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5 sneaky ways to harness clean energy

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By now, we’re all familiar with the mainstays of renewable energy. They’re the solar panel arrays and massive turbine systems that span great lengths, collecting energy from the sun, wind and water and churning out megawatts of energy. It’s these behemoths that we point to as bellwethers of a future where the world no longer depends on fossil fuels.

But recently, some researchers have started to tinker with more subtle ways to harvest energy. They’re mostly unconventional ideas, such as layering tiny and transparent solar cells onto a phone’s touchscreen or a sound conversion technology that allows it to recharge simply by talking into it.

Though these out-of-box approaches don’t receive nearly as much attention as some of the more elaborate industrial-scale projects, they may well turn out to be game-changers in their own right. As such, here are instances where eeking out even a modest amount of energy may make a real difference:

1. Infrastructure power

Hydroelectric power came about as a way to take advantage of the enormous flow of energy produced from reservoirs. However, the same principle can also work wherever there’s a strong and steady stream of water, whether it be dams or sewage pipes.

Catching on to this fact, the city of Portland is testing a power-generating water turbine system specially suited for municipal drainage systems. The technology, developed by local start-up LucidEnergy, is projected to contribute up to 1,100 megawatts of electricity annually, enough to power approximately 150 homes.

Roadways are also hotspots for untapped energy. In 2011, a research team were able to harvest energy from the vibrations produced by moving cars by coating a section of the road surface along a Dutch highway with energy-absorbing piezoelectric materials. During the course of three months, they found that, on average, net electrical output was sufficient to run the motion sensors on a traffic light.


2. Ambient energy

To ensure coverage over a given area, WiFi hubs blast signals in all directions. Satellite transmission is somewhat similar, scattering signals across a wide region. As a result, a lot of energy is wasted.

But there are ways to recover some of these lost signals. Researchers at Duke University have converted them into electricity. Employing a special microwave-scavenging metamaterial, they were able to build a device capable of generating up to 7.3 volts. The goal is to eventually incorporate the technology into cell phones, which in many instances can use a little extra juice.

While the idea has been kicked around for some time, the challenge has been figuring out how to implement it on a consumer level. RCA, an electronics brand, caused a bit of stir back in 2010, when representatives unveiled an early prototype of a USB dongle they claimed can give laptops a power boost by trapping stray WiFi signals and storing them as converted energy in an internal battery. However, the Airnergy charger was never released.


3. Body energy

Every person is, in some respect, a walking power plant. Even at rest, the human body generates as much energy as a 100 watt light bulb. Much of this dissipates in the form of heat, though a coat with good insulation properties can momentarily trap enough of it for us to stay comfortably warm at times when temperatures are unbearably cold.

With that line of thinking, Jernhusen, a Swedish real estate firm, had an ambitious proposal. In 2008, the group outlined a plan to construct an office building in Stockholm equipped with a unique heating system that so happened to be powered by the excess body heat of 250,000 some commuters that pass though the nearby central train station each day.

The system, in operation today, is made possible through a series of heat exchangers situated inside the train station’s ventilation system. This is where body heat is converted into hot water and piped in to warm the building. In total, costs are reduced by about 25 percent compared to regular heating systems. And closer to home, the Mall of America in Minneapolis recycles body heat from shoppers to more better regulate the indoor climate.

On a smaller scale, scientists are looking into ways to make good use of energy generated by the body’s internal machinations. Engineers in the United States and China have collaborated on a technology that uses the mechanical energy of a beating heart to pump power to pacemakers. In Boston, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is developing a tiny chip that pulls in energy from natural processes that take place within the ear canal as a way to extend the long-term implantation of hearing aids.

4. Kinetic energy

In motion, the human body ramps up to where it’s a sort of de facto energy factory. Case-in-point is the Cadbury House gym near Bristol, England, the first in the world to be powered by nothing but the grunt and sweat of members who frequent the exercise facility.

Power is supplied by a network of treadmills, stationary bikes and step climbers custom-made and sold by Technogym, a manufacturer of high-tech training equipment. When in operation, each machine powers itself and channels surplus energy in the form of electricity. The costs for the equipment come in at about 600,000 euros ($630,000). Similar human-powered gyms can be found in Hong Kong and in the United States.

Systems designed to harvest kinetic energy can also supplement power systems anywhere people take part in activities that collectively add up to lots of high-intensity workouts. In 2007, a pair of MIT students proposed using these ” crowd farms” as a way to extract energy for such things as LED lights. More recently, the concept popped up as an ” eco-nightclub ” in London where energy is amassed using blocks made of piezoelectric material, positioned just beneath the dance floor.


5. Self-powered energy (for gadgets)

While you would be hard pressed to find anyone who isn’t pining for a bit more battery life for their mobile devices, keeping pace with the rigorous demands of day-to-day commuting is a whole different story. The “range anxiety” consumers have over a vehicle’s typical per-charge rating is often mentioned as one of their most pressing concerns.

And it’s a problem the industry seems to be looking at from every conceivable angle. For instance, earlier this month, Goodyear unveiled the BH03 concept tire, which feature a combination of piezoelectric materials and black textured thermoelectric patches to absorb energy from vibrations, light and heat. This in turn can be fed to the the battery or sensors. But drivers shouldn’t hold their breath since the company hasn’t detailed how they plan to turn the proof-of-concept into a reality or released any cost estimates.

For those getting around on foot, Pittsburgh-based startup SolePower is in the later stages of finalizing a shoe insert that charges up an external battery as the wearer walks or runs. But unlike other technologies that harvest energy from pressure-induced vibrations, the insoles don’t employ piezoelectric materials. Instead, energy is produced, converted and stored through a series of tiny “mechanical linkages and generators” in the heel, similar to how hand-cranked flashlights work, according to the company’s Web site.

With the insoles, the company claims that an hour of walk time provides about 2.5 hours of talk time on a smartphone.

Free Paris transport to reduce smog

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Authorities in Paris have taken the rare step of making public transport free for three days to reduce severe smog caused by unusually warm weather.

The French capital region and 30 other departments have been on maximum pollution alert for several days.

Landmark buildings like the Eiffel Tower were barely visible after a white fog settled over Paris.

The capital’s air quality has been one of the worst on record, French environmental agencies say.

A lack of wind, combined with cold nights followed by unseasonably warm days, has contributed to the worsening conditions.

The smog has also affected neighbouring Belgium, where officials have reduced the maximum speed limit allowed on main roads. The southern Wallonia region said it had also decided to make buses, trains and underground trains free until the pollution emergency was over.

‘Significant risks’

Experts say levels of smog recorded in Paris this week have been similar to those of Beijing in China, one of the world’s most polluted cities.

As part of the emergency measures, commuters in Paris and neighbouring areas will not have to pay for public transport between Friday and Sunday.

Bike sharing services are also free, as are one-hour sessions for electric car shares, the Associated Press news agency reports.

French authorities appealed to drivers to leave their cars at home.

“I am asking all residents in Paris and neighbouring areas to favour the use of public transport,” said Jean-Paul Huchon, the head of the the capital’s transport authority.

He also warned that current pollution levels represented “significant risks” to people’s health.

The elderly, children, asthmatics and people with heart problems have been advised to stay indoors to avoid potential breathing problems.

Environment minister Philippe Martin said air quality had now become “an emergency and priority for the government”.

The country’s northern and eastern regions have been particularly hit by toxic pollutants.

Several other French cities, including Reims, Rouen and Caen, announced they would follow Paris’s example and make their public transport free over the weekend.

Earth is halfway to being inhospitable to life, scientist says

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A Swedish scientist claims in a new theory that humanity has exceeded four of the nine limits for keeping the planet hospitable to modern life, while another professor told RT Earth may be seeing an impending human-made extinction of various species.

Environmental science professor Johan Rockstrom, the executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden, argues that there are nine ” planetary boundaries ” in a new paper published in Science – and human beings have already crossed four of them.

Those nine include carbon dioxide concentrations, maintaining biodiversity at 90 percent, the use of nitrogen and phosphorous, maintaining 75 percent of original forests, aerosol emissions, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, fresh water use and the dumping of pollutants.

” The planet has been our best friend by buffering our actions and showing its resilience,” said Rockstrom. ” But for the first time ever, we might shift the planet from friend to foe.”

Rockstrom’s planetary boundary theory was first conceived in 2007. His new paper reveals that because of climate stability, which began when the Ice Age ended 11,000 years ago, a planetary calm helped our ancestors to cultivate wheat, domesticate animals, and launch industrial and communications revolutions. But those advances have strained the stability of the planet, and Rockstrom says we have broken four boundaries: too much nitrogen has been added to ecosystems, too many forests have been cut down, the climate is changing too quickly and species are going extinct at too great a rate.

Speaking to RT’s Ben Swann, Professor of Ethics Bron Taylor from the University of Florida said that we have accelerated the extinction crisis through deforestation and ocean acidification, a development which is driving species to extinction.

“[Human] beings have increased, even from 1925, from 2 billion – which is considered to be a sustainable population for human beings, according to northern European consumption standards – to 7.2 billion at this point, ” he said.

” What we have also done is increased the number of domestic animals, the ones we eat and the ones that are companion animals. We have 4.3 domestic animals one for every two human beings on the planet. Cultivating the land they need creates species extinction because where they are, other organism are not. Where we cut down forests for cattle, other species are not there.”

” We are losing literally tens of thousands of endemic or native species to these trends.”

READ MORE: Only 1 year of water left in California, NASA scientist suggests rationing

Professor Taylor told RT that scientists say we entering the Sixth extinction, but that this an anthropogenic extinction caused by human beings.

” If you don’t have control over something, there is no moral obligation,” said Taylor. ” In this case, we are doing it. So we have to ask the question: If we are doing something that is driving species off the planet, are we in some sense morally culpable?”

“What right do we have to drive [out] other species, who got here in precisely in the same way that we have, who have participated in the long struggle for existence just as we have?”

READ MORE: Fracking wastewater in California full of harmful, cancerous chemicals – report

Meanwhile, Professor Rockstrom is using his planetary boundary theory not as a doomsday message but as analysis to keep the planet “safe” for humanity. He said nations can cut their carbon emissions to almost nothing and pull the Earth back across the climate boundary.

“For the first time,” he said, ” we have a framework for growth, for eradicating poverty and hunger, and for improving health.”

Monsanto Weedkiller Is  ’ Probably Carcinogenic,’ WHO Says

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(Bloomberg) — Monsanto Co.’s best-selling weedkiller Roundup probably causes cancer, the World Health Organization said in a report that’s at odds with prior findings.

Roundup is the market name for the chemical glyphosate. A report published by the WHO in the journal Lancet Oncology said Friday there is “limited evidence” that the weedkiller can cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and lung cancer and “convincing evidence” it can cause cancer in lab animals. The report was posted on the website of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, the Lyon, France-based arm of the WHO.

Monsanto, which invented glyphosate in 1974, made its herbicide the world’s most popular with the mid-1990s introduction of crops such as corn and soybeans that are genetically engineered to survive it. The WHO didn’t examine any new data and its findings are inconsistent with assessments from the U.S., European Union and elsewhere, Monsanto said.

“We don’t know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe,” Philip Miller, Monsanto vice president for global regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

“The evidence in humans is from studies of exposures, mostly agricultural, in the USA, Canada, and Sweden published since 2001,” the WHO said in the report. “In addition, there is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.”

The WHO said exposure by the general population is “generally low.”

German Study

There is no link between glyphosate and an increase in cancer when relevant studies are included in scientific reviews, Miller said. Last year, a German government evaluation conducted for the European Union found “the available data do not show carcinogenic or mutagenic properties of glyphosate nor that glyphosate is toxic to fertility, reproduction or embryonal/fetal development in laboratory animals.”

Monsanto’s $15.9 billion of annual sales are closely tied to glyphosate. Most of the company’s crops are designed to be used in tandem with it.

The stock rose 0.3 percent to $115.75 at the close in New York.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Kaskey in Houston at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at [email protected] Robin Saponar, Carlos Caminada

Here’s Why Forests Should Matter to All of Us

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Today is International Day of Forests, a global celebration of the importance of trees in our everyday lives. You’re a techie who spends all day in front of your computer and you haven’t cracked a window recently? Forests still matter, a lot.

This year’s theme, “Forests and Climate Change,” is intended to raise awareness of the key role forests play in tempering Earth’s climate, and how forests can be a part of the solution to anthropogenic climate change in the future. Forests soak up carbon dioxide and release oxygen, keeping our atmosphere cool and breathable. They produce many of the raw materials we depend on, and harbor the lion’s share of Earth’s biodiversity. Also, they’re just generally awesome.

A few fun facts about Earth’s forests:

  • One in four people depend on a forest for their livelihood
  • Rainforests cover 2% of the Earth’s surface but are home to 50% of all plants and animals
  • Forests supply 75 % of our planet’s fresh water
  • Deforestation accounts for up to 20 % of human greenhouse gas emissions
  • A soccer field’s worth of forest is lost every second, or a region the size of Panama each year

He lives in a forest. Lip Kee / Flickr

Go on, crack a window, hug a tree today, or take a walk in the woods if you can. [ National Geographic via Inhabitat]

Top image: Moyan Brenn /Flickr

Battery Hackers Are Building the Future in the Garage

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Revolutions that start in the garage are nothing new. The one-car shed in which David Packard and William Hewlett launched the partnership that would grow into Hewlett-Packard Co. is known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley.

So Jason Hughes may be on to something.

In a cluttered four-car garage in suburban Deptford, New Jersey, Hughes spent the better part of last year hacking a 1,400-pound battery recovered from a wrecked Tesla Model S and reworking it into a stacked array that can store energy from his solar-power system. His battery tinkering resolves the issue of intermittency since his green power will be available whenever he needs it, night or day, rain or shine.

A day trader by profession, the 31-year-old doesn’t want to save the world. He just wants to get off the grid. He did his homework and concluded that off-the-shelf batteries just don’t yet have the heft he required to achieve that.

The mattress-sized Tesla battery did – it’s elephantine as lithium-ion batteries go – even if it cost him $20,000 and hundreds of hours of tinkering to make it work. “This is going to be my electric company,” he says.

In his battery obsession and ambition, Hughes turns out to be emblematic of something much grander. He is part of an unprecedented worldwide effort – equivalent to a kind of a tech-age version of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb – to amp up, transform and reinvent the humble battery into an element that could profoundly change the global energy paradigm.

Consider the crash effort at the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research in suburban Chicago. Within five years, researchers want to create one or more battery types that can “store at least five times more energy than today’s batteries at one-fifth the cost,” according to George Crabtree, an agreeable silver-haired scientist who runs the U.S. Department of Energy-backed battery-research skunkworks.

Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leading-edge technology companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors Inc. and scads of start-ups are getting into the act. Some are seeking to double the capacity and dramatically cut the costs of the lithium-ion battery, the standard in IPhones and electric vehicles. Others are working on mega-scale battery systems using novel chemistries that could cheaply store enough energy to help power entire cities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-bw-batteries/lithium-sulfur.html?v=1

Battery entrepreneurs have begun to even talk like revolutionaries. “The ability for a battery company to change the dynamics of the world is what has got us excited,” says Bill Watkins, chief executive officer of Imergy Power Systems Inc., a Fremont, California, startup working on utility-scale batteries. “We can actually make a big difference here. I call it democratizing energy.”

As the former CEO of Seagate Technology PLC, the Silicon Valley digital storage maker, Watkins can speak from experience about tectonic technology shifts. In 1980, a Seagate five-megabyte hard drive that rendered floppy disks obsolete was a $1,500 PC add-on. These days, drives holding two terabytes of data – equivalent to two million megabytes – can be had for a retail price of under $200.

What’s primarily driving the battery revolution is the phenomenal growth of rooftop and other forms of solar energy and an awakening by renewable energy advocates that storage is the lagging piece of the transformative puzzle. Solar now powers the equivalent of 3.5 million American homes and accounted for 34 percent of all newly installed electricity capacity last year. Wind supplies enough electricity for the equivalent of about 14.7 million U.S. homes, about the same as 52 coal-powered generating plants, according to the Wind Energy Foundation.

An exponential breakthrough in battery capacity and cost would bulldoze aside the limitations to adopting renewable energy on a massive scale, be a potent weapon to fight climate change by lowering carbon emissions and potentially bring billions of dollars in profits, never mind fame, to the winners. The knock on renewables is that while fossil fuels keep the power on all the time, solar fades when the sun doesn’t shine and wind power fizzles when the wind doesn’t blow – unless you have a way to store the excess for when you need it.

“What’s holding back solar and wind isn’t their availability but the fact that the technology to generate renewable energy has leapt far ahead of the capacity to store and deploy it round the clock as needed,” says Crabtree of the Joint Center project, which is run out of the federal Argonne National Laboratory.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-bw-batteries/liquid-metal.html?v=1

Prophesies of energy revolutions always come with caveats, of course, and some researchers note that an exponential breakthrough in battery storage and cost has been forecast for more than a decade and still hasn’t arrived. “Of all these other battery technologies people promote, how many of them are real?” says Jeff Dahn, a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who continues to plug away at making stronger and cheaper lithium-ion batteries. “All that remains to be seen.”

And while hackers like Hughes capture the excitement around battery potential, their very existence demonstrates that cheap home batteries haven’t yet arrived at Home Depot.

That said, Tesla’s Musk in February announced the company will soon unveil a consumer battery that can be used for homes and businesses. Tesla sees the endeavor as a “multi-billion dollar per year one,” according to a job description for the company’s stationary storage unit posted on Tesla’s website.

Recall, too, that naysayers kept telling Texan George Mitchell, the father of the hydraulic fracturing revolution, that it was impossible to economically squeeze oil and gas out of tight shale formations. Fracking has upended the energy world. Remember also that people seeing the first brief-case-sized cell phones scoffed that such a thing would ever be widely adopted. Now, pretty much every second grader in America has one.

Simply doing the math on the ambitions of the Joint Center project – making batteries with five times the capacity at a fifth of the present cost – lays out the stakes and prospects. Electric vehicles would travel more than 400 miles on a charge instead of an average of 84 as a Nissan Leaf does now – better than many gasoline-powered vehicles.

Cheaper batteries also mean you could drive an EV off the lot for the same price as a bargain-basement gasoline model, making them truly mainstream. And with the option of charging them with solar power, owners will be able to motor past the local Exxon station without ever stopping – or even having to pay their utilities a dime. Who needs the grid, or the oil companies, then?

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At the Geneva International Motor Show this month, no less than Aston Martin – the famed luxury British carmaker loved by James Bond – said it asked its engineers to produce what they considered “the future of luxury GT motoring.” What they introduced was an electric-powered DBX Concept car to be powered by lithium-sulfur cells, no gasoline necessary.

Similarly, as Hughes’s Tesla hack is already demonstrating, homes and businesses will be battery frontiers of their own. The rollout of inexpensive, powerful, compact battery arrays could fundamentally change consumers’ relationship with electric utilities. Homeowners and companies linking solar to batteries could self-generate round the clock and, if they choose to, do what Hughes wants to do – fire their power companies.

SolarCity Corp., the Musk-backed rooftop solar installer, has already started offering home rooftop solar systems paired with backup Tesla-made lithium-ion batteries. Solar-battery combinations are poised to become a big business, expected to grow into $1 billion a year in sales by 2018, according to GTM Research.

Forward-looking utilities could even get into the act, building vast battery arrays that would remove barriers to their harvesting of solar and wind energy, since that energy could be stored and deployed at any time. Economics aside, think of the political windfall of utilities going willingly green.

All this may be coming to a head sooner than most people realize. “Electricity markets will be turned upside down within the next 10-20 years, driven by solar and batteries,” says an August 2014 report from investment bank UBS. So might the auto industry and the oil companies.

In the case of Jason Hughes’s Tesla hack, it feels like one of those shape-shifting moments. The fossil-fuel grid has been a marvel but its time has come and technologically savvy people – rapidly becoming the majority of us – are seeking to connect to the new thing. “I’m not going to drill for oil and refine gasoline in my basement,” says Hughes, “but I can hook up solar panels and run my car.”

Hughes has a kindred spirit in Trond Arvid Rosvik, who lives almost 3,800 miles across the Atlantic from New Jersey in Oslo, Norway. They’ve never met, but Rosvik found Hughes through an Internet forum where Tesla owners swap experiences on everything from finding charging stations to do-it-yourself repairs.

That forum is where Hughes documented his tinkering in exhaustive detail, after Rosvik had finished a project of his own. Tesla employees declined to give Hughes advice on his project though they thought it was “pretty cool,” he says.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-bw-batteries/improved-lithium-ion.html?v=1

Electric car sales in Norway are brisk – representing 18 percent of all models sold in January – because the oil-rich country also has some of Europe’s highest fuel prices, the result of steep taxes. Among the biggest perks for electric vehicle owners is the right to zip along in empty bus lanes while fossil-fuel-powered cars sit in gridlock. Electric cars also avoid sales and registration taxes.

Teslas are also popular in Norway but Rosvik ended up with a power plant taken from a Nissan Leaf. It took him a weekend to hack the Leaf battery pack and connect it to a group of panels – allowing him to use solar power 24 hours a day in summer months.

He estimates the whole system, incorporating batteries scavenged from crashed and discarded Leafs, cost him less than 60,000 kronor ($7,732).

Rosvik, like Hughes, isn’t an engineer, even though he has technical training – he’s certified to repair televisions and electronics. He’s nonchalant about the challenges. “I wouldn’t say it’s sophisticated, really,” he says. “I have never worked with lithium batteries but with a little Google it wasn’t that difficult.” Tesla said it will have more information about its storage products in the next few months. Nissan didn’t want to discuss hackers tinkering with its Leaf batteries, but a spokesman said the company has looked into the potential of a second life for those batteries and, in fact, has a solar array tied to Leaf battery packs outside of its Nissan USA office in Franklin, Tennessee.

While it may not be hard, a lot of the hackers’ tinkering falls squarely into the “do not try this at home” category. As the 2013 battery overheating issues aboard Boeing 787 jetliners demonstrated, powerful lithium batteries can be unstable even in the hands of professionals. In worst-case scenarios, high temperatures can lead to a “thermal runaway,” a self-sustaining reaction that can cause violent explosions.

Back in the U.S., Hughes is undaunted. He and his fiancé, Ashley, recently moved to a 4,550-square-foot house in Hickory, North Carolina. He is in the process of installing 36 solar panels on the roof and another 66 in the backyard. With a second Tesla battery, he thinks he can move the house entirely off the grid, with enough juice on tap for a week of backup power even with very little sunlight.

In all, it’s a large-scale, grown-up version of home experiments Hughes conducted with his dad when in the fifth grade, connecting rudimentary solar panels to charge car batteries that would then power their coffee maker, microwave and Sega Genesis video game console.

While neighbors may find the setup odd, Hughes is convinced his thinking will spread as high-performance batteries get cheaper. “I don’t see how it can’t,” he says. “What I’m working on now for myself, 20 years from now is going to be pretty commonplace.”

Or as Crabtree from the Joint Center battery project describes the transformation under way, “Homeowners will begin to say, ‘hey, nothing is stopping me from putting a solar panel on the roof and a battery in the basement.’ And it will kind of get perfected and refined by doing, and it’ll be the citizen innovator that will make it happen.”

What Tesla is doing with new graphene batteries…

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In December 2014 Tesla announced the release of an upgrade dubbed the ‘Roadster 3.0′ which included an enhanced battery taking the power from 54kWh up to 70kW, consequently the range was also improved from 211 miles to a far more respectable 400 mile range.

Figures quoted in the image above and this blog post are our best guess calculations based on what we could find on Teslas website and other sites from accross the internet

Tesla was the first car company to use lithium-ion batteries in an electric vehicle and some have suggested that the recent Roadster 3.0 upgraded battery pack included graphene technology although Tesla remains tight lipped on the technology used. Elon Musk CEO did however mention that an upgraded battery for the Model S will be available in the future, just not anytime soon.

Graphene is an amazing new technology first created in Manchester University in 2004 with a Nobel prize being won by it’s creator in 2010.
It is said that a sheet of graphene is strong enough to hold the weight of an elephant standing on a pencil! But one of the best attributes that graphine-based batteries have over lithium-ion is that they can be charged within minutes. If the new battery pack upgrade for the Roadster 3.0 was enhanced with graphene it is said it would take just 8 mins to charge.

Unfortunately as yet Tesla have announced that the Model X which is due for release in 2016 shall not be coming with graphene batteries, because as they rightly say graphene remains untested in the real world.

However China is being a little optimistic and has this year begun producing graphene batteries for the mass market, including batteries for electric vehicles. China is currently the largest producer of graphene in the world and with rumours of battery-less electric vehicles powered by supercapacitors circulating around the electric vehicle community, China is well placed to produce some groundbreaking technology in the coming years.

Model S Stats with Graphene?

Based on the official figures released by Tesla on the Roadster 3.0 we calculated what a similar upgrade for the Model S could look like, the results were so astounding that we put them into an infographic for you to share and hopefully Tesla might just get create the upgrade a little sooner

The 85kWh model S with the same style battery upgrade could see range increase by 280 miles, from 310 miles to a whopping 590 mile range! This is very similar to what you would expect from a modern diesel car, but with 80% cheaper fuel costs i.e. approx. 2p per mile.

It is widely speculated that graphene enhanced batteries in electric vehicles could see charge times reduces to just 5-10 mins, although this theory remains unproven in the real world!

It is my personal belief that Tesla have not actually used any graphene in their battery upgrade in the Roadster 3.0 at all based on the distinct lack of any mention of the word graphene in any of their patents. So this could well mean that once we do see this new graphene technology used results could be even more overwhelming than the figures suggested in these infographics.

The End of Electric Vehicle Batteries

In as little as 5 years time we could be seeing electric vehicles being produced that do not even have batteries in them at all! A team of scientists have gotten together to produce a supercapacitor made with graphene that can quickly store the necessary energy to start and run as well as give massive amounts of power when needed for fast acceleration.
This collaboration between scientists at Rice University and Queensland University of Technology resulted in two papers, published in Journal of Power Sources and Nanotechnology.

What could this mean for F1 racing? If this type of supercapacitor technology was used in racing instead of fossil fuels it would present a massive advantage as it would eliminate the need to take a pit stop to refuel!

What are your thoughts on this new graphene technology? please share below we would love to get your opinion on this, thanks

About The Author

Ben Gillott

Freelance web developer with passion for helping out in tech start ups and pretty much any kind of cool web project! When not plugged into the web Ben enjoys rock climbing, snowboarding, skiing or just about any other adventurous outdoor activity.

Costa Rica powered with 100% renewable energy for 75 straight days

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Well done Costa Rica, well done.

The Cental American country has achieved a major clean energy milestone, meeting 100 percent of its power demand with renewable energy for 75 straight days.

“The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” the state-owned power supplier Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said in a press release.

The ICE says the country’s zero-emission milestone was enabled thanks to heavy rainfalls at four hydroelectric power facilities in the first quarter of 2015. These downpours have meant that, for the months of January, February and so far March, there has been no need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.

Instead, Costa Rica has been powered primarily by hydro power – both pumped storage and run-of-the-river plants – and a mixture of geothermal, wind, biomass and solar energy.

It’s important to remember that Costa Rica is a small nation. It has a total area of about 51,000 square kilometres, which is about half the size of the US state of Kentucky, and it has a population of only 4.8 million people. Furthermore, its primary industries are tourism and agriculture, rather than heavy, more energy-intensive industries such as mining or manufacturing.

Still, Costa Rica has done an excellent job developing it electricity sector, and supplying affordable, reliable power to its citizens.

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2014 Global Competitiveness Index, Costa Rica ranks second in Latin American countries behind only Uruguay with regards to electricty and telecommunications infrastructure.

Reporter Sophie Vorrath from RenewEconomy writes that the country is “providing a household coverage rate of 99.4 percent at some of the region’s lowest prices”.

Costa Rica’s record on renewable generation also stands out. As recently as last year, hydropower accounted for 80 percent of all electricity production, while geothermal energy was reported back in 2010 to account for upwards of 13 percent of the country’s electricity profile.

And new geothermal projects are in the pipeline to help the volcano-rich country capitalise further on this subterranean energy source.

In mid-2014, the Costa Rican government approved a US$958 million geothermal energy project. According to Jake Richardson from CleanTechnica, “the first plants are expected to generate about 55 MW and cost approximately $333 million to build”, and two other 50 MW plants will also be built nearby.

It’s good news that more geothermal will be coming on board, as there are obvious downsides of being too reliant on hydropower, especially run-of-the-river systems, which can be hindered by seasonal changes in water flow. Droughts can also severely impact power supplies. And there are also some environmental downsides to hydroelectric dams more generally, namely the impact on riparian ecosystems and passing fish.

Nevertheless, 100 percent renewable energy generation, for any extended period of time, is an enviable achievement.

Good on you, Costa Rica!

Sources: RenewEconomy, CleanTechnica

Elon Musk Says Self-Driving Tesla Cars Will Be in the U.S. by Summer

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For many drivers who commute long distances, the prospect of owning a self-driving car – where a driver takes his hands off the wheel and feet off the gas – has been an elusive dream.

But on Thursday, Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, took a big step in that direction when he announced that the maker of high-end electric cars would introduce autonomous technology by this summer. The technology would allow drivers to have their cars take control on what he called “major roads” like highways.

Mr. Musk said that a software update – not a repair performed by a mechanic – would give Tesla ‘s Model S sedans the ability to start driving themselves, at least part of the time, in a hands-free mode that the company refers to as autopilot.

But some industry experts said serious questions remain about whether such autonomous driving is actually legal and are skeptical that Model S owners who try to use autopilot would not run afoul of current regulations.

“There’s a reason other automakers haven’t gone there,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. “Best case scenario, it’s unclear. If you’re an individual that starts doing it, you’d better hope nothing goes wrong.”

Mr. Brauer said while a handful of states had passed laws legalizing autonomous vehicles, those laws were written to cover the testing of driverless cars, not their use by consumers.

“It’s not just a philosophical reason why automakers haven’t allowed their vehicles to drive themselves,” he said. “There’s a legal reason, too.”

Alexis Georgeson, a spokesman for Tesla, said that there was “nothing in our autopilot system that is in conflict with current regulations.”

Ms. Georgeson said the system was designed to be used by an alert driver. “We’re not getting rid of the pilot. This is about releasing the driver from tedious tasks so they can focus and provide better input,” she said.

There are cars on the road today from the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti and Honda that have the capability of driving themselves on the highway. But the automakers have taken steps to prevent actual autonomous driving in such cars, and instead require consumers to keep their hands on the wheel. A few seconds without touching the wheel, for example, and a warning is sounded; the cars then simply come to a stop.

What Mr. Musk said Tesla was planning for this summer, however, would be a revolutionary step, said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with Edmunds.com.

“Working through the legalities and the legislation continues to be an issue,” she said. “I’m not certain how Tesla would get around that.”

Tesla is not alone in pushing the envelope. Chris Urmson, director of self-driving cars at Google, raised eyebrows at a January event in Detroit when he said Google did not believe there was currently a “regulatory block” that would prohibit self-driving cars, provided the vehicles themselves met crash-test and other safety standards.

A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration responded at the time that “any autonomous vehicle would need to meet applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards.” and that the agency “will have the appropriate policies and regulations in place to ensure the safety of these types of vehicles.”

Other automakers are in fast pursuit of similar self-driving features. Cadillac, for instance, said last year that it would make a so-called supercruise feature, allowing hands-free highway driving, available in its 2017 model year cars.

But analysts say the industry is banking that new state or federal rules will be in place by that time.

“A couple of years is a couple of years; that’s a lot longer than two to three months,” Mr. Brauer said. “Maybe Musk is hoping that by the summer he can get one state like California to sign off – but even that may be a stretch.”

Mr. Musk said on Thursday that Tesla had been testing its autopilot on a route from San Francisco to Seattle, with company drivers letting the car navigate the West Coast largely unassisted.

After the software update this summer, the cars can also be summoned by the driver via smartphone and can park themselves in a garage or elsewhere, he said. That feature, though, will be allowed only on private property for now, he said.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the question of liability for autonomous cars would have to be worked out, possibly through court cases, as insurance companies, manufacturers and individuals fight over who is responsible.

“If it’s fully autonomous, who’s responsible if there’s a mistake? The driver or the company who made it?” Mr. Tobias said. “I don’t see how Tesla’s going to clear the hurdles. They may have to go to each state legislative body and convince them, and that takes time.”

Mr. Musk also announced on Thursday that a software update within the next two weeks would give Tesla owners a new set of active safety features, including automatic emergency braking and blind-spot and side-collision warnings – features that are now available on a broad range of cars.

Also to be added are tools to help drivers monitor the status of charging stations and plot routes to ensure the ability to complete a trip without running out of battery power.

“It’s basically impossible to run out, unless you do so intentionally,” Mr. Musk said.

The move is intended to help reduce so-called range anxiety, the fear drivers have that their battery will run out, prompting them to constantly calculate distances and worry about being stranded.

The Model S sedan already has a range that starts at just over 200 miles for the base model. Other automakers have plans to match those numbers in the coming years. Nissan, whose Leaf currently has a range under 100 miles, has announced intentions for a 250-mile-range electric car, and Volkswagen has said that it will build a car that can go 300 miles on a charge by 2020.

General Motors unveiled its effort at a 200-mile range electric car, the Bolt, this year at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and in February said it would begin building the car in late 2016, with a target price of about $30,000, after zero-emissions tax breaks.

LSE Students Stage Occupation In Protest At ‘Profit-Driven Education’

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Students at the London School of Economics have occupied a central administration room at the university in protest at what they call the marketisation of higher education.

The group of about 40 students used bicycle locks to barricade themselves in the Vera Anstey Suite of LSE on Tuesday night and have remained there since.

Organisers say the occupation they call the “Free University of London” aims to create an “open, creative and liberated space, where all are free to participate in the imagining of a new directly democratic, non-heirarchical and universally accessible education”.

They maintain the occupation is an attempt to change the “profit-driven and bureaucratic business model of higher education” that has locked students into debt and perverted the purpose of university.

A list of demands, released on Wednesday, called for LSE management to lobby the government to scrap tuition fees for all students, end zero-hour contracts for university staff, cut ties to organisations involved in wars and military occupations, and to ban police from entering the university campus.

“We demand an education that is liberating – which does not have a price tag. We want a university run by students, lecturers and workers,” the students wrote.

“When a university becomes a business the whole of student life is transformed. When a university is more concerned with its image, its marketability and the ‘added value’ of its degrees, the student is no longer a student – they become a commodity and education becomes a service. Institutional sexism and racism, as well as conditions of work for staff and lecturers, becomes a distraction for an institution geared to profit.”

The occupied space is being used as a hub for political discussion and debate, with workshops run throughout the day, including one entitled “Why is free education necessary in 2015?”.

One of the occupiers, Jade Jackman, said the group’s main aim was to start a dialogue with university management. She said: “We’ve opened up the door to lots of students who are coming in to talk about our demands. We want them to represent what all the students think. We just had an economics forum and a lot of people were talking about how they’re dissatisfied with the way economics is taught, because it means that we don’t see finance in a different way, we don’t compute it.

“We have one of our professors here at the moment, and we’re going to have a conversation with him, as well as with [political commentator] Owen Jones. The administration director called us this morning but we said that we didn’t any of the administrative staff in the room.”

A statement from LSE commended the students’ desire to achieve change. “On Tuesday evening a group of approximately 20 students occupied the Vera Anstey Room in the Old Building at LSE, highlighting a broad range of demands relating to higher education,” it read. “LSE was founded for the betterment of society and it is clear that this principle continues to be a guide for many of our students. Exchanges between the group and LSE security staff have been positive.”

The LSE occupation comes as students in the Netherlands this month called for similar changes to the country’s higher education system. Dutch students occupied the University of Amsterdam’s Bungehuis building in February, which resulted in the university board of directors initiating a lawsuit against the occupiers seeking a fine of €100,000 per student per day.

In 2011, LSE students carried out an occupation successfully calling for an end to the university’s relationship with Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, the son of the late Libyan dictator, amid charges of crimes against humanity. The previous year, students at University College London occupied a central area of the university in protest against government cuts and fees.

Are Insects the Next Climate-Friendly Superfood?

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Maybe you’ve see little cans of chocolate-covered ants or grasshoppers in the exotic food section of your grocery and thought to yourself, “Yuck-who eats that?” Insects may not come to mind when you think of superfoods. But they could be the next hot “alternative” protein. They’re low in fat and loaded with fiber.

You might be surprised to learn you may have been eating insects already. More than 30 companies are already using cricket flour in their products such as cookies and energy bars. And while eating insects is common in Latin America, southeast Asia and parts of Africa because they’re a cheaply available commodity, in the U.S. food items containing cricket flour, which is still expensive to produce, are being marketed as artisan products intended for adventurous foodies eager to try something before everyone else.

“Demand for food-grade insects is growing rapidly,” says the website for Tiny Farms, a Silicon Valley-based start-up “pioneering the industry production of insects.”

Currently, it admits, edible insects are a niche products with the cost of a pound of cricket flour ranging from $25-$45. But it says that’s due to lack of scale and it hopes to change that.

“Right now in February 2015,” said a recent post on the Tiny Farms blog “there are dozens of restaurants around the country experimenting with insects on their menus-from culinary hubs like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City to more conservatively palated Austin, Texas and Youngstown, Ohio. Food startups Exo, Chapul, Hopper Foods and Bitty Foods are ramping up production of their cricket flour energy bars and baked goods and growing their brick-and-mortar distribution networks in addition to serving up online sales. Exo’s bars are even slated to be included in a snack box served on JetBlue Airlines flights. Boston-based Six Foods is preparing to launch their cricket chips, and dozens more new companies are developing products, business plans and marketing strategies to serve edible insects to the Western masses.”

Youngstown, Ohio is mostly known for the death of its once-prosperous steel industry, which shrunk the city from 170,000 people to 65,000. But maybe it will become the edible insect capitol of the U.S. Big Cricket Farms, a project mentored by Tiny Farms, bills itself as “America’s first urban cricket farm.” Launched just last year, it says it’s “devoted exclusively to raising human-grade entomophagical products” and that its crickets are fed high-quality, organic, sustainable feed. Founder Kevin Bachhuber first got the idea when he found himself snacking on bugs during a trip to Thailand and “found them to be delicious.”

“So I raise bugs and I feed them to people,” said Bachhuber in a recent TEDxYoungstown talk. “I’m shocked at how popular this has proven to be.”

The farm raises European House Crickets, which it says “are considered to be tastiest, and are thus the most popular. They also offer a better nutritional profile than some of the other cricket species that humans typically consume.”

The Washington Post referred to crickets as a “gateway bug” in an article titled How crickets could hook America on eating insects. What could they lead to? “Keep an eye on meal worms, fly larvae, caterpillars, black soldier flies and wax worms,” says the Post.

England’s Edible Unique, which serves the high-end gourmet market with edible bugs, offers such delicacies as chocolate-dipped crickets, bug kabobs, “extra large ‘n’ crunchy” Thai scorpions, bamboo worm larvae, edible giant water bugs and a mixture of Weaver ant eggs and Chinese black ants advertised as particularly “high in protein.” They’re sold out of insect lollipops so a lot of kids must have gotten a special treats.

WaterBugs

With agriculture accounting for more than 8 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases, there’s a great environmental benefit in going to insects as a source of protein. They require 1/12 as much feed as cattle, 1/4 as much feed as sheep and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens for the same amount of protein as well as a fraction as much water per gram of protein as all of these. And 80 percent of a cricket is edible, compared to 40 percent of a cow. A 2013 report released by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Edible Insects: Future prospects for food and feed security, focused on using insects as viable solution for feeding the world’s growing population in a planet-friendly way as well as an engine for economic development.

“Insects as food and feed emerge as an especially relevant issue in the twenty-first century due to the rising cost of animal protein, food and feed insecurity, environmental pressures, population growth and increasing demand for protein among the middle classes,” it says. “Edible insects have always been a part of human diets, but in some societies there is a degree of distaste for their consumption. Although the majority of edible insects are gathered from forest habitats, innovation in mass-rearing systems has begun in many countries. Insects offer a significant opportunity to merge traditional knowledge and modern science in both developed and developing countries.”

So what kinds of insects are being consumed for the approximately 2 billion people worldwide who don’t live in societies with that “degree of distaste?” Beetles lead the list by a large margin, followed by caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, crickets, grasshoppers and locusts.

Even earthworms are edible, according to Mother Earth News, which gives instructions on how to get the dirt they consume out of their bodies and says, “After purging, their flavor can be a little bitter. Drying them mellows this flavor; incorporating them into various dishes helps as well. They can be added to stirfries, stews, anywhere your imagination wanders.”

One big debate remains: can or should vegetarians eat insects? Opinions vary.

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France decrees new rooftops must be covered in plants or solar panels

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Rooftops on new buildings built in commercial zones in France must either be partially covered in plants or solar panels, under a law approved on Thursday.

Green roofs have an isolating effect, helping reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building in winter and cool it in summer.

They also retain rainwater, thus helping reduce problems with runoff, while favouring biodiversity and giving birds a place to nest in the urban jungle, ecologists say.

The law approved by parliament was more limited in scope than initial calls by French environmental activists to make green roofs that cover the entire surface mandatory on all new buildings.

The Socialist government convinced activists to limit the scope of the law to commercial buildings.

The law was also made less onerous for businesses by requiring only part of the roof to be covered with plants, and giving them the choice of installing solar panels to generate electricity instead.

Green roofs are popular in Germany and Australia, and Canada’s city of Toronto adopted a by-law in 2009 mandating them in industrial and residential buildings.

How a community garden will steal your heart

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Let’s talk about food. Things are changing, and they have been for some time. Even back in the 70’s when the convenience of “engineered to withstand packaging and shipping” processed food took over, there was resistance to that beast. The resistance could have been due to poverty or simply for a love of growing their own food. Either way, the food movement is now, and it’s growing stronger each day. I attended a luncheon organized by the Virginia Green Building Council earlier this week, and was truly inspired by the stories, charisma, and passion Tanya Denckla Cobb expressed. She recounted her experiences, journeys, and stories surrounding this food movement across the U.S.Tanya is an Environmental Mediator at the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at the University of Virginia. She has been involved and researching this food movement since the late 80s. She is the author of, Reclaiming Our Food, which explores the movement in great detail.

Why?

As we eagerly listen and munch away on our sandwiches from Mona Lisa Pasta, Tanya encourages us to pipe up about why people are interested in this food movement and to think about what the motivating factors are surrounding the movement. Why do we shop at the farmer’s market or choose local foods? Why do we participate in community garden programs? She reiterates our responses: that there is a desire to regain a trust in our food and to re-establish a connection to our food. Of course, we also just want better tasting, less engineered processed food. We aren’t the only ones. Tanya wants to show us the motivation for urban farming and the food movement and the explore the impacts.

Healing lands and communities

She begins our journey in the heart of Philadelphia, PA. GreensGrow is a community garden that was started by two chefs who basically said, “We want a better tomato. We want a tomato with explosions of flavor. We need local tomatoes. We need a local farm.” Of course, having a farm in the middle of the city might sound impossible, but these two chefs and the community transformed an abandoned and contaminated lot into a beautiful productive flourishing urban farm. After an 18 inch concrete cap was poured on the site to remedy the contamination, they started with hydroponics and then moved to using raised beds. Now they offer educational tours, cooking demonstrations, and have greenhouses for year round production. What was once an eyesore and health hazard to the community is now a nationally recognized leader in urban farming.

I’m halfway through my caprese sandwich on focaccia, and we’re traveling to Boston, MA, which is also a mecca for urban farming. The South End and Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust consists of 16 community gardens and pocket parts. Upon visiting some of these gardens Tanya was impressed by how the people are “ingenious and creative in finding ways to use spaces in communities.” Some of the garden plots were using the space in all three dimensions to grow food. These gardens were started in the 1970’s and are an integral part of the community’s identity. They have been passed down from generation to generation. After the Boston School of Public health conducted soil testing in some of the gardens, they realized it was contaminated with creosote from the railroad ties that were generously provided to create structure for the plots. Upon proposing that the gardens be closed, the community vehemently protested, which has opened up a whole new field of research on ways to clean the soil and remove the contamination to save the gardens. Growing collards and sunflowers will remove some toxins from the soil over about a five year period. Ultimately, the ties were removed and a mixture of two parts healthy soil to one part contaminated soil was deemed acceptable.

Now we’re on the other coast in Portland, OR. A once termed “shut in neighborhood” where crime, drugs, and trash prevailed, and no sense of community existed makes a dramatic shift. A small garden was installed in the center of this public housing complex. Subsequently, the people in the apartments started interacting with each other regularly, crime rates went down, they started cleaning up, and they said no more drugs in our neighborhood. It transformed this neighborhood so much so that the public housing authority asked the organizers to set one up in all of their public housing complexes.

Another Portland, OR public housing community was the recipient of a Hope VI grant, which aims to revitalize the worst public housing projects into mixed-income developments. A community garden established in one of these developments really is the heart of the community. Without the garden there wouldn’t be much interaction between the different cultures or income brackets. The residents of the development formed the Seeds of Harmony Garden Committee to put serious thought into what they wanted to get out the garden and what they wanted to grow. Ultimately, they wanted it to be about sharing ideas, culture, and love.

The gardens do more than heal lands and communities. They also allow individuals and communities to flourish, and can be a center for professional and economic development. Janus Youth has been very instrumental in the development of several urban farming programs in low-income neighborhoods in the Portland, OR area, one of which is the Seeds of Harmony Garden. They aim to unite the various cultures in the community, encourage entrepreneurship, provide employment and job skills training, and facilitate youth development by providing leadership opportunities at Food Works, a three acre certified organic farm.

Now we journey a little farther up the West Coast. Seattle, WA has made strides toward allowing public lands to be used for private profit, something frowned upon in many areas of the U.S. The result has been very beneficial to those low income families that take advantage of the P-Patch Community Gardens. They can grow produce, which they can both sell at farmer’s markets and use to feed their families. The P-Patch gardens are much more though. They really are a place for all members of the Seattle community, and “are places to share love of gardening, cultivate friendships, strengthen neighborhoods, increase self-reliance, wildlife habitat, foster environmental awareness, relieve hunger, improve nutrition, and enjoy recreational and therapeutic opportunities.”

Hopping back to the East Coast, one of the most impressive stories of passion, entrepreneurship, and economic development is Nuestras Raices in Holyoke, MA. A community of migrated Puerto Rican farmers gazed upon a vacant lot below their apartment building. The area was the poorest in Massachusetts after the loss of many tobacco harvesting and paper mill jobs. The members of the community knew what to do, they knew how to grow food, so they were perplexed as to why they were not able to feed their families. Finally, they decided to do something about it. They occupied the abandoned lot and built a garden incorporating vibrant colors into the structures. They put so much work and detail into the gardens. When Tanya asked “what if the land owner comes back and wants to take over?” They said, “so what? We’ll go somewhere else. It’s better to light a candle than curse the dark.” Eventually, they further developed and opened a co-op, restaurant, and use the space to help other members of the community start small businesses. Finally, they realized they needed large plots of land so that they could train others how to farm. They acquired a 30 acre inner city farm where they focus on food systems, economic development, and agriculture.

Kids are the key

Above all, one of the primary motivating factors of this movement is health. Two-thirds of the population in developing nations is overweight or obese. Just as the push to recycle saw success when kids brought home school projects about recycling and “dragged the parents along,” so too will the food movement, and an emphasis on eating healthy, buying local, or growing your own. Community gardens are popping up at schools all across the U.S. It might start out as an after school garden club, which gets the parents involved and funds are raised to actually build the garden. Next, the kids have recipe contests or tastings to get familiar with the vegetables. Then the cafeteria serves the food from the gardens on the lunch menu. The kids’ garden is incorporated into all aspects of the curriculum to further emphasize its importance. Finally, the child starts to educate parents about the vegetables. Tanya found in one circumstance, the parent didn’t even know how to cook the vegetables after a kid actually chose brussel sprouts, when he could have anything he wanted in the store!

Small Act grows big results

On closing, Tanya expresses that she hopes she has demonstrated “how a seed can be planted that can transform and heal spaces, identities, our health, and our communities.” These gardens perfectly embody how a Small Act can blossom into something much greater with more meaning than just food on a dinner plate. The essence of this movement is about love and community. It’s about reclaiming our land, and reclaiming our food.

4 Aeta Tribal Women Return From India As Solar Engineers

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MANILA, Philippines-Six months flitted like a dream for four Aeta grandmothers who traveled 4,800 kilometers to undergo free training in India and are now officially solar engineers.

Wearing shades and cheerfully recalling their experience at Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India, the four were a far cry from the group of introverts who left in September last year.

The four-Evelyn Clemente, 49; Sharon Flores, 40; Cita Diaz, 40; and Magda Salvador, 42-flew home on Monday from India via a Cathay Pacific flight.

“Time went by so quickly it feels like a dream,” Flores told the Inquirer in Filipino, recalling the kindness of strangers that gave her and her companions the opportunity to literally light up their communities.

“We know only a little English. We know how to write only our names. But it was enough,” she smiled.

First trip

A solar engineer sets up systems, including photovoltaic (“photon,” or light, and “voltage”) panels, to capture the sun’s heat and light and convert these into electrical or thermal energy for practical use. This is known as “green engineering.”

The use of solar power effectively reduces the consumption of traditional fossil fuels, such as oil, natural gas and coal. A college degree is usually required to become a solar engineer.

Flores said she and her companions did not feel lost although it was their first trip ever far away from their home provinces of Zambales and Tarlac.

“People were kind wherever we went,” she said.

Language barrier

According to Salvador, the group learned solar electrification with 32 other classmates from 11 countries.

“We hardly understood each other, speaking different languages. But somehow, we all got along well,” Salvador said.

She said the drive to learn something useful for their communities was the one factor that everyone shared.

For her part, Clemente admitted that she and her companions found the lessons difficult at first but soon got the hang of it.

“They (teachers) used color-coding to teach us so it soon became easier for us to learn,” she said, pointing out that the method effectively broke the language barrier.

Rural needs

The four women have not had any formal education until their trip to Barefoot College with the help of the Indian government and the nongovernment organizations Diwata Women in Resource Development Inc., Land Rover Club-Philippines and the Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association.

Since 1989, Barefoot College has been focused on using solar energy to address needs in rural and remote villages worldwide.

Barefoot College, formerly the Social Works and Research Center, is an organization committed to helping the poor, neglected and marginalized sectors around the globe.

‘Change the world’

According to Indian Embassy First Secretary N. Ramakrishnan, the primary concept of Barefoot College is to “train a grandmother and change the world.”

He told the Inquirer that Barefoot College took in semiliterate, middle-aged women from far-flung areas around the world “to train them and then carry forward” what they learned.

Ramakrishnan said the Indian government sponsored the women’s education through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperative Program of the Ministry of External Affairs.

Diwata Women president and lawyer Patricia Bunye said two of the new solar engineers already had the capability to help light up 100 households using solar energy.

Clemente and Flores live in a resettlement area in Sitio (settlement) Gala, Aningway Sacatihan, Subic, Zambales, with some 130 families. Diaz and Salvador are residents of Bamban town in Tarlac.

Bunye said her group was reaching out to possible financiers to set up solar electrification in two communities. Each community would need $56,000, or P2.5 million, she said.

Lighting up lives

Ramakrishnan said the four women’s education in solar engineering was more than symbolic.

“In lighting up their lives, they would be lighting up their villages,” Ramakrishnan said.

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water-conservation-swirl-faucet-design-simin-qiu-4

This Water Faucet Saves Water By Creating Beautiful Spirals

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Simin Qiu, a student at London’s Royal College of Art, has invented a unique water faucet that uses the laws of physics to save water.

Qiu was inspired by the many sacred spirals that exist in nature, in plants, shells and many other examples of natural spiraling phenomena. Qiu also noticed that water spiraled in nature in many circumstances, especially when in a pipeline.

Researching further, Qiu found that water actually slows down while in a spiral or pipeline, so he set out to create a water faucet that would create a spiral, and hopefully save water.

This goal led Qiu to design a water facet called “Swirl”, which sends the water from the faucet in a pipeline, and allegedly saves up to 15% on water usage! Qiu then created three different designs which will each save money on your water bill, although every faucet has a unique pattern.

Qiu’s Swirl design won an iF Design concept award in 2014, and he hopes to be able to distribute the faucet on a mass scale in the near future.

John Vibes writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war. .

Throw Out Your Toothpaste – Coconut Oil Works Better Than Any Commercial Toothpaste

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Toothpaste is one of those things that everyone buys, but did you know that standard toothpaste produced commercially is loaded with nasty chemicals? They contain things like Sodium Laurel Sulfate, which exacerbates canker sores, and triclosan, which is similar to BPA in that it causes hormonal disruption.

Hell, just look at the stuff. Why on Earth would you need to put sparkly blue fluorescent paste in your mouth? Fortunately there is an alternative.

Coconut oil is a powerful plant extract that is capable of killing bacteria responsible for oral decay. Irish scientists found that coconut oil is able to kill steptococcus mutans, which is the bacteria that causes dental erosion. It’s also able to kill Candida albicans.

So how should coconut oil be used as a toothpaste? You can use straight coconut oil or try this recipe.

You will need:

  • 6 tablespoons of coconut oil
  • 6 tablespoons of baking soda
  • 25 drops of essential oil (if you prefer a flavor)
  • 1 tsp of stevia (only if you want it to be sweeter)

Instructions:

  1. Mix ingredients in a bowl and whip until it’s a light, creamy texture.
  2. Pour into a mason jar. Leave the lid on between uses.

There you go! Have you tried this recipe before? Let us know what you think.

Obama Signs Executive Order Cutting Federal Government Carbon Emissions

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CREDIT: Dennis Schroeder, NREL

On Thursday morning, President Obama signed a new executive order that requires the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2025 from 2008 levels. A fact sheet distributed by the White House noted that this could boost government renewable energy sources to 30 percent, and save taxpayers $18 billion in energy costs.

Calling this action a “triple win: a win for environment, a for the economy, and for the American taxpayer,” White House Senior Advisor Brian Deese told reporters that this executive order will “raise the bar” beyond previous actions the President has taken to confront climate change head-on.

One reason is that it’s not just federal agencies that will commit to cutting carbon pollution. Several major federal suppliers, such as Lockheed Martin, General Electric, and IBM announced new voluntary commitments to cut their own emissions as well. With suppliers and agencies jointly shrinking their carbon footprints, the White House estimates that greenhouse gas emissions will drop by 26 million metric tons – 5 million from the private sector, 21 million from the public sector. In total, this is the equivalent of taking 5.5 million cars off the road for a year.

A new scorecard will allow citizens to keep track of how individual suppliers are doing on greenhouse gas management.

CREDIT: whitehouse.gov

Deese said these were new, “very ambitious goals,” beyond what the companies would do normally. He noted that IBM, for example was committed to cutting energy-related greenhouse gas emissions 35 percent by the end of the decade against 2005 levels.

He said the administration was “very confident” that this progress would continue past the end of the President’s term because these goals make financial sense for the agencies that will be implementing them.

When Obama rolled out his Climate Action Plan in 2013, he noted that the federal agencies had already cut their emissions by 15 percent since 2009, and pledged to have the government powered by 20 percent renewable sources by 2020.

In 2009, the President signed an executive order that directed agencies to “increase energy efficiency” as well as “measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities.”

A year later, he set the goal more specifically: a 28 percent cut in direct greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and a 13 percent drop in indirect emissions. The White House estimated that doing this through a combination of energy efficiency, cutting petroleum usage, and boosting renewables would avoid between $8 and $11 billion in energy costs.

The Pentagon has been pursuing a smaller energy footprint for years, as it saves money and saves lives. Operationally, some of the worst threats are attacks on convoys bringing fuel to forward operating bases. If those bases can stop relying on a loud diesel generator in lieu of a quiet renewable power source, it can help protect lives. When domestic bases consume less energy through efficiency, EVs, and renewable power, there is more room in the budget for other priorities.

It’s starting to work. In Fiscal Year 2013, the Defense Department’s total energy use had fallen to its lowest level on record (records began in 1975). DoD’s energy consumption is massive even on a global scale, with nearly 300,000 buildings on 500 installations across the globe. The EIA, which reported the data, noted the drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan as one cause. It also highlighted lower government building energy use since the 2007 energy bill set initial goals – energy intensity had dropped 17 percent in FY 2013 compared to 2003.

Outdoor LED lights could save the U.S. more than $6 billion per year, by using 80 percent less energy than the incandescents they would replace.

The Department of Energy has conducted several gateway demonstration projects in museums to see if LED lights could handle environments that demand high-quality lighting. For the most part they did, with thousands of dollars in energy savings in one demonstration gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum alone, earning back the investment within 18 months.

One blind spot in federal carbon emissions, however, is taxpayer-owned oil, gas, and coal extracted from public lands. According to a new report from the Center for American Progress, emissions from federal lands and waters could have accounted for nearly a quarter of the country’s total energy-related emissions in 2012. The real number may never be known, however, because the Interior Department, which is in charge, does not have a comprehensive plan to measure and cut emissions from public lands energy extraction.

Canada’s Largest Food Retailer To Sell Ugly Produce At Low Prices To Cut Food Waste

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CREDIT: Niloo / Shutterstock.com

Shoppers in Canada will have to look beyond appearance if they want to help reduce food waste – and save some money along the way.

Loblaws, the country’s largest food retailer, launched a campaign last week to sell misshapen, “ugly” produce at a discounted rate in an effort to curb the country’s food waste problem (annually, Canadians waste some 40 percent of their food).

The campaign, called No Name Naturally Imperfect, offers aesthetically displeasing apples and potatoes at a discount of up to 30 cents in select Loblaws-owned stores in Ontario and Quebec. “We often focus too much on the look of produce rather than the taste,” said Ian Gordon, senior vice president, Loblaw Brands, Loblaw Companies Limited, in a press statement. “Once you peel or cut an apple you can’t tell it once had a blemish or was misshapen.”

CREDIT: Loblaws

According to the U.N. Environment Program, between 20 and 40 percent of produce is thrown away by farmers simply because it isn’t pretty enough for grocery store shelves. The produce being sold under Loblaws’ new campaign would have been used for juices or soups, or might not have been harvested at all, due to their appearance. Though the campaign is beginning with apples and potatoes, company officials hope that the program will serve as a springboard for the sale of other ugly fruits and vegetables in the future.

The move offers savings to both the consumer, who can access healthy produce at lower costs, and the Canadian government, which loses some $31 billion dollars annually on food waste. Globally, food waste costs nearly $400 billion annually, but according to a February report released by the U.K.-based Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP), countries could save between $120 and $300 each year by focusing on reducing food waste.

In developed nations, food waste happens most often at the retail and consumer level. Grocery stores often adhere to strict quality guidelines that place too much emphasis on appearance, leading to the disposal of produce that is nutritionally sound but not aesthetically pleasing. Each year, enough unspoiled food is thrown away in developed nations to feed the world’s 870 million hungry people.

CREDIT: Shutterstock

But food waste is more than an economic burden – it’s increasingly becoming an environmental burden as well. Most food waste ends up in landfills, where it decomposes and releases methane, a greenhouse gas nearly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In the U.S., where nearly 30 percent of food is wasted, organic waste is the second most prevalent element in landfills. Globally, food waste accounts for 7 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases, eclipsed only by the United States and China.

Loblaws isn’t the first retailer to decide that the industry’s insane standards of beauty are a detriment to their bottom line and the environment. In 2014, the E.U. launched the European Year Against Food Waste, prompting French supermarket Intermarché to sell disfigured fruits and vegetables for a lower price than their conformist counterparts. The campaign, titled ” Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables,” created a 24 percent uptick in store traffic, reaching 21 million customers in its first month alone.

As greenhouse gas emissions increase – driven by food waste and countless other factors – consumers might be forced to be less picky eaters anyway. A new report published by climate scientists at the University of Melbourne warns that the effects of climate change, including shifting rainfall patterns and climate-related diseases, will result in the production of less flavorful, lower-quality food. Apples, for instance, are sensitive to heat, and can be affected by as little as 10 minutes of extreme sunlight. If mealy, sunburned apples don’t sound like an appealing future food, maybe buying a small, knobby apple now isn’t such a bad alternative.

NOAA: Hottest Winter On Record Globally, 19th-Warmest Winter In U.S.

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If you live on the East Coast of the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just released some statistics that may surprise you:

    • Globally, this has been the hottest winter on record, topping the previous record (2007) by 0.05°F.
    • This was “the 19th warmest winter for the contiguous US.”
    • Globally it’s easily been the hottest start to any year (January-February), beating the previous records (2002, 2007) by 0.07°F.
    • This was the second warmest February globally, and “slightly below” the 20th-century average in the contiguous U.S.
        Note: For NOAA, winter is the “meteorological winter” (December 2014 to February 2015).

As the NOAA map above shows, other than the “cooler than average” northeast, this winter has been “warmer than average” and “much warmer than average” and “record warmest” over every other land area in the world.

In particular, many Western states saw their hottest winter on record – which is not a surprise if you live in drought-stricken California or its neighbors:

Now entering its fourth year, the drought in California is so bad that NASA senior water scientist Jay Famiglietti warned that “the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing.” Global warming-driven record heat has made this the worst California drought in 1200 years, as scientists explained in December.

The Earth keeps setting the record for the hottest 12 months in the surface temperature record, as we reported Saturday. NOAA’s global data show we’ve started this year at a record pace – and early indications are that March will be warm globally – so we are on track for what is likely to be the hottest calendar year on record.

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Tesla’s Ultra-Speed Hyperloop Transportation System Will Change Transportation As We Know It

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Elon Musk is at it again. Next year the construction of an innovative, ultra-speed transportation system called Hyperloop will commence in central California. It is the world’s first supersonic overland transport system, with the ability to reach speeds up to 800 mph.

Like most other Musk-inspired creations, the Hyperloop conceptseems like something straight out of the future.

” We feel now that we’re at a stage where questions are answered on a theoretical level so now we’re moving on to prototyping,” Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), told IBTimes UK.

To begin, the first 5-mile stretch Hyperloop system will begin construction in 2016 in a brand-new sustainable community called Quay Valley, located between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

” This five-mile stretch will allow us to completely test the technology, from the boarding process to the safety procedures – really everything except top speed,” Ahlborn said.

Musk’s vision sees the Hyperloop as a 400-mile long network of above-ground tubes with very low air pressure inside them, which allows bus-sized capsules to travel through those tubes at near supersonic speeds (approaching 800 mph).

When built, the full-scale version of the vacuum transportation network will take passengers and freight at speeds of up to 760mph. The system is being deemed as a 1000% improvement on today’s transport.

” We will move people and cargo at speeds never thought possible. We will make the world smaller, cleaner and more efficient,” states HTT on their official website.

Beyond the US, dozens of other countries have expressed an interest in Hyperloop, including China and the United Arab Emirates. For Ahlborn, these countries offer the most hope for full-scale systems being implemented because, “if they decide to build something like Hyperloop, they just build it.”

Almost 200 engineers from NASA, Yahoo!, and Airbus are involved in the project realization. There is also a group of 25 students from University of California (UCLA) working on different issues including cost estimation, route planning, and capsule design.

This proposed transportation system is extraordinary, with a glowing potential to change the way the world commutes as we know it. Someone in New York could simply hop on and be in Miami in under 2 hours, or Los Angeles in just over 3 hours. Not to mention how much more affordable this type of transportation will likely be compared to flying. We are so excited about this! Stay tuned for more updates on the Hyperloop as things progress.

What are your thoughts on this new transportation concept? Share with us in the comment section below!

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