World Sustainability – August 2009
The Future Looks Bright
Short news reports on sustainable activity around the world
Tucson Green Times – August 2009
Drinking Sea Water
Concern over access to clean water is no longer just an issue for the developing world, as California faces its worst drought in recorded history with water deficits that can’t keep up with population growth. Researchers at UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science may have found a way to help alleviate the problem with their new mini-mobile-modular (M3) “smart” water desalination and filtration system. The system is compact enough to be transported anywhere in the back of a van, and can generate 6,000 gallons of drinking water per day from the sea, producing enough for 6,000 or more people.
The M3 demonstrated its effectiveness in a recent field study in the San Joaquin Valley in which it desalted agricultural drainage water that was nearly saturated with calcium sulfate salts, accomplishing this with just one reverse osmosis (RO) stage. In addition to its use as a pilot-scale testing unit, the M3 could also be deployed to various locations and used to produce fresh water in emergency situations. The team is working with water agencies and industries across the United States, as well as with the international community, and collaborates with research institutions such as Ben Gurion University in Israel, Victoria University in Australia and Tarragona University in Spain. -Adapted from materials provided by University of California – Los Angeles.
Wiping Out Clear-cutting
Paper products giant Kimberly-Clark Corp has joined forces with Greenpeace to, and will stop buying wood fiber unless it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Kimberly-Clark is among the world’s largest paper-products manufacturers, including such brands as Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle. The paper giant pledged to help conserve forests by getting all its wood fiber for tissue products from environmentally responsible sources, increasing the use of recycled fiber and certified fiber. Greenpeace, the environmental organization, has waged a nearly 5-year “Kleercut” campaign against Kimberly-Clark for clear-cutting in Canada’s boreal forest.
Forest conservation is considered a key component against climate change, because forests lock up over 20 percent of all human-generated carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that spurs global warming when it gets into the atmosphere.
16 Nations Ban Tuna Fishing
Colombia has joined Japan, America, Spain, France, and 11 other nations last month endorsing a landmark treaty to protect tuna along the entire Eastern Pacific Ocean. The agreement bans tuna fishing by all nations for approximately two months each year to help shore up the world’s tuna stocks. It anchors a series of measures introduced by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) to avoid the catastrophic collapse of valuable stocks of yellowfin, bigeye and skipjack tuna.
Studies carried out by the IATTC have shown a rapid deterioration of tuna populations with stocks seriously depleted. This agreement is a major step toward the creation of sustainable tuna fisheries in the pacific.
New Vaccine Could Save Bees
An Israeli company has developed a revolutionary new drug that could solve the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, the disturbing syndrome that has been wiping out bee communities and threatening agricultural production all over the world. The drug, Remembee, was developed by Beeologics and has completed successful clinical trials on millions of bees in North America. Not only has it proved effective in maintaining bee health, but it has improved the longevity of bees and increased honey in the hives. Based on Nobel prize-winning RNAI technology, Remembee helps the bees overcome IAVP virus, also discovered in Israel, which has been associated with colony collapse in scientific literature.
Human Waste Heats Up Homes
Well, this gives a whole new meaning to cooking with natural gas. Within two years, thousands of people in Great Britain will be preparing their dinner and heating their homes using methane gas extracted from human waste. The pilot biogas conversion plant will be built at Britain’s second biggest sewage works in Manchester and could generate enough power for 5,000 homes by 2011. Other plants are expected to follow, eventually producing sewage gas for hundreds of thousands of people. The energy company, United Utilities, says the biogas produced at Davyhulme waste water treatment works will be clean and environmentally friendly.
Methane is produced when microbes break down sewage sludge in a process known as anerobic digestion. Most sewage plants burn raw methane to generate electricity. The new British plant will clean up the gas by removing moisture, carbon dioxide and the traces of sulphides and other contaminants that give sewage its distinctive aroma. The pure methane produced by the plant will be clear and almost identical to the gas that comes from the North Sea. Odorless, the biogas will have to be given an artificial “gas” smell before it is piped into people’s homes mostly for cooking and heating.
Cape Cod gets Algae Biorefinery
To help meet the federal mandate of quadrupling biofuel use by 2020, a public-private consortium has announced plans to construct a new biorefinery facility on Cape Cod to produce renewable biofuels from algae. Plankton Power and the Regional Technology Development Corp (RTDC) of Cape Cod said their Cape Cod Algae Biorefinery will focus on pilot- and commercial-scale manufacturing of the 100 percent renewable fuel, which is cost-competitive with other biofuels made from petroleum, animal or vegetable-based materials.
The biodiesel from Plankton Power algae is a “drop-in” replacement for home heating oil and petroleum diesel and will be produced for commercial distribution. Beyond advancing energy independence, the initiative will also create local jobs in algae farming and downstream industries, and will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Beginning in autumn 2010, Plankton Power expects to initiate pilot-scale operations to generate up to one million gallons of biodiesel per year—enough fuel to supply Cape Cod’s current biodiesel usage. The company projects that commercial-scale operations on 100 acres could eventually yield 100 million gallons of biodiesel, which would meet five percent of the demand for diesel and home heating fuel in the state of Massachusetts.
Device Converts CO2 into Fuel
Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapor into natural gas at unprecedented rates. A Pennsylvania State University team developed the device, which offers a new way to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global climate.
Although other research groups have developed methods for converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds like methane, often using titanium-dioxide nanoparticles as catalysts, they have needed ultraviolet light to power the reactions.
The Penn State researchers’ breakthrough has been to develop a method that works with the wider range of visible frequencies within sunlight.
Get Paid To Reduce Your Emissions
There are plenty of reasons to try to reduce carbon emissions, ranging from savings on energy bills to good karma for simply doing the right thing. Working on the premise that there’s nothing quite so persuasive as cold, hard currency, a new website aims to add yet another financial incentive by awarding consumers credits for their reductions and then converting those credits into cash.
MyEex.com was launched in March as an information exchange aimed at lowering carbon footprints, and has since expanded into a worldwide personal carbon exchange. To participate, consumers begin by creating a profile on the free site and then use historical data on their utility bill to enter their household electric and heat usage for the past 12 months. Payments for cutting your emissions are made to you via PayPal. Consumers from anywhere in the world can use New York-based MyEex.Worl
