Time Mag's Top 10 Green Stories of 2008

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1863706_1863707,00.html

Shows the little but definite progress we are making towards Green.

Useful links

My cousin sent me these links related to sustainability. Hope you find these useful.

http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

https://www.openeco.org/

A video from TED:

USGBC turns 15

The people behind the LEED game turns 15. They have put out a series of videos on green building and sustainability.Its pretty interesting with some LEED glorification, which I feel is absolutely warranted.

Watch it here:

http://in.youtube.com/user/wwwusgbc

Calculate Your Footprint

Like most things in the world, you need to know or get convinced on why you need to go green.

So you need to audit yourself. Enter Carbon footprint calculator.

Take your footprint and see how much of impact you make to this world. Of course it might look exaggerated but its not!

http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/

Update:

This seems to be better:

http://www.myfootprint.org

Free Green E-Book

Hi ,

Get your free Green building e-book from

http://www.treehuggerconsulting.com

This company deals with giving ideas for a sustainable construction in three perspectives - owner, designer, contractor.

Head to the site for more information.

Emissions - NOx

What is NOx? 

NOx is the generic term for a group of highly reactive gases, all of which contain nitrogen and oxygen in varying amounts. Many of the nitrogen oxides are colorless and odorless. However, one common pollutant, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) along with particles in the air can often be seen as a reddish-brown layer over many urban areas.Nitrogen oxides form when fuel is burned at high temperatures, as in a combustion process. The primary sources of NOx are motor vehicles, electric utilities, and other industrial, commercial, and residential sources that burn fuels

Where does it come from? 

NOx form when fuel is burned at high temperatures, as in a combustion process. The primary sources of NOx are motor vehicles, electric utilities, and other industrial, commercial, and residential sources that burn fuels. 

• Utilities: 27% 
  
• Motor Vehicle: 49% 
  
• Industrial/Commercial/Residential: 19% 
  
• All Other Sources: 5%
  

NOx is one of the main ingredients involved in the formation of ground-level ozone, which can trigger serious respiratory problems. 

NOx:

• reacts to form nitrate particles, acid aerosols, as well as NO2, which also cause respiratory problems. 
  
• contributes to formation of acid rain. 
  
• contributes to nutrient overload that deteriorates water quality. 
  
• contributes to atmospheric particles, that cause visibility impairment most noticeable in national parks. 
  
• reacts to form toxic chemicals. 
  
• contributes to global warming.
  

NOx and the pollutants formed from NOx can be transported over long distances, 

following the pattern of prevailing winds. This means that problems associated with NOx are not confined to areas where NOx is emitted. Therefore, controlling NOx is often most effective if done from a regional perspective, rather than focusing on sources in one local area.

NOx Emissions Are Increasing. 

Since 1970, EPA has tracked emissions of the six principal air pollutants - carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds. Emissions of all of these pollutants have decreased significantly except for NOx, which has increased approximately 10 percent over this period.

Health and Environmental Impacts of NOx 

NOx causes a wide variety of health and environmental impacts because of various compounds and derivatives in the family of nitrogen oxides, including nitrogen dioxide, nitric acid, nitrous oxide, nitrates, and nitric oxide.

Sustainable Innovation Conference - Alex Steffen

Hi,

Presented in the Sustainable Innovation Conference, Sweden last month, Alex Steffen had a lot of ideas on how to make the world more sustainable . While this might take time and lot of political lobbying to become mainstream, I just picked up some points from the the talk which I could gather. Of course watching the video would be the best to gain your perspective of it.

Sustainable Innovation Conference 2008: Alex Steffen from Joel Mulligan on Vimeo.

Points:

• Favorite Quote - " We are destroying the planet and not having fun"
• Human happiness is considerably reduced.
• To think not only of the obvious problems but also of the accompanying usually bigger problems which have to be addressed. Here he gives the example of a car, where he tells that everyone only looks at the exhaust pipe and tries to attack that problem of pollution. But a whole gamut of problems like construction and destruction of the car, infrastructure, water pollution, accidents etc have also to be addressed.( Systems thinking)
• Call for higher population density as opposed to sprawling settlements.
• Walkable urban areas.
• Higher density decreases the infrastructure needed.
• Installing personal energy meters reduces energy  consumption by 7-12%.( works like mileage meter in car)
• Number of trips required for renting a movie from a store (4 minimum) over Netflix(online movie renting) . Amount of time and energy saved. Calls for more innovation like this.
• Sharing resources(like car and other accessories) to share its benefit and impact.
• To setup a portal for easy bartering system - Connect people who want to sell outgrown products to people who want to buy them. Lesser garbage for landfill. e.g http://www.freecycle.org/
• To be wary of greenwashing - hogwashing the environmental way!

Throttle

Hello,

I am an Internal Combustion Engineer and i would like to give my inputs too on a Green Planet. 

Automobiles are definitely a very important part of a human being. And probably the most polluting species.

Certain things that can be done to ensure the least emissions from a vehicle.

1) Service your vehicle every 6 months at a authorised center. This will solve most problems.

2) The throttle is going to push more fuel into the cylinder, be careful of its usage.

a) Do not floor the pedal. A vehicle is going to perform best at 66% of its rated speed. Speed does not mean vehicular speed. 66% of the engine crankshaft rotational speed. This can seen on the tachometer if provided. Most vehicles have a rated speed of 5500 to 7000 rpm. It is best to drive at 4000 to 5000rpm on any gear

b) Never touch the throttle when it is not necessary. For example, at a traffic signal, make sure the automobile is in neutral and is idling. It is a common practise to rev the engine to make sure that it does not switch off. Such a thing gives out almost 300ppm more of NOx than usual. 

More to come..

Porous Pavements

Hi,

Porous pavements might be well on the way to replace traditional concrete or impervious material in parking , walkways and driveways etc, where structural efficiency of the material is not of priority.

So I have listed the merits and demerits of porous pavements.

Advantages

• You can recharge ground water much better.
• In the winter it doesn't freeze up like regular pavement does.
• Filters the water in much the same way underlying soil in a field or forest does
• Porous pavement tends to collect storm water better, so there is less runoff going into rivers and streams.
• Providing better traction (no water on the surface)

Disadvantages

• It is more brittle than conventional asphalt, so snowplow drivers have to be careful
• On smaller paving jobs, where extensive storm-water controls are not needed, porous pavement tends to cost about 20 to 25 percent more than standard asphalt
• Porous pavement also only works on new projects; repaving impervious asphalt does not reap the benefits of the material's ability to absorb water.

EDISON

Hi,

If you are a net and computer savvy person like most of them in urban earth, you can do your small bit to make yourself environment friendly. A small utility developed by Edison helps us reduce energy consumption of the computer by effectively managing the way your power is used by the system at various times. Power options are flexible suiting to different needs.

It also gives us the annual savings in dollars and energy savings to give the user a tangible satisfaction.

Download : http://www.verdiem.com/edison/

Common Denominators - 1

I have been scouring through articles in my Google Reader and most commonly these data stands out -

• Buildings constitute 30-40% energy consumed in this earth
• Savings up to 30-40% for both water and energy savings due to green implementation.
• Market for eco-friendly materials - +ve sign for industrializing countries( read India)
• Lot of big companies going all the way to a carbon neutral building(extremely expensive as of now) like Google (who have a extremely big bank balance).
• Green buildings cost generally 3-20% more than traditional buildings.
  
• Payback period varies from 3-7 years depending on the intensity of green mplementation.

I hope to continue this series as I see trends in green news!

Starting it off!!

Let me start this blog by posting some videos and resources I felt are important in the context of sustainability in India.

DA - Development Alternatives group focuses on strategies and technologies which can be used to embrace sustainable development and thereby eradicate poverty.

These videos in youtube helped me find DA.









Also you can subscribe to my playlist in youtube here
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D9B2C51D09F594FA

If anyone is interested in having a discussion on these videos and  links , just comment. Anyway I will try to summarize the videos in  the succeeding posts.