Posts Tagged ‘enabling technologies’
Redefining apathy: Dave Meslin on TED.com
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on May 31st, 2011
What if Nike advertised the way that local government advertises Notices of Application?
From the transcript:
How often do we hear that people just don’t care? How many times have you been told that real, substantial change isn’t possible because most people are too selfish, too stupid or too lazy to try to make a difference in their community? I propose to you today that apathy as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist, but rather, that people do care, but that we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in our way.
Local politics — schools, zoning, council elections — hit us where we live. So why don’t more of us actually get involved? Is it apathy? Dave Meslin says no. He identifies 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care. (Recorded at TEDxToronto, October 2010, in Toronto, Ontario. Duration: 7:05)
Watch the video on TED here – the video seems to run out before the end of Dave’s talk, so read the transcript to get the final few seconds.
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Pros and Cons of Re-Manufacturing: MIT Energy Analysis
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 24th, 2011
Source: Environmental Research Web
From “When is it worth remanufacturing?“:
It seems like a no-brainer: Remanufacturing products rather than making new ones from scratch – widely done with everything from retread tires to refilled inkjet cartridges to remanufactured engines – should save a lot of energy, right? Not so fast, says a new study by researchers at MIT. In some cases, the conventional wisdom is indeed correct. But out of 25 case studies on products in eight categories done by a team led by Professor of Mechanical Engineering Timothy Gutowski, there were just as many cases where remanufacturing actually cost more energy as cases where it saved energy. And for the majority of the items, the savings were negligible or the energy balance was too close to call.
Why are the new results so different from what might have been assumed? The MIT team looked at the total energy used over the lifetime of a product – a life-cycle analysis – rather than just the energy used in the manufacturing process itself. In virtually all cases, it costs less money and less energy to make a product from the recycled “core” – the reusable part of the product – than to start from scratch. But the catch is that many of these remanufactured products are less energy efficient, or newer versions are more energy efficient, so the extra energy used over their lifetime cancels out the savings from the manufacturing stage.
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Gutowski emphasizes that this research does not necessarily suggest a specific course of action. For any given product, there may be other reasons for preferring the remanufactured version even if it produces a net energy penalty. For example, remanufacturing may reduce the burden on landfills, reduce use and disposal of some toxic materials, or produce needed jobs in a particular area. And the expanded use of cell phones may have important social benefits, such as contributing to the recent wave of revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East. “We’re not saying you shouldn’t do it,” he says – just suggesting that it’s worth understanding the decision’s effects in their entirety. “You think you’re doing the right thing, it sounds so simple,” Gutowski says. But when it comes to understanding the true impact of purchasing decisions on energy use, “things are far more complicated than we expect.”
Interested? Read the full article from MIT on Environmental Research Web.
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Brisbane to Construct Second Landfill Gas Plant
Posted in Models, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on May 18th, 2011
Image via UK Energy Saving
From “Willawong waste-to-power plan gets Green approval” by Karin Adams, Sarah McVeigh on QUT News:
The Greens have welcomed Brisbane City Council’s plan to turn rubbish into power, but say the council is years behind the rest of the world.
The landfill site at Willawong in the south of Brisbane will have its methane and carbon dioxide emissions turned into electricity and put into the grid. Methane gas is 21 times more environmentally damaging than carbon dioxide. Landfill Gas Industries managing director Adam Bloomer, the company building the plant, says this will tackle a huge problem for council. “Every council in Australia that owns a landfill,” she said. “Their landfill is their single biggest source of their carbon emissions.” “Generally they’re somewhere in the range of 60 to 70 per cent of their greenhouse gas emission.”
Queensland Greens spokesperson Libby Connors says Brisbane and Australia are behind the rest of the world. “Queensland and Brisbane in particular are a long way behind the (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) where at least 20 OECD countries are already using this sort of technology,” she said. She says she has been calling for the Willawong landfill gas plan for 20 years. “Australia has been really smug for many years that the easiest solution for our waste disposal is landfill because we’ve supposedly got all this space,” she said. “You know that is just completely been the wrong attitude.”
Waste Management Association of Australia Queensland president Pravin Menon says Brisbane City Council is pushing forward with good sustainability policy. “What Brisbane City Council is doing is extremely responsible from an environmental perspective…in actually utilising a resource in the ground that would otherwise add to our environmental impact,” he said. He says future waste management strategies need to avoid, reuse and divert waste. “Councils should firstly look at reducing the amount of waste that they send to landfill,” he said.
Ms Connors says Queensland is missing landfill gas plant opportunities. “It’s interesting the only two plants are here in Brisbane but there are plenty of other opportunities to develop this around the state,” she said. Mr Bloomer says the benefits of the plant are environmental but won’t stem the rising electricity prices. “I don’t think it’s going to make a big difference to electricity prices,” he said. “Renewable energy is still a premium product as far as cost is concerned.” But he says what it will do is provide power to around 1400 homes annually. The plant will be operational by June 2012.
Read this article by Karin Adams & Sarah McVeigh on QUT News.
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Effective Use of Trigeneration in Australia
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on May 11th, 2011
Source: Green Buildings Alive via Sustainable Cities Collective
Investa’s Trigen Image via The Fifth Estate
From “Australia’s first trigeneration ‘precinct’ is up and running!” by Craig Roussac:
[...] Sydney now has its first trigeneration precinct, where one building’s engine can power another one’s energy needs. Why was it necessary? To answer that question, let’s clarify a couple of things. First, when we say trigeneration we’re really describing a more elaborate form of cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP). Cogeneration describes a system where the waste heat from a natural gas-powered engine that generates electricity is captured and used on-site. In instances where that waste heat (thermal energy) is directed through an absorption chiller to generate cooling, the system is referred to as trigeneration. Using gas as a fuel offers a significant reduction in carbon emissions when compared to coal-fired power generation, and the heat reclaim adds to the system efficiency. Sounds good, doesn’t it? As always, the devil is in the detail – particularly in warm climates such as those enjoyed by most Australians.
It goes without saying that electricity is almost always useful in buildings, wherever you are. Heat, on the other hand, is useful for much of the year in cold climates, but its benefits are greatly reduced in mild climates such as the one we’re blessed with in Sydney. The obvious solution for warm-weather situations where you don’t need much heat is to convert it into another form of thermal energy known as “coolth”. Hence the popularity of ‘trigeneration’ in this part of the world.
Investa installed a trigeneration plant along with a host of other environmentally-friendly features at its new 6-star office development, Coca-Cola Place in North Sydney. Ideally such plants are designed and operated to strike a balance between electrical loads and thermal loads. That is to say, you want to run the generator for extended periods at peak efficiency and have sufficient demand for thermal energy to take up all the waste heat from the electricity generation process.
Reciprocating gas engines need to be heavily loaded. If the electrical load drops below 60-70% the engine has to stop. If there isn’t demand for all the waste heat, you merely have a gas ‘generator’, not co- or trigeneration. What Investa found was that efficiency measures which were driving down electricity demand were compromising the efficient operation of the plant. It was sitting idle almost all the time. Because the base building is operating so efficiently, even with increased demand for electricity during warm weather (due to air-conditioning) the problem didn’t go away because the electrical load would drop right off whenever the absorption chiller kicked in. There was simply no way to run the building efficiently and also operate the trigeneration plant. This appears to be the choice faced by many owners of trigeneration plants.
Investa’s solution was to lease the building’s entire Energy Centre (plant room) to a specialist operator and enter into two 12-year energy supply agreements to round out the package. The arrangement links the Coca-Cola building and Deutsche Bank Place via the electricity grid. Because Investa’s partners, Cogent and Origin, are licensed electricity retailers, they are able to manage the electrical loads between the two buildings on the National Electricity Market. Effectively the system now services an electrical load of a combined 70,000 sqm highly efficient building coupled to the thermal load of a 28,000 sqm building. This is sufficient to allow for daily and seasonal fluctuations in energy demand while still allowing the plant to run efficiently for up to 14 hours per day. Most of the thermal energy will now be captured and used efficiently most of the time.
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Read the full article by Craig Roussac for Green Buildings Alive.
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Flexible Paving Harvests Pedestrian Footprints as Energy
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 4th, 2011
Source: EcoVoice
From “Human power generates new business energy” by Richard Maino:
Go for a walk and help power your town or city. That could happen soon on the streets, according to a UK inventor who says a paving stone in a busy area is stepped on by more than 50,000 pedestrians every day. To harness that power, young graduate Laurence Kemball-Cook came up with the idea of the energy-harvesting floor tile he calls Pavegen. It is the first device of its kind to capture this energy and transform it into electricity. When fitted in heavily pedestrianised areas it can power street lights and bus shelters, providing localised energy independence.
Pavegen is celebrating a contract for the massive Westfield shopping centre on the site of the London 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic Games as well as its first permanent installation in a school walkway. Some seven million people are expected to walk through Westfield in the two weeks of the 2012 Games and all of them will step on Pavegen tiles. The tiles are made of 100 per cent recycled rubber from old tyres. Every time someone steps on one, it flexes a dynamo technology that stores the kinetic energy produced. The tile glows to show pedestrians they are creating power. The footfall energy could power street lighting, information signage and other applications that spring into life when people approach them.
The tiles can be used almost anywhere. Pupils at a boys’ school in Canterbury, southern England, are now lighting up a corridor simply by walking through it. And the Pavegen tiles will also help the Olympic site’s Westfield shopping centre to meet its stringent targets for environmental sustainability, making it one of the greenest shopping arenas.
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Flexing just five millimetres, the Pavegen slabs absorb the kinetic energy produced by every footstep, creating 4-10 watts of electricity. The energy is stored in the slabs in a battery for up to three days or distributed to nearby street lights, information displays and even electrical appliances such as computers and fridges. The energy generated from five slabs can illuminate a bus-stop throughout the night and, with heavy use, a Pavegen installation could pay for itself within two years, with each slab targeted to have a five-year lifespan. The technology is suitable for indoor use and Pavegen is finalising the design for the outdoor units. Only five per cent of the footfall energy goes to the low-energy LED lamp to make the tile glow, while the remaining 95 per cent powers the tile’s environs.
Read the full article by Richard Maino.
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CERES: Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 2nd, 2011
CERES – Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies, is an award winning, not-for-profit, environment and education centre and urban farm located by the Merri Creek in East Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia. Built on a decommissioned municipal tip that was once a landfill and wasteland, today CERES is a thriving, vibrant community. Over 300,000 people visit CERES each year. Many more connect with us through our innovative program taking sustainable education directly to schools across the State.
CERES is recognised as an international leader in community and environmental practice. CERES Organic Farm, Market, Shop, Co-ops and Café and Permaculture and Bushfood Nursery are unique social enterprises that offer new solutions and ways to combat climate change. Community groups such as the Bike Shed, Community Gardens and Chook Group that call CERES home are also vital to CERES culture.
All waste and water on the site is recycled and much of the site is powered by renewable energy such as wind and solar. CERES is now working towards making the site completely carbon neutral by 2012. CERES is a model for a possible future where innovation, sustainability, equity and connectedness are valued. Both as a place and a community, CERES is striving to create a new way of being.
Watch a video about CERES here or visit the website to explore the enormous range of projects, enterprises and opportunities CERES supports: www.ceres.org.au
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Connecting Britain To A European Supergrid
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on April 19th, 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk
Image: The Guardian
From “BritNed power cable boosts hopes for European supergrid” by Damian Carrington:
It stretches 260km under the North Sea, contains 23,000 tonnes of copper and lead, and may represent the first step towards a renewable energy revolution based on a European electricity “supergrid”. The £500m BritNed cable, which has just entered operation, is the first direct current electricity link from the UK to another country in 25 years. The high voltage cable, a joint venture between the UK National Grid and the Dutch grid operator TenneT, has a capacity of 1,000MW, the equivalent of a nuclear power station. It runs from the Isle of Grain in Kent to Maasvlakte, near Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
High voltage DC (HVDC) cables allow electricity to be transmitted over much greater distances than existing alternating current lines, which start losing power after 80km. A network of HVDC cables across Europe is seen as the key to “weather-proofing” the large scale use of renewable energy, some forms of which are intermittent and have to be balanced in real time with generation elsewhere. “Our investment in this interconnector means that we are joining a much wider European electricity market,” said Nick Winser, executive director of National Grid. “This ability we now have to move power across national borders means we can use the full potential of renewable energy from wind – making it easier to import when wind is not available and export when there is a surplus.”
In the short term, linking the UK and European grids boosts the UK’s energy security and helps stabilise wholesale energy prices. Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: “Renewables win as it means surplus wind power can be easily shared [and] consumers win as a single European market puts pressure on prices.”
“This is a major step,” said Louise Hutchins, head of UK energy campaigns at Greenpeace. “It sends a signal to renewable manufacturers that we’re a step closer to unlocking the potential of one the world’s main renewable power houses – the North Sea.”
Read the full article by Damian Carrington on the Guardian.
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“Innovation: driving resilient energy and economic futures” Conference
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on April 8th, 2011
How can innovation and economic reform assist in developing the new energy sources required to reduce the impact of climate change? Intergenerational equity needs to be considered when developing enduring climate change solutions. This conference will deal with these issues and aims to offer many benefits for those operating in varied policy, planning and management contexts in energy, environment, planning, economics, communities and more. This conference will contribute to the debates on the practical application of innovation to the shifts required by industry, government, and the community in addressing climate change.
Join prominent and insightful presenters such as Prof Will Steffen, Dr John Hewson, Anna Skarbek & Dr David Martin to explore the themes of Australia’s innovation performance, creating new energy markets, climate prosperity and intergenerational equity.
April 14, The Australian National University, Canberra
Visit the Australia 21 website for more details or to register.
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Garage Trail Sale 2011
Posted in Events, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on March 31st, 2011
What if all the garage sales in your area were held on the same day? You could plan your route and visit heaps of different sales easily – maybe even with a bike and a trailer.
The Garage Sale Trail is about sustainability, community and fun. By getting people together to turn their old stuff into someone else’s new stuff, the day not only proves that second hand items can still have value, it keeps rubbish off the street, removes clutter from cupboards, stops a bunch of new things being brought into the world (along with the environmental impact that creates) and gives everyone good reason to meet the neighbours and have a good natter at the same time.
The Garage Sale Trail is on Sunday April 10 all around Australia – check out the map to see sales in your area or add your own. The site also has a free app to let you navigate easily on the day using your phone.
http://www.garagesaletrail.com.au/
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Find EV Charging Stations with Google Maps
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on March 22nd, 2011
Source: Autopia
From “Google Maps Now Features EV Charging Stations” by Keith Barry:
Google Maps now features a definitive list of EV charging stations, available at the click of a mouse. The setup is really just a friendlier face for the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) list of charging stations. Those 600 or so stations are compiled from contributions to the GeoEVSE forum, and comprise the master list of public charging stations that appear online and in the in-car navigation systems of cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf. While the information is readily available on the DOE site, it’s easier for many users to get it from Google Maps, which they’re likely already using. For instance, if you’re going on a trip in your Volt and want to plug in near your hotel, you can now search for a hotel with positive reviews and then search nearby for a public plug. Right now, a search of many areas shows how woefully inadequate the official charging infrastructure remains. Major cities like Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., only have a handful of charging stations. For most of the Midwest, EV early adopters will find a hotel parking lot here and a “green-themed” business there.
Read the full article by Keith Barry on Autopia.
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