Green Innovation 2010

I just ran across Time's "Best Inventions of 2010". I used to love articles like these. Still do.

I wanted to share some of my favorites.

1. People Power

• Need to charge your cell phone? Use "welectricity" from your new Orange wellies (rain boots). These boots take advantage of the thermoelectric effect and convert feet heat to power. 

• At a Parisian metro station, heat from trains and riders cause station temperatures to be around 60F-70F year round. By harnessing this heat, they will power 17 homes.

• Besides heat, you can also harness movement. Piezoelectric crystals can produce voltage when deformed. By inserting these crystals into rubbers, Princeton University's Michael McAlpine has found a way to harness energy from shoes, sidewalks, roads, etc. The possibilities are endless. If you're interested, here's a technical article about his work.

2. "(Almost) Waterless Washing"

• Through the use of absorbent nylon pellets, Xeros has found a way of cleaning garments with 90% less water.

3. The Bloom Box

• Bloom Energy has found a clean way to oxidize natural gas. In the future, they hope to replace natural gas with renewable fuels. Google already has a slew of Bloom Boxes running in California. Some of you received this video from me earlier this year; however, I thought its awesomeness needed to be revisited.

Paper or Plastic?: Putting Plastic Bag Bans into Perspective

Following California's rejection of a proposal to ban one-use plastic bags, parts of of LA County have enacted their own such ban. They join other California cities including Fairfax, Malibu, Palo Alto and San Francisco. However, Californians aren't the only ones waging war against plastic. City officials in Brownsville, Texas voted to ban plastic bags this past January, and a mandatory ban will be in place by 2011.

Although these bans have the best of intentions, I wonder if legislators thought it through. Why ban plastic and not paper? While LA County is planning on charging $0.10 per paper bag, Brownsville doesn't address paper at all. Without paper bag disincentives, everyone who forgot to bring their bags from home are going to use paper. So, paper or plastic?

Plastic may not be the type of bag worth banning.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading this blurb from the Washington Post. It is an engaging summary of the production, energy use, and recyclability of each option. If you don't have time, here's the deal:

Energy: A plastic bag requires 76% less energy to produce one bag, and 99% less energy to be recycled. However, paper bags are recycled 10 times more often because it is a cheaper process.

Winner: Plastic

Pollutants: Production of paper bags generates 70% more air pollution and 50 times more water pollution than plastic. 

Winner: Plastic

Biodegradability: Paper will biodegrade under certain landfill conditions. Some plastics will never degrade.

Winner: Paper

And the winner is... PLASTIC!

If they will cause an increase in paper bag use, are the bans worth it?

Things you can do with leftover bags:

• Use them as trash bags, and line your garbage cans. 
• Reuse them at the store. Who said you needed one of those fancy schmancy plastic bags? Those might even contain lead.
• Moving? Traveling? Use them to pack shoes and things that might spill.
• Need a lunch bag? You could even use them to carry your gym clothes. I feed paper bags to my worms. The opportunities are endless.

Note: Technology is always improving. If anyone has more recent numbers, please send them to me.

Freecycle - Emphasizing the Reuse in Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

For those who aren't quite ready to become freegans, there is always freecycling.

Once I saw it, I thought, "It's Craiglist, but FREE!" (thanks for the heads up, Brian)

I'm not ashamed to admit that I've dug through dumpsters after move-out day. Talk about gold mine. I've found unused school supplies, printers, lamps, furniture - all perfectly usable. The only reason they've been thrown away is because people didn't want to take the items with them. I know how that feels. If you can't transport it (like light bulbs), and the merch won't sell, what do you do?

Try the Freecycle website. Each city has their own. Register, answer a few questions, and you're in for life. Reduce your waste and get some free stuff! As an added bonus, you won't have to feel guilty about throwing away some really great stuff.

Some things I've seen on the network:

• Leftover art supplies
• Beds, sofas, chairs, tables, etc.
• Cribs, strollers, and baby clothes
• Books
• Bikes

Have We Underestimated the Imminence of Peak Oil?

If you don't know what peak oil is, it represents the point at which oil production will reach (or has reached) its maximum. Peak oil is often described as "the end of cheap oil" because while demand continues to grow, supply remains the same. Until recently, the peak's exact timing has been highly debated, and results have been widely inconclusive. However, the International Energy Agency (IEA) just published the 2010 version of their World Energy Outlook (WEO), which states that peak oil has already occurred.

Peak oil occurred around 2006. Future oil demand necessitates the use of unconventional oil.

What can we do to make it better? The IEA recommends that in order to avoid both climate change AND devastatingly high oil prices,  we should eliminate subsidies and put a price on carbon.

"Getting the prices right, by phasing-out fossil-fuel subsidies, is the single most effective measure to cut energy demand" (IEA)

-POSTPONED- Shooting SOx into the Upper Atmosphere

Whew.

"Plan B" solutions to climate change are both intriguing and terrifying, and attendees of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Ngoya, Japan focused on the latter. Included in their agreement was a moratorium on any geoengineering projects (excluding research-scale studies) that could possibly endanger the planet's biodiversity. Some are skeptical of this decision, but I've always believed that messing with nature results in unintended consequences. Research on the topic is growing at warp speed, which is great. Implementation is a whole other ball game. I hope we take our time.

Some Plan B solutions:

1. Iron fertilization of the ocean: Fertilizing the ocean would cause massive phytoplankton blooms. The photosynthesis rates of these organisms could sequester mass amounts of carbon dioxide.
2. Shoot SOx or sulfuric acid into the stratosphere: The particles would reflect sunlight away from the Earth, causing cooling. This  is meant to imitate volcanoes, which eject these particles and temporarily cool the surrounding area.
3. Shoot salt water into marine clouds: This would make clouds more white and reflective.
4. Carbon sequestration through mass air capture: Large man-made contraptions would suck carbon dioxide out of the air so that the gas could be sequestered underground.
5. Liming oceans: By dumping calcium oxide (from calcium carbonate - limestone)  into the oceans, alkalinity would increase, and more carbon dioxide gas would dissolve, removing it from the air. 

Left to right: an algal bloom in Qingdao, China; a volcano spewing ash and SOx into the air; an "artist's" depiction of air carbon capture

You can also listen to the story on NPR.

Is anyone thinking that these would make some great it's-the-end-of-the-world-oh-my movies? Throw in some Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal, and we have ourselves a blockbuster.


A few random notes:
Money on My Mind:
With a Republican majority in the House, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Association (NOAA), which funds my research project, may have its funding cut by 34%.
"Urban Decay":
In response to those who believe city composting is a means to no end, check out this article Sloane sent me.

GoodGuide: Making All of You Savvy Consumers

A few weeks ago, my friend Sloane showed me GoodGuide on her iPhone. It's not new so I'm sure a lot of you have heard of it. This is for those who haven't. Efforts like GoodGuide are exactly what we need to fight greenwashing and create a world off eco-savvy consumers. A growing demand for sustainable products could lead to a growing supply.

Here's the deal: on your iPhone, you can scan a product's barcode (in a store, at home, wherever), and GoodGuide will tell you, on a scale of 1 to 10, how well that product performs in terms of health, environment, and social responsibility. It's not perfect, but it's SO much fun to play with.

Are you like me and don't own an iPhone? Check out the GoodGuide website.