Tom James @ 02-07-2008
Here are some interesting musings from SF grandee Robert Silverburg at Asimov’s Science Fiction on the possibility of certain rare earths running out, as well as the mineworthy science fictional material therein.
Metals (technically “poor metals”) like gallium are used as doping agents in semiconductors used in integrated circuits and LEDs and as such are in great demand - but German prof Armin Reller suggests we may be in danger of gallium, and fellow rare-earth indium, running out.
As it happens, we are building a lot of flat-screen TV sets and computer monitors these days. Gallium is thought to make up 0.0015 percent of the Earth’s crust and there are no concentrated supplies of it. We get it by extracting it from zinc or aluminum ore or by smelting the dust of furnace flues. Dr. Reller says that by 2017 or so there’ll be none left to use.
How very, very depressing. Still, I have every confidence in human ingenuity to discover a solution to this kind of problem.
[story via Slashdot]
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Tomas Martin @ 19-05-2008
Built for just £210,000, Michael and Dorothy Rea’s house on Britain’s northernmost inhabited island is amongst the most efficient in the world. Boosted by the strong winds surrounding the island of Unst, the house has its heating and power, plus an electric car and substantial greenhouse, entirely powered by renewable sources.
The house reminds me a little of the building in Susan Palwick’s ‘Shelter’ with its smart uses of technology. The house takes heat from the air around it and stores it in a water ‘battery’ to heat the home. The greenhouse uses hydroponics and LED lighting to simulate growing seasons, allowing hothouse plants like lemons and peppers to thrive. Is this a sign of how we will live in the future?
[story via the Guardian, Image from the Rea's website]
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Tomas Martin @ 05-12-2007
The Bali talks about climate change are progressing reasonably well, with Australia the 37th country to agree to cut emissions. However, the elephant in the room is of course the US and Canada administrations, who have resisted negotiations. Although some US officials don’t want to join the protocol, others are starting to do something about it. This week Congress is discussing a revolutionary new Energy bill that really starts to look at a sustainable future.
It would repeal $21 Billion in oil subsidies to spend on alternative energies, increase minimum mpg for cars, include incentives for efficiency and new technology as well as pledging renewable electricity production to be 15% by 2020. This bill will inevitably be vetoed by President Bush, or filibustered by the Republican minority. All the same, the US Congress deserves recognition and support for thinking constructively about increasing efficiency and promoting solutions to this problem.
UPDATE: Congress has passed the bill 232-181. The bill moves to the Senate for further discussion. President Bush has pledged to veto it.
[image by Morten Mitchell Larod]
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Tomas Martin @ 30-11-2007
A lot of the plans for sustainability try to provide the energy for what we already do using new sources of power. Whether you subscribe to the peak oil camp or you fear global warming or even if you want to prudent ahead of a possible recession caused by sub-prime mortgages, each problem has the same solution: use less. Buying less consumables, reducing food miles, rebuilding soils and producing electricity from renewables can only do so much.
Transport is a huge part of the energy (and money) we spend. A future coming to terms with the ‘Peak Century’ will need to travel much less distance for work, play and neccessity. The 50 mile commute seems illogical now at close to $100 dollar a barrel of oil. If oil gets harder to extract and prices rise, that commute won’t just be an annoying expense, it’ll mean bankruptcy. Fortunately new technology has arrived, seemingly perfect timed to coincide with reducing our carbon footprint and energy consumption.
A geologist recently said “My hopeful view is that we’ll be living like we did at the turn of the 20th century, but with computers.” I like the analogy. The internet and low-energy computers offer us a real potential of making a low carbon economy yet still providing jobs and a worldwide community. As Worldchanging puts it, the ‘High bandwidth, Low Carbon future’ could be both sustainable and more personally fulfilling. Google is investing $100Million in Green computing and the Asus EEE laptop uses 11 watts. All this talk of choose your own price music, online markets for fiction and e-readers is important because it’s a first step to creating an entertainment economy that could work in the low-energy world that’s coming, sooner or later.
[picture by jaaron]
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Tomas Martin @ 28-11-2007
Usually, heat and electric conductivity go hand in hand. Now, thanks to the emerging nanostructure technology movement, scientists think they can separate these two.
“Thermoelectric devices are based on the fact that when certain materials are heated, they generate a significant electrical voltage. Conversely, when a voltage is applied to them, they become hotter on one side, and colder on the other. The process works with a variety of materials, and especially well with semiconductors — the materials from which computer chips are made.”
Previously thermoelectric devices were far too inefficient to be of use. But by adding nanoscale structures a few billionths of a metre across, the heat conductivity of a material can be disrupted whilst the electricity passes through fine, ramping the efficiency up massively. Imagine a computer chip that doesn’t get heated as it works, or a solar cell that uses heat as well as light to generate electricity. Thermo electrics are already starting to get efficient enough to cool your car seat - how soon before they start to be used in the growing low energy pc market?
[via ScienceDaily, image from Amazon.com ]
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Tomas Martin @ 23-11-2007
Microgeneration is the often mentioned as a great way to reduce energy use and dependence on fossil fuels. But looking at the prices of enough solar panels to provide 2-3kW of power is a little bit scary. A loan is possible - but the amount you’d pay back in interest would be frontloaded, whereas the savings in electricity would be paid back in a longer period, say 15-20 years. Wouldn’t it be good if you could offset the cost of the PV panels against future savings on your electricity?
The community of Berkeley is already beginning to offer such a scheme. They offer loans for Solar Electricity with repayments guaranteed to be less than the cost of electricity saved by the panels. Not only does this scheme make Berkeley more attractive to live in, it also encourages manufacturers, installers and testers of the technology to setup in the area. Hopefully this trend will continue in more governments and with more types of microgeneration.
[via Daily Kos, image by roddh]
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Tomas Martin @ 21-11-2007
Peak Oil is a worrying topic but one that is complicated and based on many factors. Even if Hubbert’s predicted peak of oil isn’t close to happening and there are lots of barrels left in the earth, a plateau of oil production, which a lot of oil companies are saying looks likely around 2012, is likely to have a similarly heavy impact on economic growth and prosperity.
The oil taken so far has been mostly the easiest to extract. Whilst large swathes of oil lie locked away in places like the Venezuela Orinoco Belt and the Canadian Oil Sands, they are harder (and more expensive) to get. Added to the slowing of many major crude sources, these facts have led a lot of oil experts to predict the production of oil will slow and plateau, probably never reaching 100mbpd. With China and India increasing demand, we’ll be needing more than that in ten years time. What happens if the supply can’t keep up?
[via wired, image by jGregor]
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Tomas Martin @ 20-11-2007
Bertrand Piccard was the first person to fly around the world in a balloon, the longest flight ever. His new endeavour, the Solar Impulse, is even more ambitious. To highlight the need for sustainability, the project has a lofty goal:
“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. An unachievable goal without pushing back the current technological limits in all fields…”
If we’re to make the targets that Gordon Brown set yesterday, we’ll be looking to projects like this for inspiration.
[via European Tribune, image by Bertrand Piccard]
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Tomas Martin @ 14-11-2007
Wow. Colour me impressed. Compellent Technologies produce network servers and data storage hubs. With the rise of the internet, the amount of power generated by servers and data has grown exponentially, with most internet servers needing vast quantities of power and cooling of the heat produced. Compellent have made a product that only uses power when the data is being accessed, using a load of technologies like Automated Tiered Storage, Thin Provisioning and Advanced Virtualization. This can cut the power usage of the company buying the data centres by up to a massive 93%. If every server used technology like this, a large chunk of every developed country’s electricity usage would disappear.
[via Treehugger, image via Compellent's website]
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Tomas Martin @ 08-11-2007
Fast Company have a great collection of 50 things companies are doing to ‘green’ their business. From Cheerios and Coors converting their waste food to biofuels to computer servers using their excess hot water to heat the buildings, a lot of big names are getting onto the trend. It’s easy to see why - reducing costs whilst increasing customer satisfaction is a rare combination. With the current way of business producing plenty of waste, it makes perfect sense to use unused food, silicon, heat and So long as the reductions don’t just lead to increased use, we should reward these companies applying the idea ‘work smart, not hard’ to their energy usage. Executives like Mike Brown are helping big companies to think more about every facet of their business. In time governments should implement a lot of these guidelines but its hard not to admire many of the businesses working ahead of the curve.
[via Treehugger, photo by Ayton]
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