Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest peak, and used to be covered in snow throughout the year despite its proximity to the equator. The ill-effects of global warming however, have put up a drastic picture of the mountain, whose slopes went ice-free this year; probably for the first time in 12,000 years.

According to a study that is based on terrestrial and satellite photographs, and has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the mountain is rapidly losing its glaciers. In 95 years of data tracking since 1912, nearly 85% of the glaciers have disappeared, and 26% were lost after year 2000. The 12 square kilometers of ice coverage in 1912 reduced to a mere 1.9 square kilometers in 2007.

The second part of the study showed that extensive melting and refreezing of ice had taken place in the last 40 years, and the present degree of melting did not happen even during three centuries of drought that the region faced around 4,200 years ago. Researchers have pinned the cause on increasing Earth surface temperatures that get affect high altitudes badly.

Via: TimesOnline

On Saturday, October 24, people in 181 countries are coming together for what many are describing as the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history.They’re gathering to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis.

Specifically, the web-based campaign called “350.org” is calling on people from around the world to organize an action that in some way incorporates the number “350″ at an iconic place in their community.  Then, 350.org wants people to upload a photo of their event to the 350.org website.

“We’ll collect these images from around the world and, with your help, deliver them to the media and world leaders. Together, we can show our world and its decision-makers just how big, beautiful, and unified the climate movement really is,” the website says.

The number “350” represents 350 parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere.

For more information on the 350 International Day of Climate Action and other 350.0rg initiatives, see the 350.org website.

Photo: Flickr

If you remember in Part 1, I set the table and server up the hors d’oeuvres, appetizer plates, and salads of harnessing Herricanes (If you don’t remember, STOP!  Go back and read Part 1 before continuing).  Now I will serve up heaps of real meat and continue the anger management presentation.

Waves, which seemed as big as skyscrapers and actually several times the height of the boats crashing down on the vessels, threatened to squash them all like cockroaches underneath Mother Nature’s shoe. Such power is just begging to be harnessed.

In fact, many companies including Lockheed Martin Corp. are developing utility-scale power-generation plants.  I am not talking about a couple of buoys in the ocean generating a few watts of electricity to power a light bulb of fan, but plants capable of generating power for cities.

A company named Pelamis has prototypes of what I call “Ocean Snakes” that are jointed mechanical snakes that bend in seas and generate electric power by pushing hydraulic fluid past turbines when their joints flex.  Imagine developing larger snakes that can function in 50-foot seas!

I can already hear your next question, gentle readers.  “Fred, hurricanes do not happen often enough to rely on them for power, so how do you address this?”

I have a solution for this also.  I am stealing someone’s science fiction idea:  heat generating sakes (if you remember the book, please let me know).  These mechanical monsters would be much larger than Pelamis’ prototypes and would generate huge amounts of heat when the flexed.

You might ask, so I’ll ask it now “What do heat generating snakes have to do with hurricanes?”  The Global Warming activists used to say rising temperatures feed the hurricanes and rising sea temperatures do this.  Localized changes in the sea temperature happen all the time globally, rising and falling with seasonal and longer periodic rates.  El Nino and La Nina are examples of this climatic change that have been around longer than man’s SUVs.

But, let’s just pretend that more hurricanes will result from Global warming; more hurricanes mean more electricity to meet our needs!          

Now, we just exploit what we know about making lots of hurricanes and activate these heat-generating snakes during hurricane season and use them to localize the hurricanes to places far away from land where possible and also use them to increase their fierceness.  In other words, use these snakes to make the hurricanes MAD!

Now, here is the ingenious part.  Combine all three (windmills, power snakes and heat snakes) and have them reinforce each other and create a synergy that will produce huge amounts of power.

Who knows?  Maybe this article will provide the catalyst for a group of companies to turn some cowboys loose and lasso this energy.

India currently is the fourth largest emitter of carbon in the world, and has so far resisted any binding emission targets under an international agreement. India, and the Group of 77 developing nations have been opposing such binding targets unless they come tied with financial and technological support from developed nations which have so far led in carbon emissions.

Now, in a letter to the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, environment minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the government to break away from the Group of 77 and align itself with the richer G20 nations. The minister goes on to press the need to commit to binding targets without asking for any financial/technological assistance from richer nations.

If India does align with the G20, the unity in the Group of 77 will be affected, and the gap in negotiations between the richer and developing countries could decrease. India and other developing countries have been supporting domestically set targets so that they can work on making their economies stronger, rather than be tied down by binding targets.

Developed nations on the other hand, are not willing to pay the fiscal and lifestyle costs such targets may put forth. The UN has put a December deadline for an agreement on the COP15 meeting at Copenhagen, though it appears the deadline will be missed by months in present circumstances.

Source: TreeHugger

Kathryn Siranosian published a blog entry about Hurricane Rick and she got me to thinking.  While I believe it should be named Himmicane Rick and that has nothing to do with this article, hurricanes could be good for the energy business.

You may ask, “How so, Fred?  Don’t you remember Hurricane Katrina and the oil shortage and price increases?”  Yes I do and the loss to the oil supply was not even measurable as the oil companies knew it was coming and shut down the oil rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and secured the wells to reduce or even eliminate seepage.

The gasoline prices rose temporarily in response to speculators who expected the shortages and tried to make some money on it.  They lost as oil production resumed as normal a day after the hurricane left.

Now, as we all know, most herricanes are full of vitriolic, rancorous, and malicious anger, and are seemingly dedicated to the destruction of anyone or anything that gets in their way.  After a couple of unsuccessful marriages, I thought about trying to harness this power for the good of mankind, rather than its obliteration.

Kathryn states “Maximum sustained winds remain near 180 mph, with higher gusts. While fluctuations in intensity are likely during the next 24 hours, Rick is expected to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane for the next day or two.”

WOW!  Just think of the electricity that could be generated by windmill farms based in the areas that hurricanes inhabit.  Just think of hundreds or even tens of thousands of windmills churning out megawatts of power with 180 mile per hour winds.

In fact, they do not need to be based there all year around.  Take them into dry-dock for maintenance during the off-season and tow them back to sea just before the start of the hurricane season.

Let’s see, how could we harness the hurricane even better?  AHA!  I remember several episodes on the Deadliest Catch on the Discovery channel and the crab boats with their crabby captains (we now know that crabs got their name from the captains of the boats that fish for them) fighting for their lives during a hurricane on the Bering Sea.

In Part 2, I will provide even more methods of capturing hurricanes and harnessing their power.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that for every one barrel of residential trash, 71 more were created before the products that produced that waste reached consumer households.

What’s more, a new report from the EPA shows that ordinary consumer products and packaging account for 44% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Can you imagine how much waste and GHG emissions could be eliminated from the production-consumption cycle if products could be re-designed to use less material, be longer life, repairable, reusable, and safer?

The GrassRoots Recycling Network is an organization of activists and recycling professionals who deep-dive into questions like that every day.

The group, which is advocating and working towards a zero waste future in the United States, will be hosting its Third National Recycling and Zero Waste Conference, beginning this coming Sunday, Oct. 18 at the Devens Commons Center in Devens, Massachusetts.

The four-day event will run through Wednesday, Oct. 21, and is expected to attract over 400 recycling activists and professionals from around the U.S. The comprehensive agenda includes 20 separate programs and 60 speakers.

“This conference will energize the recycling and environmental community and help environmental professionals and activists implement new ideas and practices that will create jobs while at the same time reducing waste and conserving natural resources,” said Linda Christopher, GRRN’s executive director. “Zero waste programs build sustainable communities by reducing the waste that produces greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals which are so harmful to our environment and account for major climate change impacts.”

Traditional thinking assumes waste is inevitable, that the quantity of waste will keep growing, and that costly, high-tech, polluting methods like landfills and incinerators are the only choices available.

Zero waste advocates think otherwise. They focus not only on recycling, but on another critical component –redesign –as well.

Zero waste is a concept that has taken off in California and other countries where several communities are on track to reach a goal of 90 percent waste reduction, Christopher said. It is relatively unfamiliar in New England, though many communities are in a position to implement zero waste principles, she added.

“We have identified Massachusetts and New England as a prime region to advance zero waste programs and goals and to create zero waste communities,” added Christopher. “The conference will highlight businesses that have saved money, increased their efficiency, reduced their liability, and reduced their global footprint by diverting their waste from landfills and incinerators.”

GrassRoots Recycling Network’s National Recycling and Zero Waste Conference is being held at the Devens Conference Center in Devens, Massachusetts. Devens is a decommissioned U.S. Army base re-purposed as an eco-industrial park that has a zero waste goal. All organic waste generated by the conference will be composted and other waste will be separated and recycled.

You can read more about the GrassRoots Recycling Network at their website, www.GRRN.org . The site includes full conference details and registration information.

Photo credit: www.flickr.com/photos/8078800@N07/634853323/

I can see it now.  I wait in the airport security line, carrying my shoes, and then having to discard my $5 bottle of water I had purchased in that same airport because it was opened.  Then I go through the full body scan which can count the hairs on my butt (163 hairs last time) and 5,784 hairs… oh, never mind.

Then I get a tap on my shoulder and an attendant takes me behind a screen of another scanning machine aimed at my private parts.  Well, they were private before the last two scans.  “I am sorry, sir, but you will have to relieve yourself before you board.  Go through that door and you will find a urinal.”  After a sigh of relief, I get an automated voice from the urinal saying “Thank you for during your part to save zero point zero one two pounds of carbon emissions on this flight.”  The person next to me saved 0.02 pounds; his bladder must have been close to bursting for that reduction.

Science fiction?  Not really.  Nippon Airways is asking all passengers to relieve themselves of bodily fluids before flying on 42 flights in a month-long experiment.  They are trying to see if people will follow their instructions in hopes of saving around 11,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per month.

They assume all of the passengers get on an airplane with full bladders.  If that were true, the bathroom lines would extend the length of the airplane for the duration of the flight.  I believe at most 50% of this could be saved.

I know many travelers that go to the bathroom before boarding a plane just so they are comfortable during the flight, as I was one of those.  During these times of terrorist threats, going to the bathroom in an airplane after you are told to sit down will get you a stay at the Gray Bar Hotel while you get interrogated for not cooperating with airplane crew and interfering with flight operations.

The next question would be, how much would be saved if all solid waste would be eliminated from the flights?

Do your part and go before you get on that next airplane and save some CO2 emissions.  Besides, you will have a much more comfortable flight.

[via DailyMail]

Atomic Powered Cellphone

They have actually used this to power a touch screen hand-held video player/cell phone.

Now before you start protesting the use of atomic power (that will be a debate in future multi-part series), I am talking about using the protons (I know it still sounds like an atomic reactor) in the methanol molecule and removing the hydrogen to create power.

What you are left with is water and a little carbon dioxide.

The device is called a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) and uses a Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) to create power.

This is certainly better than grabbing power from a thermopile inside your wood-burning stove.  Yes, that works too, but is not as portable or environmentally friendly.  Even worse would be taking power from the public grid.

In its present form it is a bit bulky, but much less than carrying around one of those original 2-pound Motorola Flip Phones.  Plus, the thought of giving your cell phone a drink would be hard to explain.

“But officer, I was recharging my cell phone with this bottle of alcohol!”  Before long, there would be a law prohibiting your cell phone from drinking while driving.

Here is an idea: why not use this drinking battery at home where no one cares whether you take a nip or two (for the cell phone of course since methanol alcohol is poisonous to us mortals).  Just set it on your table and charge your cell phone instead.

This idea is also good for your eyes: no more of those ugly wall warts hanging from your wall outlets.

What is that?  You say carbon dioxide is not green?  Try this experiment at home:

Take a bottle of soda.  Remember those fizzy bubbles are carbon dioxide.

Connect a hose to the top of the bottle.

Gently shake or vibrate the bottle so the gas is expended from the soda.

Put a big plastic bag over your herb garden and allow the CO2 to build up inside.

You will see growth like no other fertilizer can give you and you will see a lot of green.  Be sure to let in some oxygen once in a while as plants need oxygen as well as carbon dioxide to grow.

After that try pumping CO2 into the soil and see what happens.

Cow gang in the morning

The article mentioned in part one, suggests you not eat meat in an attempt to reduce the greenhouse gas (methane) caused by cows.  I propose that human emissions of methane could eclipse that of the cows raised for meat if we follow that advice and limit our intake to non-meat food.

I agree that cows do emit methane. If you doubt this just hang around with a few and your will be convinced this is true.  For you city dwellers, either believe this cow fact or try the following experiment.

Let me set the table.  Cows are vegetarians.  They eat grasses and grains and do not even have access to hot dogs, Big Macs or even a good, thick juicy steak.  Cows are generally not cannibalistic and will resort to hamburgers only when starving and someone happens to litter a few burgers along the road in reach of said bovines.

Ok, back to the experiment.  You don’t have access to a cow (if you did you would not be doing this experiment) so you can use yourself instead.

Eat good balanced meals including healthy portion of meats (nice red meats, not those tofu or vegan substitutes) for a week or two.  Monitor your methane output by approximating the frequency, quantity and toxicity.  For toxicity note if people ran out of the room, simply glanced at the dog or did not notice.

Now, go on a vegan diet of grasses (sprouts of alfalfa and bean can be substituted), grains a little tofu and beans and other legumes (if you don’t know what a legume is, click here) for week or two plus a day.  Begin monitoring your methane output One day after you begin the diet to allow for the passage of your old diet.

Now go back to the balanced meat diet allowing a day in between and then back again to the vegan diet.  This allows for a scientific sound experiment and the repeatability confirms the validity of the experiment.

You will discover the meatless diet will be far less offensive to your family and friends, hence more environmentally friendly.  Less methane is good, so you do not need to feel guilty about global warming when you have that nice, rare, juicy steak.  Just bring your own bag when you go to the store to pick up your meat and groceries.

After you finish the experiments and then tell your friends, you may get great offers to buy you meat products and if you have some hunters as friends, might get some free, tasty venison.  If you get an insatiable appetite for meat after this experiment, get your own by taking a hunter safety class and partake in the plentiful harvest.

Image courtesy of James

Cows and wind turbines

I came across an interesting article on combating global warming.  Aside from a picture of a cow with a gas-mask device to capture cow belches, another picture (see after the jump) shows another methane capture device.  Intended to capture cow farts, I can just feel sorry for the cow.  That hose feeding the pink plastic methane storage balloon has to be uncomfortable for the cow.

The article goes on to say that the methane emitted by the cows is contributing to the greenhouse gas problem.  It is true that methane could keep heat trapped in the atmosphere.  Note that I said could.  There would have to be a lot of other conditions that would have to be met for this to actually happen in the world.

In the laboratory, you can take methane (also works with carbon dioxide) and put it in a closed jar or box and get it to reflect heat.  Add all the other components of air and through Brownian movement the reflective properties are reduced and eventually eliminated.

Let’s take a room and fill it with air.  Since oxygen is 21% of the air, what would be the chances of the oxygen falling to the lower ¼ of the room and the lighter nitrogen blocking us from getting any oxygen into our lungs?  Heavier gasses will fall.  Every once in a while you hear of someone dying in a tank because it was filled with carbon dioxide.

I tried to argue that in physics as part of a class discussion and was proven wrong.  Another classmate presented the fact that we were in a closed classroom and were still alive despite us using up some of the oxygen.  Movement in the room keeps the gasses mixed.  Add that to the laws of Brownian motion precludes all the oxygen from gathering on the floor or in a corner of the room and suffocating us.

Now let’s go outside on the earth’s surface.  Lighting a match should result in an explosive firestorm that completely destroys everything on the surface of the earth if the gasses in the atmosphere separated out.  Since I am writing this article, that is proof enough that the gasses on earth have not separated.

Therefore, how can the greenhouse effect happen?  If the carbon dioxide separated out, it would be on the surface of the earth and not in the stratosphere.

In Part 2, I will cover another inaccuracy or misrepresentation about methane.

Image courtesy of vlastik