Sustain Our Earth

Every industrial revolution is spurred by a shift in both energy and communication technology. Author and economist Jeremy Rifkin says we are on the precipice of a Third Industrial Revolution combining renewable energy and the internet. He joins Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss the possibility of hundreds of millions of people producing their own green energy in their homes and sharing it with each other in an "energy internet."

Via Szabolcs Kósa

What do you think of when you hear the phrase, “energy efficiency?”  Compact fluorescent (CFL) lighting?  Maybe Energy Star appliances or adding insulation to your attic.

What all of these things have in common is that they are all residential solutions, but despite their greater numbers residential customers use far less electricity than do commercial and industrial customers.  Certain industries (e.g. cement, steel, aluminum) use enormous amounts of power, but the efficiency conversation rarely touches on these users.

That’s unfortunate because industry is where the big potential savings are.  Consider that while all lighting (residential, commercial, industrial combined) accounts for around 5.5 percent of total electricity consumption, electric motors in industrial applications alone use nearly five times as much, fully 25 percent of all electricity consumption.

Via Hans De Keulenaer, Diedert Debusscher

Animated time-lapse video of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in map form, spanning the 18th century until this current first decade of the 21st centur...

 

This is not a complete data set, but the video still shows the striking connection between CO2 emissions and  the historical geography of industrialization.

Via Seth Dixon, Lauren Moss, Digital Sustainability