Let me see if I can find another way to be Green this year. Oooooohhhhh! I smell something burning. Well, maybe not burning, but definitely getting hot.

I know that sentence was a tease, and I am going to take full advantage of it! Sooooo, I’ll explain that later in this article. (more…)

The Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan has developed an interesting atomic-powered source of electricity.

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.

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Google Earth now has an application to show Earth’s carbon dioxide cycle and can show carbon dioxide in different layers of the atmosphere. Google recently held a contest to show scientific data using KML, the data format used for Google Earth. Tyler Erickson from Michigan Tech Research Institute responded to the call, and with help from NASA-funded researcher Anna Michalak of the University of Michigan, created an application to display the carbon cycle.

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Major business groups in the United States have warned US Congress that it will trigger what may be called a “green trade war” if Congress passes a climate change bill which “threatens” other countries with taxes on energy-intensive goods.

In a letter to US Senate leaders, the National Foreign Trade Council, the United States Chamber of Commerce and two other groups urged the Senate to desist from including provisions that could “negatively impact US relations with key trading partners and disrupt the global trading systems.”  Climate change, the letter adds, is a global problem which requires international cooperation and not “unilateral ultimatums.”

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Brussels is all set to ban energy-guzzling plasma TVs once the legislation gets passed in EU. The decision is going to be anything but popular with majority of Europe already having changed to plasma televisions – a popular option among the young and the old alike.

Plasma screens have been nicknamed the 4×4s of the living room by many, as they consume four times the power taken up by a traditional television set and produce four times the carbon dioxide while working. The EU is all in favor of implementing strict energy norms and that means many of these big flatscreen TVs will be no longer allowed to operate.

The LCDs obviously are less under threat as they consume far less power compared to the Plasma.

EU is taking every possible step to ensure that Europe does all it can to help reduce carbon emissions and set the reduction standards that nations have set for themselves. But one can wonder how effective this really is, when the remainder of the world goes on merrily adding more carbon dioxide each year!

Is plasma banning a good solution? Is it a small step towards a greener environment, or there’s more to it?

Source: DailyMail
Image courtesy of Ben Terret

According to stats given by Harvard University’s Alex Wissner-Gross, it would be safe to deduce that by just using the Google search, the world actually produces as much carbon dioxide as a country like Laos would do.

But how far are these claims real and if they indeed are true, do we really need to go ringing the alarm bells? According to Wissner-Gross, co-founder of Enernetics, two Google searches produce as much carbon dioxide as boiling enough water in an electric kettle for a cup of tea. And that is just the energy used up at Google’s end and not on our own system it seems.

The claims statistically might not really have much backing and to be honest it would be impossible to verify as there is no way Google is going to let you in to check on how much energy its hardware components eat and hence how much pollution it actually costs.

But the larger question on hand is about how the ICT sector is contributing to global warming and how it can actually cut back on its carbon footprint. It is already known that the carbon footprint of the ICT sector is as much as aviation- about 3% of the total carbon emissions produced.

But there is also little doubt that it is a necessity that we cannot escape and in fact saves more energy than it spends in the form of digital information. While we do hear the odd Yahoo and Google offices going green, Wissner-Gross’s statements do indeed merit a discussion. The net and its giants have a responsibility of going green to save energy, and they do indeed need to take the cause of the planet more seriously.

We wonder if that will help hasten the green wave, or not!

Source: Guardian
Image courtesy of Mark Knol

The latest data about Japan’s greenhouse-gas emissions cast a serious doubt over the Japan’s commitment to its Kyoto Protocol efforts.

The Environment Ministry reported Japan’s emissions hit a record high of carbon dioxide, 8.7% more than what Japan spewed in 1990. The 1997 Kyoto treaty calls for Japan to reduce its emissions to 6% BELOW the 1990 level. Japan is going the wrong way.

Emissions grew 2.3% since last year, largely in part to the closing of Japan’s largest nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture because of an earthquake in the region. Consequently, Japan has had to rely on electrical output from thermal power plants, which are heavy CO2 dischargers. Japanese households have produced 8.4% more greenhouse gases than last year. The unusually hot summer led to increased use of air conditioners.

In the next five years they needs to cut its emissions by 13.5% to meet its commitment and Japan’s best bet is either to plant more trees or increase the capacity utilization ratio of its nuclear power plant, up from 60.7%. A ratio 84.2% (1998), and Japan would have coughed up 5% less greenhouse gas in 2007.

The economy, however, is slowing. As production falls, so too will emissions. Japan needs to cut 50 million metric tons, per year. The steel industry lowered its emissions last year to 1% below its 1990 level despite an 8% increase in crude steel output. The chemical sector is 7% higher than its 1990 figure.

Japan is not going to make it. So, now what?

Source: Nikkei (sub req)
Image courtesy of hubbbadyabutters