Tag Archives: green

Electrolyzed Water Replacing Toxic Cleaning Substances

The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water
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Used as a sanitizer for decades in Russia and Japan, it’s slowly winning acceptance in the United States. A New York poultry processor uses it to kill salmonella on chicken carcasses. Minnesota grocery clerks spray sticky conveyors in the checkout lanes. Michigan jailers mop with electrolyzed water to keep potentially lethal cleaners out of the hands of inmates.

In Santa Monica, the once-skeptical Sheraton housekeeping staff has ditched skin-chapping bleach and pungent ammonia for spray bottles filled with electrolyzed water to clean toilets and sinks. “I didn’t believe in it at first because it didn’t have foam or any scent,” said housekeeper Flor Corona. “But I can tell you it works. My rooms are clean.”
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It turns out that zapping salt water with low-voltage electricity creates a couple of powerful yet nontoxic cleaning agents. Sodium ions are converted into sodium hydroxide, an alkaline liquid that cleans and degreases like detergent, but without the scrubbing bubbles. Chloride ions become hypochlorous acid, a potent disinfectant known as acid water.

“It’s 10 times more effective than bleach in killing bacteria,” said Yen-Con Hung, a professor of food science at the University of Georgia-Griffin, who has been researching electrolyzed water for more than a decade. “And it’s safe.”

There are drawbacks. Electrolyzed water loses its potency fairly quickly, so it can’t be stored long. Machines are pricey and geared mainly for industrial use. The process also needs to be monitored frequently for the right strength.

Very cool use of science: providing a green cleaning agent that is effective.

Canadian Oil Sands

Photograph by Peter Essick, National Geographic

Canadian Oil Boom

To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself. It must heat several barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand and upgrade it, and afterward it discharges contaminated water into tailings ponds like the one near Mildred Lake. They now cover around 50 square miles.
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The Alberta government estimates that the province’s three main oil sands deposits, of which the Athabasca one is the largest, contain 173 billion barrels of oil that are economically recoverable today. “The size of that, on the world stage—it’s massive,” says Rick George, CEO of Suncor, which opened the first mine on the Athabasca River in 1967. In 2003, when the Oil & Gas Journal added the Alberta oil sands to its list of proven reserves, it immediately propelled Canada to second place, behind Saudi Arabia, among oil-producing nations. The proven reserves in the oil sands are eight times those of the entire U.S. “And that number will do nothing but go up,” says George. The Alberta Energy Resources and Conservation Board estimates that more than 300 billion barrels may one day be recoverable from the oil sands; it puts the total size of the deposit at 1.7 trillion barrels.
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But the free market does not consider the effects of the mines on the river or the forest, or on the people who live there, unless it is forced to. Nor, left to itself, will it consider the effects of the oil sands on climate. Jim Boucher has collaborated with the oil sands industry in order to build a new economy for his people, to replace the one they lost, to provide a new future for kids who no longer hunt ptarmigan in the moonlight. But he is aware of the trade-offs. “It’s a struggle to balance the needs of today and tomorrow when you look at the environment we’re going to live in,” he says. In northern Alberta the question of how to strike that balance has been left to the free market, and its answer has been to forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow is not its job.

This is a good article by National Geographic. We need energy. We also need to protect the environment. The trade-offs societies decide to make are often not easy. But open discussion of the issues is important.

Google Aids Green Action

Google has a focus on energy as I have discussed previously. Google has been working to provide a way for people to get information on energy use in their homes that can be used to reduce your energy use.

Power to the people

studies show that access to home energy information results in savings between 5-15% on monthly electricity bills. It may not sound like much, but if half of America’s households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road.
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We’ve been participating in the dialogue in Washington, DC and with public agencies in the U.S. and other parts of the world to advocate for investment in the building of a “smart grid,” to bring our 1950s-era electricity grid into the digital age. Specifically, to provide both consumers and utilities with real-time energy information, homes must be equipped with advanced energy meters called “smart meters.” There are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years.
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Over the last several months, our engineers have developed a software tool called Google PowerMeter, which will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer. Google PowerMeter is not yet available to the public since we’re testing it out with Googlers first.

Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps

photo of river in Yellowstone National Park by John Hunter

Photo of a river in Yellowstone National Park by John Hunter

Externs.com, another curiouscat.com site, provides links to hundreds of internship opportunities. We highlight some science and engineering internships and plenty of other options too. Visit the internship directory site to find options like the Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps. The YCC was established to accomplish needed conservation work on public lands and to develop an understanding and appreciation of participating youth in our nation’s natural, historical, and cultural heritage.

The Yellowstone YCC is a program that emphasizes work ethics, environmental awareness and recreational activities. Approximately 30 students are selected each summer from across the country and are expected to complete forty hours of work each week.

In the past, YCC enrollees have been instrumental in building backcountry bridges; trail construction and maintenance; log cabin restoration; painting; and working on a wide variety of resource management, maintenance, and research projects. Many of the projects take place in remote locations within Yellowstone and work crews may be camped out for up to ten days.

Along with the work projects, enrollees spend significant time participating in YCC environmental education and recreation programs. Many of these activities are scheduled in the evenings and on weekends. They include hiking, rafting, fishing, backpacking, ranger led programs, guest speakers, enrollee and staff presentations, and trips throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

To be selected you must be at least 15 and not turn 19 before the term ends in mid August.

via: Send Your Kid to Yellowstone National Park This Summer

Black and Decker Codeless Lawn Mower Review

My old version of this mower just stopped working and the repair guy said it would cost $250 for a new starter, new battery… So I bought a new one: Black & Decker 19-Inch 24-Volt Cordless Electric Mulching Lawn Mower #CMM1200. He said that the new ones were not as well manufactured. I couldn’t imagine how you could make things worse (it is a simple product and just adopting improvement over the years should be really easy).

But, the starter on this model is horrible. You have to tun this incredibly cheap key in a very poorly designed socket. Fails over 80% of the time. The old model started easily essentially every time. The design was just as you would expect, foolproof. Whatever pointy haired boss approved this design needs to go into another line of work.

The ability of the mower to cope with high grass is very poor – much worse than the previous model. I had a good test at first given the time between my mower breaking and getting the new one. Not often an issue, but still not a good thing.

They had a poor indication of the charge left in the battery previously. They now provide no indication of the charge left. It makes you realize that a poor indication was much better than none.

Battery technology has improved a great deal, and that was one of biggest the weaknesses of the last one. Well they seem to have managed to provide worse battery performance after 5 years of improvement in that technology. Pretty sad.

The bag design is much better than the previous model. You have to assemble it yourself but it is much more sturdy and much better designed – you can replace the fabric and keep the frame. The old model the entire things needed to be replaced if the fabric broke. And given the flimsy design mine broke very early on.
Continue reading →

Wind Turbine Manufacturing in Colorado

Vestas picks Pueblo for plant

Danish wind turbine manufacture Vestas Wind Systems has chosen Pueblo for what it has said is a nearly $240 million manufacturing plant to build the steel towers needed to hold wind turbines aloft, state officials said Friday.
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Two weeks ago, on Aug. 15, Gov. Ritter announced that Vestas was building two new manufacturing plants in Brighton. The wind-blade production plant and nacelle assembly factory represent a $290 million capital investment and will bring 1,350 new jobs to Colorado.

Just months before that, in March, the company opened Vestas Blades America Inc., a $60 million manufacturing plant in Windsor, north of Denver, employing about 464 people to build blades for wind turbines. Before that plant was even finished, the company announced in November 2007 that it would increase the plant 50 percent in size, production and employee numbers.

This is a reminder that manufacturing output continues to grow in the USA. In June they received an order for 500 MW in the USA. In October Vestas has received orders for 102 MW of turbines from Italy and 99 MW of turbines from Spain.

Wind Power Provided Over 1% of Global Electricity in 2007

graph of global installed wind power capacity

Data from World Wind Energy Association, for installed Mega Watts of global wind power capacity in 2007. 19,696 MW of capacity were added in 2007, bringing the total to 93,849 MW. Europe accounts for 61% of installed capacity, Germany accounts for 24% and the USA 18%.

The graph shows the top 10 producers (with the exceptions of Denmark and Portugal) and includes Japan (which is 13th).

Tidal Turbine Farms to Power 40,000 Homes

Scotland Plans World’s First Tidal Turbine Farms

Scottish Power Renewables will apply for planning permission next year to build the two farms in Northern Ireland’s seabed. The turbines will be manufactured in Scotland in an intentional boost to the country’s green-collar job market. The 98-foot structures have been tested to operate in water as deep as 328 feet, and they spin slow enough to allow marine life to avoid the 66-foot blades.
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New York City installed its first turbine for their tidal power farm earlier this month, but the Scottish plan differs in that the farms will be located in the open sea, not a river or straight.

Project aims to harness sea power

Projects on the firth could be operational by 2020… The Scottish and Irish sites would host up to 60 of the turbines – 20 at each site – generating 60 megawatts of power for up to 40,000 homes.

15 Photovoltaics Solar Power Innovations

15 Photovoltaics Solar Power Innovations You Must See

Researchers at McMaster University (coolest name ever) have succeeded in ‘growing’ light-absorbing nanowires made of high-performance photovoltaic materials on carbon-nanotube fabric. In other words, hairy solar panels.

The aim is to produce flexible, affordable solar cells that, within five years, will achieve a conversion efficiency of 20%. Longer term, it’s theoretically possible to achieve 40% efficiency!
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while looking for a solution, researchers noticed that moths have very non-reflective eyes (“most likely an evolutionary defense against nocturnal predators”). The moth-eye process creates panels that reflect less than 2% of light. That’s a vast improvement over the 35 to 40% reflection rate seen without the anti-reflection coating layers.
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Some experts are speculating that First Solar might beat over 80 competitors to achieve manufacturing costs low enough to market solar panels at less than $1 per Watt, the target considered necessary for solar to compete with coal-burning electricity on the grid.

A Cheap And Efficient Wind Turbine

Energy Ball – A Cheap And Efficient Wind Turbine

Home Energy is a Swedish company which has designed a new wind turbine that is very silent and it’s based on six curved rotor blades attached to a rotor hub at both ends. The new and futuristic wind turbine is called Energy Ball and when it rotates it looks like a sphere and it creates a wind flow which resembles the rapids of a river – this wind flow pattern is called the Venturi effect.