Jan-Mar 2009 Environment Archives

April 2009 Environment Archives

Harnessing the Sun When It Doesn’t Shine

(Jeremy Miller, New York Times) Daniel G. Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks the key to our energy future may be found in the cells of plants. He is working on an "artificial photosynthesis" system that uses sunlight to generate hydrogen gas that, in turn, can be used to power a hydrogen cell.

Poo power to the people

(Helen Pidd, The Guardian) A German town will become the first in the world to be powered by animal waste when it launches a biogas network this year. Lünen, north of Dortmund, will use cow and horse manure as well as other organic material from local farms to provide cheap and sustainable electricity for its 90,000 residents.

States unleash goats to keep grass trimmed

(CNN) Forget lawn mowers. Maryland officials have found a natural way to combat brush while protecting a threatened species. Forty bearded goats have been dispatched by the State Highway Administration to control plant growth in the area. They have been munching in an enclosed area for a week; they will stay until September, but will be put back to work next spring.

Colleges turn students’ trash into cash for charity

(Bridget Huber, Christian Science Monitor) Each year at this time, college students move out of their dorms, leaving behind what Lisa Heller Boragine calls a "tsunami" of stuff. She stumbled onto the problem about 10 years ago, while studying at Syracuse University: It was just after move-out day, and she had jumped into a dumpster to search for for a lost ring. The ring never turned up, but what Ms. Boragine did find amazed her: VCRs, television sets, cases of ramen noodles, crutches, and even a cigar box filled with rare stamps, one of which was worth $400. And "that was just one dumpster," she says.

Professor Steven Chu: paint the world white to fight global warming

(Mark Henderson, Times Online) The Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by President Obama as US Energy Secretary wants to change the colour of roofs, roads and pavements so they reflect more of the Sun’s light and heat to combat global warming, he said today. Professor Steven Chu, speaking at the opening of the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, for which The Times is media partner, said this simple and “completely benign” approach to "geo-engineering" could have a vast impact at low cost. By lightening all paved surfaces and roofs to the colour of cement, it would be possible to reduce carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world’s cars off the roads for 11 years, he said.

Student Builds Tiny House With Big Sustainability

(Dan Duquette, Fox News) Think your apartment is small? Don't try to tell that to Elizabeth Turnbull. While studying for her master's in urban ecology and environmental design, the 24-year-old graduate student at Yale University is living in a truly tiny house. It measures just 8 1/2 feet wide by 18 1/2 feet long, for a cozy total of 144 square feet. The goal? Limiting her impact on the environment.

Here's the scoop on skimming trash from waterways

(Jim Kavanagh, CNN) It took a group of teenagers just a few weeks to solve a problem that's as old as the sea. The members of Sea Scout Ship 41 in Bay Village, Ohio, brainstormed and experimented until they had designed a lightweight, easy-to-use device to scoop floating trash out of waterways. The "Flotsam Scoop" won the scouts a trip to Miami, Florida, and a $30,000 grand prize in the Interlux Waterfront Challenge, a competition -- sponsored by Interlux, a maker of paints for yachts -- to develop projects to improve their local environment.

Animal droppings will power fair's midway

(Michael Cass, The Tennessean) The Ferris wheel at the Tennessee State Fair will be running on an, uh, alternative energy source this summer. The fair, which is trying to improve its reputation and draw bigger crowds, plans to use its 12,500 animals’ manure to power the midway this year. A mobile bio oil processor will convert all those cow patties, as well as hay, straw, bedding, corn stover and switchgrass, into 30,000 gallons of bio-diesel oil. The oil will be mixed with methanol to fuel the midway’s generators throughout the fair, which runs Sept. 11-20. "We’re turning poop into power," said Chrysty Fortner, the fair’s marketing director. The mobile bio oil processor will be the centerpiece of the fair’s environmental initiatives.

Power Plants: Artificial Trees That Harvest Sun and Wind to Generate Electricity

(Adam Hadhazy, Scientific American) While on a train ride to visit his sister in the Netherlands in 2002, where monstrous wind turbines now mar scenic views, Alex van der Beek got an idea: Instead of ruining the natural landscape with conventional technology, why not generate electricity from something that blends in—a fake tree? Van der Beek—whose previous professional experience was teaching alternative medicine—founded Solar Botanic, Ltd., in London last year on the concept. Solar Botanic's ambitious plan involves bringing together three different energy-generation technologies—photovoltaics (aka solar power, or electricity from visible sunlight), thermoelectrics (electricity from heat) and piezoelectrics (electricity from pressure)—all in the unassuming shape of a leaf on its stem.

Trash turns to treasure in artist's hands

(Wayne Thompson, New Zealand Herald) Street inorganic rubbish collections and second-hand shops are treasure troves of inspiration for artist Eve Armstrong, who uses found objects for making sculptures and collages. "I don't know what I'm looking for but I know it when I see it," said Armstrong, who is artist-in-residence at McCahon House in Titirangi. "At the moment I have ridiculous amounts of buckets," she said while preparing for a show of her work at McCahon House from May 31 to June 5. Sculptures which use recycled materials such as flattened cardboard, packing tape and rolls of discarded carpet have tweaked public interest at previous exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia and Germany.

Growing on trees: A profitable rainforest

(The Economist) A most unusual document landed on your correspondent’s desk recently: a financial report from a rainforest. Iwokrama, a 370,000-hectare rainforest in central Guyana, announced that it was in profit. It added, more intriguingly, that rainforests had entered the "global economy". Iwokrama is part of the largest expanse of undisturbed rainforest in the world, which overlies the Guiana Shield. It has a unique history. In 1989 the president of Guyana had the foresight to give the forest as a gift to the Commonwealth for research into global warming. Today it is administered by an international board of trustees, who have devolved the day-to-day management to the Iwokrama International Centre. It is this centre that has been working to exploit the forest sustainably.

Compact fluorescent bulbs gaining acceptance

(John Nolan, Dayton Daily News) After getting a bad rap initially, compact fluorescent light bulbs are gaining broader acceptance as an easy step to help homeowners, businesses and military bases improve energy efficiency and reduce power bills. The Air Force, acting on a recommendation of the federal government’s Energy Star program, has replaced more than 228,000 incandescent light bulbs with the compact fluorescents at bases nationwide during the past year. The Air Force said it expects to save $7.5 million by using the compact fluorescents.

Universities generate electricity in the gym

(AP) As she pedaled an elliptical exercise machine at the University of Oregon, Wen Lee's face lit up like the light bulbs she was powering. "I could run my television with this," the environmental studies graduate student said between breaths, making the three bulbs on the stand in front of her glow brighter as part of a demonstration of renewable people power. The University of Oregon — one of its school colors is, after all, green — is the latest in a growing number of college campuses and exercise clubs across the country where workouts produce watts.

Wool in the wall: a sweater for your home

(Nancy Humphrey Case, Christian Science Monitor) Insulation is typically one of the least ecofriendly materials that go into a house. Fiberglass is irritating to the skin, can be harmful to breathe, and uses large quantities of energy in its manufacture. Polystyrene foam, another common choice, has more than twice the embodied energy of fiberglass. But with increased demand for sustainable building practices, various types of natural insulation are appearing on the global housing scene. These include cotton, hemp, and sheep’s wool. A handful of companies turn sheep’s fleeces – washed, carded, and sprayed with borax to deter pests and mold – into precut batts that home-owners such as Kathleen Sauer of Northfield, Vt., say is "a real pleasure to install." According to GreenSpec, which identifies green building products in Britain, sheep’s wool insulation has a long list of eco-attributes: It’s recyclable, a renewable resource, nonhazardous to install, biodegradable in landfills, and its manufacture uses little energy. It’s also a good insulator.

Another Blow to Ethanol: Biolectricity Is Greener

(Brian Walsh, Time) Once touted as an environmental and economic cure-all, corn ethanol has had a rough year. The collapse in grain and oil prices, preceded by overinvestment in refineries over the past few years, badly hurt ethanol producers. Meanwhile, environmentalists have steadily chipped away at ethanol's green credentials. Far from being better for the planet than gasoline, many scientists now argue that ethanol actually has a sizable carbon footprint, because when farmers in the U.S. use their land to grow corn for fuel rather than food, farmers in the developing world end up cutting down more forests to pick up the slack.

Colour it green

(Peter Huck, New Zealand Herald) When Roz Savage dips her oars into the Pacific Ocean on May 24 and steers her 7m rowboat west from Honolulu on the second leg of her bid to be the first woman to row solo across the world's largest ocean, she will be hoping for more, much more, than laudatory press coverage and a place in the annals of derring-do. The 41-year-old is a member of a fast-growing breed - the eco-adventurer: explorers with an environmental purpose.

Elk Grove schools lead the way in green cleaning

(Diana Lambert, Sacramento Bee) Custodians in the Elk Grove Unified School District went green before it was trendy. The district started using healthier cleaners 10 years ago. "We were green before green was cool," said Linda T. Lopez, the district's manager of custodial services. These days district custodians use a hydrogen peroxide-based product to clean surfaces, and they strap on vacuum canisters outfitted with multiple high-efficiency particulate filters to suck up dirt and dust.

Life thrives at active underwater volcano

(LiveScience.com) An active underwater volcano near Guam has become a hotspot for a booming population of ocean critters, despite continuous eruptions at the site. The volcano is so active that it has recently built a new cone that reaches 131 feet high and extends to 984 feet wide, said scientists who started making observations there in 2004 and 2006. "That's as tall as a 12-story building and as wide as a full city block," said Bill Chadwick, a volcanologist at Oregon State University. "As the cone has grown, we've seen a significant increase in the population of animals that lives atop the volcano."

Google Gets Goats to Mow Lawn at Company Headquarters

(Frank Carnevale, Fox News) Last week, Google brought in a herd of goats to mow the grass on its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters rather than using lawnmowers. The company said that it wanted to take a more "low-carbon" approach with the goats reducing the company's contribution to air and noise pollution.

Plastic Cups Could Boost Auto Performance

(Phil McKenna, ABC News) The energy crisis has given rise to a new source of fuel – the Styrofoam cup. Mechanical engineers at Iowa State University in Ames have demonstrated how to boost the power output of biodiesel simply by adding waste plastic to the fuel. Song-Charng Kong, a co-author of the study, says the experiment – funded in part by the Department of Defense – was conducted to find a way to dispose of trash and generate power under battlefield conditions. "One can recycle any kind of plastic, but if you are camped in a remote area, recycling is not an option," Kong says. "Turning plastic into fuel is a way to get rid of garbage and generate electricity."

Boston slowly shedding its 'dirty water' image

(John M. Guilfoil, Boston Globe) With water once so filthy that solid waste regularly washed up on its shores, Boston is slowly shedding its "dirty water" image. In fact, public officials say the Boston area coastline - Nahant to Nantasket, Southie to Eastie - could have the cleanest urban beaches in the United States by 2011. Yesterday morning, one local nonprofit behind many of these efforts gave grant funding to community groups to help local residents enjoy the fruits of this labor.

NYPD get mean, green hybrid machines

(Wil Cruz, New York Daily News) NYPD Green? The Police Department rolled out 40 new alternative-fuel vehicles Thursday to be added to its 2,400-car fleet. The Nissan Altima hybrids will be deployed across the city - from congested midtown Manhattan to sprawling Staten Island. The new cars cost $25,391 each, about $1,500 more than the Chevrolet Impalas that are widely used throughout the department. Mayor Bloomberg pointed out that Altimas get more than double the gas mileage of the traditional squad cars. "There's every reason to believe that they will quickly more than cover the initial cost," said Bloomberg at a news conference at Police Headquarters.