Digital Sustainability

Cinco litros da água do mar são suficientes para abastecer uma casa de tamanho médio e um carro elétrico por dia. A afirmação parece inimaginável, não é mesmo? Mas cientistas da Universidade de Wollongong, na Austrália, desenvolveram uma nova maneira de transformar água do mar em hidrogênio, uma fonte de combustível sustentável, limpa e ilimitada.

A equipe de pesquisa do Centro de Ciências de Materiais Elétricos desenvolveu um catalisador que, com ajuda da luz, ativa a oxidação da água, o primeiro passo para a separação da água do mar para produzir hidrogênio combustível.

Uma das principais limitações das tecnologias atuais é que o processo de oxidação demanda mais energia de entrada do que realmente produz de combustível. A utilização de água do mar abundante tem ainda outro inconveniente como subproduto: o gás cloro venenoso.

A meta é produzir uma quantidade maior possível de hidrogênio com um consumo menor de eletricidade.

Mas a equipe liderada pelos professorres Ju Chen e Gerry Swiegers produziu uma clorofila artificial em um filme plástico condutor que atua como um catalisador para iniciar a separação da água. A meta é produzir uma quantidade maior possível de hidrogênio com um consumo menor de eletricidade.

Descobertas e tecnologias

O polímero flexível permitiria uma ampla gama de aplicações. "O sistema que criamos, incluindo os materiais, nos dá a oportunidade de projetar vários dispositivos e aplicações que utilizam a água do mar como fonte de produção de energia", explicou o professor Ju Chen à revista Chemical Science. "A natureza flexível do material também proporciona a possibilidade de construir dispositivos portáteis produtores de hidrogênio."

Gordon Wallace, outro pesquisador concordou com o colega: "No mundo de hoje a descoberta de materiais de alto desempenho não é suficiente. Isso deve ser conjugada com a fabricação inovadora para fornecer dispositivos de alto desempenho prático e este trabalho é um excelente exemplo disso".

 

This could be a Solar Impulse trip to watch closely. Challenging weather conditions are forcing the sun-powered airplane, making a historic trip across the U.S., to shift its plans in a big way for the St. Louis to Washington, D.C., leg scheduled for Friday.

The first three legs of the trip – from Silicon Valley to Phoenix, then to Dallas, then to St. Louis – were each accomplished in one very long nonstop day of flying by one of the two pilots, Bertrand Piccard or André Borschberg, and that was the plan for the the trip to the nation’s capital. But instead, the plane will make an overnight stop in Cincinnati for a change in pilots.

 

“The flight will be split in two because strong cross and head winds would slow the aircraft and make it impossible for the pilot to reach the nation’s capital in one go in less than 24 hours, which is the limit set for the pilot in the cramped single-seater cockpit,” the team said in a statement.

So if all goes as now planned, Borschberg will guide Solar Impulse from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in the early morning hours Friday to Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport, where he is expected to land at about 9 p.m. local time. Then, after an overnight stop, Bertrand Piccard will pilot the second half of the leg. He’s expected to fly through the day Saturday and land at Dulles International Airport after midnight, on Sunday.

“Among the challenges (the pilots) will encounter are strong cross winds that will make the aircraft drift sideways for much of the flight, heavy air traffic and crossing the Appalachian mountains, with peaks of up to 6562 ft. (2000 m),” the team said.

Progress can be watched in real time on the Solar Impulse website.

Facebook has shared news that its latest and potentially greenest data centre went live this week, boasting renewable energy supplies and an impressive energy efficiency rating.

Located on the edge of the Arctic Circle, in Luleå, Sweden the new data centre is powered by locally generated hydro-electric energy and uses natural free cooling from the outside air rather than energy intensive air conditioning units.

Facebook said the hydropower plants were reliable enough to allow it to remove most of its backup capacity for the site.

In addition, the devices inside the data centre are based on so-called “vanity-free” hardware designs - they focus more on efficiency than aesthetic value, meaning they can cut out waste by eliminating the need for unnecessary pieces of metal and plastic.

“All this adds-up to a pretty impressive power usage efficiency (PUE) number,” said Facebook on its website. “In early tests, Facebook’s Luleå data centre is averaging a PUE in the region of 1.07. As with our other data centres, we will soon be adding a real-time PUE monitor so everyone can see how we are performing on a minute-by-minute basis.”

PUE stands for Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), a widely used industry metric that details the amount of energy used to power IT equipment in a data centre, as opposed to provide cooling and other support functions.

The news was welcomed by Greenpeace, as a sign Facebook is committed to curbing the impact of its businesses, and ‘unfriending coal’.

“Facebook, Google, and other major Internet cloud companies like Apple, Salesforce, and Rackspace are fast moving and fast growing, but they have heard from their customers that renewable energy is important to them, and have committed to grow in that direction, ” said Greenpeace senior IT analyst Gary Cook.

“These companies are building their data centres with clean energy in mind, which sends a clear signal to utilities and government officials that renewable energy is not only possible, but also smart business in the 21st century economy.”

Scientists have found that warm ocean water is melting the ice shelves of Antarctica, and this could result in the rise of global sea levels. The expanses of Antarctic ice become smaller when iceberg chunks break off floating ice shelves that undergo fast melting. The ice shelves melt from below and are invisible from above.

When the ice shelves shed weight, it results in speeding up of the flow of land glaciers that feed them, moving the ice from continent to the ocean. This, in turn, results in global sea level rise. So it is important to be aware of what is the root cause of ice-shelf melt.

One of the studies released on June 13 in the journal Science, reveals that, on an average, ice shelves of Antarctica are thinning by about 1.6 feet or 50 cm per year.

Some shelves are melting so quickly, as much as 328 feet (100 meters) annually, as viewed by Eric Rignot, a study co-author and researcher at the University of California, Irvine. He adds these variations are faster and larger than the people’s anticipation.

Rignot further says that melting is not primarily due to global warming of ocean, but rather by a change in ocean circulation which brings warmer water from offshore.

He also pointed out that, stronger “zonal” winds that breeze in the clockwise direction around Antarctica have pushed the cold surface waters away from the continent, thereby bringing in warmer water which melts the ice shelves.

Wood is one of architecture’s more magnanimous materials which allows architects to develop structures which are complex and yet retain the features of minimal designs and is a versatile enough material that it can be used to demonstrate traditional craftsmanship while presenting a modern, corporate image and a whole host of sustainable benefits which will be covered below.

BIP Computers

Location: Santiago, Chile, Architect: Alberto Mozo

Krogmann Headquarters

Location: Lohne-Kroge, Germany Architects: Despang Architekten

Casa Kike

Location: Cahuita, Costa Rica Architects: Gianni Botsford

Carabanchel Housing

Location: Madrid, Spain Architects: Foreign Office Architects

Surfhouse

Location: Manhattan Beach, California, USA Architects: XTEN Architecture

A um baixo custo, esta inovação reduz a poluição e gera economias significativas no consumo de água em processos industriais.A tecnologia dá viabilidade nichos industriais econômicas até agora presos.A inovação foi patenteada por Green programa Fast Track dos Estados Unidos, que permite um processamento rápido de grandes inovações de impacto ecológico.De todos os pedidos de patente dos EUA 1500 apenas 1 foi adotado por este programa.

 

Cristal Lagoas Corp obteve uma nova patente em os EUA para um dos seus sistemas industriais, o que aumenta a patente obtida em fevereiro passado em processo de resfriamento industrial. Desta forma, eles são duas inovações chilenos da empresa, um pioneiro, patente receber tratamento preferencial, nos Estados Unidos, por sua grande impacto ecológico.

A nova patente é um sistema sustentável para "tratar água de processo industrial de baixo custo." Patenteamento em tempo recorde foi protegido pelo United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), por meio do programa fast track para as tecnologias verdes, que disse departamento implementado entre 2009 e 2012, durante o qual cada um recebeu 1.500 pedidos de patentes em os EUA apenas 1 foi aprovado para este programa. Cristal Lagoas correu em agosto de 2011 para este programa seletiva examina apenas as tecnologias que constituem uma verdadeira contribuição para o meio ambiente mundial, como a redução de gases de efeito estufa, a qualidade ambiental, conservação de energia e desenvolvimento de recursos de energia renovável. "Estes novos patente reconhece a nossa contribuição ambiental.Há muito poucos que aceitaram este programa. De fato, em 1500 pedidos recebidos de patentes dos EUA apenas 1 foi adotado por este programa. Com isso, total de duas patentes industriais no país, o que aumenta o patenteamento de nossa brechas uso recreativo, consolidando Cristal Lagoas inovação em os EUA ", disse Kevin P. Morgan, CEO do Crystal Lagoas. Após a aprovação dos EUA, programas de inovação é automaticamente patente expedida Patenteamento o Gabinete da UE, que inclui os 30 países que compõem a comunidade, assim como a Rússia, Israel, China, Japão, Singapura, Taiwan, Coreia do Sul, Austrália, Canadá, México e Colômbia.

Garrafa plástica, água e cloro: materiais simples têm garantido uma rotina com mais luz para famílias carentes de todo o mundo. A economia na conta de energia pode chegar a 40%.

As lâmpadas de garrafa pet nasceram no Brasil, criadas na oficina do mecânico Alfredo Moser, que buscava uma saída para o apagão que ameaçava o país em 2001. Desde então, a técnica simples tem iluminado a vida de muita gente mundo afora.

A ideia chegou às Filipinas pelo trabalho da Fundação My Shelter, que desenvolve o projeto Liter of Light – litro de luz, em português. Milhares de famílias têm mais iluminação para as tarefas diárias, e com o dinheiro que economizam todos os meses em energia, podem comprar mais comida e viver melhor.

Em entrevista ao Futurando, o presidente da fundação, Illac Diaz (à direita na foto), falou sobre a ponte entre o Brasil e as Filipinas e como uma ideia se transformou em benefício para tanta gente.

DW Brasil: Como a fundação começou a usar as garrafas de plástico para iluminar ambientes em comunidades carentes nas Filipinas?

Illac Diaz: Nós tivemos um grande problema aqui, com uma grande tempestade que destruiu muitas salas de aula. De fato, 2,5 mil salas de aula foram destruídas. O que a fundação tentou fazer foi descobrir como poderia ajudar o governo local a reconstruir essas salas de aula. Começamos a experimentar com o que havia disponível. [O desafio era] como construir tanto com um orçamento tão restrito. Então começamos a usar garrafas plásticas, as enchemos de água e fizemos paredes temporárias. Com isso conseguíamos bloquear o vento, ao mesmo tempo em que servia como um reparo temporário. Com o nascer do sol, percebemos que a luz entrava e ficamos bastante inspirados com isso. E foi dessa maneira que começamos a usar garrafas plásticas na horizontal.

O senhor já ouviu falar em Alfredo Moser, o mecânico brasileiro que criou essas lâmpadas de garrafa pet?

Na época em que estávamos experimentando usar as garrafas como parte da parede dessas salas de aula, um de nossos pesquisadores encontrou um website que mostrava que o senhor Alfredo Moser já estava usando garrafas como forma de luz no Brasil. Nós usamos essa tecnologia como ponto de partida aqui. Em nosso site, em todo o nosso material, creditamos a ideia a Alfredo Moser. Descobrimos que ele já tinha feito isso em 2001.

Como se deu essa ponte entre o Brasil e as Filipinas, fazendo com que a ideia simples que Alfredo Moser teve na garagem de casa ganhasse o mundo?

Houve uma revolução desde que o senhor Alfredo Moser pendurou a primeira garrafa plástica no telhado. Naquela época, o trabalho das ONGs era ir de vilarejo em vilarejo para instalar essas lâmpadas solares. Com a internet, o modelo é completamente diferente. Nós ensinamos como construir e instalar as lâmpadas na internet e divulgamos isso ao redor do mundo. E a ideia não veio apenas do Brasil para as Filipinas, já se espalhou por 50 países. Estamos falando em 350 mil casas iluminadas em apenas um ano. A forma como a informação se espalha graças às novas tecnologias tem permitido um grande impacto na humanidade, especialmente entre as pessoas que mais precisam.

Manchester Metropolitan University has been confirmed as the UK’s greenest university, after topping the 2013 People and Planet Green League – the UK’s most comprehensive ranking of UK educational institutions.

Manchester Met jumped 9 places on last years ranking, after seeing continued improvement year-on-year since it failed the organisation’s first green league in 2007.

Plymouth came out second, for the second year running, while Bangor topped the Welsh list and Edinburgh Napier the Scottish ranking. Gloucester, Brighton and Worcester were all also in the top 5.

Overall People and Planet say the results were excellent showing the success of student-led campaigns to green universities, as well as sector wide reduction targets and the growing number of university Vice-Chancellors who are committed to tackling climate change.

The results also show UK universities are doing more to improve graduate prospects by preparing them for the future low-carbon economy and increasing their focus on sustainability in their curriculum.

47% of universities gained full points for integrating sustainability into their course structure, compared to just 27% just two years ago.

But not all is good news. People and Planet say universities are still failing to make the connection between their own academics’ research on climate change and partnerships and investment they have with fossil fuel companies.

In May 2013, for example, the University of Oxford announced a £5.9 million partnership between their Earth Sciences department and Shell, supporting research into new techniques for extracting dirty fossil fuels.

In response, students from the university launched a Fossil Free Oxford campaign aimed at severing the links between their institution and the fossil fuel industry. Oxford University failed this year’s Green League.

In total only 8 of the 143 universities ranked scored full marks for their ethical investment.

- See more at: http://tcktcktck.org/2013/06/the-green-league-2013-people-and-planet-rank-universities-green-credentials/53532#sthash.6O5UR63U.dpuf

Bombardier Transportation presented its TRAXX AC locomotive with additional diesel engine plus traction battery at this year’s Transport Logistic trade fair, 4-7 June in Munich, Germany. The Last Mile function enables the locomotive to pull heavy freight trains without catenaries over short distances on European corridors.

TRAXX AC. Click to enlarge.

The TRAXX AC Last Mile locomotive is currently in the approval process. Operational tests have already shown its efficiency in hauling loads of more than 2,200 tonnes. The locomotive is able to run on both electric and non-electric tracks without stopping for transition. In addition, a radio remote control for shunting is available to increase its operational efficiency.

Over short distances, the locomotive can run exclusively on its battery. This means that railway companies are able to transport goods directly into ports, freight terminals or loading warehouses without the additional use of trucks and shunting locomotives.

Railpool and Akiem have already ordered a total of twelve TRAXX AC Last Mile locomotives. Railpool is leasing three of these locomotives to the Swiss railway company BLS Cargo. Initial test runs are currently taking place on the public network in Switzerland.

Bombardier is also highlighting its new TRAXX Diesel multi-engine locomotive, which, with four diesel engines, is low in fuel consumption and noise. The four engines supply the complete locomotive in parallel and can be switched on and off according to the power requirement. The locomotive complies with the exhaust standard stage IIIB.

In Europe, TRAXX locomotives are the most widely used, with more than 1,600 of them sold in just over a decade. The TRAXX product family is designed for the transportation of goods and passengers on national and international routes on all networks. It is available in three electrical variants (for multi-system, AC and DC locomotives), as well as in a diesel-electric variant. All TRAXX locomotives feature modular construction and efficient Bombardier MITRAC propulsion and controls systems.

In a June press release issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior, new Interior Secretary Sally Jewel announced the Obama administration’s latest steps in its “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. The release announced the approval of three renewable energy projects and a crucial first step in development of the massive potential of U.S. offshore wind power.

The Department of Energy (DOE) generally funds development of new renewable energy technologies. However, the Department of the Interior (DOI) may be a significantly bigger player in the expansion of renewable energy production by opening the country’s public lands and coastal waters to competitive proposals for responsible domestic energy production. In fact, since 2009, the DOI has approved a combined 45 utility-scale solar facilities, wind farms and geothermal plants that will ultimately provide enough electricity to power 4.4 million homes.

These latest DOI approvals include solar farms located in Arizona and Nevada and a geothermal power plant in Nevada. The solar energy projects are Boulder Solar Power’s Midland Solar Project and SolarReserve’s Quartzsite Solar Project. TerraGen Power will build the New York Canyon Geothermal project.

 

Midland Solar Project

Proposed by Boulder Solar Power, LLC, the Midland Solar Project will be built on private land southwest of Boulder City, Arizona. However, electricity from the 350-megawatt photovoltaic facility will pass across a 76-acre corridor of federal land. The project will energize about 105,000 homes. In addition, the local economy will benefit from a peak work force of 350 and 10 permanent positions.

Close cooperation between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Nevada Department of Wildlife and Boulder Solar Power allowed inclusion of conservation measures to avoid or minimize environmental impact. For example, less than 7 acres of native habitat will be affected by infrastructure. Water will come from existing Boulder City supplies, leaving surface waters undisturbed.

 

Quartzsite Solar Project

Quartzsite Solar Energy, LLC – a subsidiary of SolarReserve, LLC – proposed this 100-megawatt project to be located on 1,600 acres of BLM lands about 10 miles north of Quartzsite, Arizona. The Quartzsite Solar Project will employ SolarReserve’s non-photovoltaic, solar power concentrating technology combined with thermal energy storage technology.

In this technology, the sun’s thermal energy from the solar field is collected and concentrated with heliostats – a collection of mirrors – directed toward a 653-foot central tower. Liquid molten salt captures and stores this energy to generate steam that will drive traditional steam turbine generators. A peak work force of 450 and 47 permanent positions will be generated. Plant output should power about 30,000 homes.

 

New York Canyon Geothermal Project

To be constructed 25 miles east of Lovelock, Nevada, the New York Canyon Geothermal Plant and transmission lines will cover over 15,000 acres of BLM-managed land. TGP Dixie Development Company, LLC – a subsidiary of TerraGen Power, LLC – will build the 70-megawatt project. Construction will require about 150 peak construction jobs and 16 operational positions. The power will supply about 60,000 homes. Environmental impact will be minimal, and no endangered or threatened species will be affected.

 

Offshore Wind Projects

Secretary Jewel has announced the first project proposals for offshore wind leases of coastal U.S. waters. The first-ever competition will involve 164,750 acres along Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has approved nine companies to submit proposals. Winners will have the right to develop the nation’s first offshore wind farms. Although, wind power energy development will probably take longer to reach fruition, the potential impact could be enormous with a potential 3.4 GW of wind energy available to power one million homes.

The 4-day Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, which attracts about 80,000 music fans each year, has installed a permanent solar power array to help power up the festival with renewable energy.

With his environmental leanings, I’m sure Paul McCartney will be pleased to know the festival is using solar power. Sir Paul is a headline act for Bonnaroo this year. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and Mumford & Sons are also booked to play. However, the latest update is that Mumford & Sons have had to cancel, as bassist Ted Dwane is recovering from emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain!

Company SolarWorld supplied the 50 kilowatt solar panel system for the festival. The solar array is the first permanent solar installation at a major U.S. music festival. The solar panels will produce around 20% of the power needed for the festival every year. Bonnaroo’s solar array consists of 196 roof-mounted solar panels. It’s installed on the roof of a stage area.

The solar system was partly funded from a small portion of ticket sales. An extra $1 was added to tickets sold over the previous 2 years of the festival. Additional opt-in donations were also available to people attending Bonnaroo.

Major music festivals create many tons of trash and have quite an environmental impact generally, so it’s good to see a major festival making an effort to install renewable energy permanently. Would you like to this happening at other festivals?