Transition Island Blog

There is so much bad news that it is all too easy to become a gloom-merchant.

But some dedicated searching can lead to progress and a real potential to change the environment. Here’s a few possibilities…

Solar cooling system

A Spanish research team has produced an air-conditioning system that uses green energy sources.

Powered by using solar and residual heat, it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions in its cooling system by combining the use of a lithium bromide solution, which does not damage the ozone layer or increase the greenhouse effect. Read more…

Active focus solar panels

New York engineers have redesigned photovoltaic panels to include concentric circles that focus the sun’s rays on miniaturized modules.

The panels automatically sense sunlight and turn towards it, helping to make these high-tech solar cells more efficient. The key breakthrough is the miniaturized concentrator solar cell, which uses a lens with concentric grooves to focus collected light. Only the size of a postage stamp, the cell is much more efficient in collecting and reusing solar energy. Read more…

Carbon sink method workable

Adding lime to seawater increases alkalinity, boosting seawater’s ability to absorb CO₂ from air and reducing the tendency to release it back again. While the process of making lime generates CO₂, adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO₂ so the overall process is therefore ‘carbon negative’.

The idea has been bandied about for years was thought unworkable because of the expense of obtaining lime from limestone and the amount of CO₂ released in the process. But it could be efficient in regions that have a combination of low-cost ’stranded’ energy considered too remote to be economically viable to exploit — like flared natural gas or solar energy in deserts — and that are rich in limestone, making it feasible for calcination to take place on site.

Shell is so impressed with the new approach that it is funding an investigation into its economic feasibility. Read more…

Algae capture carbon doxide

Ohio University engineers have designed a simple, sustainable and natural carbon sequestration solution using algae. a photo bioreactor that uses photosynthesis to grow algae, passing CO₂ over large membranes, placed vertically to save space. The CO₂ produced by the algae is recycled as it dissolves into the surrounding water.

The algae can be harvested and made into biodiesel fuel and feed for animals. A reactor with 1.25 million square meters of algae screens could be up and running by 2010. Read more…

opinion

It’s true there’s many a slip twix cup and lip - research is some distance (and time) (and money) away from industrial production. But where there’s a will there’s a way!

Good and bad news came in around the UK energy situation. 

Problems in the area are not going to go away. Here we have a selection: political, economic, local opinion and habitat impact.

uncompetitive supplies

Allan Asher, the chief executive of Energywatch, has told MPs that power companies have it too easy. There is next to no market competition.

It is indisputable that competition in a market of six major players is unlikely to be as fierce as it would be with 20. As a result, he said, the difference between them is “just a few pence a week”.

hot air

Villagers in part of south Leicestershire are protesting at proposals to build a wind farm. They would be equivalent to eleven 40-storey buildings.

Members of the protest group claim the plan will damage the environment.

nuclear expansion

The UK government confirmed in January that it was in the country’s long-term interest that nuclear power should play a role in providing Britain with clean, secure and affordable energy.

Although considered highly reliable, nuclear power has been seen as a high-cost option, compared with other methods of electricity generation. But a range of independent studies now show that full life-cycle costs are competitive with other sources. This competitiveness improves further when factors such as desirability of meeting policy objectives of cleaner, more secure power sources are taken into account.

The quantity of nuclear waste is extremely small when compared to overall national volumes of all toxic wastes

tide plans

A new model of the Severn estuary built in Cardiff University will be used to study the impact of tidal power plans, including a barrage.

A feasibility study by the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government into the Severn Barrage, which could produce about 5% of the UK’s electricity within 14 years, was announced in January.

Professor Roger Falconer, who led the team designing and building the model, said it would be used to double check computer simulations of the impact of a barrage or other tidal power proposals.

“It will help us make the right decision as to how we can minimise any adverse environmental impacts,” he said.

folding Array?

The world’s largest planned wind farm, the London Array offshore scheme is being developed by a consortium called London Array Limited. which aims to have up to 341 turbines some 20km (12 miles) generating 1,000 MW in the Thames Estuary, east of London. One of the three partners in the consortium, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, aims to withdraw, putting the entire scheme at risk.

Shell’s corporate advertising focuses on its green energy initiatives and said it was shifting its wind power focus to the United States because government incentives were more competitive.

opinion:
Any disciplined major change takes time to organise. A wholesale catastrophic change might be quicker, but is a great deal less comfortable. Let’s keep learning…

Global warming is disrupting wildlife and the environment on every continent.

According to an unprecedented study published in the high-credibility journal Nature, climate change is already affecting the world’s ecosystems to a large extent.

This comes from a team of experts, including members of the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) from America, Europe, Australia and China, and is based on published reports dating back to 1970.

human doings

At least 90% of environmental damage and disruption around the world could be explained by rising temperatures driven by human activity.

(more…)

Radical CO2 reduction targets and urgent switchover to renewables energy sources is NASA’s opinion.

In a new report released today (12/5/08), James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting CO2.

Fears we have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem are emerging.

(more…)

More than seven in ten voters are not willing to pay higher taxes to fight climate change.

The online survey also reveals that most Britons believe “green” taxes on 4×4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour.

Two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.

Only a few days ago, we reported The Labour Government’s addiction to “spin” has created the most profound disillusionment. This has resulted in the “disgust and alienation of voters who now tell opinion pollsters that they scarcely believe a word that any government spokesman utters.”

The UK is committed to reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. This target will be impossible to reach without popular support. 

eco-fatigue

We seem to moving from charity fatigue to eco-fatigue.

(more…)

Conservationists in Kenya demanded on Monday that the government ban the pesticide carbofuran after five hippos died and four lions were paralyzed.

Rangers in the sprawling Maasai Mara game reserve found traces of the granular pesticide, which is used to kill insects in food crops, in the hippos’ bodies and in areas where they grazed. The sick lions had been feeding on the hippo carcases.

cheap, toxic, indiscriminate

(more…)