Obama Orders Government To Cut Consumption

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama ordered our Government to lead by example on climate change matters, to cut consumption of fuel and improve water use efficiency. I think this is a first, however, those of you who know otherwise are welcome to comment and give examples. But I think this is a much needed push on the part of our President in bringing conservation back into the mindset of America. We call ourselves conservatives and then we consume and trash like drunken sailors. It’s time to walk the walk.

In his demand, he wanted federal departments to cut their fuel consumption by 30% and to improve their water use efficiency by 26%. This appears to be an immediate goal with a 90 day limit for the development of an overall plan for long term targets. In fact, he requires all federal agencies to set firm 2020 targets to cut their greenhouse gas emissions within that 90 day window. As much as you hear the pigs squealing, this is very liberal and tolerant and allows them to squirm off with their usual wheeling and dealing and I am not sure it will make a whit of difference. It seems all that many Americans care about is who is sleeping with whom but damn if they care if the baby goes out with the bathwater. I apologize but a lot of people piss me off. Barack Obama pisses me off. The time has long passed for people to wake up and smell the coffee and still they keep dreaming. Who out there smells it? The world is on fire, fools.

 

Florida Cities Tap Landfills For Energy

In Florida, 12 waste-to-energy facilities from Miami to Panama City process nearly 20,000 tons of municipal solid waste each day while continuously producing over 500 megawatts of clean, renewable power. This amount of waste is enough to fill a football stadium, imagine that! The Tampa Bay area is home to four waste-to-energy facilities, located in the City of Tampa and in the counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco. Without these facilities, local governments would be faced with the daunting task of siting large landfills near rapidly growing residential communities. The issue of this development is another problem to be addressed in a different forum but there is no doubt that this landfill to energy idea is a good one.

I first heard about this idea several years ago when a small county northwest of where I reside started pumping landfill gas through pipes and converting it to energy. In fact, I later heard a follow up that claimed the entire city was running on this power alone. Amazing. Not only is this greenie meanie but it’s cheap, too. These waste-to-energy projects eliminate 90% of the waste that might have ended up in a landfill. But it isn’t nearly enough, as you can imagine, because landfills throughout the state are reaching capacity faster than anticipated. It is becoming increasingly difficult to expand landfills or open new ones as residential development encroaches on once-remote landfill sites. People are already living in homes where they can smell garbage 24/7 in various lower income areas around the state. Florida’s current population of over 17 million is expected to reach almost 23 million by the year 2020, bringing even more challenges to managing municipal solid waste.

 

Are You Breathing Biofuel?

I know this sounds absolutely crazy and I admit I do a lot of posts on various types of new fuels, but this one is a fact and I find it fascinating. Actually, I find all these fuel ideas fascinating. Imagine that we’ve been surrounded by energy in every form since time began and we got focused on the one type of energy that wreaks havoc on the atmosphere. I mean, seriously. Doesn’t that sound like the rhythm of human life in general? I mean, it sounds a lot like the big fat lampoon my own life often turns out to be.

But here’s the real laugh after all the other laughing is done. The Liverpool John Lennon Airport, in the city of Liverpool, in stodgy old England, will soon become the world’s first airport to try a revolutionary piece of technology: recycling the breath of passengers into biofuel. And I don’t mean they have to be drunk first. Oh, I know, not funny. But heck, this seems a little flaky to me.. and yet, it’s not. It’s a viable option that looks fantastic when considered carefully.

This new contraption, called the Eco-box, developed by Origo Industries, will capture the CO2 exhaled by airport travelers and convert it to fuel to be used in the airport’s diesel vehicles and heating system. In fact, the Eco-box was originally designed to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles. It works by capturing carbon emissions through a photo-bioreactor as a feedstock for algae, producing biomass that is then refined and converted to green fuel. Aha, Algae again. One of my favorites. How cool.

 

Green Your Home FAST!

Everybody is looking for ways to save the planet and save money, too. It is the primary goal of all of us today in this cold economy with a fast warming planet. Some folks seem exasperated with it all, saying that going green is a luxury and right now, we have to be economical. But someone needs to explain conservation to these folk. Conservation IS saving. Saving money and saving the earth.

You should be conserving in every way possible every single day. It will lighten the load on your wallet, make your life simpler and help the gasping environment at the same time. You should be thinking in this mode every day, all day. How can I save this? How can I stop losing that? How can I simplify my needs? How can I save money? We cannot afford to slip backwards one time in this effort, as it can cost us that last dime and push us closer to bankruptcy while adding another pile of trouble on our world at large. When you think about it, you will realize that what has happened to America then began to happen all over the world. As a rich country, a superpower in the world arena, we control the destiny of billions. Including many countries we will never visit and many others we don’t even know the names of.

So it is very important that we get it together, for ourselves, for the world and even more so, for our children and their future. But that does not mean it has to be a loss or a sacrifice. In fact, we have sacrificed more in the past, chasing money and working like dogs, than we will in the simpler, kinder future. And some of the solutions to our most pressing problems are readily in hand today. And, best of all, they just don’t cost a lot while they will save us tons of money and trouble in the future.

One of these great products is the programmable thermostat. By itself, this thermostat is the number one best and fastest way to green up your home. It is inexpensive, easy to install, will save you tons of money is lost electricity and save the planet by lowering energy usage across the board. Doesn’t it just sound wonderful? Well, in fact, this item is wonderful and you should consider looking to buy it today.

 

Algal-Based Renewable Diesel

Here it comes! The first Jeep, to my knowledge anyways, to be run on algae. Actually, it runs on what is called “algal-based renewable diesel” under the trade name, SoladieselRDTM. They recently showed the new car at CALSTART Target 2030: Solutions to Secure California’s Transportation Energy and Climate Future, which was held in Sacramento, California in January.

This very cool new fuel is a drop in replacement for ordinary petrodiesel (also known as #2 Diesel). It has already passed the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D975 Specifications. I know, everything technical is a mouthful and some of us more technically challenged individuals find it hard to even say these words, much less make sense of them. But, according to Biofuel Daily: “both SoladieselRDTM and SoladieselBDTM, a FAME biodiesel that meets the (ASTM) D6751 specifications, have been successfully road tested unblended (100 percent) for thousands of miles in standard unmodified diesel engines”.

The Jeep was available for rides throughout the event and although I don’t know anybody personally that went to the event, all reports have been positive. Jeep lovers, like me, are excited about the prospects.

Quoting Jonathan Wolfson, co-founder and CEO of Solazyme, Biofuel Daily reported that “with new elected officials across the country, now is an ideal time for events like CALSTART Target 2030, which look at energy solutions that will serve us in the long term” The article went to add that Mr. Wolfson is
“proud to be in California, a state known for leading energy policy” and that he is also “pleased to showcase our solutions which include clean and scalable renewable fuels derived from algae that meet today’s demanding performance and regulatory specifications, while dramatically reducing the carbon footprint versus petroleum based-fuels.”

I know all of this sounds like a sales pitch but I am hoping that algae finds a real future on the biofuels scene. It is both abundant and sustainable and I can show you where you can get a load of it right now! (LOL). And, according to Solazyme, their unique process grows algae in the dark using standard industrial bioproduction equipment. This makes it affordable and easily to start, without needing special equipment or for current equipment to be retooled, a problem with many other biofuels. The algae are fed a variety of non-food and waste biomass materials including cellulosic biomass and low-grade glycerol, which makes their growth and sustainability affordable. It also allows the company to produce oil with a very low carbon footprint and to do it efficiently in a controlled environment.

Solazyme’s fuels have already been road tested in unmodified vehicles for thousands of miles. The results, from what I have seen so far, are positive. If my readers have other information, I would like to know it so feel free to leave a comment. FYI: This company has also recently announced that it has produced the world’s first algal based jet fuel which met all eleven of the tested key criteria for (ASTM) D1655 (Jet A-1). This is another huge milestone in the making of viable bio fuels that can energize our future into the next century! Additionally, Solazyme’s process is the very first bridge from non-food carbohydrates and certain industrial waste streams to edible oils and oleochemicals. Now, think about that!

Technorati Tags: algae, alternative energy, biofuels, carbon, eco, energy, fuel, gas, green, renewable, sustainable

 

Solar Powered Lasar Operates Magnesium Combustion Engine

Imagine that there will be such a thing as a Magnesium Combustion engine. In fact, it’s not imagination. Japan, via the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is developing an efficient solar powered laser. This laser will supposedly aid in the development of a viable magnesium combustion engine.

According to Takashi Yabe, a professor of mechanical engineering and science, their goal is to create a powerful laser that can effectively combust magnesium from sea water. Isn’t it fascinating to know that Magnesium is a great energy source? Did you know that its energy storage density is 10 times more than hydrogen? Moreover, it is also immensely abundant.

Mr. Yabe also claims that magnesium oxide produced from the reaction can again be converted into magnesium. This recycling process does require enormous heat but the conversion process makes the energy source sustainable and reusable. Also, in order to operate a magnesium combustion engine, solar power is required for the lasers. Lasers concentrate sunlight on neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet. I know this sounds like deep science and it’s almost a yawn but if you think about it, you know that solar powered lasers depend on mirrors. Regardless of all these twists and turns, Mr. Yabe, along with his colleagues at the University, have already developed an immensely powerful laser that can fill the bill.

So the magnesium combustion engine is no longer a fantasy. The entire project has been made possible with the addition of chromium. Through the addition of Chromium, “the efficiency from sunlight to laser is greatly enhanced”, according to Mr. Yabe. Instead of large mirrors, they have made use of a small Fresnel lens. Amazingly, in their work, they have “used only 1.3 meter squared and achieved 25 watts,” Yabe explained, adding, “so we are expecting 300 to 400 watts with the four-meter-squared Fresnel lens.”

By experts in the field, this is considered an unusual approach. But according to the same experts, “The key issue is cost and total efficiency.” There are also many other ways of generating hydrogen from solar power. And all of these projects make possible the entire spectrum of renewables to be at our disposal in the future. Our imagination is the only limit in the potential world view.

Solar Laser courtesty of Eco Friend

Technorati Tags: automobiles, cars, eco, energy, fuel, gasoline, renewable, sustainable

 

Algae: The New Biofuel

I know it seems like I’m dedicating January to posts about the uses for algae but so much is happening in this sector, it’s hard to ignore. Besides the fascinating news that scientists now believe that algae production in the oceans will help alleviate the carbon explosion, I know hear about big advances in algae production as a biofuel. It seems that OriginOil has announced the successful automation of its Helix BioReactor system. The Helix is a groundbreaking technology that optimizes algae growth, making large-scale commercial algae production scalable.

The design of the Helix BioReactor utilizes low-energy lights arranged in a helix pattern combined with a rotating vertical shaft design, which allows algae culture to replicate exponentially within a smaller installation footprint. This system allows the replication of algae on a large scale basis, making it a viable source of fuel for all purposes, including automobiles. Now, the automation of this system is a key step towards continuous algae production, taking the work out of human hands and onto equipment that can run 24/7. Talk about reduction in manpower and labor costs! Like all automation, this process allows greater control of the growth environment and efficient, low-cost industrial algae production. It means that algae can be produced in jaw dropping tonnage and done so cheaply.

 

Algae Can Stop Global Warming

This is fascinating stuff and I just have to present it. It seems that a team of UK scientists have discovered a natural process that could delay, or even end, the threat of global warming. This is absolutely amazing but they are offering some convincing findings in their research. Imagine such a thing; an end to global warming. Just like that.

The researchers making this claim, working from aboard the Royal Navy’s HMS Endurance, have found that melting icebergs off the coast of Antarctica are releasing millions of tiny particles of iron into the southern Ocean, helping to create huge ‘blooms’ of algae that absorb carbon emissions. The algae then sinks to the icy depths, effectively removing CO2 from the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Doesn’t this seem like the Earth cleaning itself? Is it possible that it actually does this?

 

2009 Year of Climate Change

In his New Year’s message to Koreans, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Korean government to take a more active role in global efforts to tackle climate change. This is a big move for Korea, which had always resisted efforts to curb emissions in Korea for financial reasons. Korean industry is economically challenged on a global scale and even more so now with the onset of the global recession. But Ban encouraged Korea and stressed that this is the UN Year of Climate Change, challenging Seoul to live up to its growing status in the international community.

 

Climate Change and Acid Rain

A 25 year study by Welsh scientists has recently concluded and suggests climate change might be hampering the recovery of Earth’s rivers from the effects of acid rainfall.

This research study was conducted by Cardiff University Professor Steve Ormerod and biosciences researcher Isabelle Durance. The effort was undertaken in Wales and studied 14 middle-Wales rivers, involving the assessment of the number and variety of insects present each year in these rivers. The scientists said they also measured concentrations of acid and other aspects of stream chemistry.