Archive for category Eco news
Bees Colonies Decline from Air, Chemical Pollution
This article is concerning as the humble bee is vital to agriculture.
The rise in the use of chemicals in agriculture, including ‘systemic insecticides’ and those used to coat seeds, is being found to be damaging or toxic to bees. Some can, in combination, be even more potent to pollinators, a phenomenon known as the ‘cocktail effect’
These are among the findings of a new report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which has brought together and analyzed the latest science on collapsing bee colonies.
The study, entitled Global Bee Colony Disorders and other Threats to Insect Pollinators, underlines that multiple factors are at work linked with the way humans are rapidly changing the conditions and the ground rules that support life on Earth. It shows humans’ large dependency on ecosystem services even for such vital sectors as food production.
It indicates that bees are early warning indicators of wider impacts on animal and plant life and that measures to boost pollinators could not only improve food security but the fate of many other economically and environmentally-important plants and animals.
To read full article go to : http://africasciencenews.org/asns/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2724&Itemid=2
Save energy at home
Posted by Victor M in Alternative energy, Eco news on March 17th, 2011
Just imagine if computer batteries were more efficient. Read this article and see what you think….
What if your laptop no longer needed a converter brick? What if the DC power from your solar panels was converted to AC electricity with virtually no power loss from the conversion? What if the regenerative brakes in electric drive vehicles could put power into the batteries with almost no loss from power conversion? New technology could reduce power conversion losses by an estimated 90 percent.
A company called Transphorm, whose investors include Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins and which was recipient of a significant ARPA-E grant to develop this technology, is poised to introduce their initial product offerings which can significantly improve power conversion. The technology is based on using gallium nitride instead of traditional components to greatly reduce the energy losses in power conversion.
The technology for these new devices is based on developments for the use of gallium nitride for LEDs. In addition to the significant improvement in efficiency, components made in this fashion would also be lighter than conventional converters.
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Posted by Victor M in Alternative energy, Eco news on March 15th, 2011
With the threat of rising fuel costs perhaps these scooters are the way of the future.
The Suzuki Burgman Fuel Cell Scooter, created in collaboration with Intelligent Energy, a UK-based fuel cell company, has become the world’s first fuel cell vehicle that is about to be approved for mass commercialization. The company also said that the scooter and its components will be produced and sold in Europe.
“Suzuki Motor is pleased to announce that the Suzuki Burgman Fuel Cell Scooter has become the world’s first fuel cell vehicle to earn Whole Vehicle Type Approval in the EU,” said Osamu Suzuki, chairman and CEO of Suzuki Motor.
The Suzuki Burgman scooter has been unveiled in Europe at a London City Hall event last month. It is equipped with the latest version of Intelligent Energy’s air-cooled hydrogen fuel cell system.
“Our aim is to make eco-friendly fuel cell scooters increasingly common in Europe, in line with the establishment of hydrogen filling stations and other necessary infrastructure,” he added.
A fuel cell-powered scooter looks promising, but how about the hydrogen infrastructure, indispensable for normal operation? Well, in countries like Italy or Germany you’ll be able, also soon, to charge your EV or hydrogen vehicle from roadside points, where the energy will come from solar panels.
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Posted by Victor M in Eco news, Environment on March 12th, 2011
This is an interesting and rather worrying article that I have just read – definitely food for thought…
The amount of water used to produce food and goods imported to developed countries is worsening water shortages in the developing world, a report says.
The report, focusing on the UK, says two-thirds of the water used to make UK imports is used outside its borders. The Engineering the Future alliance of professional engineering bodies says this is unsustainable, given population growth and climate change.
It says countries such as the UK must help poorer nations curb water use.
“We must take account of how our water footprint is impacting on the rest of the world,” said Professor Roger Falconer, director of the Hydro-Environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University and a member of the report’s steering committee. ”If we are to prevent the ‘perfect storm’, urgent action is necessary.” The term perfect storm was used last year by the UK government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, to describe future shortages of energy, food and water.
Forecasts suggest that when the world’s population soars beyond 8billion in 20 years time, the global demand for food and energy will jump by 50%, with the need for fresh water rising by 30%.
But developing countries are already using significant proportions of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West, the report says.
“The burgeoning demand from developed countries is putting severe pressure on areas that are already short of water,” said Professor Peter Guthrie, head of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Cambridge University, who chaired the steering group.
Embedded in a pint of beer, for example, is about 130 pints (74 litres) of water – the total amount needed to grow the ingredients and run all the processes that make the pint of beer.
A cup of coffee embeds about 140 litres (246 pints) of water, a cotton T-shirt about 2,000 litres, and a kilogram of steak 15,000 litres. Using this methodology, UK consumers see only about 3% of the water usage they are responsible for.
The average UK consumer uses about 150 litres per day, the size of a large bath.
Ten times as much is embedded in the British-made goods bought by the average UK consumer; but that represents only about one-third of the total water embedded in all the average consumer’s food and goods, with the remainder coming from imports.
The UK is not unique in this – the same pattern is seen in most developed countries.
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Posted by Victor M in Alternative energy, Eco news on March 6th, 2011
Finding new methods of processing wastewater is very important. Using a combination of wastewater and algae to produce biodiesel is even better, because it’s “doubly green”, as the algae neutralize water pathogens as they feed and eat out carbon dioxide to produce fuel.
The main advantage, the Rochester Institute of Technology researchers say, is that algae are easier to grow than corn and doesn’t consume precious resources such as freshwater or land to grow. On the contrary, those plants grow and do photosynthesis in the most harsh environments, where nobody really wants to grow anything else.
“Algae—as a renewable feedstock—grow a lot quicker than crops of corn or soybeans,” researcher Eric Lannan said in a statement. “We can start a new batch of algae about every seven days. It’s a more continuous source that could offset 50 percent of our total gas use for equipment that uses diesel.”
The scientists isolated and extracted the lipids from Scenedesmus, a single-celled alga which they grew in a treatment plant in Irondequoit, NY.
“Algae will take out all the ammonia [and] 88 percent of the nitrate and 99 percent of the phosphate from the wastewater — all those nutrients you worry about dumping into the receiving water,” Lodge said in a statement. “In three to five days, pathogens are gone. We’ve got data to show that the coliform counts are dramatically reduced below the level that’s allowed to go out into Lake Ontario.”
The first lab tests have been made using only 30 gallons of water. A tank that they used at Environmental Energy Technology used 100 gallons, and the plans are to use as much as 1,000 gallons to produce fats that Northern Biodiesel will process into fully-usable biodiesel.
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