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Brief stories on interesting items about energy.
Did You Know that Energy Vampires Lurk in your House?
Change A Light, Change the World
Propane for your Health
Life without the Sun?
Hurricane Moves More Than Houses
High-Tech Thermostats
Christmas Trees Use Energy, Too!
The Incredible Shrinking Robot
Offshore Louisiana
Wind Pilot Project
Beware of Superheating
in Microwaves
Cape Cod Wind
Project
Great Reports for
Fuel Cells
New Technology
Improves Cancer Treatment
Using Nature to Capture Greenhouse
Emissions
In
the Drink
Energy
Efficiency and the Internet
French-Fries for Fuel
Really Smart
Appliances
Earth
May Be Better Off Than We Thought
Traffic
Lights Are Significant Energy Users
Recycling
Falls Off
Avian influenza (bird flu) has resulted in the deaths of more than 60 people overseas. Concerns over a potential outbreak in the United States have increased. Poultry producers in Texas became all too familiar with one strain of the avian flu last year when the disease shut down several major poultry operations in the state. Many poultry producers use chemicals to inhibit the spread of the disease. But these methods are becoming increasingly less successful. The search for another way to control further spread of the disease has producers looking towards a familiar energy source—propane. For years, poultry growers have used and trusted propane as the main heat source in their buildings. Now, with the help of a propane-powered poultry house sanitizer called the Red Dragon, propane can be used in a different facet of production—cleaning and sanitization.
The Red Dragon, a new technology from Flame Engineering, Inc. (LaCrosse, KS), utilizes six liquid propane torches that project intense, sweeping flames underneath a steel hood. The heat from the flames stays constant at approximately 1400°F, which is hot enough to effectively eliminate harmful pathogens. Mark Leitman, Director of Agriculture Programs for the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC), said “Hopefully, growers will see these positive results from Texas and seek out flame sanitation in their area.” Photo Credit: Flame Engineering, Inc.
For more information on the Red Dragon, visit: http://www.flameengineering.com. For more information on PERC and its programs to promote the safe and efficient use of propane in agriculture, visit: http://www.agpropane.com.
You might think that vampires only come out at night or during Halloween. Well, guess what? They are everywhere, all of the time, working 24 hours a day, using energy at your house; and they are adding some 20 percent each month to the amount your family pays for energy.
Vampire energy is a type of energy used by things that consume electricity twenty-four hours a day, even when they are turned off or not being used. TVs, VCRs, DVD players, computers/printers, stereos, microwaves, coffee machines, washers/dryers, rechargeable power tools, etc. are the everyday secret users of vampire energy. You think you have turned them off, but they are still running.
In fact, did you know that a TV with a remote could use more energy during the 20 hours it is turned off waiting for you to turn it on than it does while you are watching it for 4 hours in the evening? And don't forget about those little clocks on microwaves and VCRs--with every blinking second, they, too, are using vampire energy and adding to your monthly energy bill.
According to energy experts, the amount of energy used by these vampire consumers can add up quickly. Vampire energy amounts to about five percent of energy consumed in the United States and usually costs consumers more than $3 billion each year.
· Start by unplugging appliances directly from wall outlets when not in use. Instead of turning your electronic devices off one-at-a-time, make the job easier by plugging all of your electronics into a power strip or two and "switch off" the power strip after you have finished using the item(s). (Don't worry; this will not harm your electronics.)
· If you are not going to be using your computer for a while and don't want to shut it down, simply turn off your monitor. Screen savers do not reduce the amount of energy used.
· Try to use natural light whenever possible during the day, turn lights off when you are not using them.
· If you know someone who is planning to buy a new appliance like a refrigerator or dishwasher, make sure they look for ones that have earned the EnergyStar® --they use less energy, sometimes half as much, to perform their normal duties.
The ENERGY STAR® is a blue sticker that can be found directly on the on the appliance itself or the box it comes in. You can also check the yellow Energy Guide Label that shows how much energy the appliance will use and compare it with others.
We all know that money does not grow on trees! So, beware of energy vampires and do not let them continue to suck energy from your home, especially when you are not there to join in the fun.
Learn more about saving energy at home on the Energy Savers website, or read an article about the ENERGY STAR "Change a Light" campaign.
Every October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy co-sponsor the annual National ENERGY STAR "Change a Light" campaign, which runs through November. The campaign encourages Americans to replace one traditional light bulb in their home with one that has earned the government's ENERGY STAR®. Yes, it might be a small change, but it can make a big difference. Bulbs with the blue Energy Star® sign on the package use 2/3 less energy than regular bulbs and last about 10 times as long!
For more information about ENERGY STAR® products, saving energy, or signing the “Change a Light” pledge, visit the Energy Star website.
Eighty meters beneath the Black Sea, green-sulfur bacteria live without direct light. These bacteria have the most efficient photosynthesis known to exist, soaking up every stray photon that penetrates the water. But how do bacteria, growing deep on the ocean floor, survive without energy from sunlight? Some scientists suggest that photosynthesis does not depend solely on the sun.
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents contain many life forms, including tube worms and eyeless crabs that thrive near the 350ºC water. Because of the superheated water, the vents glow with infrared radiation. The glow is too weak to be detected by human eyes, but has a frequency in the visible spectrum. Researchers don’t agree on what causes this deep-sea illumination, but they are studying how it sustains life.
Microbiologists and biochemists studying vents along the volcanically active Pacific Ridge have found a new organism that seems to live off a light source other than the sun. The bacterium, known as GSB1, requires light, sulfur and CO2 to grow. Where does the light come from? Researchers suggest the vent glow is a chemical reaction in the vent seepage, or sonoluminescence, a flash produced by imploding bubbles.
Summarized from Science, Vol.308, June, 2005.
When Hurricane Ivan hit the Gulf of Mexico in September 2004, more than just buildings on land were affected. Two offshore oil rigs disappeared after the storm hit. All operations had been shut down and the crews from both rigs had been evacuated before the storm engulfed the area where the rigs were moored.
The Deepwater Nautilus, one of the largest drilling rigs in the Gulf, was found more than 70 miles from its original location. The other rig, the Ocean Star, was moved 12 miles by the powerful winds and waves. Both rigs were inspected very closely before they were returned to regular operations. No oil was spilled into the Gulf when the rigs were moved.
Changing to a programmable thermostat in your home has the potential to save up to $100 a year on heating and cooling bills. Most of these thermostats provide the opportunity to customize seven days of programming. A new model on the market is wireless and portable. It allows the ability to warm or cool specific rooms. Even more advanced models work with home security systems, allowing consumers to make adjustments from their computers or phones, even when they are not home.
Other thermostat advances include models that monitor home energy use and turn off certain appliances to take advantage of off-peak rates. For more information, visit the Energy Star website.
Holiday celebrations--for Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and other holidays as well--often involve decorating with lights. Lights are easy to set up and beautiful to look at, either inside or outside the home. Yet, how many of us consider the extra energy use and cost that these lights will require? The trick to holding holiday electricity costs down is making energy efficient lighting choices. Depending on the type and number of lights that you use, and how long you keep them on, the cost of powering your holiday lights can range from a few cents to over fifty dollars per season. Here are a few energy saving tips that may help your parents cut down on their electricity bills this season:
The type of lights you choose is very important! As a general rule, bigger bulbs use more electricity. For every hour they are turned on, the big (C-7) bulbs use between 4 and 10 watt-hours per bulb. This is at least 10 times the electricity used in an hour by 0.4 watt mini-light bulbs. The new Light Emitting Diode (LED) holiday lights are the biggest energy savers, drawing only a tenth as much electricity as mini-lights, at 0.04 watts per bulb! Of course, LED lights are much more expensive than mini-lights and the savings on your energy bill may not make up for the added cost. Besides saving energy, LED lights have some other advantages that may make their added cost seem worth it. When one bulb on a string of LED lights goes bad, the rest of the light string will still work. So there is no searching for that one bad light keeping the rest of the string from operating! Plus, LED bulbs should last at least 5 years, and they never get hot. If you like big light displays, you can connect up to 25 strings of LED lights together without overloading a typical household circuit.
More lights require more energy. It only makes sense that your electricity use will go up as you add more strings of lights. Keep in mind that not all light strings are the same. Big (C-7) bulbs come in strings of 25 while mini-lights may have 35 to 200 bulbs per string, and LED lights may have 35 to 100 lights per string. The popular, icicle style light strings use mini-lights but because of their shape, usually require many more strings to cover the same distance as a regular string of mini-lights. The number of light strings used for decorating is a matter of taste. You can compare the amount of electricity that will be used by a string of each type of lights in an hour, by multiplying the number of watts per bulb by the number of bulbs per string:
A string of C-7 bulbs: 4 watts per bulb x 25 bulbs per string = 100 watts per hour
A string of mini-lights: 0.4 watts per bulb x 100 bulbs per string = 40 watts per hour
A string of LED lights: 0.04 watts per bulb x 100 bulbs per string = 4 watts per hour
The longer your lights are on, the more energy they use. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that lights that are left on all night (maybe 12 hours) will use 3 times as much electricity as lights that are on for only 4 hours at night. Using a timer on your tree and outdoor display is a great way to keep from forgetting to turn your lights off!
With decreasing size and increasing performance, robots are being designed to help humans with many different tasks. One area of robotics is called micromechanics technology. This area focuses on microrobots. Microrobots are very small, functional robots.
The newest microrobot to join the scene, developed by the Seiko Epson Corporation, is called µFR-II (micro-FR-2). Made of ultra-thin materials, this miniature robot is generating a lot of excitement. This new development in microrobotic technology weighs only 12.3 grams with its battery (about as much as 5 pennies) and measures 85 millimeters high (about 3 ½ inches).
Unlike the first version of the flying microrobot, the µFR-II is wireless. The µFR-II microrobot resembles a helicopter with two blades mounted on top of it. The microrobot is capable of independent flight, which means it follows a flight plan set by a computer program. As it flies, the microrobot can transmit aerial images to a monitor on land.
Microrobots have many potential uses such as working in places unsafe for humans, venturing into space, conducting surveillance, and performing unmanned military missions. In the energy industry, robots like this could be used for many applications, such as inspecting pipelines and dangerous areas of nuclear power plants.
There are plans underway to generate electricity from wind turbines mounted on offshore Louisiana oilrigs. Developers are working on a pilot project on three rigs off the southwest Louisiana coast. New Iberia engineer Herman Schellstede of Wind Energy Systems Technology L.L.C. said the company hopes to have one of the three turbines in place by the 2004. The 10-megawatt project off Vermilion Parish is called Grand Vent, which is French for big wind. Backers hope that the combination of consistent offshore wind, modern turbine technology, and unused oil platforms can produce clean, inexpensive power for Louisiana.
Today, most electricity in Louisiana is generated with natural gas and coal. Wind is a non-polluting energy source that is not affected by market prices. The wind technology can keep jobs in the area after the rigs stop producing oil. Officials are working on the wind-energy study with the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.
Superheating is a phenomenon that can cause serious burn injuries. Superheating
usually occurs when using a microwave to heat a liquid, particularly water.
In a microwave, it’s possible to heat water above the normal boiling point of
100 degrees Celsius. This can happen when you use a clean glass cup that doesn’t
have any scratches to provide a place for bubbles (steam) to form. The water
remains a liquid, instead of turning into steam and releasing some of the heat.
When the cup is moved or something is added to the water, the bubbles form very
rapidly, expelling the hot liquid like an explosion. When heating water in a
microwave, always let the cup remain in the microwave for 30 seconds before
touching it.
The
first offshore wind park in the United States is planned for Nantucket Sound,
five miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in an area with optimal
wind speed and direction. The wind park will consist of 170 wind turbines (each
260 feet tall with 164 foot blades) spread over a 25 square mile area of the
sound (see the map at left). When the wind park is completed in 2005, the project
will generate enough electricity to power more than a half million homes. The
wind park will be developed on Horseshoe Shoal, a shallow area in the sound
that is almost above sea level at low tide, making construction a relatively
simple process that will not interfere with boat traffic. The turbines will
be spaced about one-third of a mile apart and connected by undersea cables.
Not everyone in the area is excited about the project, however. The area is a tourist destination and many people are upset about the impact of building large wind towers in pristine waters that are used by pleasure boaters and commercial fishermen. The developers insist the towers will be nearly invisible from shore, but others believe they will be visible and offensive, especially at night with hundreds of navigation lights.
What do you think about the Cape Cod Wind Project? To learn more about the
pros and cons of this renewable energy project, you can go to the Cape
Wind - Energy for Life and the Alliance
to Protect Nantucket Sound.
The world's longest running high temperature fuel cell - a 100-kilowatt unit that helped validate the promise of a future all-solid-state, combustion-less source of electricity - has successfully completed its planned test program.
The fuel cell operates on the same principles as a battery - and like the famous battery commercial, the Netherlands system appears ready to "keep on going and going." Siemens-Westinghouse plans to relocate the fuel cell and restart it.
Based largely on the success of the Netherlands unit, larger solid oxide fuel cells are now being designed and tested. In the Energy Department's program, a 220-kilowatt Siemens-Westinghouse solid oxide fuel cell-microturbine "hybrid" system is starting up at the University of California-Irvine, and a 1-megawatt (1,000-kilowatt) system is being planned for Fort Meade, Maryland. Siemens-Westinghouse has also announced plans for a 1-megawatt unit to be tested in Europe.
The 100-kilowatt system installed at a power plant in Westervoort, the Netherlands, provided much of the technical data Siemens-Westinghouse engineers needed to develop the solid oxide fuel cell concept. Commercial versions of the technology are now expected to be ready for delivery in 2004.
The Siemens-Westinghouse solid oxide fuel cell is a concentric arrangement of electrically-conductive ceramic tubes. Fueled by natural gas, the system generates electricity by a quiet, highly efficient electrochemical reaction. Because no combustion is involved, the system produces almost none of the pollutants commonly associated with conventional power plant boilers.
For much of its operation in Westervoort, the 100-kilowatt cogeneration system ran virtually unattended. The system was so reliable that technicians from the local utility, NUON, typically checked up on the unit only one day each week.
Following its initial installation, the system ran for 4035 hours before being returned to the Siemens-Westinghouse Science and Technology Center in Pittsburgh, PA, for improvements and modifications. The rebuilt module was re-installed at the Westervoort power station in March 1999 and since then accumulated nearly 12,600 hours of operations. The system was shut down when it completed its contracted operating period of two years.
Perhaps the most impressive - and technically significant - aspect of the fuel cell's long-running performance was its remarkable lack of performance degradation. When the unit was finally shut down, it was providing 110 kilowatts of electric power into the local grid - more than its original nameplate capacity - and showed no signs of diminishing performance. Preventing power degradation over long periods of operation is one of the key technical challenges facing fuel cell designers, and the Westervoort system has set a new standard for steady-state power production.
At the point of shutdown, the unit was also sustaining a power generating efficiency of more than 46 percent, well above a conventional combustion-based power plant that typically generates electricity at efficiencies of 33 to 35 percent. It was also providing the equivalent of 65 kilowatts of thermal energy in the form of hot water to the local district heating system.
Air emissions from the unit - nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide
and volatile hydrocarbons - all measured less than 1 part per million (by volume),
significantly below the most stringent of clean air standards.
Each year in the U.S., 1.2 million women undergo biopsies to determine if suspicious findings in a mammogram may be breast cancer. While 900,000 of those biopsies are negative, every patient has had to endure the invasive and traumatic tissue-sampling procedure that has been the most accurate means of cancer detection—until now.
One of the new detection devices developed by scientists at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Virginia, George Washington University, and Dilon Technologies, Inc., is the Compact Scintimammography Gamma Camera. It is a small camera connected to a computer that uses scintimammography, a nuclear medicine method of breast tumor detection.
Scintimammography uses standard biological radiotracers (specially prepared
chemicals carrying a gamma-ray emitting radioactive isotope that can mark certain
biological processes) to locate a tumor. Research has shown that several types
of cancer cells take up and accumulate these markers more readily than normal
cells because they generally metabolize faster.
Other scientists have used lakes filled with algae to absorb gas emissions, but the Ohio University's Coal Research Center team has proposed growing and harvesting the organisms directly in the exhaust gas from power plants.
David Bayless, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and lead researcher on the project, says the process would work something like this: As the carbon dioxide exhaust moves toward the smokestacks, it would pass through tubes of running water, creating bicarbonates that would bubble in the water like soda pop. The water then flows through bioreactor that contains a series of screens on which algae grow.
"The algae basically drink the bicarbonates," says Bayless, who also serves as associate director of the university's Ohio Coal Research Center. "They get carbon through this system much quicker than trying to get it out of the air."
A system of solar panels, satellite dishes, and fiber optic cables were developed by scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a partner in the project, so that only visible sunlight would be emitted into the bioreactor, helping the algae to use carbon dioxide for fuel during the photosynthesis process.
Once the algae grow to maturity, they fall to the bottom of the bioreactor and can be harvested for other uses. The cheap and plentiful algae could be used for fertilizers or soil stabilizers within the agricultural industry.
Until now, the Ohio University team has tested the method on a small scale, growing about 2 pounds of algae in a direct stream of carbon dioxide exhaust with the aid of fluorescent lights. With the recently awarded three-year grant from the Department of Energy, the Ohio University team will now be able to add the bicarbonate and sunlight systems to the project.
Researchers will initially use blue-green algae collected by Montana State University colleagues at Yellowstone National Park, where the algae survives near-boiling-point temperatures in hot springs, a climate similar to that of a coal-fired power plant. But the ultimate goal is to create technology that can use any type of algae found in abundance in the world.
"We hope to make this a process that doesn't depend on any specific organism, to be used by any power plant," Bayless says.
No one technology can solve the carbon dioxide problem for coal-burning power plants, Bayless stresses, but the algae-fueled bioreactor could serve as an efficient, cost-effective part of the gas emission reduction strategy. He estimates that an average-size plant using this technology could process 20 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions and produce 200,000 tons or more of algae per year for a secondary market.
The bioreactor is one of several energy technologies being developed by Bayless
and other scientists with the university's Ohio Coal Research Center to make
Ohio coal a cleaner, more viable fuel source.
Anyone who has ever been swimming on a hot summer day knows that the water is cooler than the air. In a large body of water such as a lake, the water feels cooler the farther down you go. Now, some cities are planning to use that cool water to help cut their air-conditioning costs.
In Ithaca, New York, hot summer days can produce air temperatures in the nineties. The water at the bottom of nearby Cayuga Lake remains a cool 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Cornell University, the town’s largest economic entity, is embarking on a project to draw water from the bottom of the lake to help meet its energy demands for air conditioning. The $55 million project, called Lake Source Cooling, is expected to reduce Cornell’s energy consumption for air conditioning by 80 percent.
The university is laying pipeline underground in two distinct segments. One portion, 1.6 meters (5.25 feet) in diameter, will draw water from a depth of 76 meters, raise it to a heat-exchange facility on shore, then discharge the water into a shallower part of the lake. The second set of pipes, somewhat smaller, will carry water from the university to the heat exchanger and return it to the school. Water from the lake and water from Cornell will never mix, but heat will be exchanged through stainless-steel plates.
Why is the university willing to spend $55 million on a project that may not reach a financial break-even point for 30 years? At present, the university cooling system relies on ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons whose manufacture was banned in 1996. While less harmful refrigerants are now available, deep-water cooling is expected to be more economical in the long run. Another benefit is that less coal will be burned to produce electricity.
With those benefits and the basic simplicity of the system, is deep-water cooling the wave of the future? The answer to that question is that while it can play a significant role, deep water cooling is only feasible where large bodies of water are in close proximity to major users of air conditioning. The best candidates are cities near oceans or large lakes. There are projects in Stockholm, Sweden, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Keahole Point, Hawaii, and others planned in a number of cities on the Great Lakes.
Cities that meet the geographical requirements have faced other obstacles.
There has been opposition to projects in Guam and Toronto, and a small but vocal
group opposed to the Cornell project. Opponents in Ithaca worry that the warmer
water (48 to 56 degrees) pumped back into Cayuga Lake will, because of its temperature
and phosphorous content, encourage algal blooms and weed growth. According to
Ithaca College biologist, John L. Confer, those concerns are misconceptions.
He points out that the heat added to the lake amounts to no more than an extra
hour of summer sunshine and that the discharge will actually contain less phosphorous
than the receiving waters. He makes the point that the real value of deep-water
cooling and other such projects is that they set an example for others to follow
in making a contribution to reducing global warming.
A lot of Americans did their holiday shopping on the Internet. We heard a lot about that on the evening news last December. The evening news, along with The Washington Post, told us something else about our use of the Internet—it seems to be making us more energy efficient. According to a report by the nonprofit Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, it is possible that information technology, and the Internet in particular, are making the economy somewhat less dependent on energy.
In 1997 and 1998, the U.S. economy grew by about four percent a year, while energy consumption hardly grew at all. The amount of energy required to produce a dollar of gross domestic product fell by more than three percent in each of those years. In the previous 10 years, the decline had been less than one percent a year.
How are these figures linked with the Internet? According to the study, while businesses continue to make improvements in energy efficiency, the Internet is also producing structural changes in the economy that may produce a long-term lowering of energy use. For example, Internet shopping means that goods can be stocked in huge warehouses that use less energy per square foot that traditional retail stores. Then there is the issue of transportation. Online shoppers need to make fewer trips in automobiles to malls, bookstores, and the like to purchase goods.
The biggest efficiencies, however, may come in the industrial sector as computerized inventories and on-line purchasing reduce waste and streamline transportation of supplies. If true, this is where the Internet would have the biggest impact on the economy. The industrial sector uses around a third of the nation’s energy and produces about a third of its air pollution. Computer technology also has the potential to help industry reduce hazardous wastes and other harmful pollutants.
While the study gives cause for optimism, its conclusions are only tentative
because the Internet is growing so fast, and because of incomplete data on it.
While most experts agree that we are entering not only a new economy, but also
a new energy economy, they warn that the report certainly does not conclude
that we don’t need to be concerned with greenhouse gases and global warming.
At this point, the report is cause for optimism, not celebration.
Researchers have developed a process that converts used french-fry oil into a cleaner alternative fuel known as biodiesel. The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) reports that a new biodiesel processing method has been developed by researchers Bob Fox and Dan Ginosaur.
Converting vegetable oils or animal fats into diesel fuel, called biodiesels, is nothing new. In fact, testing of biodiesels has been going on for years. Biodiesels have a lot of advantages. They burn more completely than petrodiesels (made from petroleum), so they give off less pollution and are free of many of the harmful compounds found in petroleum-based fuels. On top of that, when they are burned, they give off the odor of fried chicken!
With all the advantages of using biodiesels, why don’t we smell fried chicken
on our highways? The current method of producing biodiesels is both time-consuming
and expensive. The process also creates a worthless by-product, a low-grade
glycerol. Fox and Ginosaur have developed a method that is faster and produces
a higher-grade biodiesel and a high-quality glycerol as well. Sales of the glycerol
could pay for the whole process and bring the price of biodiesel down to that
of petrodiesel.
The coffee maker in your home can be programmed to turn itself on each morning. Your family doesn’t have to turn the car around and go back home to check the iron when you are half way to the beach. The iron will shut itself off. Pretty smart, you think. Well, appliances are about to get even smarter. The next step will be to have appliances in the home communicate with one another.
Italy’s Merloni Elettrodomestici will soon introduce a line of digital appliances--a refrigerator, dishwasher, and washing machine--that communicate with each other through standard electrical wiring. Each machine will monitor total power consumption in the home and cut consumption if it senses a potential circuit overload. The machines can be programmed so that their heavy energy use takes place at off-peak hours. These appliances will even be able to monitor their own status and notify a repair center via the Internet if problems develop.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab is working on a project
called Kitchen Sync--the kitchen of the future. In that kitchen, all the appliances
will be networked. If you want to bake a cake, the refrigerator and cupboards
will check to see if you have all the ingredients, the oven will preheat itself
at the proper time, and a computerized voice will give you directions for making
your cake.
For at least the past 40 years, predictions about the fate of the planet have been mostly gloomy. From pollution to the population explosion, depletion of natural resources, and global warming, forecasts have concentrated on an ever-diminishing quality of life for earth’s inhabitants.
However, some leading researchers and policy makers see evidence that the future may not be as bleak as we once thought. Environmental thinkers who gathered for a major conference on the planet’s future last November saw reasons for optimism. William Clark, an authority on environmental issues at Harvard University and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, pointed to evidence that man is accomplishing more with less stress on the environment. He predicted that population growth will level off by the end of the 21st century.
James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, popularized the issue of global warming in his testimony before Congress in 1988. He, too, sees room for optimism. While he believes the next 10 years will be the hottest in United States history, he is encouraged to see that releases of greenhouse gases have slowed in the past 20 years.
Although, they expressed optimism, the conference participants were clear that there are still major concerns, and that much remains to be done. The 20th century has done, by many measures, unprecedented damage to the natural world. The world’s population has soared to six billion—four times what it was at the beginning of the century. So many bodies of water have been dammed that geophysicists say it has perceptibly altered the way the earth rotates. The discovery of oil and the development of the modern chemical industry have created both great wealth and major environmental problems. The burning of fossil fuels has increased the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by 30 percent. More than 70,000 synthetic chemicals have been introduced, some of them highly toxic, that have resulted in hazardous waste sites and pollution of rivers and lakes.
Recognition of the problems, particularly in the industrialized West, has begun to bring improvements and solutions. Food production, for example, has increased dramatically. One hectare of U.S. farmland that once fed three people can now feed 80. Many acres of less-productive farmland have been returned to forestland in places like Massachusetts that were nearly treeless more than a century ago. Simple plumbing changes have significantly reduced the amount of water used. Industrial pollution has dropped steadily as the U.S. has moved from a smokestack economy to a technology-based economy, and has enacted strict environmental standards.
The developing nations have not made the environmental improvements that are seen in the industrialized countries. However, even in the developing world, standards have risen. Infant mortality has dropped, literacy has risen, and real incomes have quadrupled. There are indications that leaders in the developing world understand that economic progress cannot come at the expense of the environment.
In many ways, the optimism of the conference participants hinges on the belief
that technology will be able to produce solutions to environmental problems
that do not derail the booming world economy. The solutions must involve both
the Western world and the developing world, which often have competing interests.
Major challenges lie ahead, and progress is not certain. Mikhail Gorbachev,
the former leader of the Soviet Union, best summed up the mood of the conference
when he suggested that humans can solve even the worst problems—if they choose
to do so.
Did you know that each year U.S. traffic signals use nearly 3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity? To generate that much electricity requires about 1.4 million tons of coal. According to researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, each of the estimated 3-4.5 million traffic signals currently operating across the U.S. consumes approximately 990 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.
To reduce the amount of energy consumed by traffic signals, some cities are
turning to light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Compared to standard incandescent traffic
lights, LEDs can cut energy use by 80-90 percent. That can produce dramatic
savings for communities. In Sacramento County, CA., a plan to replace traffic
signals at 118 intersections is expected to save the county $67,000 a year in
electricity costs.
Thirty years ago the United States could be characterized as a “throw-away” culture, discarding mountains of trash. The idea of recycling waste materials struck a chord with Americans and today 136 million people—51 percent of the U.S. population—participate in recycling programs of some kind. In 1980, 10 percent of municipal solid waste was being recycled By 1990 the figure had reached 16 percent. In 1988, J. Winston Porter, then an official of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and now president of the Waste Policy Center, set the national recycling goal of 25 percent of the trash in the U.S., a goal that was met in 1995. By 1996-1998, the figures rose from 27.4 percent to 28.8 percent.
As the figures demonstrate, the rate of recycling has leveled off in the late 1990s. While individuals remain committed to recycling, the problem is the economics of recycling. What we are recycling now are the materials that are easy to separate and recycle – newspapers, cardboard and aluminum cans. What remains is more difficult to recycle, or not worth the effort.
Winston Porter points out that recycling has its costs in terms of both dollars and the environment. It costs money to recycle, and unless the recycled materials have value to someone, it is more cost effective to discard it in a landfill. On average, it costs around $50 to place a ton of garbage in a landfill, while recycling a ton of garbage could cost $100. Moreover, there are environmental costs associated with recycling—transportation, preparation and the recycling process itself require energy. In some cases, recycling may consume more energy than is saved.
One impetus for recycling was the notion that we are running out of space
for landfills. While it is true that land for municipal dumps is scarce in some
areas of the Northeast, land for that purpose is plentiful elsewhere. For these
reasons, Porter and others think that the EPA goal of recycling 35 percent of
waste by 2005 is realistic. Some states had set goals of 50 percent or higher.
Most states have failed to reach that goal, although some municipalities have
done so. Setting goals too high may cause people to become discouraged, and
no one wants to retreat from the levels of recycling we have reached. To reach
the goal of 35 percent will require commitment by individuals, business and
government. Given the fact that recycling has become a normal part of the routine
for many, there is every reason to think that the EPA goal can be reached.
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