NPR’s Robert Krulwich does it again. As part of a long special series that NPR has begun about carbon and climate change, he starts out with a really really good piece (with his usual level of humour and sound effects - and graphics on their website) on carbon. What is it with carbon that makes it such a special element to us, our biology, our planet? What is it about carbon that makes it so happy to stably bond into chains (storing energy), and so stably that we get huge reserves of energy stored underground in the form of fossil fuels (oil, etc).
Archive for the 'environment' Category
Oh my. I’m a sucker for cute bears*. I admit it. My head almost explodes with Continue reading ‘Almost Can’t Bear It’
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a few days*. It has since made it to rather high visibility in the news, I’m pleased to see, generating a lot of interesting discussion. The Australians (another nation not part of the original Kyoto agreement, notably) have pushed ahead on the issue of trying to legislatively encourage (shall we say) the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs over the more wasteful traditional incandescent bulbs.
You’ll recall my posting about this idea not long ago, in the context of proposed California legislation (so yes, I used the same images in the same way). Now, I’ll admit that I was thinking of that as a test case, and when things are ironed out into a workable legislation there one would imagine the model being rolled out to the rest of the world to adopt in their own fashion. I did not expect an entire country to adopt it so soon and at such a rate (they propose to stop sales of incandescents by 2010!).
We had a lot of discussion in that earlier thread about the pros and cons of this. Commenter IrrationalPoint (IP), for example, seems convinced that this represents a serious access problem for people who respond less favourably to the new lights. Such legislation is therefore discriminatory. My response to that was in several parts. The first is that I was not convinced that the cited flicker problems were really problems that referred to the new bulbs. They don’t work like the old nasty fluorescents we remember from years back, or that are still to be found in a lot of public spaces. Their flicker rate is up at tens of KHz, not the 60 Hz of old. IP (and one or two others) then suggested that the issues were with the spectrum. My response there was that the spectrum is quite a bit different from a lot fo the old lights, and where some discomfort might arise with the new ones, this is possibly only a problem for some if direct lighting from the light bulb is used. (I personally find direct light from incandescents pretty disturbing in a lot of cases too.) Why not use the bulbs in conjunction with a simple filter or other decorative fixture that can modify the light to your tastes?
But I am keeping an open mind on this. Perhaps I’m just wrong, and the whole idea of banning incandescents is unworkable and insensitive, but I am not convinced that work cannot be done to make sure that it works well for all concerned.
One of the biggest problems with the discussion is that nobody could point to good Continue reading ‘Light Seen Down Under?’
As you may know, Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has been nominated for an Oscar. If you want to hear more from the man himself (see also his remarks in the previous post), here’s an interview with him on NPR’s Fresh Air. It first aired last year, but it is very current. It’s so good to hear a politician speak so intelligently on these matters.
You know, the last few weeks Continue reading ‘Fresh Air From Gore’
Calling all scientists and engineers. You’ll get a $25 million prize from Virgin’s Richard Branson1 if you find a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Get to work!
Continuing his admirable campaign to do more useful things with his money instead of engaging in the (let’s face it) mostly silly stunts that used to characterize news stories about him, Richard Branson announced his new prize today in London (in the company of Al Gore). People are indeed working on this sort of thing, in case you’re wondering (see a post I did earlier, for example).
No, this is not a replacement for increasing our efforts to change our habits so as to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are dumping in the atmosphere. It’s an effort that is in parallel with those other efforts, and given where we are now (with the amount already in the atmosphere, the rate we are adding to it2, and the many huge populations around the world poised to develop further intense emissions activity, it is considerably secondary to the main concern of curtailing emissions. Nevertheless, it is certainly worth research effort.
There’s a BBC story on the press conference here. Al Gore’s comments in the news conference are a pleasure to listen to. Among the things he says:
Continue reading ‘Branson Adds Pickle’
This is a joke (the title) that works rather well, while being a serious issue as well. It’s all about trying to reduce our energy waste here in California, and contribute to the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The idea is to change from the garden variety incandescent bulbs (see left) to the compact fluorescent ones (see right). It’s striking that more people don’t already use them. Ordinary bulbs (apparently 2 billion of them sold every year in the USA) convert only about 5 percent of the energy that they consume into light. The rest is just wasted heat.
For the same amount of light output, compact fluorescents use much less energy: A 25 Watt compact fluorescent gives about the same amount of light as a 75 Watt incandescent… and it lasts over 10 times longer. The technology has improved quite Continue reading ‘How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?’
EDGE here stands for “Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered” and is a term that was coined to refer specifically to certain threatened species of animal around the world. They’re not always your big marquee animals (Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!), and a great deal of them will be unfamiliar to you. (I’d not previously encountered the Golden-Rumped Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus), and I’ll admit that my life has been all the poorer for not having known about it before now. For a start, it’s soooo cute! Furthermore, it has a golden rump. What’s not to like? Apparently, it is related to an elephant, somewhat distantly. Yes, it has a trunk, but it takes more than that to detemine its relationship to elephants! Update: - Here’s a Wikipedia article on elephant shrews, which could be a starting point for finding out more. The EDGE site has a lot of information too: here.)
That unfamiliarity - blissful ignorance on our part - is part of the motivation. There’s a campaign to highlight them more, and raise both funds and awareness to enable Continue reading ‘On the EDGE’
Last year in early January I was pleased to see that the MTA had improved things dramatically by changing the express buses (Metro Rapid) on my route from normal buses to those lovely long spacious ones - essentially two normal buses joined together with a giant hinge to allow the bus to bend and go around corners. That’s a crude description, of course. They still come equipped with bike racks (just like the typical LA city bus), and my Brompton fits under many of the seats quite easily. There’s a whole lot of space for everyone, and the buses are very well designed indeed. One of the amusing aspects of the sudden change was watching everyone’s behaviour. For about a month or so, and markedly in the first week, people would act as thought the second half of the bus did not exist. No, really. They would walk down the bus to the hinge, and stop. If there were no seats left in the Continue reading ‘Better and Better’
Recall that a little over a month ago I reported about the Tesla electric car to you? In that article, I congratulated the car makers on their choice of name, and speculated about what other names might be used in the future when more car manufacturers get into the game. One of my favourites was the “Volt”. Well, today, GM announced a new electric car in development, and guess what they called it? The Volt! I was rather prescient, it seems! More on the announcement of the Chevy Volt at Newsweek (I borrowed the picture from there) and the San Jose Mercury News.
What will the Volt do? It is a hybrid, but the driving mechanism is purely electric. This is different from what other well-known hybrids do”:
Continue reading ‘Potential’
You may have read my most recent two posts (here and here) on commuting by bike (maybe combining it with bus, and subway as well, which is what I do most times - there are excellent express bus routes through the city: the Metro Rapid system). I’m not the only person cycling in this city. For more on cycling in LA there is a host of resources. There’s the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition for example, the Bike Kitchen, the Midnight Ridazzz, and many more activities and associations. There are maps of cycle routes and cycle lanes on the LACBC site too, as well as recreational bike paths.
Here’s a recent Los Angeles Times profile, written by John Balzar1, of Monica Howe who is a major mover and shaker in the local bike and biking awareness scene. (I borrowed the photo, above right, from the article. It was taken by Al Seib.)
It’s very nice to read about people who are super-enthusiastic about the same issue. It is an uphill struggle, but I think I see more cyclists on the roads these days.
One thing that is mentioned a lot in the article and in other discussions of this sort is the safety issue. For what its worth, in my opinion the danger risks are often overstated, or perhaps not properly represented. While there are accidents due to careless drivers not paying attention, etc., I have to say that there’s not enough mention in these discussions of the far too many cyclists who are doing stupid things. I can’t help but wonder how many of those stupid acts contribute to the number of accidents that people count in the stats. Yes, we need to get motorists more used to Continue reading ‘Just So You Know I’m Not The Only Nut In The Fruitbowl’
(Reprint -somewhat modified- of an article I posted on CV some time ago.)
You join me in part two of my journey from home to work. Part I, together with some of my reasons for doing this, can be found here. See that post for links to public transport resources too.
We pick up the journey just after we passed another food stand serving tasty morsels. We’re still on Sunset (which by the way has a cycle lane for a long way), in the heart of Silver Lake now, and there’s a slight hill up towards the neighbourhood called Echo Park, just before which we’ll do our turn onto a useful side street (there are so many in this city, which is why the complaint that cycling is dangerous can be tackled a bit - you can choose to avoid a lot of the worst stuff - it does not grant you immunity, but it can help manage your vigilance a bit better). Immediately turning the corner we glimpse one of the many interesting Continue reading ‘Commuting, II’
(Reprint -somewhat modified- of an article I posted on CV some time ago.)
There are many frustrating myths about Los Angeles. Many of them are formed and/or perpetuated by people who are simply unaware of so much about the city because they’ve only seen it from their cars. You cannot see much of the full life of this city in a car. You have to get out of them and move more slowly, and at street level. Walking, cycling and buses are best for this. This leads me to one of the other frustrating myths. The myth that there is no public transport. To begin to blow that myth apart, have a look at this map (click for larger) for the impressive coverage of the city afforded by the bus, subway and train system:
You can get more information from the MTA site, for example, and a bigger version of that map, into which you can zoom down to street level. There are schedules, route planners, online tours of the beautiful (and highly underused) red line subway stations, and much more. See also the LADOT site, and especially the DASH buses for quick local trips. No, the system is not perfect, but it will not improve rapidly if we don’t use it. And, no you can’t use it for all journeys that you want to do, but it can be used for some of them. Yes, you do need to plan ahead, and maybe work to a schedule sometimes, but that’s true for most transport systems, not just LA’s. It will never be as convenient as a car, but that’s not the point. Furthermore, you can broaden the scope of what you can do on the system with the aid of a bike, in combination with the buses and trains. (Almost all buses have bike racks on them, or use a folding bike and just take it on to the bus, like I do.)
I’ve spoken earlier about public transport (such as the fact that it exists but almost nobody uses it), and I’ve spoken about walking, and cycling. But it must seem all so abstract. So in a fit of frustration at not being able to bring you all along with me and just show you, I decided that I’d take you with me on one of those mornings when I Continue reading ‘Commuting, I’
You don’t have to feel quite so guilty when you next thumb through the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. (Yes you - you know who you are.) Environmental groups have been protesting their (specifically, the parent company Limited Brands) practices for a long while - they produce about one million catalogues per day, printed on virgin paper, including paper from forests that came habitats of endangered species such as the caribou in parts of Northern and Western Canada. The good news is that they have now committed to stop using virgin paper, and use a significant component of recycled paper for the catalogues, in addition to stopping the use of the paper from endangered habitats. From an article in Reuters:
The company’s catalogs will use either 10 percent recycled paper or 10 percent new paper from sources certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as having been produced in an environmentally sustainable manner.
You can read much more about the result at ForestEthics’ site.
Ok, back to your lingere shopping now*.
-cvj
Well, in the fine and tedious tradition of various huge Hollywood movies (perhaps most recently Batman Begins), in showing the following picture I probably should have used the blog post title “I gotta get me one of those”, or some slight variant:
… but I’ll spare you the cliché. This car is part of a fantasy that I (and some others) Continue reading ‘Coiled’
The people of the corn are not the folks in Chiapas, Mexico, who have been known to call themselves that. Or, I should say not just them. Who else? The people of the USA. Maybe much more so than the people in Mexico.
I learned this from listening to Michael Pollan, author of the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, who was on NPR’s Science Friday two days ago. His book explores the origins of the food that we eat every day, explaining the changes that have occurred in agriculture that moved us away from the traditional model of a farm (that many of us still have in our heads) to the current model: No animals, no pastures, no variety. Just a few specific crops, like corn. Corn grown for all sorts of reasons, and very few of them for the actual corn itself as a food. Instead, it goes into nearly everything that we eat (and more) in huge quantities. The vast majority of the food that we eat has corn at its base in some way or another. Either directly, such as in the sweeteners added to nearly every procesed food, or indirectly - corn is used as feed for producing the animals that we get meat, milk, etc, from. You can use a mass spectrometer to trace Continue reading ‘People of the Corn’
Tuesday saw the official agreement between a consortium of countries to construct a fully functional fusion reactor, at a cost of 12.8 billion dollars, or thereabouts. The project is called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER. It is indeed a huge undertaking, and we could end up with nothing to show for it, but on the other hand it would be a miniscule price to pay if we were to get the scheme off the ground. The promise of an abundant source of energy that is (supposedly) less polluting and safer to run than fission and does not add to our upcoming woes caused by climate change is too tantalizing not to pursue.
In case you’re wondering, the image to the right (click for larger) is a schematic representation of the 500MW reactor. It is of the classic “Tokamak” type, in which there is a torus (doughnut) shaped region where the plasma will be magnetically contained, at a temperature of 100 million K. To learn more about fusion, you can go to the article from the UKAEA here, and the article on ITER here at their website. From the latter, you can learn about the specific scientific objectives of ITER:
Continue reading ‘Fusion In Our Future?’
Those are the words of Kofi Annan at the UN conference on Climate Change earlier today (see AP story by Charles Hanley). His speech emphasized the “frightening lack of leadership” in forming strategies for how to tackle the huge task that lies ahead for our planet with regards emissions. Getting the job done here of course means us realigning our entire global culture’s priorities, taking our eyes off short term gain and looking to prospects for the future. The typical stance of the current US government that strong emissions controls (and treaties to enforce them, such as the Kyoto protocol) will hurt economies is one example of the short-sightedness that we are up against. Their delegates at the conference continue to reject arguments such as Continue reading ‘Out of Step, Out of Arguments and Out of Time’
Well, as you can tell by looking in the “environment” category here, I’m likely to be pleased to hear about the Stern report, released yesterday (Guardian article and links to report here) and also pleased to hear that the UK government is taking the report seriously…. more or less.
I’d have a lot more to say, but I’ve said so much about this already, and I’m not really up to a long post on this right now. But I could not let this excellent (and hopefully landmark) event go unmarked. The point, as has been said before:- Nobody is going to get going on this because it is “the right thing to do”, since it is difficult for individuals and businesses to act in a way that makes things less than convenient for yourself for a cause that seems so abstract. Pure market forces will not do it either. We need actual leadership from the scientists -which has more or less happened for a while now (see my earlier reports on the UCS here and here for example)- and action and structure put in place by the people who will really get things going: economists and then governments (because they follow the money).
Well, Stern is a major figure in the “economists” group, and so this is good news. I must admit though that it really did make me cringe every time I heard the announcers on BBC Radio 4, while trying to emphasise how significant the report’s findings were, saying things like “this is not a report from an environmentalist, it is a Continue reading ‘Government Gets Stern’
I’m still excited about the news that Branson has joined the fight to put money aside to lead the way in fighting global warming issues.
I blogged about it here a month ago, you’ll recall.
Well, of course the Onion has a take on this. It’s mean, but it is funny:
Analysts are predicting that the $3 billion Sir Richard Branson has pledged for developing energy sources to combat global warming could come close to matching the amount the entrepreneur, adventurer, and Virgin CEO has already spent on elaborate balloon-based excursions.
That’s the main joke, but to me, even funnier is the ending line of the artice:
Branson also reportedly plans to invest billions more on a time machine that would enable him to prevent the creation of Virgin Airways, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by some four percent worldwide.
-cvj
The hole in the ozone layer over Antartica was recently the biggest it has ever been, I learned from this Reuters article:
“From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles ,” said Paul Newman of
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington.If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 million to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America, NASA said in a statement.
(NASA image top right. More about it here.)
This immediately reminds one of the other story on the hole I mentioned not so long ago. There was good news there, since it was supposed to be stabilizing, as a result Continue reading ‘Not the Hole Story?’
I’ve previously mentioned examples of the manipulation or suppression of scientific information by organisations such as the Bush Administration. See for example a recent post on hurricanes and global warming. Various scientists have made it their business to speak out against these types of wrongs, either as individuals in the line of fire, as individuals noticing it in the news and blogging about it to as many as care to read, and as part of organisations here and abroad.
Well I’d like to point out a new organisation I heard about* called “Scientists and Engineers for America”, and I am pleased to share with you that their website says:
…a group of scientists and concerned citizens launch a new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.
The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.
We ask every American who values scientific integrity in decision-making to join us in endorsing a basic Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Together we will elect new leadership beginning in 2006, and we will continue to work to elect reasonable leadership in federal, state and local elections for years to come.
America needs your help. Will you join us?
(Personally, I don’t see why it is necessary to be so America-centric about it, but there you have it. It’s their choice, of course.) Their Bill of Rights is linked here. Here are the points they list: Continue reading ‘Looking for a SEA Change?’
You’ve possibly read about my excitement about the long-awaited Expo line, connecting downtown to USC and the Science, Natural History (and other) Museums, and then connecting out to Culver City, and ultimately to Venice. I’ve blogged this here and here. They broke ground on the project two days ago. See here and here. Here’s a picture (yes, construction workers wear business suits in LA. They are very image-conscious here, and you never know when a casting director might be looking):
I am truly amazed every day by the small percentage of people who live and work in LA who actually know about this major breakthrough - the very existence of the plans for the line, never mind its approval. It is as though I live in a different city…. Anyway, conversations are going on in the various direcly affected communities about the design of the tations, the business that will sprout up around them, the best way to include bike lanes along the projects, and the routing of the cars that will do doubt still have priority and therefore compromise the efficiency of the entire project as happened with the Gold Line. Join in these conversations if you live and/or work in the city.
There are some significant new developments. The first is that the proposal to call the Expo line the “Aqua Line” did not succeed. Expo Line will be the name, it seems. Ok, that’s not so significant, I suppose. Meanwhile, the second branch of the Red Line, the one that stops for no good reason at Wilshire and Western, will be called the “Purple Line”. Yay. Not significant either, you say. Maybe, but the point here is that the Purple Line is actually being discussed! Not only has it been discussed, but there has been a breakthrough. That “no good reason” mentioned above was translated -back in the ’80s- into a legal blockade, making it illegal to tunnel further along that route for safely reasons. The claim was that the geological instability (that resulted in an explosion in a store) made it unsafe to pursue the goal of having a subway run down Wilshire Boulevard, and ultimately out to Santa Monica. This project would have acheived the wonderful goal of connecting Downtown to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Wiltern Theatre, The Superior Court, the Hammer Museum, and the whole of UCLA. But it was held up because (essentially) the greatest power in the history of the world could not simply look across the Atlantic or the Pacific to learn the tried and tested engineering solutions to this “safety issue”.
So the Good News: The same politician who sponsored the legislation that resulted in the ban on tunneling has how worked to (successfully) get it repealed! Continue reading ‘Green For Purple’
This is the Bush Administration’s war on science, I mean. There’s lots we don’t hear about, I’m sure, but there has been a new discussion ignited by an article in Nature yesterday. I found this article on Associated Press by Randolph E. Schmidt. Seems that there was a report being prepared at NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) about hurricanes:
In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the
Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.
In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.
The point is that (and yes, that is a picture of hurricane Katrina, above right):
A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.
and this connects -it is believed- to our activities in this way:
Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said “closes the loop” between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.
However, the official word from the Agency on this new apparent tinkering is as follows: Continue reading ‘The War Continues’
In more news from the battle to get action on Global Warming, from Reuters a short while ago:
Billionaire Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson on Thursday committed an estimated $3 billion over the next 10 years, or all of the profits from his airline and rail businesses, to combating global warming.
“We are very pleased today to be making a commitment to invest 100 percent of all future proceeds to the Virgin Group from our transportation interest, both our trains and airline businesses, into tackling global warming,” Branson told a news conference at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
Excellent news….
“We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine condition as we were lent it from our parents,” Branson said.
Hmmm. It is already too late for that, my friend. We are that generation. However, we do need to stop ourselves from further sliding into the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Your money will help. Please tell your friends. Start a new and useful trend amongst the super-wealthy, please.
-cvj
When the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kevin Nobloch, spoke to an audience at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies earlier this Summer (more here) on the subject of Global Warming, he very much emphasized the initiative of individual states as a means by which progress can be made while the Federal Government spins its tires, and does all that it does to suppress supporting scientific information. He did a very good job of talking about the spectrum of effects that global warming has on individual states, and the spectrum of activities that individual states can be engaged in, in order to take part in the effort to do something positive to help themselves. For example (bearing in mind the large number of ski-industry-related people in the audience), he spoke of the 3 degrees (F) average increase in temperature in places like Aspen over the last 25 years (1 degree for coastal regions, on average), and the resulting 20 snow days that have been lost over that time. He pointed out that this rate would give Aspen a climate approaching that of Amarillo, Texas, by the end of the century.
In talking about efforts that we can make, with regards to where we get our energy, and how we use our energy, he talked about several things. The USA is about twice as wasteful as Europe in this regard, and about half as efficient. So there are clearly lots of obviously attainable goals with existing technology. But he talked about the need to go further and focus on research into alternatives, reduction of emissions, and greater energy efficiencies. This is one of several ways in which states can make individual strides ahead, not waiting for the leadership of the Federal Government to arrive. 20 states already passed significant amount of legislature concerning renewable energy. 9 North East states already have regional cap and trade schemes on greenhouse gas emissons. Numerous city mayors have committed their municipalities to meet the Kyoto targets. 9 state governers joined California in more strict tailpipe emissions standards, etc. He talked about the need to do research and invest in the new industries that should arise around the technology of alternative energy, efficiency, etc. Why is the US not leading the way in hybrid car technology? Why is it so far behind? This is one of many areas to which states can be looking to invest, from the purely pragmatic perspective of attracting new industry, new jobs, new investment.
Well, we all know that California is leading the way in many areas. Not long ago we discussed the recent news of California’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the year 2020. But, I have to admit, I did not anticipate a lawsuit as the next salvo in the battle! From the BBC (for example), in a report yesterday: Continue reading ‘Well, That’s a Novel Approach’
Well, I snapped this shot of this awfully cool woman while I waited at the lights….
… and then as I cycled by on my own “funny-looking bike”, I waved to her and yelled “nice wheels!” (since “nice bike!” would be inappropriate, and “nice trike!” sounds like she’s a 5 year old, rather than her 50+? years). I was so pleased to see her.
I hope that I did not scare her.
-cvj
An interesting development in the world of chemistry caught my eye just now. Imagine taking that carbon dioxide that is in so many of our emissions, and that is one of the principal agents in the processes contributing to global warming, and using solar energy, converting it into fuel. Now that would really be an interesting possibility, wouldn’t it?
Well, it is possible. Whether it will ever be a viable scheme that makes any practical sense is another matter, but you’ve got to start somewhere. A team of chemists represented by Gabriele Centi of the University of Messina (Italy) presented new results on this process to the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco. From New Scientist:
The researchers chemically reduced CO2 to produce eight and nine-carbon hydrocarbons using a catalyst of particles of platinum and palladium confined in carbon nanotubes. These hydrocarbons can be made into petrol and diesel.
To begin with, the researchers used sunlight plus a thin film of titanium dioxide to act as a photocatalyst to split water into oxygen gas plus protons and electrons. These are then carried off separately, via a proton membrane and wire respectively, before being combined with CO2 plus the nano-catalyst to produce the hydrocarbons.
Here’s the actual abstract of the talk:
You’ve probably gathered from my writings by now that I think that bike riding is a good thing. Particularly as an alternative to driving, where appropriate. One such place where biking is in principle a perfect alternative is Los Angeles. Mostly flat, wide streets, perfect weather most of the year around. At this point in a conversation about this, people either burst out laughing, or look at me as though I am insane. I sigh. I try to point out that there exists a core (although small… but growing I notice) of people who get on with the business of cycling around this city instead of listening to the (mostly exaggerated and/or coming from total ignorance) stories about how dangerous it is supposed to be (supposedly not just from motorists, but apparently there are very bad men out there trying to do bad things to you). What I say mostly falls on deaf ears. I point out how many alternative routes there are in a city this well connected, so that you do not have to use the main roads if worried about willful or inattentive motorists. I point out how nicely bikes work in conjunction with the (yes, it exists) public transport in the city, since every bus is equipped with bike racks. These do not help either. I point out how much fun I’m having by not having to fight with other motorists every morning, pay an extortionate amount of money for parking, how much gas I save by essentially only driving on the weekends, etc, etc…. I recognise, yes, that it is not a choice that everyone in the city can make, but so very many could, even if it is just a matter of using your bike to nip to the shops for that pint of milk, instead of driving the car… Then I give up, shut up (mostly), and ride my bike. (Descriptions of one of my routes into work here and here.)
Anyway, I keep dreaming that one day that slow trickle of increasing numbers of cyclists I see out there will turn into a torrent, and somehow bikes (and public transport) will not be seen as a situation you must accept as a last resort due to reduced circumstances, but be seen as simply a really good choice to make. Maybe one day it will even become a mainstream hip thing to do (as opposed to the underground hipness it has now…I like to imagine), and increased bike use will be driven by people wanting to jump on that bandwagon. I don’t care how we get there, as long as we do.
To help with the dream, I look fondly at the greater bike use in other countries and cities when I visit them. Here’s a lovely article, by John Tagliabue, that came out today* in the New York Times about the Netherlands. It starts out:
With more than two bicycles per person and a landscape as flat as a pancake, the Netherlands is a cyclists’ Eden.
[...]
with greater affluence, more free time and even greater environmental concerns, the Dutch are turning to bicycles in ever greater numbers. Sales are booming, and there is a proliferation of designs for all sorts of purposes.
And further, there’s a description of a recently opened bicycle dealership that is one Continue reading ‘Bikes and the City’
I just happened upon the middle of Spike Lee’s documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” , which is on HBO (it is an HBO film, I think). I was transfixed, and horrified, all over again. I’ve set the system to record the next showing of all four acts in their entirety, and it is at the top of my viewing priorities. If you have not seen it, I recommend it, from the 20 minutes I’ve seen so far alone. Spike Lee looks to have done an excellent job. It is a documentary, to be sure, with the faces and voices of the people affected and involved on camera a great deal of the time, and it is also definitely a Spike Lee film in terms of look and feel and, of course, Terrence Blanchard’s music. See the synopsis (along with interviews with Lee) on HBO’s site here. Extract:
“New Orleans is fighting for its life,” says Lee. “These are not people who will disappear quietly - they’re accustomed to hardship and slights, and they’ll fight for New Orleans. This film will showcase the struggle for New Orleans by focusing on the profound loss, as well as the indomitable spirit of New Orleaneans.”
The first thing that springs to mind (other than the thoughts inspired by the content itself, most of which I am sure you’ve had yourself) is: Why is this not being shown in every movie theatre in the country? Documentaries have come back, right? We’ve all gone to see Michael Moore’s cleverly edited and scripted documentaries on various political issues. We’ve gone to see the even more cleverly edited and (oh yes) carefully scripted documentary “The March of the Penguins” and came away weeping at the thought that in 50 years, all that may be gone…. etc, etc. Should we not all be turning out in numbers to see this, showing events where actual human beings were lost and abandoned, in huge numbers? Families destroyed, lives torn assunder? Where the heart of so much of our culture was destroyed? If not, why not? I don’t care that it is 4 hours long. That’s not a good enough argument.
-cvj
You’ve probably heard the news wherever on the planet you are. California’s legislature is commiting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels (so, by 25%) by the year 2020. I’ve got a class to prepare, and so can’t spend a huge amount of time writing a long cheerleader-type post about this, but I am so delighted. (Stories in the BBC, LA Times and New York Times, for example.)
This is so important for so many reasons. Besides the obvious one of us just getting on with the task of doing this sort of thing, there is the symbolism. This flies in the face of the Bush administration’s lack of leadership on the whole issue, and will help nullify that lack of leadership, since the other states will be able to look to California’s lead on this as a powerful example. The world takes notice too, since California is -as an economic force in its own right- the number 8 economy in the world. None of this will happen if the economics are not done correctly.
The point is that it can make economic sense (despite fears that possible resulting Continue reading ‘California Steps Forward, Again’
Apparently the hole in the ozone layer above Antartica is stabilizing. Some of you will remember the late 80s, when the hole was discussed a lot in the popular press. It was a huge problem. The hole we made meant that we were losing our protection from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. We identified that chloroflourocarbons -CFCs- which at the time were used everywhere (such as propellants in aerosol cans, refrigerator coolants) were the chief ozone-depleting substances that we produced.
What did we do? We sat down in Montreal and decided -as a global society- to change our behaviour. International agreements were arrived at to stop producing CFCs (and a range of other related molecules), to serve the greater good.
It seems to have worked. See the article I spotted on the BBC’s news site. Quoting:
Some days I’m optimistic, and I think we’ll change our behaviour in time. We’ll be able to stop destroying our environment quite so recklessly. We’ll stop our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. We’ll stop fighting ridiculous wars over such fuels…. etc.
Other days, stuff like this happens, and I think “We’re Doomed”.
The scene: Two Fridays ago at Aspen airport. I was there to pick up a rental car that I had ordered over the web. It was needed for a trip I will tell you about. Of course, I had booked for a compact car, and was hoping to get one.
So I filled in the paperwork as usual, checking the boxes, declining the insurance (since I have my own), etc. The usual drill. Then the agent gave me one other form to sign which was weird. It is an agreement to accept a financial penalty if I brought back the car within two hours of renting it. I asked about this and he mumbled something about breach of contract, etc, etc. After giving him a hard stare, I thought nothing more of it.
Transactions with paper done with, the agent smiled at me and handed me the keys. Now remembering what just took place (see end of previous paragraph), observe what he said:
“Well, we don’t have any cars left sir, so we’re giving you a free upgrade to a Chevy Humongous. It is an SUV”.
“But I don’t want an SUV, Chevy Humongous or otherwise”.
He looked at me like I’m nuts.
People are excited about ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. You can just grow the basic sources needed as grain, for example. Can this solve all of our problems? Careful now: Do you know how much grain it takes to make the ethanol needed to fill up the 25 gallon tank of an SUV?
Enough grain to feed 1 person for a whole year!
I learned this on today’s Science Friday. Ira Flatow’s guest on this topic was Lester Brown, the founder of the Earth Policy Institute. It was an excellent discussion, covering several elements of the discussion, from economics to chemistry. Basically, we are on the verge of a real competition between growing crops for food and growing them for fuel. Is this wise? It could spell a major transformation of the world’s economy, and not a positive one from the USA’s point of view, given how much of the world’s grain supply is sourced in the USA.
Lester Brown is telling us to be very careful about the “gold rush” to ethanol that is happening right now. Is it globally thought out? Should we be looking at other sources, such as fast growing maple trees, switch grass, etc? Why are we not transforming our infrastructure to make more use of the energy that is available in the form of wind generated electricity? After all, with the efficient electricty storage devices that are available for vehicles right now, should we not be focusing more on doing a lot of our short automobile journeys on stored electricity?
Wind power can bring the electricity costs way down, Lester Brown says, to a point where ethanol will find it hard to compete. One of his key points is that we should be exploring this alternative a lot more than we are.
This is an excellent discussion, and Ira interviews Brown and raises discussion points very well. I highly recommend it. See the links to listen to it at the Science Friday page, here.
A somewhat biased point of view of my own follows, on part of this topic. (I apologize to Prius owners who actually bought theirs as part of a concerted program of efforts to do the right thing:)
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