Cold from heat. It’s not a new idea; anyone over 50 years old or who has visited rural areas in some countries has seen refrigerators powered by kerosene. Kerosene lights the flame, and it moves the gases that cool the refrigerator. Spanish engineers have now developed something similar for air conditioning in cars.
However, in this case, it is more ecological, since no type of fuel is burned. Instead, the residual heat of the car’s motor is used.
Researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia participated in a European project named TOPMACS (Thermally OPerated Mobile Air Conditioning Systems), coordinated by the Italian CRF research center CRF.
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On October 26, 2009, legislators from sixteen of the world’s major economies agreed on key principles to enact climate change legislation in their own countries and advanced towards a global low carbon economy. This agreement is particularly important because it is hoped to set the tone for the United Nations climate conference on 7-18th December in Copenhagen, also known as the COP15 (15th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change).
The principles, set out by Chinese Congressman Wang Guangtao and US Congressman Edward Markey, were agreed during GLOBE International’s Copenhagen Legislator’s Forum. The US and Chinese Congressmen will be joined by Lord Michael Jay of the UK Parliament in coordinating the adoption of these principles through the legislatures of the world’s major economies. The principles cover the issues of energy standards, forestry preservation and renewable energy and could see 70% of the emissions cuts needed by 2020 to limit the average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. Such coordinated action would result in cost savings and increased competitiveness and drive the move towards a global low carbon economy.
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All of the houses there were and are built with low energy consumption standards and they use renewable energy in the form of solar power as much as possible for electricity and heating.
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The US government is the largest energy consumer in the US economy. Being so, its decisions can influence the economy greatly. What would happen if the government decided to consume only renewable energy? This sector would be given a strong momentum. The energy sector as a whole would partly be driven towards renewable energies.
The Government is investigating and starting to foster this possibility. To start with, it has launched the GreenGov Challenge, on October 19th. Its aim is to involve all 1.8 million civilian workers and members of the military in suggesting ideas of how the government could become greener.
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A British company has developed a kind of cement that can absorb carbon dioxide. This is a very interesting development for the sustainable architecture movement, since carbon dioxide is the main gas that causes the greenhouse effect on our planet, which is responsible for both global warming and climate change.
Novacem is a small company owned by Imperial College London, and its goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of the cement industry, which currently has one of the highest levels of pollution. Conventional cement is responsible for 5% of worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide, more than airlines.
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The other day here at Sustentator, we were talking about how bad it is to waste energy, not just because we have to pay for it and it wastes money, and not because energy is scarce, but because most of the electricity that we consume comes from sources that cause pollution. So we’ll look at a couple of suggestions on how to reduce consumption, but not at home where we all usually take care, but in the office where no one watches it.
And yes, let’s be honest, since we ourselves don’t have to pay for it, at work we don’t usually pay attention to whether the light stays on all day or the printer is on all day, etc. According to an English study, offices usually waste millions of dollars in unnecessary energy expenditures and emit hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide, the substance principally responsible for global warming. This is not caused directly, but by the consumption of electricity that causes pollution.
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Solar thermal collectors can be mounted on the roof of a building or in another place that is exposed to the sun.
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Solar energy provides “power security,” which allows it to continue obtaining power even when public utilities are interrupted.
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The 13th World Forestry Congress has taken place this past week in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This Congress is organized every six years, in different cities of the world, and is attended by around 6000 people from more than 160 countries.
The topics addressed in the WFC 2009 included forests and climate change, forests and bioenergy, deforestation, the different uses given to forests, and their present situation and future prospects, among other subjects. Speakers included Environment Ministers from several countries, representatives from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), the World Bank, the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), scientists, and many others.
It’s been the first time a WFC was carbon neutral: its carbon footprint, –meaning its greenhouse gas emissions– will be measured and offset.
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The internet is undeniably one of the greatest inventions of recent times. For many of us, it would be very difficult to imagine everyday life without this tool, and it would be unthinkable for those of us who have been educated by it for the past 20 years. When our internet connection is down and we cannot search Google to find a certain piece of information, or read the newspaper online, we feel cut off from the world. Leaving aside this minor exaggeration, the question that we are asking ourselves here is if the internet is a tool that has sustainable or "green" characteristics. In this article, we will limit ourselves to the study of the carbon footprint or the ecological "dark side" of the internet, and we will discuss its benefits in a future entry.
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Aviation is a concept very intimately tied to our current economy, and it is based exclusively on the consumption of oil. We would still be far from being able to manufacture or operate our Boeings and Airbuses if we were suddenly left without a drop of oil.
Some pessimists claim that soon flying in planes will be an exclusive, elite activity because the cost of extracting oil is becoming greater, as deeper reserves are more difficult to obtain.
The project we are presenting today sounds like science fiction: a plane that will fly around the world in 36 hours fueled exclusively by solar power. Solar Impulse is a device that provides unequaled aerodynamic quality.
The challenge. In a world depending on fossil energies, the Solar Impulse project is a paradox, almost a provocation: it aims to have an airplane take off and fly autonomously, day and night, propelled uniquely by solar energy, right round the world without fuel or pollution.
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What is the perfect solar panel? Plant leaves. Yes, plant leaves transform sunlight into vital energy. Many scientists have tried to imitate the photosynthesis process done by plants. Some have come close in one way or another, but so far this achievement has escaped them. Now an international team of researchers has achieved a big step towards creating the perfect artificial leaf.
In order to convert sunlight into energy, they have modified chlorophyll from a type of algae so that it is similar to the light antennae of bacteria, which are very efficient.
The long-term goal of Swapna Ganapathy, who did this study as a doctoral thesis at the University of Leiden, Holland, is to create what are called nanoforests, which are pigment molecules that collect solar radiation and change it into fuel and other forms of clean energy.
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The former vice president of the US, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, p
resented a Conference on Climate Change, last week, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It’s been years since Gore has been struggling to spread awareness about the challenge we all face today, global warming. Among other things, Gore filmed a documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, which won two Academy Awards. He also created a PowerPoint presentation, that he has been showing for three years in several countries. Furthermore, his organization, called Climate Project, trains volunteers to enable them to present this talk.
He threads facts, and he calls for individual action in an extraordinary manner. Gore is deeply knowledgeable in environmental phenomena, and has a realistic and global vision of things. Also, coming from a former vice president of the US, and Nobel Prize winner, his suggested solutions deserve our respect.
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