Author: Staff (Page 29 of 30)

Chinese citizens are sick of pollution

September 2, 2009 / Staff

China’s growth has been impressive, but until now things like pollution and dissent have not been roadblocks to growth. The Chinese government has done as it pleased with little resistance.

Those days might be over, as BusinessWeek reports.

China has some of the most polluted cities in the world, a consequence of the country’s rapid economic development. More than 320 million people in China drink unsafe water, according to Greenpeace China. The country’s Environmental Protection Administration considers 45% of the rivers and waterways it monitors to be unsuitable for human contact, says Greenpeace.
Now, after years of silent suffering from the effects of filthy air and dirty water, many Chinese are saying they’ve had enough. And in some cases, their protests are turning violent.

This may be one of the issues that cracks the Chinese government’s grip on power. The situation in China is dire, and the people are awakening to the seriousness of the problem. This is good for China and the rest of the world.

As reported earlier, the Chinese are making huge investments in wind and solar, and this poses a threat to the US from a manufacturing point of view, but naturally these investments are a positive step for the entire world and the green economy. But this isn’t enough to address the pollution crisis in China. China needs to enact and enforce real regulations preventing companies from polluting the environment. They need to change the manufacturing culture. Until that happens, they will be facing ever-increasing protests and possible social unrest that can destabilize the regime.

Renewable Energy

BusinessWeek China dirty water in China drinking water filthy air in China Greenpeace pollution pollution in China water

Smart infrastructure

September 2, 2009 / Staff

Get ready for a new buzzword. I understood the idea of the “smart grid,” but take that a step further and you end up with smart infrastructure. The New York Times has the goods.

A similar pattern is emerging today, experts say, for what is being called smart infrastructure — more efficient and environmentally friendlier systems for managing, among other things, commuter traffic, food distribution, electric grids and waterways. This time, the crucial technological ingredients include low-cost sensors and clever software for analytics and visualization, as well as computing firepower.
Wireless sensors can now collect and transmit information from almost any object — for instance, roads, food crates, utility lines and water pipes. And the improved software helps interpret the huge flow of information, so raw data becomes useful knowledge to monitor and optimize transport and other complex systems. The efficiency payoff, experts say, should translate into big reductions in energy used, greenhouse gases emitted and natural resources consumed.

The implications are staggering. First, this sounds like a great business, and companies like IBM, Cisco and GE are all over this. I’m also guessing that storage companies like EMC have a bright future here as well.

More importantly, we’re entering a new era where waste and inefficiencies are no longer accepted. The culture has changed. Also, business has changed. In today’s world, the costs associated with waste cannot be ignored.

We have a down-payment on a new smart grid with the stimulus package passed earlier this year. Hopefully, the concept of smart infrastructure will influence the way the government spends money of all projects going forward. Now that we have an administration that believes in science, the prospects are much brighter.

Conservation, Sustainability

analytics Cisco efficiency eliminating waste environmentally friendlier systems GE IBM sensors smart grid smart infrastructure system optimization visualization

Creativity in the development of alternative fuels

August 19, 2009 / Staff

The New York Times has a cool new story about the development of algae for use as a biofuel. The article explains how a new start-up company co-founded by a Colorado State University professor recently introduced a strain of algae that loves carbon dioxide into a water tank next to a natural gas processing plant.

The story is interesting as it also focuses on the involvement of the Southern Utes Indian community as an investor in the project. But the most interesting element involves the interrelated efforts to develop alternative energy.

One of the keys to new projects is eliminating waste and taking advantage of heat and other byproducts of one energy-generating process and using these byproducts in another process built next to the first process. Here’s a summary of how this will work regarding this algae process.

Solix’s facility project is next to the natural gas processing plant for access to the carbon dioxide waste stream, which will be used to nourish the algae — a kind of biological recycling of carbon dioxide before its discharge into the atmosphere as the vegetable fuel is burned.
The plant also produces waste heat, which could be used to warm the algae beds in winter. In addition, the high desert plateau of southwest Colorado is one of the sunniest spots in the nation, providing solar radiation that accelerates algae growth.
Central to Solix’s business model, Dr. Willson said, is the hope that power plants and other factories now venting carbon dioxide will allow the company to build an algae farm next to their carbon dioxide vent pipes. A plant could sell the oil or biodiesel, and Solix would earn its return by being a part owner-operator, or by licensing the technology.

Conservation and efficiency are the new buzzwords in the renewable energy field (among many). Energy should never go to waste, and many projects that were once too difficult to make commercially viable can have a new life when one examines how to exploit byproducts from well-established processes. The possibilities are endless.

Conservation, Energy Independence, Global Warming, Renewable Energy, Sustainability

algae algae biofuel alternative fuels biofuels carbon dioxide waste carbon dioxide waste and algae natural gas Solix Solix algae using waste heat for energy vegetable fuel waste heat waste heat energy

China pushes wind and solar power while the United States dithers

July 2, 2009 / Staff

Conservatives love arguing that it’s pointless to battle global warming when countries like China are growing and adding pumping more carbon into the atmosphere. In one sense they have a point, but what if China invests heavily in renewable energy? Also, while doing so, what if they take the lead in green manufacturing and technology?

As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower.
Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates energy. Although coal remains the biggest source of energy and is almost certain to stay that way, the rise of renewable energy, especially wind power, is helping to slow China’s steep growth in emissions of global warming gases.
While the House of Representatives approved a requirement last week that American utilities generate more of their power from renewable sources of energy, and the Senate will consider similar proposals over the summer, China imposed such a requirement almost two years ago.
This year China is on track to pass the United States as the world’s largest market for wind turbines — after doubling wind power capacity in each of the last four years. State-owned power companies are competing to see which can build solar plants fastest, though these projects are much smaller than the wind projects. And other green energy projects, like burning farm waste to generate electricity, are sprouting up all over the country.
This oasis town deep in the Gobi Desert along the famed Silk Road and the surrounding wilderness of beige sand dunes and vast gravel wastelands has become a center of China’s drive to lead the world in wind and solar energy.
A series of projects is under construction on the nearly lifeless plateau to the southeast of Dunhuang, including one of six immense wind power projects now being built around China, each with the capacity of more than 16 large coal-fired power plants.
Each of the six projects “totally dwarfs anything else, anywhere else in the world,” said Steve Sawyer, the secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry group in Brussels.

In one sense, this is not a zero-sum game. We want China to make this progress, and it’s encouraging to see these investments in a country that until recently was becoming an environmental nightmare. Also, green technology will spread quickly around the world, and many green jobs involving installation and maintenance cannot be outsourced.

That said, it’s pathetic to see the Chinese move boldly in this area while we have one political party in the United States that resists investments in green energy for all sorts of reasons.

Energy Independence, Global Warming, Renewable Energy

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Can we get rid of plastic bags?

June 29, 2009 / Staff

They’re doing it in China, one of the most polluted countries in the world, so why can’t we do it here in the United States?

A strict Chinese limit on ultra-thin plastic bags significantly reduced bag-related pollution nationwide during the past year. The country avoided the use of 40 billion bags, according to government estimates.
Plastic bags are commonly found in waterways, on beaches, and in other “unofficial” dumping sites across China. Litter caused by the notorious bags has been referred to as “white pollution.”
The State Council, China’s parliament, responded in January 2008 by prohibiting shops, supermarkets, and sales outlets from providing free plastic bags that are less than 0.025 millimeters thick.
The State Administration of Industry and Commerce also threatened to fine shopkeepers and vendors as much as 10,000 yuan (US$1,465) if they were caught distributing free bags.
In its first review of the ban, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced earlier this month that supermarkets reduced plastic bag usage by 66 percent since the policy became effective last June. The limit in bag production saved China 1.6 million tons of petroleum, the NDRC estimated.
Prior to the ban, an estimated 3 billion plastic bags were used daily across China, creating more than 3 million tons of garbage each year. China consumed an estimated 5 million tons (37 million barrels) of crude oil annually to produce plastics for packaging.

The amount of garbage generated by these bags, which take roughly 100 years to decompose, is staggering. More and more jurisdictions around the world are banning or taxing the bags. It seems like a logical step, though I suspect the oil lobby might have something to say about it.