Article originally published on www.soilfoodweb.com/article What if we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and grow enough food to feed our ballooning population using resources we already have? Kristin Ohlson, author of The Soil Will Save Us, thinks we can do just that. And like a growing number of scientists, farmers, and good food advocates, she …
While some may associate CO2 pollution mainly with industrial plants and giant chimneys releasing the gas into the atmosphere, the reality is that emissions from the transport sector, represent about 24% of global CO2 emissions and have the highest emissions growth of all. They are also harder to limit and capture – while there are existing technologies for trapping CO2 out of a smoke stack, for example, there haven’t been solutions for capturing the already released into the atmosphere (by cars, trucks and panes) CO2 that is 300 times less concentrated than the one coming out of a smoke stack. That is until now.
In the beginning of this year, in Squamish, British Columbia, the privately owned (and backed by Bill Gates) company Carbon Engineering began the construction of the first air capture CO2 demo plant. For years, the company has been developing the technology that is now ready to be implemented on a larger scale.
Like trees, air capture technology traps CO2 from the ambient air. However, as the team of Carbon Engineering points out, “planting enough trees in the numbers needed would require diverting vast amounts of agriculturally productive land. In fact, to absorb enough CO2 as an air capture facility, trees would require roughly a thousand times more land.” Unlike trees, however, air capture plants can be built on land that cannot be cultivated, such as deserts.
David Keith, a professor at Harvard University School of Engineering and the president of Carbon Engineering, together with a team of scientists have been doing CO2 capturing at a Prototype Contactor at the University of Calgary for several years already. The prototype system can absorb emissions from about 14-15 vehicles or about 100 kilos of carbon dioxide per day.
Simplistically put, the way the system works is this – after the air enters into the facility, it passes through a CO2 absorbent liquid that traps about 80% of the carbon dioxide into a solution for further processing.
In the full-scale facility that is being built now, the CO2 will be recovered from the carbonate solution and integrated it into the production of liquid hydrocarbons that are fully compatible with today’s transport infrastructure, but have a low (or even zero) carbon intensity.
The construction of the pilot plant by the end of this year will be the last step for CE before building a first-of-a-kind commercial air capture plant by 2017 aiming to close the CO2 cycle.
As well as providing green energy, the solar plans will enhance biodiversity – unlike those of Cuadrilla, which are set to destroy natural habitats, threaten public health, destroy our agriculture and tourism, and contribute to global warming.
Anti-Fracking campaigners in Lancashire have welcomed a local council’s decision to approve the development of a solar farm – just across the way from the Preston New Road site where Cuadrilla has spent years trying to get permission to carry out hydraulic fracturing.
The solar farm is expected to produce enough electricity to power around 1,300 homes and save approximately 2,310 tonnes of carbon emissions every year, the equivalent of taking 513 large family cars off the road.
Fylde Council unanimously approved the application for the Staining Wood solar farm subject to the completion of a habitat regulation assessment, which it looks likely to pass. The site is expected to be operational by March 2016.
Members of Residents Action on Fylde Fracking (RAFF) who visited the site prior to the planning meeting were impressed with the plans for the site.
LightSource, the company that intends to develop the solar farm, intends to give the land area dual use – allowing sheep to graze on the solar farm, as well as creating “enhanced habitat corridors” and planting new trees in order to increase biodiversity.
Local support for renewable energy
Commenting on the council’s decision, a spokesperson for RAFF said: “RAFF has consistently promoted green energy as an alternative to developing shale gas in Lancashire.
“As well as providing green energy, the plans for this site will enhance the biodiversity of our area, unlike those of Cuadrilla, which are set to destroy natural habitats, pose a threat to public health, destroy our agricultural and tourism industries, and contribute to global warming.”
The council said that it has seen an increase in these types of applications over the last year and they are proving to be popular with local residents. “We are finding that across the borough people are more supportive of this type of renewable energy generation”, observed Matthew Taylor, Fylde Council’s Senior Development Officer.
He added that the area is well suited for solar farms given the area’s good connectivity to the national grid, flat land and higher than average levels of sunlight.
This news comes as the government has announced it intends to drastically cut financial support for solar energy generation in the UK, despite Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd’s promise to “unleash a new solar revolution“ in Britain following her re-election as an MP last May.
Most recently Panasonic, one of the world’s largest electronics companies and a major supplier of solar panels in Britain, urged the government to rethink its proposals that could cause “substantial” and “irreversible” damage to the industry.
‘Missed opportunity’ as offshore wind farm is refused
But the news on offshore wind is less rosy. Energy Minister Lord Bourne has just refused planning approval for the 194 turbine, 970MW Navitus Bay offshore wind farm planned for the English Channel 13.4 miles off the coast from Bournemouth and 10.9 miles from the western tip of the Isle of Wight.
The main reasons given in the decision letter concerned the views out to sea from land, including the Dorset Heritage Coast, and possible harm to tourism. Lord Bourne concluded it would lead to “significant adverse impact on the perception of viewers standing on the coastlines”.
The only recourse for the developer, Navitus Bay, is to apply for a judicial review of the decision, however this would require them to show that the decision was either irrational or unlawful. Project Director Stuart Grant said: “We will now discuss the options available with our shareholders and update stakeholders in due course.”
RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, described the decision as ” deeply disappointing” and a “missed opportunity … it means we’re failing to capitalise on the UK’s superb offshore wind resource and the economic benefits it brings.
“Years of hard work and significant investment went into developing this project which could have added £1.6 billion to the economy of the region and created up to 1,700 jobs – it’s most unfortunate that that has now been lost.”
In June Amber Rudd told RenewableUK’s offshore wind conference: “You represent one of the 21st century industrial success stories. You – we – are world leaders. Pioneers. Innovators. The best business minds working with the best engineers, within one of the world’s strongest policy and financial frameworks.
“And working together we now have the most operational offshore wind here in UK waters than anywhere else in the world. And that is where 21st century industrial Britain should be – leading the world. As our friends over at the Department for Business would say – Britain is Great!”Views versus climate change?
Friends of the Earth south west Campaigner Mike Birkin said: “It’s astonishing that a major clean energy scheme has been rejected on the grounds that it may harm the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.
“The Jurassic Coast is not designated for its scenic value, and it is hard to see how the sight of wind turbines on the horizon on a clear day could be considered damaging to it.“The real threats to Dorset’s fragile coast come from climate change – and potentially oil and gas exploitation. Navitus Bay, which could have been the largest clean energy project in the south of England, would have played a key role in helping to counter this.“Yet again the UK is turning its back on a major clean energy project that would have created hundreds of jobs, boosted the local economy and helped the nation to tackle climate change.”Ben Lucas is a writer for DeSmog.uk while also pursuing an Investigative Journalism Master’s degree at the City University of London. He has a particular interest in UK and international politics, economics and environmental issues.
This article was originally published by DeSmog.uk and has been extended by The Ecologist with additional material about offshore wind.
A new advanced robotic hand that is wired directly into the brain has been successfully tested, allowing paralysed man to “feel”.
The hand, developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins university, is part of a research project into advanced replacement limbs funded by the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).
The 28-year-old man, who has been paralysed for more than a decade after a spinal-cord injury, had electrodes from the prosthetic hand inserted into his sensory and motor cortexes. This allowed him to both control the hand with thought and sense when the fingers of the hand were touched individually.
Sensors in the hand detect pressure applied to any of the fingers and create electrical signals to mimic touch sensations. When blindfolded, the volunteer could determine which finger on the hand was touched with nearly 100% accuracy, according to Darpa.
“At one point, instead of pressing one finger, the team decided to press two without telling him,” Darpa program manager Justin Sanchez said. “He responded in jest asking whether somebody was trying to play a trick on him. That is when we knew that the feelings he was perceiving through the robotic hand were near-natural.”
Sanchez added: “Prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by thoughts are showing great promise, but without feedback from signals traveling back to the brain it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements.”
By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain, this work shows the potential for seamless biotechnological restoration of near-natural function. We’ve completed the circuit.”
The hand and the neurotechnologies on which it relies are hoped to allow those who have lost limbs to not only gain fully functioning replacements but also the level of control that can only be offered with sensation.
This is a multi-faceted process that includes sustainable consumption and food security. Our method helps people achieve this by giving them an easy 4-level solution to have a productive garden that can feed an entire family. The process is then augmented with the help of the community, as everything we do is open source and therefore constantly evolving.
The Western world may have grown accustomed to microwave ovens and electric burners, but the majority of developing populations still cook their food and heat their homes over an open fire. While that may seem like a more “pastoral” and healthy way to live, the World Health Organization reports that up to four million people die from the direct and indirect effects of cooking with solid fuels, like wood, charcoal and coal.
This staggering statistic hadn’t come to the attention of the Israeli inventors of the HomeBioGas system, until the information was pointed out to them by none other than United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. During a visit with Israeli President Reuben Rivlin last year, Ban expressed the global need for a sustainable and safe solution to this dire issue, naming Israel’s HomeBioGas’s bio-digester as a very viable answer.
From trash to treasured cooking oil
HomeBioGas ‘s TevaGas (TG) device is the first family-sized bio-digester made available on the market, which, according to Marketing Director Ami Amir, “is as easy to use as a dish-washer.” For those who don’t know what a bio-digester is, it takes organic material (like left-over food) and converts it into a fuel, known as biogas, through an anaerobic process carried out in a warm atmosphere. This fuel can then be used by a household for other purposes, like heating. According to Amir, this system does not even generate any foul odors.
“The basic underlying principles of bio-digester are, well biological,” Amir explains, “There are bacteria or microbes that thrive in conditions where there is no air (anaerobic) that are able to break down organic matter into their components. One of the results of this process is known as biogas, a combination of methane gas and carbon dioxide.”
By feeding the remains of their dinner , or any organic trash for that matter, into the bio-digester, users are able to generate clean, renewable biogas to cook three meals a day. In addition, the remaining soluble chemicals left over from the biogas breakdown process (about 10 liters according to the company) can be used as liquid fertilizers for gardens and vegetable crops, a very useful addition for agriculturalists and sustainable farmers.
While it sounds similar to composting, something many of us do already, Amir stresses that HomeBioGas’s system is nothing of the sort. “Composting is feel-good, but it doesn’t provide a lot of real value,” mainly because many people who compost don’t actually treat the organic matter themselves. He adds: “Composting generates methane that is not treated and is therefore much more harmful to the atmosphere.”
The bio-digester itself is no novel innovation; The Israeli inventors of the HomeBioGas system, CEO Oshik Efrati and COO Yair Teller, became familiar with cheaper home bio-digesters, but sought out a way to make them more efficient, and accessible. “People have been developing and building devices similar to ours for about 20-30 years,” Amir states of the history of bio-digester technology. However, the majority of these devices in developing countries like China and India are “very primitive and basic devices that are a pain to install and difficult to operate.”
For environmentally-minded First Worlders too
The HomeBioGas team spent years improving on existing Indian and Chinese bio-digester models, but soon realized that underprivileged populations were in need of an entirely new model. “The intention was to develop the best product that will provide biogas from waste for the under-served populations of Latin America, Africa and Asia,” says Amir. Of course, before releasing their product to the world-at-large, the team wanted to test it out at home, which is why the first functional models of the system were introduced to a Bedouin community in Israel’s Negev Desert. Amir explains: “In these communities, there is little or no means of waste disposal and hardly any connection to utilities.”
Since their launch, HomeBioGas has launched other aid projects in the Palestinian territories, supported by USAID and the Peres Center for Peace, as well as in the Dominican Republic, where rural populations contribute heavily to the problem of deforestation, because of the need for cooking wood. “People from the Dominican Republic told us that each family destroys about ten trees a year and that usually the woman in the family is made to carry up to 6 tons of wood a year,” Amir says.
Since the company serves mainly under-resourced communities, many of its clients don’t have the funds to support the shipment of the product. This means the company needs to rely on hefty subsidies from governments and non-governmental organizations, which can be hard to come by.
Yet due to a surge in awareness of environmental issues, like recycling, composting and homebiogas-ing, the company is even earning some support in developed countries like the United States, Australia and some European countries, who want the system for their own homes. According to Amir, “The need of middle class populations may not be as dire, but some still want a ‘smart can’ that can take their waste and turn it into something useful like cooking gas and fertilizer.”
Currently, the system is sold separately at a price of about $2,500 (NIS 10,000). And while HomeBioGas doesn’t have any direct competitors per say, the cheaper, simpler alternatives available in China and India represent a challenge only due to their drastically lower price.
How could the world’s third-largest coal consumer use coal to get more solar power?
India’s government is ordering its state-owned utility, NTPC, to sell electricity from solar power along with electricity from coal-fired power in order to boost solar’s position in the country. The decision, dating back to the middle of July but first reported by Bloomberg, mandates that the utility sell currently-cheaper coal power bundled into one unit with solar power, which is currently more expensive.
This could have the effect of expanding the production and usage of solar power, making it less expensive for distribution companies to bring it to customers. India’s power distribution companies are also run by the government, and had been losing money when buying more expensive electricity and selling it at a lower price.
The other effect, of course, will be the continued use of quarter-century-old coal plants that will get their power output bundled with newer solar plants coming online. This helps guarantee the coal plants’ operation, as well as their carbon emissions.
“These plants are already 25 years old,” Rupesh Agarwal, a partner at BDO India LLP, told Bloomberg. “Will they function for that many more years? Do we need to extend the lives of these plants to bundle with solar energy when solar on a stand-alone basis is becoming competitive?”
NTPC will construct 15 gigawatts of solar over the next four years as a part of this deal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to 100 gigawatts of solar capacity in the next seven years, which will be a large increase from the current 4.5 gigawatts. This capacity will be an almost even split between distributed rooftop installations (about 40 gigawatts) and larger grid-connected solar farms.
Boosting solar capacity to 100 gigawatts would be hard, as the Indian consulting firm Bridge to India recently estimated the country was on track to install 31 gigawatts over the next four years.
CREDIT: Courtesy of Bridge To India
Should they achieve it, this will help achieve the other major energy goal put forth by the government: bringing electricity to the 400 million households that currently do not have it. This means more power, from everywhere. Renewable prices – especially solar – are dropping, which helps those trying to limit the growth of India’s carbon emissions. At the same time, India has become more and more dependent upon imported fossil fuels – including coal despite significant domestic reserves. Recent reports have predicted that India will outpace China in coal imports in the near future.
“Despite its significant coal reserves, India has experienced increasing supply shortages as a result of a lack of competition among producers, insufficient investment, and systemic problems with its mining industry,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Although production has increased by about 4% per year since 2007, producers have failed to reach the government’s production targets.”
China has committed to slowing and reversing its coal usage due to climate and air quality concerns. A recent study found that over 17 percent of all deaths in China are related to high pollution levels. Yet Indian cities have to struggle with some of the worst air pollution in the world.
It’s not just solar that has a lot of potential in India. A study released last week found that India’s wind energy capacity is much higher than originally anticipated – 302 gigawatts for turbines with hubs reaching 100 meters, compared with the 100 gigawatts previously thought.
The government is also trying to keep energy demand low – last month, Energy Minister Piyush Goyal committed India to replace all conventional streetlights with LEDs within two years. This will cut demand almost to almost a third of current levels – 3,400 megawatts to 1,400 megawatts. Fortunately for them, LED streetlight prices have dropped almost by half in the last year.
Pope Francis acknowledged, first of all, that climate change is real. He also said that technology alone would not solve the problem and human behaviour must change to ensure that the world’s poor don’t suffer due to the consumption of the rich. The Islamic Climate Declaration recognises the scientific consensus on climate change is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere so that global warming does not exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The declaration is clear that a 1.5 degree Celsius warming would be preferable. It calls on people and leaders of all nations to aim to phase out greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and commit themselves to 100% renewable energy at the earliest possible.
In a recent interview to American science magazine Popular Science, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe explained why religion is backing the fight against climate change. “Science can tell us why climate change is happening, and what might happen next,” she said. “But what we should do about it isn’t a science question. It’s a question of values.”
The Holy See and Islamic leaders have not been the first moral authorities to caution against climate change. Ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014, the World Council of Churches and Religions for Peace, both prominent interfaith organisations, held their own summit to push for progress at the negotiations in Lima that December and after. In previous years Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh leaders have declared their war on climate change.
Hindu Declaration on Climate Change
Issued at the Parliament of World Religions in Australia in 2009, the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change drew on the Hindu tradition that links man to nature through physical, psychological and spiritual bonds. “The nations of the world have yet to agree upon a plan to ameliorate man’s contribution to this complex change,” the declaration stated. “This is largely due to powerful forces in some nations which oppose any such attempt, challenging the very concept that unnatural climate change is occurring. Hindus everywhere should work toward an international consensus.” Issued just as the Copenhagen round of the Conference of Parties was beginning, the declaration had little impact on the talks that ended with a weak agreement and little binding action.
Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change
In 2009, the Dalai Lama was the first person to sign the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change that endorsed the catastrophic tipping points of global warming. NASA climatologists had predicted that the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350 parts per million, a line that has already been breached. In May this year, atmospheric carbon crossed 400 ppm for the first time.
“We are challenged not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to remove large quantities of carbon gas already present in the atmosphere,” the Buddhist declaration said. It also emphasised the need to change the priorities of the world economies. “The key to happiness is contentment rather than an ever-increasing abundance of goods. The compulsion to consume more and more is an expression of craving, the very thing the Buddha pinpointed as the root cause of suffering.”
The Dalai Lama has gone even further to say that the focus in Tibet, which is stuck in a losing battle for independence, should be climate change and not politics.
Sikh Statement on Climate Change
“Our Mother Earth, Mata Dharat, has gone through undeniable changes at the hands of humans. It is abundantly clear that our action has caused great damage to the atmosphere and is projected to cause even more damage if left unhandled,” said a statement released by a group called EcoSikh in September 2014. Calling on Sikhs to be the frontrunners of change and inviting the tenet of selfless service, the group asked Sikhs to reduce their carbon footprints, recycle, invest in renewable technologies and also put pressure on governments to take action to mitigate carbon emissions.
Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Baha’I and Jewish leaders have, in their turn, accepted the science of climate change and called on the faithful to save the earth. What the Pope and Islamic leaders have added is the influence of over 1.2 billion Roman Catholics and 1.6 million Muslims worldwide, which is almost half the world’s population. For now, climate change seems to be the one science that world religions don’t seem to have a problem with, whether it will make a difference or not at the “make-or-break” Paris negotiations in December.
When Pope Francis chose to champion the battle against climate change via papal encyclical in June this year, the act was lauded as the one that could galvanise the world community far more than 30 years of pleading by climate scientists. Now Muslim leaders across the world have echoed the moral call against climate change with their Islamic Climate Declaration issued last week calling for a fossil-fuel phase-out.
The U.S. Navy is investing in what will be the largest solar farm in the world in order to provide power for 14 of its bases.
The climate of Arizona, where the two earlier phases of the Mesquite solar farm are already up and running, provides 300 days of sunshine a year. And the Navy’s deal to extend the farm is the largest purchase of renewable energy ever made by a U.S. federal government agency.
The solar farm project is one of a growing number being installed across what is known as the American Sun Belt-the southern states of America, which have expanding populations, plenty of sunshine but also large areas of arid and unproductive land.
The price of solar panels has now fallen so far worldwide that, in sunny climes, they can compete on cost with any other form of energy generation. This new generation of huge solar farms produces as much power as a large coal-fired plant.
China and India are also building similarly massive installations, taking advantage of their own sun belts and desert regions. It is doubtful that Mesquite 3, huge as it is, will manage to remain the world’s largest for long.
Barren Land
In the same week that the U.S. Navy disclosed its plans, the central Indian state of Madya Pradesh announced it was to construct a 750 MW plant (one megawatt is roughly enough to supply 1,000 typical British homes) on barren, government-owned land in the country’s Rewa district.
It is claimed that it would be the world’s largest solar plant and the state’s energy minister, Rajendra Shukla, says the plan is to have the plant up and running by March 2017.
A number of other giant projects are also in the pipeline in India, as part of government plans for a dramatic expansion of the industry, although they have yet to be constructed.
Mesquite 3, which will be sited 60 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, will provide the Navy with 210 MW of direct power. This means the installation of more than 650,000 extra solar panels, which will move to track the sun as it crosses the sky, to get the maximum value from the intense desert sunshine. The Navy says it will save $90 million in power costs over the 25-year lifetime of the contract.
Some solar power plants in India have caused controversy because they need teams of people to wash off the layer of dust and particles from air pollution to keep the panels efficient. This uses a lot of scarce water.
However, in the cleaner desert air of Arizona, this is not a problem. The Navy boasts that Mesquite 3 will require no water, so saving “this precious resource for other needs.”
The building of the plant will require 300 construction workers but it will create only 12 long-term jobs. The plant also avoids controversy because it is sited on “previously disturbed land” and so is not damaging a pristine environment. It is also near existing power plants and transmission lines, so the plant will not need additional infrastructure.
Reduced Emissions
The Navy estimates that the station will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 190,000 tons annually—the equivalent of taking 33,000 cars off the road.
Ray Mabus, the Secretary of State for the Navy, who opened the project, has been pushing hard for renewables to be used for military power generation.
The new contract adds to a 17 MW installation at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and another of 42 MW at Kings Bay, Georgia. The Navy says that, in total, its renewable energy procurement will be 1.2 GW by the end of 2015, which is well ahead of target.
It will use the power for Navy and Marine Corps shore installations in California and surrounding states.
Opening the project at one of the installations, the Naval Air Station North Island, in California, Mabus said the project was “a triumph of problem solving” and would help increase the Department of the Navy’s energy security by diversifying the supply.
The Valhalla Movement takes very seriously the sensitivity involved in “charity” and make a large effort to detect an organization’s altruism before participating. We have personally been introduced to ACT, a team that partners with indigenous folks to protect the Amazon Rainforest. Their members are effective change-makers in line with our mission and we vouch for them.
In August 2015, a groundbreaking event took place in the village of Ulupuene in the Brazilian Amazon: internet connectivity arrived.
Through a collaborative partnership between the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), Associação Indígena Ulupuene (AIU), and the nonprofit Synbio Consultoria em Meio Ambiente, the Waurá indigenous people of Ulupuene now have access to the web and can reach like-minded communities and organizations around the world to enlist support for the protection of the community’s rainforests and ancestral lands. The project was fully funded by ACT.
Though installation planning commenced in 2013, the village’s remote location in the Xingu Indigenous Reserve protracted the process, with coordination of logistics with outside actors constituting the greatest source of delay.
Numerous providers were consulted, including those offering radio transmission-prohibitive because of the necessity of building a 60-meter radio tower-and government-provided service, for which a very lengthy waiting list exists. Ultimately, satellite-mediated internet was deemed most viable.
Because configuration and registration required preexisting phone and internet connections, the equipment was set up in the neighboring town of Canarana. After technical adjustments, the satellite antenna travelled 250 miles in Synbio’s truck to Ulupuene where the Waurá, in anticipation, had already built a traditional communal “office”. Several community members already owned tablets and smartphones and were eager to receive news from beyond the reserve.
Kumehin is now able to access the internet via her tablet.
Fittingly, upon inauguration, ACT co-founder Liliana Madrigal congratulated village chief Eleokar Waurá via the web, sending her best wishes to the community and emphasizing the many ways that the technology can be used for the benefit of the village and the protection of the forest. Eleokar thanked the partner institutions and expressed how the arrival of this tool had inspired his community.
The average person in the U.S. uses between 80 and 100 gallons of water per day, with the largest uses of household water occurring in the toilet and the shower. Even though showers are one of the highest wasters of water, however, they are probably one of the personal experiences people would be willing to make the least compromises with. Nebia is a company that promises to not only improve your showering experience, but also help you use 70 percent less water.
After raising more than $2.5 million on Kickstarter, 17 days before the end of the campaign, the team is ready to start manufacturing, with the first showerheads expected to ship in May, 2016.
The six-person team behind Nebia, which includes several thermal fluid experts, has spent the last five years doing research, solving equations, and building prototypes in order to arrive at a new type of nozzle that, according to them, brings the first innovation in the industry in over 50 years. Meanwhile, the company has attracted investments from Tim Cook of Apple and Eric Schmidt of Alphabet.
The result is impressive. On average, Americans take about eight minutes to shower, which results in using 20 gallons of water. With Nebia, for the same amount of time, one will use up only six gallons, or 70 percent less water. With an initial price of $299, for the average U.S. home, Nebia pays for itself in less than two years.
CEO and co-founder Philip Winter told TechCrunch that “If everyone in California were to switch over to this showerhead, we think we could reduce the state water’s use by 1.5 percent.” In the future, the company also wants to make the technology cheaper and available to developing countries where water is scarce.
“The last half century of nozzle technology has completely changed what we can do with droplet size and distribution, however this technology has only been applied to very specialized fields, like rocket engines and medical devices. We used these same tools and technology to develop Nebia. What we do is atomize streams of water into millions of tiny droplets. By doing this we can achieve 10 times the surface area of water compared to a regular shower and use a fraction of the volume,” says co-founder and CTO Gabriel Parisi-Amon.
According to the creators, Nebia is easy to install – users simply unscrew their existing shower and screw on Nebia with a wrench, plumbers tape, and an included adhesive, without the need to break tiles or call the plumber. The showerhead can slide up and down, pivot at an angle, and includes a portable wand.
The ingenious GravityLight-a light that gets all its energy from its own weight-first appeared about three years ago. We wrote about it as it was launching on Indiegogo and went on to raise $399,590.
It provides free light (after you’ve bought it). It’s cheap. And it has none of the environmental or health side-effects as do other light alternatives in the developing world. But even all those things aren’t necessarily enough if it’s to reach its potential. If the company and foundation behind the device are to make it a success, they need a reliable product; they need to distribute it in places where distribution can be difficult; and, more fundamentally, they need to explain why someone should buy a GravityLight when there’s plenty of good, cheap solar on the market today.
Thankfully the company seems to have most of the questions answered, as least so far.
The light has a gear-train and DC generator. As a heavy object pulls down on one side, it creates a force that’s converted into electricity. The lamp can last for hours on a single lift to one side, and, of course, that lift is renewable: When one side drops to balance, you just hoist it up again. With a string of mini-lights attached, it can illuminate a small room. And, importantly, without the problems that come with kerosene lamps (fumes, fire), which are still widely used in off-grid places.
After the first campaign, GravityLight sent the device to organizations and individuals in 26 countries. They tested it and reported back about what they liked and didn’t-feedback that’s now been incorporated into a version two. Children apparently liked swinging on it, meaning it could break, and some families complained that lifting 22 pounds was too much for them. The new version, which launches next spring, has a stronger plastic housing, and a new pulley system that effectively reduces the weight by three-quarters. It also comes with auxiliary mini-lights, or “SatLights,” that can be extended in series.
“The SatLights have really revolutionized the experience,” says commercial director Caroline Angus. “Now someone can be reading while someone else is cooking, rather than there just being this one light on that one person, or a narrow part of the room.”
This story is part of our series, How’s That Working Out For You, where we check in on projects we’ve covered in the past to see if they’ve come to fruition, or turned out to just be vaporware.
With the proceeds from a second Indiegogo campaign, GravityLight is now setting up an assembly line in Kenya. The lamp will cost $20 and be distributed through door-to-door ( Avon Lady-type) networks, farmer groups, and more traditional market stalls.
Angus sees a wide range of people buying the product, from families who currently use kerosene lamps, to people who have have grid power but are afraid of blackouts. “It’s everyone from people on $2 a day to the slightly more affluent who are just conscious of the next power cut because maybe they haven’t already charged a solar light,” she says. The GravityLight is more dependable than a solar lamp, she says. It’s on-demand, whereas solar power is dependent on the weather, or your foresight in charging up a battery ahead of time.
It certainly sounds like GravityLight has answers to the big questions. But, it’s still early days, and we won’t know for sure until the new product hits the streets next year.
The modern air conditioner was invented only in the 1920s, and it didn’t become a common home feature until the latter half of the 20 th century.
But, while some of us might wonder how our grandparents survived hot and steamy summers, the fact is those older homes had a few tricks up their sleeves. They were designed and built with features to help them stay cool without AC.
Mary Wheeler Schap is a registered architect who designs and restores historic buildings to their former glory in Cincinnati, Ohio. She offered this expert insight into the features that made older homes livable in the heat.
In northern states, it was common to create a “stack effect” by opening windows in the basement and top floor. This generated a cool breeze through the house. Further south, before AC many homes were built on blocks, allowing breezes to flow underneath and help keep them cool all summer long.
Ceilings as high as 10, 12 and even 14 feet were common in older homes. As heat rose to the ceiling, lower areas stayed cool and comfortable. Ceiling fans-powered by electricity or elaborate rope systems-also facilitated air movement.
A transom-a small window over a door-allowed warmer air at the ceiling to circulate up to higher floors, providing more air movement throughout the house. Transoms over exterior doors often had hinges and special hardware. This allowed easy access to open and close, helping create airflow while still providing security.
Many older and historic homes had large, double-hung windows. Opening the top sash would allow hot air near the ceiling to escape. Opening the bottom sash, especially at night, allowed cool air to flow inside. Rooms had many windows, some as large as doors. Thick, long draperies were often used in these large windows to keep out the heat. People would “draw the drapes” to help keep a room cool without sacrificing light.
I’m a historic preservationist and have been to many workshops and classes about window restoration. Most people have no idea how original windows were meant to function. When you open both sashes to the middle, heat escapes from the top and cool comes in from the bottom. If you do that in your entire house, you have an ac that works almost as well as modern ACs. The thing is, people have painted their sashes shut, especially upper sashes. Most people don’t even know that upper sashes are supposed to open. People installed triple track aluminum windows which only have one screen, at the bottom, which makes two sashes useless and why most upper sashes ended up painted/caulked shut.
If you restore your original double hung windows, and install a wood storm window with screens on upper and lower, you will have a window that is just as energy efficient as “replacement” windows and will outlast and outperform any new window. Unfortunately, people don’t believe this, they just believe what the window salesman tell them. You’ll NEVER save money with replacement windows. There is no return on investment EVER because it would take a minimum of 40yrs to see a return and no replacement window would last that long before needing replaced again. The data is out there. There have been thermal imaging studies done on the efficiency of original windows and on opening both sashes for air condition. Very efficient. With a minimal amount of work, any home owner can restore original windows, for cheaper than the cost of replacement, and have a much higher quality window that will last another 100yrs.”
Tesla’s road to a cheaper electric car has always appeared to lead straight to Reno, where the electric automaker is building a $5 billion gigafactory designed with enough capacity to reduce the per-kilowatt-hour cost of its lithium-ion battery packs by over 30% by the end of 2017.
Many companies are already planning concepts around the promise of cheaper, higher-capacity batteries. But, it turns out that Tesla has more than one path toward its ultimate goal of an electric car that’s 50% cheaper than its luxury Model S.
The newest direction Tesla is headed toward is silicon-not the Valley, but the material that is changing the way batteries are made. Tesla’s new 90 kilowatt-hour battery pack -an upgrade announced Friday that increases pack energy by 5% and adds about 15 miles of range to its vehicles-might look the same. But the inclusion of silicon is an advance for lithium-ion technology.
During a call with reporters last week, CEO Elon Musk said the company had improved the battery by shifting the cell chemistry for the pack to partially use silicon in the anode.
“This is just sort of a baby step in the direction of using silicon in the anode,” Musk said during the call. “We’re still primarily using synthetic graphite, but over time we’ll be increasing silicon in the anode.”
For the unfamiliar, this might sound like minor tinkering. It’s actually an important and challenging step for Tesla (and other battery manufacturers) that could lead to a better, cheaper battery.
“It’s a race among the battery makers to get more and more silicon in,” said Jeff Dahn, a leading lithium-ion battery researcher and professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who recently signed a 5-year exclusive partnership with Tesla. “The number of researchers around the world working on silicon for lithium-ion cells is mindboggling. A large number of academics and industrial folks are working really hard on this problem.”
Batteries 101
A battery contains two electrodes: an anode (negative) on one side and a cathode (positive) on the other. An electrolyte, essentially the courier that moves ions between the electrodes when charging and discharging, sits in the middle.
Graphite is commonly used as the anode in commercial lithium-ion batteries. However, a silicon anode can store about 10 times more (per unit volume) lithium ions. In theory, if you replaced a lot of graphite in the cell with silicon, the thickness of the graphite negative electrode could be reduced. There would be more space to add more active material and you could, in turn, increase the energy density-or the amount of energy that can be stored in a battery per its volume-of the cell.
In other words, you could pack more energy in the same space. Plus, the silicon used in the battery space doesn’t need to be the same quality as what’s used in solar cells and integrated circuits, which means it’s cheaper. The more silicon you put in the battery, the easier it is to drive costs down.
That’s the goal of battery makers everywhere: to improve their product while reducing costs.
Sounds easy enough, right? Hardly, says Dahn, who is currently working on a project funded by 3M and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to develop longer lasting, lower cost lithium-ion battery cells. Their exclusive partnership with Tesla will begin in June 2016, once Dahn has completed the 3M research project.
The trick is that when you add lithium to the silicon you end up with almost five times the original number of atoms you started with. And that causes all kinds of problems.
An Electrode Particle Walks Into a Party
Think of the battery electrode as a room and a lot of electrode particles-or people- are packed in there for a party, Dahn explains. Now imagine that everybody in that room suddenly becomes obese; the people aren’t going to fit anymore.
“If everyone is already packed in there and they all become 400 pounds, you’re in big trouble,” says Dahn.
This is what happens when all the particles in the electrode are silicon. But if only a few people in the room become obese, it’s not so bad because they can shuffle around and make enough space for these obese folks.
“This is why only a small amount of silicon is being initially added,” Dahn says.
That’s not the only issue with using silicon. To take the crowded room analogy a step further, imagine these obese people (or electrode particles) shrink when the battery is charged and then blow up again when it’s discharged. That enormous volume change causes another issue. The surface of every silicon particle is in contact with the electrolyte, and the protective film on the silicon is continually being stretched as the size of those particles change. When it shrinks it can flake off, which can impact the lifespan of the battery.
This means that the more silicon you put in, the more challenging it is to maintain cycle life, Dahn says.
Which brings us to where battery makers and researchers are today.
“Right now, you put in a touch-a little pixie dust-and it’s tolerable,” says Dahn. “Over the years, more and more will go in and that’s a good thing because it means these products are going to improve and get better.”
Dahn’s research team aims to increase both the energy density and the lifespan of lithium-ion cells, which could, in turn, help drive down costs in automotive and grid energy storage applications. They aren’t the only ones. “There are quite a few companies around the world that are starting to put silicon in the negative electrode,” explains Dahn. “And it’s not just Panasonic, Tesla’s supplier. Samsung and other companies around the world are doing this too.”
Most batteries today, even those in consumer electronics, have tiny amounts of silicon, says Sam Jaffe, a longtime analyst, formerly of Navigant Research, and now CEO of startup Cygnus Energy Storage.
The question is what percentage of silicon is Tesla using. The industry standard is between 1 to 3% silicon in battery recipes, Jaffe says. He believes Tesla has figured out how to use more.
“For them to have made a significant change in the energy density of the battery and then to publicly say it’s the silicon increase makes me think-and this is speculation now-that they’ve made progress getting higher percentages of silicon into the cell,” Jaffe says.
Model X and Tesla as a Supplier
“There’s a lot of incentive to continue to improve this battery technology for everyone in the industry,” Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, told Fortune. “It’s certainly the lifeblood for Tesla.”
Tesla had to increase the battery capacity for the highly anticipated Model X SUV because it’s heavier and without it, the vehicle would have lost range, Brauer says.
Brauer also believes the focus on battery tech isn’t just to improve the cars, but to set the company up as a supplier.
With many companies already anticipating the use of cheaper, more powerful lithium-ion batteries and competing to apply that technology to residential and commercial power grid applications, Tesla’s move could put them at the forefront of a newly revolutionized energy industry.
Using the Japanese art of origami, London-based twin designers, Bike and Begum Ayaskan of Studio Ayaskan, designed a plant pot – fittingly named, “Growth” – that geniusly expands as a plant’s root system grows.
“The modern approach to building is the opposite.”
“Here, things exist in stages: objects are produced, used, discarded…”
“Growth, through it’s carefully calculated origami pattern, mimics nature’s ability to grow and transform by unfolding over time…”
“Bringing these qualities to the manufactured object.”
Now a days, almost every bikes have a place to hold a water bottle. Kristof Retezár, an Austrian designer, has come up with Fontus, a device that collects the moisture from the air, condenses it and stores it as safe drinking water. In simple word, the device can produce water from air through moisture.
The device Fontus has been especially designed as a self-filling water bottle for your bicycle. It is powered by solar cells and it harvests up to 0.5 liters in an hour’s worth of cycling when under the right climate conditions.
Interested to know how does it actually work? Well, the device has a small cooler called Peltier Element installed in its center. The cooler is divided in two.
According to Retezár, “When powered by electricity, the upper side cools down and the bottom side gets hot. The more you cool the hot side down, the colder the upper side will get. Consequently, these two sides are separated and isolated from each other.”
He has also mentioned that when the air enters the bottom chamber at a high speed when moving forward with the bike and cools the hot side down. Moreover, when the air enters the upper chamber it is stopped by little walls perforated non-linearly, reducing its speed in order to give the air the needed time to lose its water molecules. Droplets flow through a pipe into a bottle. The bottle can be turned to a vertical position; every kind of PET 0.5l bottle fits.
Retezár said, “My goal was to create a small, compact and self-sufficient device able to absorb humid air, separate water molecules from air molecules and store water in liquid form in a bottle.”
After doing more than 30 experiments, Retezár was able to achieve a constant drop-flow of one drop of condensed water per minute. The invention could be useful for cyclists on long tours, relieved of the hassle in looking for nearby stores or rivers or gas stations if one had a bottle that automatically fills itself up.
At present, there are some technical hurdles limiting its usefulness. Fontus produces only about a drop of water per minute, which might be hard for cycling on a hot and humid day. It’s also a challenge in cities, where air pollution would render the water undrinkable. Supporters who like his idea hope that he will find success in order to further refine and develop the device.
Tesla’s Model S P85D is well known for its wonderfully named “Insane” mode, which tunes the car to go from 0 to 60 in 3.1 seconds.
Not insane enough for you? Now the Model S is getting a “Ludicrous” mode. Seriously.
The aptly named Ludicrous mode will do 0-60 in 2.8 seconds. According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, that acceleration pins you to the seat at a 1.1 Gs. “It’s faster than falling,” he adds. “It’s like having your own private roller coaster.”
One catch: unlike most Tesla Model S tuning enhancements, this one isn’t a software update — and it’s not free. Why? Because Tesla had to make new, physical hardware to make this possible. Specifically, they had to make a fuse that didn’t melt when you pulled ridiculously high amperages over it.
The fuse upgrade will be a $10k option for new buyers, and cost $5k (before installation) for existing P85D owners.
Musk also announced two other bits of news surrounding the Model S:
They’re introducing the Model S 70, a new single motor 70 kWH model for $70,000
A $3,000 90kWh battery pack upgrade option for the 85kWh Model S. This upgrade is primarily meant for new buyers; while existing owners can purchase it, Elon suggests that current owners wait until an upgrade is necessary as the range will only improve in time.
Also mentioned in passing were very limited details on Tesla’s electric SUV — the Model X — and their more affordable compact option, the Model 3. The first Model X’s will ship “in two months,” while Elon promises Model 3s will roll out “in just over two years.”
(Fun note: before the press call began, Tesla had Ludacris playing on loop — now we know why. How very Apple-y of them.)
When President Obama announced a new initiative this week to expand access to solar energy for millions of low- and moderate-income Americans, he took the first step in addressing a major hurdle in the continued expansion of renewable energy: the estimated 50 to 80 percent of households and businesses that can’t install panels because they rent, or live in multi-unit buildings with little roof access.
“These people are a major, untapped part of the market for solar,” said Tim Braun, a spokesman for the Clean Energy Collective, which installs community solar projects. “We can’t achieve the growth in solar that we want without them.”
Business has been booming for the U.S. solar business in recent years. The cost to install panels has dropped 50 percent since 2010; the sector adds jobs an average of 10 times faster than the rest of the economy; and the country’s installed solar capacity grew 34 percent in 2014 alone.
But for all its growth, solar still makes up less than 1 percent of the U.S. energy portfolio. That’s at least partly because of high costs and other market forces, and resistance by utilities, which see distributed rooftop solar arrays as a long-term threat to their business model. But it’s also because solar is simply unattainable by the millions of Americans who rent their homes or businesses, or live or operate in buildings with no available roof space for panels, policy and renewable energy experts said.
Solar panels cost an average $23,000 for a 5-kilowatt system, which would cover approximately half of the average American household’s monthly electricity demand; once installed, they are hard to move. The Obama administration’s strategy would funnel $520 million from foundations, governments and social impact investors to building so-called community or shared solar farms, where renters can buy shares or memberships into the projects. The energy the farms produce is then sold to local utilities, and members get reduced electricity bills every month.
The new initiative also pledges to install 300 megawatts of renewable energy in federally subsidized housing by 2020-triple the previous pledge-and employ AmeriCorps, the federal government’s service program, to install solar capacity and hire solar workers in low-income communities.
Most renters have never heard of shared solar projects, which started gaining traction only in the past five years, and many of those who have see it as too complicated to join, said Dan Utech, deputy assistant to President Obama for energy and climate change. The Obama administration’s latest initiative will help “break down those barriers,” he said.
Braun of CEC called the White House’s initiative a “major gamechanger” for the community solar industry.
Despite laws in 12 states and the District of Columbia allowing community solar projects, only a few dozen shared farms have been built across the country. All told, community solar currently accounts for a tiny fraction of an already tiny solar market, said Sean Garren, northeast regional manager for the environmental advocacy group VoteSolar.
“More people are slowly coming to understand how [community solar] works,” said Garren. “Almost everywhere across the country where projects have been built, they have a waiting list for signing up. The interest is there.” The projects just need more support and more advertising, he said.
The obstacle between renting a home and access to solar will only get worse if officials don’t address it now, experts said. Home ownership has been falling since the recession, reaching a 20-year low of 64.5 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, cities are growing at a faster rate than suburban areas, meaning more people living in multi-unit buildings with little access to their roofs. The number of people living in cities grew by 2.3 million between 2012 and 2013-a trend that many population projections predict will continue in the coming decades.
Despite federal and state tax credits, there is very little incentive in today’s rental market for landlords to invest in installing solar on their buildings. With so many people moving to cities, demand for apartments is high and the majority of building owners-minus those catering to high-income renters-don’t see environmentally-friendly upgrades as necessary for getting tenants in the door.
According to an April report published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “shared solar presents an area of tremendous potential growth for solar photovoltaics.” Community solar could account for 32 to 49 percent of all distributed solar on the market by 2020, the authors found.
Colorado is generally seen as the first major success story for community solar projects. Seventy-five percent of ratepayers in the state have the ability to buy into a shared program. Denver alone has six community solar farms.
“We need a variety of approaches” to make solar a significant part of our country’s energy mix, Utech said. “Utilities are increasingly building up solar, but many are not. We believe there is demand out there to do it this way as well.”
