Im sure that you are all too aware of the feeling you get sometimes: “i wish id thought of doing that!” – well, this sensation washed over me quickly this week when i came across this great illustration from US website Power and Energy.
Essentially, it encapsulates in one tidy design the questions regarding Wind Energy, the generation of which has been risen rapidly in the USA over the past two years. Although the statistics are all related to North America (and New York state in particular), the questions posed still hold relevance worldwide.
With scottish power suppliers and the government in this country pushing Wind Energy as THE answer to our energy needs, perhaps it would help them to consider this graph.
10:10 - Can you take 10% of your carbon emissions?
Homes and Businesses urged to cut their carbon emissions by 10%
A new initiative by the people behind The Age of Stupid has been launched last week with the aim of getting as many homes, schools, universities, business and everything in-between to sign up and commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 (hence the 10:10). Four of the ‘big 6′ of major UK energy companies have signed up (Centria, EDF, E.ON and Scottish and Southern) already, and are pledging to introduce measures to assist homes and businesses meet this target in 2010, including energy use tracking equipment.
It’s not only large companies who are signing up though, a whole host of other organisations have already pledged their support, whilst individual members of the public can enroll themselves.
You can find out more information of the project on the 10:10 website.
Think back to what you were doing at the age of 15 ………… if you’re anything like us then you were at High School, struggling to grasp basic scientific and mathematical concepts, maybe playing some sports after school and at the weekend………
We’re willing to bet that you probably weren’t inventing in a complete Algae based green energy system.
Well, that’s what young Javier Fernández-Han from Houston, Texas has done. He won the Ashoka ‘Invent Your World Challenge’ with his algae energy system, named VERSATILE. Master Javier’s system incorporates 12 technologies in six subsystems. Each system can treat waste, produce methane and bio-fuel, and is a source of livestock and human food production. It also produces oxygen and sequesters greenhouse gases, and can also be a source of income.
Read the full details of Javiers amazing system over at Cleantechnica.
Here is a slide show featuring Javier and some of the other winners from the Ashoka challenge.
We can’t quite believe it but it is actually mid-April. Therefore, with one-quarter of the year gone we thought that it would be interesting to compile our top 5 green energy related stories of 2009 so far. It has definitely been an eventful start to the year, the majority of energy news is understanably resonating from the new US administration and the continuing global economic situation. These combined events have seen some of the biggest institutions in the world begin to adapt their policies and practice in order to fall in line with the green revolution. Anyway, here are five of our top green stories of Q1 2009.
The Pentagon turns green! – Not exactly renowned for making either cost or energy efficiciency savings, the news that the US Defence HQ was installing 4,200 LED lights in Wedge 5 of the labyrinthyne building is a strong indication of the level of green agenda penetration. The new lights use 22 percent less power than the fluorescent bulbs replace, which will pay back their extra expense in 4 years.
Green Pentagon
Oil giant Shell drops green investments – You know that an economy is in trouble when giants such as Shell stop investing in anything – sadly, in this case it is their green energy initiatives which have bourne the brunt of cost-saving.
China orders Governments to focus on Green Energy – The importance of China grabbing the green initiative shouldn’t be underestimated. The country which houses 20% of the world’s population can have a huge impact on the environment of planet earth.
China - going green
We have saved the Ozone Layer – is this right!? – For years the central message of the CO2 emission reductiuon policies has been to ’save the Ozone Layer’ – well, according to the latest research we have actually managed to do it. Is this right, it all seems a bit improbable.
Thats our five top green stories of 2009 so far – what would be your choices?
It has been reported by British researchers that the Antarctica is melting faster than previously thought and it looks like there is evidence to back it up. It looks like the first estimates of rising sea levels due to global warming were under-estimated.
It is now estimated that in the last 50 years there has been around 13,000 square kilometers of sea ice has melted.
The glaziers are now moving towards the sea at an alarming 6 times faster than before and the western side of Antarctica is showing evidence being eroded from underneath by the warm currents from the sea. It has been estimated the sea levels will rise by about 4in by the turn of this century causing havoc across the globe.
The current increase of yearly sea levels stands at around 2mm at the moment, we know that we need to try and combat global warming by whatever means possible but it is still not known and probably never will be if this is a natural process or the result or our industrialization over the last 300 years.
It has been reported by British researchers that the Antarctica is melting faster than previously thought and it looks like there is evidence to back it up. It looks like the first estimates of rising sea levels due to global warming were under-estimated.
