction. And why this attention on rare earths (RE) is simply because the world of tomorrow we plan to build on clean energy will lean a lot on these rare elements. Whether it be wind farms or CFLs and LEDs, or electric vehicles, they depend on REs.

A massive wind turbine has 40-meter-long blades made from fiberglass, towers 90 meters above the ground, weighs hundreds of metric tons, and relies on roughly 300 kilograms of a soft, silvery metal known as neodymium—a rare earth. This element forms the basis for the magnets used in the turbines. The stronger the magnets are, the more powerful the generator.

An interesting article in Scientific American looks at the whole laborious process of extraction of rare earths. Found with other ores, Chinese companies supplying them employ acid to dissolve them out of ore rock that often also contains radioactive elements like thorium, radium or even uranium.

Intensive boiling with strong acids—repeated thousands of times because the elements are so chemically similar—finally separates out the neodymium, dysprosium or cerium. The whole slew of rare earth elements are a challenge to separate because of their chemical similarity—and they are never found alone. Processing costs are high and water and energy intensive.

Geologists have found deposits in Australia, Canada, Mongolia, Vietnam and even Greenland. Perhaps it is wiser before opening up pristine places to look at recycling options given the mountain loads of electronics we discard today. So also, research is working at how best to use as little of these REs or maybe even some alternatives. Whatever it be, recycling will have to be part of the solution.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The human hand pollutes...

Humans are overloading ecosystems with nitrogen through the burning of fossil fuels and an increase in nitrogen-producing industrial and agricultural activities, according to a new study.

Ecess nitrogen that is contributed by human activities pollutes fresh waters and coastal zones, and may contribute to climate change. Appearing in the October 8, 2010edition of Science and conducted by an international team of researchers, the study notes how human activity has led to skyrocketing of nitrogen cycle.

The nitrogen cycle--which has existed for billions of years--transforms non-biologically useful forms of nitrogen found in the atmosphere into various biologically useful forms of nitrogen that are needed by living things to create proteins, DNA and RNA, and by plants to grow and photosynthesize. This nitrogen fixation is doen mostly by microorganisms like bacteria.

Since pre-biotic times, the nitrogen cycle has gone through several major phases. The cycle was initially controlled by slow volcanic processes and lightning and then by anaerobic organisms as biological activity started. But the start of the 20th century, human contributions of nitrogen into ecosystems come from an 800 percent increase in the use of nitrogen fertilizers from 1960 to 2000.

Much of nitrogen fertilizer that is used worldwide is applied inefficiently. As a result, about 60 percent of the nitrogen contained in applied fertilizer is never incorporated into plants and so is free to wash out of root zones, and then pollute rivers, lakes, aquifers and coastal areas through eutrophication.

The Earth's population is approaching 7 billion people, and so ongoing pressures for food production are continuing to increase. There is no way to feed people without fixing huge amounts of nitrogen from the atmosphere, and that nitrogen is presently applied to crop plants very ineffectively.

What can be done? The team suggests systematic crop rotations that would supply nitrogen that would otherwise be provided by fertilizers; Optimizing the timing and amounts of fertilizer applications, using traditional breeding techniques to boost the ability of economically important varieties of wheat, barley and rye to interact favorably with the microbial communities associated with plant root systems and do so in ways that enhance the efficiency of nitrogen use, etc

Makes one wonder: is there any one thing we humans have done to impact the planet positively??!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Green innovation for ICT a must

While on computers, here's another recent report. According to the 18-month analysis by the Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID) in Singapore and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, the ICT industry in the US is on course to grow its carbon emissions at twice the rate of its contributions to gross domestic product (GDP).

Hence, it must adopt energy efficiency technologies over the next decade to stay profitable in the face of limits on carbon emissions.

The researchers looked different devices in use, how much energy they use and how that consumption will be affected by growth in demand.

Although the items in question, like PCs, laptops, smart phones and games consoles, do not emit CO2 per se, the researchers looked at the electricity used to power them and factored in the potential effects of cleaner production in future.

The study calculates that emissions related to PCs and laptops, which currently account for around 48.5% of global ICT emissions, could quadruple by 2020, while those arising from data centres, games consoles and mobile phones could triple.

Going beyond recycling

The global energy consumption of the Internet is estimated at 3-5%, but growing very rapidly. The entire global transport industry takes around 25%, by way of comparison. However, the production of computers and module devices is one of the most energy-intensive in the world, as Low Tech Magazine explains. All of the precision engineering, in large complex fabrication plants, means that the energy required to make each device (known as the “embedded energy”) is HUGE.

The magazine calculates that the energy required to make just the memory chip in a laptop exceeded the amount of energy consumed by the computer in its entire lifetime, typically three years. Each successive generation of fabrication plants is significantly more energy intensive than the last.

Add to this the fact that most of the materials used for such devices are scarce and we have a big problem. What can be done is to look at it bottom up. Reducing sustainability impact alone will not be enough.

New materials, less rare ones, will have to be tried out. An even bigger change of thinking will have to come in designing things to make them reusable, not simply recyclable. Much like Lego, equipment will be made of parts which can be removed, replaced, or extended. It will call upon a rethink of the entire production process and service model.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Central storage with batteries

Is storage capability the holy grail of renewable energy, or is there more to it? In the US, grid operators believe the challenge is not so much in storing energy where generated but building energy storage centrally.

There is a system of regulation service purchased by independent system operators in a specialised marketplace. For instance, an additional twenty megawatts of regulation service could support the adoption of the more than 4,000 megawatts of wind power in the New York queue.

Grid operators use regulation services to handle unplanned drops in supply or spikes in demand, like when air conditioning use goes sharply up on a hot afternoon or a power line goes down. Regulation services must be instantly dispatchable. System operators do this by throttling power plants up or down. They believe batteries could do this too, and betteries could do this too, and better, as storage is faster and more flexible than the plants.

The technology to store energy for regulation services is a new tool but is not just theory. It has been deployed in places like Chile where power variability is high. As more renewable energy is added to grid, more such regulation services will be needed to address the variability. Excess renewable energy can be used to charge batteries and balance system variability

This is why the focus has shifted from merely storage to storage centrally. That is where batteries like lithium ion are very efficient.

By force or voluntary?

When it comes to energy conservation, the big question that divides experts is whether the approach should be that of regulation or marketing. Government organisations associated with energy often tend to spen a lot of money on advertisements and marketing campaigns. Critics believe this is a waste of money. There should be a way of making conservation mandatory, they insist. For instance in India, we have the EC Act which has remained largely on paper. If implemented in earnest, the nation stands to save and hence produce much needed energy.

Another way of thinking believes that force is not the way, but persuasion and education. Or marketing!

A recent study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that what really gets people engaged when it comes to slashing energy use is aggressive marketing campaigns. After a hot summer, the average person is getting back into routines of school and work, not tracking energy savings. (The US is celebrating energy conservation month now.)

While buying a new EnergyStar appliance at Home Depot on a MasterCard means that 10 percent will go to Habitat for Humanity during Energy Awareness Month, most US consumers are more likely to wait for Black Friday or post-holiday sales to replace a washing machine. Experts believe a better strategy would be for utilities around the country to have marketing pushes to let people know about home energy audits, rebates and tax breaks for retrofits -- or to host series of neighborhood meetings about how to save energy in the home, as suggested by LBNL in its study.

One comment on an energy website had this comment from a reader: ‘The way to inspire people might be to show the difference between before and after energy bills. American culture is slowly transitioning from the mindset of energy as a disposable resource. Up to this time we havent given it much thought, just plug it in and it magically works, cheap. Now that energy costs are going up we are re-thinking that slowly but surely. My combined electric, gas and water bill is under $100 a month, I know some people that are half of that. It doesnt take much to make it happen other than a few minor house upgrades and more importantly, a revised mindset in regards to energy use conciousness.’

Besides the glitz of advertising, how many of us (whether in the US or India) would really buy a product simply beause of the marketing? But again, will we change voluntarily unless we are pushed into it, by way of a steep energy price rise?

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

New kid on the block grows up

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, now both at the University of Manchester, for studying single atom-thick sheets of carbon, called graphene. And what may that have to do with energy or environment??

Plenty.

Graphene sheets, thin enough to be called "two-dimensional" they exhibit quantum mechanical properties, and conduct electricity as well as copper, conduct heat better than any other known material, and are so dense that they can block helium atoms.

Among applications are ultracapacitors which use graphene fins for even more speed, since the fins let charge on and off faster than other carbon tangles. This speed could allow portable electronics to shrink in size and weight.

A UCLA team built the fastest graphene transistor yet, a proof-of-concept device that switched twice as fast (300 gigahertz) as similar devices. Some hope graphene might prove a faster alternative to silicon chips in future circuits.

New ways of thinking, new materials, new sources will be the touchstone of an energy secure green world.

Off target again

Targets for limiting the global temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels shouldn’t be considered ‘safe’ according to new research from climate change experts at the University of Exeter.

In a comprehensive study of the Last Interglacial, a period of warming some 125,000 years ago, the team found data that suggest sea levels will rise significantly higher than anticipated and that stabilizing global average temperatures at 2˚C above pre-industrial levels may not be considered a ‘safe’ target.

Emission targets will have to be lowered further still.

Their analysis looked at conditions when sediments and ice were laid down during the Last Interglacial, giving them a look at the global conditions as the ice spread.

Temperatures appear to have been more than 5˚C warmer in polar regions while the tropics only warmed marginally, closely resembling conditions today. With temperatures only 1.9˚C warmer compared to preindustrial temperatures, it resulted in global sea levels growing to 6.6 to 9.4 metres higher than today, with a rate of rise of somewhere between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade.

Kind of gives one the feeling we are sitting ducks, given our complacence and total lack of preparedness.

Monday, October 4, 2010

27 pc food produced in US wasted

Stretching the Occam's Razor (principle that simplest explanation is often the most correct one) and applying it to the problem of energy, one can say that the simplest solutions are often the simplest ones. You don't have enough energy? Simple - conserve. And how best to conserve? By reducing your waste!

A new study is reported in the ACS’ semi-monthly journal Environmental Science and Technology and states that the United States could immediately save the energy equivalent of about 350 million barrels of oil a year simply by being careful about how much food they produce and consume.

The analysis of wasted food found that the US wasted about 2030 trillion BTU (British thermal unit) of energy in 2007, the equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil or about 2 percent of the countries annual energy consumption. And if that astounds you, wait. The wasted energy calculated here is a conservative estimate both because the food waste data are incomplete and outdated and the energy consumption data for food service and sales are incomplete!

The study found that it takes the equivalent of about 1.4 billion barrels of oil to produce, package, prepare, preserve and distribute a year’s worth of food in the United States. This totalled between 8 to 16 percent of the nation’s energy consumption in 2007.

But despite this massive allocation of energy, 27 percent of the food prepared and distributed is wasted each year

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Awareness the key

Whether it is energy conservation or water management, or whatever, often the problem is awareness. Even if the technology is available, people are often unaware and even if aware, do not know how to use it.

Take for instance, smart meters. Touted as the key to effective energy management, it has failed to take off simply because of lack of awareness. The smart meter is a key to managing two-way information flows, and new research shows that smart meters are technically up to the challenges of the future. At the heart of the change they bring is information: information about the energy we use, how we use it, and the real value of that power. Data will flow in a two-way conversation between homeowners using electricity—and maybe even producing it, too—and the energy companies managing the electricity grid.

And yet... Research just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that consumers have only minimal knowledge of how to save energy, and this knowledge is critical to them getting the full benefit of the information smart meters provide. In each case it is clear that the technology is powerful but to put these tools to the most effective use more work needs to be done to effectively engage consumers, communities, and advocates as well as build the back-end systems for utilities.

Technology per se will not solve problems unless the end user uses it, and more important, knows how to use it. Take for instance, satellite imagery. There is loads of information availabel to land users and policy makers but as space departments will tell you, takers are few. New technology is resisted because it is scary. It is very important for agencies involved to break down the technology and make it easy to understand and use it.

Polluted rivers

More than 5 billion people — nearly 80 percent of the planet’s population — live in regions where water security is threatened because of mismanagement and pollution of rivers and watersheds.

This degradation of the planet’s waters also threatens the existence of thousands of freshwater species, according to the study published in the journal Nature. The study, which examined the effects of numerous factors on the planet’s limited freshwater supplies — including pollution, agricultural runoff, dam construction, and the introduction of invasive species — found that significant deterioration in water quality was not limited to poorer nations but was common in the rivers of Europe, the U.S., and other industrialized countries.

While rivers represent a small percentage of our water supply worldwide (most humans are reliant on groundwater), ailing rivers mean altered migration routes, fewer defenses against flooding and erosion, and other issues that directly impact humans.

While rich countries can afford to throw money into alleviating symptoms of sick rivers, the study shows that localized efforts at treating the problems -- such as smarter dam infrastructure, and water management that incorporates both the needs of humans and local wildlife -- is a far better solution for all countries, especially developing countries that lack financial resources. Treating symptoms is what we have been doing rather than tackle the root of the problem. (That goes for most problems in today's scoiety!)