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Sunday, June 5, 2005 |
[Roland Piquepaille]: Making diesel-like liquid from carbohydrates found in plants has been done before by fermenting glucose into ethanol added to gasoline. But this process was inefficient and expensive because the ethanol needed to be separated from water at the end of the fermentation process. Now, a team of chemists at University of Wisconsin-Madison has found a new way to create green diesel from plants which avoids this costly separating phase.
Still developmental, but interesting. This in particular caught my eye:
According to the University, this process is very energy-efficient compared with the production of ethanol.
About 67 percent of the energy required to make ethanol is consumed in fermenting and distilling corn. As a result, ethanol production creates 1.1 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. In the UW-Madison process, the desired alkanes spontaneously separate from water. No additional heating or distillation is required. The result is the creation of 2.2 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed in energy production.
11:55:51 PM 
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Joel Makower has a somewhat more jaded view of the Urban Environmental Accords.
But some of the biggest urban environmental problems aren't addressed. Concern about environmental justice issues -- those that inequitably affect the poorest urban dwellers around the world -- aren't evident in the accords.
(Read this together with the nearby posting on Van Jones and the 'Green Jobs. Not Jails.' campaign for some gritty perspective on why the jade.)
11:42:30 PM
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Also from Mitra (Thanks, Mate!): Transmaterials This resource has an amazing collection of new materials, many of which have an environmental/sustainability angle, they show how thinking outside the box has given us a lot of different tools for solving problems.
Things like:
- Ultraperforming
- Multidimensional
- Repurposed
- Recombinant
- Intelligent
- Transformational
- Interfacial
Cool, eh?
6:59:04 PM
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Echoing the 50 nations that signed on to the UN Charter in San Francisco 60 years ago, the mayors of 50 cities signed the Urban Environmental Accords in San Francisco today, ending the week-long World Environment Day events. The accords:
- identify 21 issues:
Energy
Renewable Energy | Energy Efficiency | Climate Change
Waste Reduction
Zero Waste | Manufacturer Responsibility | Consumer Responsibility
Urban Design
Green Building | Urban Planning | Slums
Urban Nature
Parks | Habitat Restoration | Wildlife
Transportation
Public Transportation | Clean Vehicles | Reducing Congestion
Environmental Health
Toxics Reduction | Healthy Food Systems | Clean Air
Water
Drinking Water Access | Source Water Conservation | Waste Water Reduction
- call on cities to take three actions a year to meet specific goals for each, and
- will award one to four stars based on how many goals are achieved by 2012.
Detail on other WED events to come soon.
6:43:39 PM
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[Natural Innnovations]: Thank you, Mitra, for flagging this article by George Monbiot, which tracks in detail the mistakes behind David Bellamy's climate change denial (published in New Scientist).
Not to put too fine a point on it, Monbiot concludes:
It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in your palm. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world[base ']s most eminent scientific institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals. You must, if you are David Bellamy, embrace instead the claims of an eccentric former architect, which are based on what appears to be a non-existent data set. And you must do all this while calling yourself a scientist.
Monbiot's irked that New Scientist, which published Bellamy's letter, Glaciers are Cool in April, hasn't asked Bellamy for a correction. They have, however, offered refuting letters -- like this one:
If New Scientist hasn't already done so, global warming sceptics' points, such as David Bellamy's, are well rebutted at www.realclimate.org/, a new blog set up by climate scientists.
Repeated reference to that site could save many trees being transmuted into copy in the magazine, thus shrinking its footprint. This would help the majority of readers who are doubtless aspiring to lower their carbon emissions.
and offered Meeting the climate change sceptics back in Feburary 2004.
6:33:16 PM
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I know a lot of people who aren't pleased with The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman's 'world is flat' perspective on globalization (nor with his views on Iraq). For my part, I sometimes find him glib, too focused on a clever turn of phrase (though I realize that's just good media management).
But one ignores this, from his Friday column, at one's peril:
The dirty little secret is that India is taking work from Europe or America not simply because of low wages. It is also because Indians are ready to work harder and can do anything from answering your phone to designing your next airplane or car. They are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top.
The way things were is no assurance of the way things will be. A sense of entitlement will be no defense.
And I wonder:
- How well will growing commitments to sustainability and regeneration, and an appreciation for the essential role of nature's services, hold up in the face of this new gold rush?
- Will the obsolete, falacious, yet still pervasive 'environment vs economy' fallacy divert China and India onto a highway to hell? Or will the growing evidence -- and burgeoning need -- for 'both/and' solutions enable them to lead the world's emerging economies into a new industrial revolution, rather than a tragic replay of the old one?
And
- Will the EU's constitutional crisis erode its resolve as a powerful driver of the sustainability revolution?
8:38:12 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Gil Friend.
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