The Future is Bright: Positive Trends to Look For in 2014

With all of the world’s current problems, poverty, underdevelopment, terrorism, civil war, and environmental degradation, it’s easy to overlook how things are getting better around the world. Not only do we no longer live in a world where superpowers are no longer aiming nuclear missiles at each other and two-thirds of the human race live beneath totalitarian regimes; in terms of health, mortality, and income, life is getting better too.

So, in honor of the New Year and all our hopes for a better world, here’s a gander at how life is improving and is likely to continue…

1. Poverty is decreasing:
The population currently whose income or consumption is below the poverty line – subsisting on less than $1.25 a day – is steadily dropping. In fact, the overall economic growth of the past 50 years has been proportionately greater than that experienced in the previous 500. Much of this is due not only to the growth taking place in China and India, but also Brazil, Russia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, while developing nations complain about debt crises and ongoing recession, the world’s poorest areas continue to grow.

2. Health is improving:
The overall caloric consumption of people around the world is increasing, meaning that world hunger is on the wane. Infant mortality, a major issue arising from poverty, and underdevelopment, and closely related to overpopulation, is also dropping. And while rates of cancer continue to rise, the rate of cancer mortality continue to decrease. And perhaps biggest of all, the world will be entering into 2014 with several working vaccines and even cures for HIV (of which I’ve made many posts).

3. Education is on the rise:
More children worldwide (especially girls) have educational opportunities, with enrollment increasing in both primary and secondary schools. Literacy is also on the rise, with the global rate reaching as high as 84% by 2012. At its current rate of growth, global rates of literacy have more than doubled since 1970, and the connections between literacy, economic development, and life expectancy are all well established.

4. The Internet and computing are getting faster:
Ever since the internet revolution began, connection speeds and bandwidth have been increasing significantly year after year. In fact, the global average connection speed for the first quarter of 2012 hit 2.6 Mbps, which is a 25 percent year-over-year gain, and a 14 percent gain over the fourth quarter of 2011. And by the second quarter of 2013, the overall global average peak connection speed reached 18.9 Mbps, which represented a 17 percent gan over 2012.

And while computing appears to be reaching a bottleneck, the overall increase in speed has increased by a factor of 260,000 in the past forty years, and storage capacity by a factor of 10,000 in the last twenty. And in terms of breaking the current limitations imposed by chip size and materials, developments in graphene, carbon nanotubes, and biochips are promising solutions.

5. Unintended pregnancies are down:
While it still remains high in the developing regions of the world, the global rate of unintended pregnancies has fallen dramatically in recent years. In fact, between 1995 and 2008, of 208 billion pregnancies surveyed in a total of 80 nations, 41 percent of the pregnancies were unintended. However, this represents a drop of 29 percent in the developed regions surveyed and a 20 percent drop in developing regions.

The consequences of unintended pregnancies for women and their families is well established, and any drop presents opportunities for greater health, safety, and freedom for women. What’s more, a drop in the rate of unwanted pregnancies is surefire sign of socioeconomic development and increasing opportunities for women and girls worldwide.

6. Population growth is slowing:
On this blog of mine, I’m always ranting about how overpopulation is bad and going to get to get worse in the near future. But in truth, that is only part of the story. The upside is while the numbers keep going up, the rate of increase is going down. While global population is expected to rise to 9.3 billion by 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100, this represents a serious slowing of growth.

If one were to compare these growth projections to what happened in the 20th century, where population rose from 1 billion to just over 6, they would see that the rate of growth has halved. What’s more, rates of population growth are expecting to begin falling in Asia by 2060 (one of the biggest contributors to world population in the 20th century), in Europe by 2055, and the Caribbean by 2065.

In fact, the only region where exponential population growth is expected to happen is Africa, where the population of over 1 billion is expected to reach 4 billion by the end of the 21st century. And given the current rate of economic growth, this could represent a positive development for the continent, which could see itself becoming the next powerhouse economy by the 2050s.

7. Clean energy is getting cheaper:
While the price of fossil fuels are going up around the world, forcing companies to turn to dirty means of oil and natural gas extraction, the price of solar energy has been dropping exponentially. In fact, the per capita cost of this renewable source of energy ($ per watt) has dropped from a high of $80 in 1977 to 0.74 this past year. This represents a 108 fold decrease in the space of 36 years.

And while solar currently comprises only a quarter of a percent of the planet’s electricity supply, its total share grew by 86% last year. In addition, wind farms already provide 2% of the world’s electricity, and their capacity is doubling every three years. At this rate of increase, solar, wind and other renewables are likely to completely offset coal, oil and gas in the near future.

Summary:
In short, things are looking up, even if they do have a long way to go. And a lot of what is expected to make the world a better place is likely to happen this year. Who knows which diseases we will find cures for? Who knows what inspirational leaders will come forward? And who knows what new and exciting inventions will be created, ones which offer creative and innovative solutions to our current problems?

Who knows? All I can say is that I am eager to find out!

Additional Reading: unstats.un.org, humanprogress.org, mdgs.un.org

The Future of Transit: Parking Chargers and Charging Ramps

When it comes to the future of transportation and urban planning, some rather interesting proposals have been tabled in the past few years. In all cases, the challenge for researchers and scientists is to find ways to address future population and urban growth – ensuring that people can get about quickly and efficiently – while also finding cleaner and more efficient ways to power it all.

As it stands, the developed and developing world’s system of highways, mass transit, and emission-producing vehicles is unsustainable. And the global population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, with just over 6 billion living in major cities, more of the same is just not feasible. As a result, any ideas for future transit and urban living need to find that crucial balance between meeting our basic needs and doing so in a way that will diminish our carbon footprint.

One such idea comes to us from New York City, where a small company known as HEVO Power has gotten the greenlight to study the possibility of charging parked electric vehicles through the street. Based on the vision of Jeremy McCool, a veteran who pledged to reduce the US’s reliance on foreign fuel while fighting in Iraq, the long-term aim of his plan calls for roadways that charge electric cars as they drive.

Development began after McCool received a $25,000 grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs and put it towards the creation of an EV charging prototype that could be embedded in city streets. Designed to looked like a manhole cover, this charging device runs a type of electromagnetic wireless charging technology proposed by researchers Marian Kazimierczuk of Wright State University and professor Dariusz Czarkowski of NYU’s Polytechnic Institute.

The charge consists of two coils – one connected to the grid in the manhole cover, and the other on the electric vehicle. When the car runs over the manhole, the coils conduct a “handshake,” and the manhole delivers a charge on that frequency to the car. Though HEVO has yet to test the device in the real world, they are teamed up with NYU-Poly to develop the technology, and have already proven that it is safe for living things with the help of NYU’s medical labs.

So far, McCool says his company has commitments from seven different companies to develop a series of delivery fleets that run on this technology. These include PepsiCo, Walgreens, and City Harvest, who have signed on to develop a pilot program in New York. By creating regular pick-up and drop-off points (“green loading zones”) in front of stores, these fleets would be able to travel greater distances without having to go out of their way to reach a charging station.

In order to test the chargers in New York City in early 2014, HEVO has applied for a $250,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The organization has already granted a feasibility study for the green loading zones. According to McCool, Glasgow’s Economic Development Corps is also exploring the idea of the technology in Scotland.

But looking ahead, McCool and his company have more ambitious plans than just a series of green loading zones. Already, HEVO is developing a proof of concept to place these kinds of chargers along major highways:

The concept is simple. There is a way to provide wireless charging in an HOV lane. That’s a small strip at every yard or so that has another wireless charging plate, so as you go down the street you’re collecting a charge. One wireless charging highway.

However, this is just a first step, and a major infrastructure project will still be needed to demonstrate that the technology truly does have what it takes to offset fossil fuel burning cars and hybrids. However, the technology has proven promising and with further development and investment, a larger-scale of adoption and testing is likely to take place.

Another interesting idea comes to us from Mexico, where a developer has come up with a rather ingenious idea that could turn mass transit into a source of electricity. The developer’s name is Héctor Ricardo Macías Hernández, and his proposal for a piezoelectric highway could be just the thing to compliment and augment an electric highway that keeps cars charged as they drive.

For years, researchers and developers have been looking for ways to turn kinetic energy – such as foot traffic or car traffic – into electricity. However, these efforts have been marred by the costs associated with the technology, which are simply too high for many developing nations to implement. That is what makes Hernández concept so ingenious, in that it is both affordable and effective.

In Macías Hernández’ system, small ramps made from a tough, tire-like polymer are embedded in the road, protruding 5 cm (2 inches) above the surface. When cars drive over them, the ramps are temporarily pushed down. When this happens, air is forced through a bellows that’s attached to the underside of the ramp, travels through a hose, and then is compressed in a storage tank. The stored compressed air is ultimately fed into a turbine, generating electricity.

In this respect, Hernández’s concept does not rely on piezoelectric materials that are expensive to manufacture and hence, not cost effective when dealing with long stretches of road. By relying on simple materials and good old fashioned ingenuity, his design could provide cheap electricity for the developing world by simply turning automobile traffic – something very plentiful in places like Mexico City – into cheap power.

Macías Hernández points out, however, that in lower-traffic areas, multiple ramps placed along the length of the road could be used to generate more electricity from each individual vehicle. He adds that the technology could also be used with pedestrian foot-traffic. The system is currently still in development, with the support of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, and will likely take several years before becoming a reality.

Exciting times these are, when the possibility of running an advanced, industrial economy cleanly may actually be feasible, and affordable. But such is the promise of the 21st century, a time when the dreams of the past several decades may finally be coming to fruition. And just in time to avert some of our more dystopian, apocalyptic scenarios!

Well, one can always hope, can’t one?

Sources: fastcoexist.com, gizmag.com

The Future of Fusion: 1-MW Cold Fusion Plant Now Available!

It’s actually here: the world’s first fusion power plant that is capable of generated a single megawatt of power and is available for pre-order. It’s known as the E-Cat 1MW Plant, which comes in a standard shipping container and uses low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) – a process, often known as cold fusion, that fuses nickel and hydrogen into copper – to produce energy 100,000 times more efficiently than combustion.

E-Cat, or Energy Catalyzer, is a technology (and company of the same name) developed by Andrea Rossi – an Italian scientist who claims he’s finally harnessed cold fusion. For just $1.5 million, people can pre-order an E-Cat and expect delivery by early 2014. With this news, many are wondering if the age of cold fusion, where clean, abundant energy is readily available, is finally upon us.

Cold fusion, as the name implies, is like normal fusion, but instead of producing fast neutrons and ionizing radiation that decimates everything in its path, cold fusion’s Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) produce very slow, safe neutrons. Where normal fusion requires massive, expensive containment systems, it sounds like E-Cat’s cold fusion can be safely contained inside a simple, pressurized vessel.

And while normal fusion power is generated by fusing hydrogen atoms, cold fusion fuses nickel and hydrogen into copper, by way of some kind of special catalyst. Despite the rudimentary setup, though, cold fusion still has the massive power and energy density intrinsic to atomic fusion. In short, it produces far more energy than conventional chemical reactions – such as burning fossil fuels. The only challenge is, the massive amounts of power that are usually required to initiate the reaction.

According to E-Cat, each of its cold fusion reactors measures 20x20x1 centimeters (7.8×7.8×0.39 inches) and you stack these individual reactors together in parallel to create a thermal plant. The E-Cat 1MW Plant consists of 106 of these units rammed into a standard shipping container. Based on the specs provided by Rossi, the fuel costs works out to be $1 per megawatt-hour, which is utterly insane. Coal power is around $100 per megawatt-hour.

But before anyone gets too excited about the commercialization of cold fusion, it should be noted that Rossi is still being incredibly opaque about how his cold fusion tech actually works. The data sheet for the 1MW Plant shares one interesting tidbit: Despite producing 1MW of power, the plant requires a constant 200 kilowatts of input power — presumably to sustain the reaction.

The spec sheet also says that the fuel (specially treated nickel and hydrogen gas) needs to be recharged every two years. One of the science community’ biggest sticking points about Rossi’s cold fusion devices is that he hasn’t proven that his LENR is self-sustaining. Despite a huge amount of output energy, the device still needs to be connected to the mains.

What’s more, due to a lack of published papers, and thus peer review, and a dearth of protective patents, the scientific community in general remains very wary of Rossi’s claims. And of course, we should all remember that this is not the first time that researchers have proclaimed victory in the race to make cold fusion happen. Whenever the words “cold fusion” are raised in conjunction, the case of the Fleischmann–Pons experiment immediately springs to mind.

For those who remember, this case involved an experiment made in 1989 where two researchers claimed to have achieved cold fusion using palladium rods and heavy water. Initially, the scientific community treated the news with exciteent and interest, but after numerous labs were unable to reproduce their experiment, and a number of false positives were reported, their claims were officially debunked and they relocated their lab to avoid any further controversy.

At the same time, however, one must remember that some significant changes have happened in the past three decades. For one, NASA’s LENR facility has been working on producing cold fusion reactions for some time using an oscillating nickel lattice and hydrogen atoms. Then there was the recent milestone produced by the National Ignition Facility in California, which produced the first fusion reaction using lasers that produced more energy than it required.

Who’s to say if this is the real deal? All that is known is that between this most recent claim, and ongoing experiments conducted by NASA and other research organizations to make LENR cold fusion happen, a revolution in clean energy is set to happen, and will most likely happen within our lifetimes.

Addendum: Just been informed by WordPress that this is my 1400th post! Woot-woot!

Sources: extremetech.com, ecat.com

Climate Crisis: Illustrative Video of Impending Disaster

Recently, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 2012 report, which contained some rather stark observations and conclusions. In addition to reconfirming what the 2007 report said about the anthropogenic effects of CO2 emissions, the report also tackled speculation about the role of Solar Forcing and Cosmic Rays in Global Warming, as well as why warming has been proceeding slower than previously expected.

In the end, the report concluded that certain natural factors, such as the influence of the Sun and Cosmic Rays in “seeding clouds”, were diminishing, and thus have a negative effect on the overall warming situation. In spite of that, global temperatures continue to increase, due to the fact that humanity’s output of greenhouse gases (particularly CO2) has not slowed down one bit in recent years.

The report also goes on to explain detailed scenarios of what we can expect in the coming decades, in extreme and extensive detail. However, for those who have neither the time, patience, or technical knowledge that wade through the report, a helpful video has been provided. Courtesy of Globaia,this four minute video sums up the facts about Climate Change and how it is likely to impact Earth’s many inhabitants, human and otherwise.

Needless to say, the facts are grim. By 2050, if humans remain on their current path, global temperatures will rise more than two degrees Celsius above what it’s been for most of human history. By 2100, it might even climb four degrees. The IPCC report, and this video, confirm what we’ve been hearing everywhere. Arctic sea ice is disappearing, sea levels are rising, storms are getting more destructive, and the full extent of change is not even fully known.

As the organization that put together this data visualization along with other scientists, Globaia says that it created this video as a call to action for policymakers. Felix Pharand-Deschenes, who founded the Canadian nonprofit company and animated the video, claims that:

If we are convinced of the seriousness of the situation, then political actions and technological fixes will result,” says “But we have to change our minds first. This is the reason why we try to translate our terrestrial presence and impacts into images–along with the physical limits of our collective actions.

But of course, there’s still hope. As Pharand-Deschenes went on to say, if we can summon up a “war effort,” and work together the way World War II-era citizens did, we could still manage to the social systems that are largely responsible for the problem. This includes everything from transportation and energy to how we grow our food, enough to stay below a two degree rise.

Of course, this is no small task. But as I love to remind all my readers, research and efforts are happening every day that is making this a reality. Not only is solar, wind and tidal power moving along by leaps and bounds, becoming profitable as well as affordable, we are making great strides in terms of Carbon Capture technology, alternative fuels, and eco-friendly living that are expected to play a huge role in the coming decades.

And though it is often not considered, the progress being made in space flight and exploration also play a role in saving the planet. By looking to make the process of sending ships and satellites into space cheaper, concepts like Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) can become a reality, one which will meet humanity’s immense power demands in a way that is never marred by weather or locality.

Combined with sintering and 3-D printing, asteroid prospecting and mining could become a reality too in a few decades time. Currently, it is estimated that just a few of the larger rocks beyond the orbit of Mars would be enough to meet Earth’s mineral needs indefinitely. By shifting our manufacturing and mining efforts offworld with the help of automated robot spacecraft and factories, we would be generating far less in the way of a carbon footprint here on Earth.

But of course, the question of “will it be enough” is a burning one. Some scientists say that an increase of even two degrees Celsius is more than Earth’s creatures can actually handle. But most agree that we need to act immediately to prepare for the future, and that one of the things standing in the way of action is the fact that the problem seems so abstract. Luckily, informational videos like this one present the problem is clear and concise terms.

The IPCC reports that we only have 125 billion tons of CO2 left to burn before reaching the tipping point, and at current rates, that could happen in just over two decades. Will we have a fully renewable-powered, zero-carbon world by then? Who knows? The point is, if we can get such a task underway by then, things may get worse before they get better, but they will improve in the end. Compared to the prospect of extinction, that seems like a bargain!

In the meantime, check out the video – courtesy of Globaia and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) – and try to enjoy it despite its gloomy predictions. I assure you, it is well worth it!

Source: fastcoexist.com

Climate Crisis: The Ongoing Case of Big Subsidies

One of the most recurring talking points in the Climate Change debate is the issue of renewable energy. Particularly, those who take issue with proposed changes for dealing with the problem continue to cite how solar, wind and tidal power are not viable replacements at this juncture. While this talking point is a convenient way of dismissing needing reforms, it neglects two self-evident realities.

For one, it ignores the immense amount of progress being made in the fields of renewable energy. Whereas inefficiency and high costs remained as stumbling blocks in previous decades, an exponential drop in costs and a rise in efficiency has made solar increasingly attractive for power companies in recent years. Wind and tidal are in similar situations, with countries like Scotland and the United Arab Emirates leading the way in making them profitable.

Second, it ignores the fact that developed nations continue to stymie growth in renewables by the continued way in which they commit billions to subsidizing oil and coal. According to a new report from the Overseas Development Institute, public subsidies for fossil fuels totaled $523 billion in 2011. That’s six times the level of support for the renewable energy industry, despite those technologies being less mature than oil and coal.

Among richer countries, the top 11 heaviest carbon emitters spent $74 billion in subsidies in 2011, with Russia, the United States, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom leading the way. In the U.S., these included a $1 billion fuel tax exemption for farmers, $1 billion for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and $500 million for fossil fuel R&D.

In so doing, these governments are:

…shooting themselves in both feet [by subsidizing] the very activities that are pushing the world towards dangerous climate change… [and] creating barriers to investment in low-carbon development.

According to the British think-tank, this works out a spending of $112 per adult in these nations. But of course, the richest nations are not the only offenders, which nations like Pakistan, Egypt, and Indonesia spending more than twice as much on fossil fuel subsidies as on health. The ODI says the poorest 20% of households typically receive just 7% of overall handouts.

But the ODI may be underestimating the true size of the subsidies in the U.S., depending on how you look at it. Earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund calculated subsidies at $502 billion, a figure which includes the true cost of carbon emissions calculated at a price of $25 a ton. By that measure, global subsidies equal $1.9 trillion.

The report also advises that governments should cut handouts to oil and coal as soon as they can and begin looking after the genuinely poor:

Phasing out fossil fuel subsidies would create a win-win scenario. It would eliminate the perverse incentives that drive up carbon emissions, create price signals for investment in a low-carbon transition and reduce pressure on public finances.

A timely and sound recommendation, and one which cuts to the heart of the matter. In order to address the problem of Climate Change, we must not only adopt better methods for meeting our needs, we must acknowledge the truth of the issue. At the same time, we must acknowledge how ending these subsidies, or redistributing them, would alter the current balance of power on the whole issue of energy.

It’s one thing to claim that alternative methods are unviable when the playing field is level, but since it is not, the argument is essentially hypocrisy. By continuing to finance fossil fuels and coal, we are ensuring that clean energy will remain underdeveloped as an alternative, and hence undermining any chance it has at becoming a true alternative.

So the next time someone tells you that solar or other means of renewable energy are at least 50 years away, or that gas and coal are the only economical means of meeting our energy needs, be sure to ask them why we need to spend half a trillion dollars on them annually.

Sources: fastcoexist.com, odi.org.uk

Winning Ideas: The Bodyheat Powered Flashlight!

Every year, IT giant Google holds an online competition open to students aged 13-18 from around the globe to come up with new and challenging scientific ideas. And this year, one the winners just happens to hail from my hometown of Victoria, British Columbia. Her name is Ann Makosinki, a 15 year old high school student who invented a way to power a flashlight using only the warmth of your hand.

She claimed a trophy made of Lego for the 15-16 age category at an awards gala that was held on Monday, Sept. 23rd. Her prizes were a $25,000 scholarship and a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” from either CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), LEGO or Google. Quite the impressive accomplishment for a 11th grader, but then again, Makosinki has been a scientist at heart ever since she was a little kid.

For starters, when other children were playing with toy cars and dolls, she busied herself with transistors and microcircuits. What’s more, by Grade 6, she began submitting projects to science fairs and began showing an interest in alternative energy. Still, Makosinki was surprised to be getting an award, given her competition. As she said:

I’m in shock, I’m in shock. It’s actually kind of embarrassing because I didn’t even change [before the awards ceremony]. I didn’t even comb my hair or anything. I must have looked like an absolute mess on stage because I didn’t expect to go up at all.

As for the invention itself, it is easy to see why she won. Basically, it is an LED flashlight that relies on the thermoelectric effect to generate electricity when held. This is done through a series of devices that are known as Peltier tiles, which produce electricity when heated on one side and cooled on the other. The tiles are fixed to the outside of the flashlight while the tube itself is hollow.

When held one side of the Peltier tiles are heated by the warmth of the person’s hand, air flowing through the hollow tube helps keep the other side cool. This combination of body heat and air cooling allows enough power to be generated to maintain a steady beam of light for 20 minutes. And all without the need for batteries and the resulting ewaste when they go dead.

Makosinki came up with the idea while researching different forms of alternative energy a few years ago. Already, she had experimented with Peltier tiles for her Grade 7 science fair project. While researching her project, she thought of them again as a way to potentially capture the thermal energy produced by the human body. After doing some calculations, she found that the amount of energy produced by a person’s hand was theoretically sufficient to power an LED light.

However, putting it into practice proved somewhat more difficult. After buying some Peltier tiles on eBay, she tested them and found that while they generated more than enough power, the voltage produced was only a fraction of what she needed. She rectified this problem after doing some further research, where she discovered that the addition of transformers could be used to boost the voltage.

She spent months doing research on the internet, experimenting with different circuits and even building her own transformers, which still didn’t provide enough voltage. In the end, she came across an article on the web about energy harvesting that suggested an affordable circuit that would provide the voltage she needed when used with a recommended transformer. Finally, the circuit worked.

Makosinski admitted there were points in the experiment when she thought it would never work. But as she said:

You just kind of have to keep going. This took quite awhile ’cause I had to do it during the school year as well and I had homework, plays, whatever that I was also doing.

After making it to the Google Science Fair, she and her colleagues spent the day presenting at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. Here, the 15 judges – which included scientists from a variety of fields, science journalists, an astronaut, and a former Google Science Fair winner – witnessed their creations and tried to determine which held the most promise.

The other winners included Viney Kumar, an Australia student who captured the 13-14 age category for an Android app that warns drivers of an approaching emergency vehicle more than a minute in advance, in order to help clear a path for it. And then there was Elif Bilgin of Turkey, a 16-year old who took home the Scientific American Science in Action Prize and the Voter’s Choice Award for inventing a way to make plastic from banana peels.

The Grand Prize for the 17-18 age category went to Eric Chen, a 17 year old student from San Diego who is researching a new kind of anti-flu medicine using a combination of computer modelling and biological studies. He received the top prize of a $50,000 scholarship and a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands.

Alas, Makosinki felt the best part of the competition was getting to meet the other finalists in person at last.

It’s just so inspiring to see other people who are kind of like me and kind of want to make a difference in the community not just by talking about it but by actually doing stuff.

What’s next for the young inventor? Personally, I hope Makosinki and her fellow prize winners will be forming their own research group and looking for new and exciting ways to come up with renewable energy, recycling, vaccinations, and electronics. What do you think Makonsinky, Kumar, Bilgin, Chen? That’s what Andraka and his fellow finalists did after winning ISEF 2012, and they seem to be doing pretty good. So… hintedy, hint hint!

And be sure to enjoy this video of Ann Makosinki showing off her invention, courtesy of Technexo:

Sources: cbc.ca, (2), gizmag.com, technexo.com, huffingtonpost.ca

Powered by the Sun: Bringing Solar to the Developing World

All over the world, the goal of bringing development to impoverished communities and nations – but in ways that won’t cause additional harm to the natural environment – remains problematic. As the cases of China and India demonstrate, the world’s fastest growing economies in the 21st century, rapid industrialization may bring economic development, but it comes with a slew of consequences.

These include urban sprawl, more emissions from cars and public transit, and the poisoning of waterways through toxic runoff, chemicals and fertilizers. With seven billion people living in the world today, the majority of which live in major cities and are dependent on fossil fuels, it is important to find ways to encourage growth that won’t make a bad situation worse.

But to paraphrase an old saying, crisis is the mother of creative solutions. And amongst forward-looking economist and developers, a possible solution is take the latest advancements in solar, wind, tidal power and biofuels, and tailor them to meet the needs of local communities. In so doing, it is hoped that the developing world could skip over the industrial phase, reaping the benefits of modernization without all the dirty, unhealthy consequences.

Two such men are Juan Rodriguez – a young man who was studying for his business administration at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in and cut his teeth working for major multinationals like Pampers, Pepto Bismol and Pantene – and his childhood friend Manuel Aguilar, a Harvard graduate with a degree in astrophysics who had gone on to manage a global hedge fund.

Three years ago, the two agreed that they were looking for something else and began investigating renewable energy. The result was Quetsol, a company that uses solar energy to improve the quality of life of poor communities living off the electrical grid. In Rodriguez’s and Aguilar’s native Guatemala, such poverty is widespread, with close to 20% of the population living without electricity and relying primarily on candles for light.

This picture of poverty is not exactly news. But after spending a year visiting close to 100 such communities, Rodriguez and Aguilar began to get a clear picture of why solar hadn’t yet succeeded. As Rodriguez put it:

Going to a community and talking about solar power isn’t like going into a community and talking about space travel. It is something that people have already seen, because NGOs have donated solar systems to these communities for decades. In many cases, the systems worked perfectly, but eventually the batteries died, and nobody was there to service them.

There solution was to start from the bottom up, using the free-market principle of adapting their approach to meet local needs. This would involve identifying communities before visiting them, taking into account how many people were living without electricity, and what the housing situation was like. When they then visited these communities, they sought out community leaders and held public meetings to learn about them and present their ideas.

Buildings relationships with local communities was a challenge, but so was creating a product for a market whose needs ranged from basic lighting and cell phone charging to powering a refrigerator all day. What they found was that unelectrified communities were relying on terribly inefficient means, ranging from diesel generators to walking to the nearest electrified community to plug in a phone.

What was resulted was a Solar Kit, consisting of a 10W Solar Panel, a control box with 7 Amp Battery, 2 LED Bulbs (and a third optional bulb), and a universal cell phone charger. This kit has the ability to provide five hours of electricity to a house made up of two rooms that measure roughly 25 square meters (225 square feet) each. This is the typical design of homes in rural Guatemala, with one room serving as the bedroom and the other as the kitchen.

With that done, they began working on their sales strategy. Initially, this consisted of working with microfinance credit institutions to help families and communities purchase their solar kits. But after watching too many credit applications get rejected, they took a page from the telecom companies that have made cell phones ubiquitous in Guatemala, Basically, they switched to a pay-as-you-go plan.

Today, Quetsol employs a staff of 20 people and boasts board members like Google’s Tom Chi. There product line has also expanded, with the Q1 Solar Kit being supplemented by the Q3, a heavier model that boasts a 75W solar panel, an 85 Amp Battery, and five LED bulbs. The Q2 Kit – a middle of the road model with a 30W panel, 34 amp battery and 3 bulbs – is soon to be released.

But most importantly of all, they have electrified more than 3,500 homes in Guatemala thus far. But that is just a drop in the bucket compared to their long-term goal. Basically, the organization is viewing Guatemala as a stepping stone to all of Latin America as well as Africa by 2015. By 2016, they’d like to tackle the nearly 700 million off-the-grid homes in Asia.

Might sound ambitious, but Rodriguez and Marroquin feel they have the business acumen and social entrepreneurial savvy to pull it off. And given their background and business model, I’d say they are about right. Combined with other technologies that merge local needs with clean, efficient, and renewable means, development in the developing world might actually be an eco-friendly possibility.

Sources: fastcoexist.com, quetsol.com

The Future is Here: The Electric Highway!

Charging electronic vehicles while they on the move is not a new idea. In fact, in Vancouver, BC, the entire public transit system runs on a series of electronic lines that power the buses. And in French cities, the entire tram system runs on a wireless system, one which is six million kilometers in length. In the former case, the buses are kept in contact with power lines overhead, while the latter uses metal bars running underneath.

Applying the same concept, Volvo has designed a new highway system in Sweden that will keep electric cars running on long-distance trips. Led by Mats Alaküla, researchers are looking at these types of “conductive charging,” both where vehicles would stay in continuous contact with the power supply. Both methods are being tested on the new system, which consists of a 400-meter track near Gothenburg.

Behind the research is the assumption that an electric car’s batteries will not provide the required range for long-distance driving, especially where long-haul trucks are concerned. City driving is one thing, but in order for electric vehicles to expand beyond urban centers, bigger and better methods need to be devised.

Alaküla says the important part of the second system is “the pick-up” – i.e. the connector between the vehicle and the ground. Unlike trams that stay in a fixed position, this line needs to be able to compensate for cars and trucks changing lanes. He describes the set-up as an “industrial robot sitting upside down”, though it more akin to a robotic arm.

The arm moves a meter each way to compensate for movement within the lane, and retracts when the driver changes lanes, redeploying once they’ve back on the track. As Alaküla describes it:

If you imagine two lanes, the power system would be in the right lane. The pick-up keeps in contact with the supply, until you keep moving sideways. Then, the truck will go to the battery. When you go back, it automatically identifies the track, and reconnects.

And for those who worry that electric tracks are going to make highways unsafe for pedestrians, Alaküla insisted that the system only electrifies sections of the track when vehicles pass at a certain speed. To electrocute yourself, a pedestrian would need to step out in front of a fast-moving vehicle, which would kind of render the whole thing moot!

So far, trucks have been able to get up to speeds of 80 km/h (50 mph) on the Volvo stretch, and Alaküla expects the work to continue for another year before his team takes the concept to a full road. Eventually, he thinks the concept could be used for anything bigger than a motor-bike – from cars and buses to different types of trucks.

And they not alone in their research efforts. Volvo’s rival Scania are themselves testing technology based on inductive charging where the charge is transferred via an electromagnetic field and does not require physical contact. Between these three methods and other emerging technologies that seek to make highway driving “smart”, the future of long-distant driving is likely to become a much cleaner, more efficient affair.

Source: fastcoexist.com

Powered by the Sun: Sun-Made Hydrogen Fuel

It’s been known for some time that our future may hinge on the successful development of solar power. Despite it being a clean, renewable alternative to traditional, dirtier methods, the costs associated with it have remained prohibitive. Which is why, in recent years, researchers and developers have been working to make it more efficient and bring down the costs of producing and installing panels.

But a new technique developed by the University of Colorado Boulder may have just upped the ante on solar-powered clean energy. Using concentrated sunlight in a solar tower to achieve temperatures high enough to drive chemical reactions that split water into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen molecules, the team claims that solar energy may now be used to cheaply produce massive amounts of hydrogen fuel.

The team’s solar thermal system concentrates sunlight off a vast array of mirrors into a single point at the top of a tall tower to produce very high temperatures. When this heat is delivered into a reactor full of metal oxides, the oxides heat up and release oxygen. This leaves the reduced metal oxides in a different state and ready to bind with new oxygen atoms.

Steam is then introduced into the reactor, which can also be produced by heating water with sunlight. This vaporized water then interacts with oxides, which draw oxygen atoms out of the water molecules leaving behind hydrogen molecules. These molecules can then be collected and harvested as hydrogen gas, and placed in storage containers for export.

Granted, the concept of using solar energy and heat to create hydrogen fuel is not new. Earlier this year, teams from the University of Delaware and Harvard already proposed using solar arrays and small panels (artificial leaves) to separate hydrogen from water. And solar thermal tower power plants have been in use in some parts of the world for years now.

But there are several key difference that set the University team’s concept apart. In a standard solar power tower, sunlight is concentrated about 500 to 800 times to reach temperatures around 500º C (932 º F) to produce steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity. However, splitting water requires temperatures of around 1,350º C (2,500º F), which is hot enough to melt steel.

To get those kinds of temperatures, the team added additional mirrors within the tower to further concentrate the sunlight onto the reactor and the active material. But the big breakthrough came about when the team discovered certain active materials that allowed both these chemical reactions (reducing the metal oxide and re-oxidizing it with steam) to occur at the same temperature.

As Charles Musgrave, Professor of Chemical and Biological engineering at CU-Boulder, explains it:

You need this high temperature both to give you the driving force to drive the chemical reactions and also the kinetics to make the reactions go fast enough to make the process practical. We determined that both reactions could be driven at the same temperature of about 2,500° F (1,371° C). Even though we run at a constant and lower temperature we still generate more hydrogen than competing processes.

Though they have yet to produce a working model, the concept has a big advantage over other methods. By eliminating the time and energy required for temperature swings, more hydrogen fuel can be created in any given amount of time. Another advantage it has over other renewable technologies, such as wind and photovoltaics, is that it uses sunlight directly to produce fuel rather first converting sunlight into electricity, which reduces overall efficiency.

The team believes that a site with five 223 m (732 ft) tall towers and about two million sq m (21.5 million sq ft) of heliostats on 485 ha (1,200 acres) of land could generate 100,000 kg (222,460 lb) of hydrogen per day, which is enough to run over 5,000 hydrogen-fuel cell buses daily. Or as Alan Weimer, the research group leader, put it:

Our objective is to produce hydrogen (H2) at $2/kg H2. This is equivalent to about US$2/gallon (3.7 L) of gasoline based on mileage in a fuel cell car versus a combustion engine today.

Not a bad substitute for gasoline then, is it? And considering that the production process relies on only the sun – once the multi-million dollar infrastructure has been built of course – it will be much more cost effective for power companies than offshore drilling, frakking and pipelines currently are. Add to that the fact that its far more environmentally friendly, and you’ve an all around winning alternative to modern day fuels.

Source: gizmag.com

Climate Crisis: City Farms

Hello again, folks. As you all know, this summer has brought some rather dire news on the climate front as unpredictable weather patterns have led to flooding in many parts of the world. And as climatological researchers and scientists have predicted, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as rising global temperatures will lead to melted icecaps, higher sea levels, severe droughts, wildfires and coastal storms.

But as I always like to point out, there are solutions to these problems, or at least ways to mediate them. Given the central role played by overpopulation and urban sprawl in climate change, many of these proposed solutions have to do with finding new ways to house, feed, and provide from future generations – ones which emphasize sustainability and clean energy.

When it comes to feeding future generations of people, the question of what will be on the menu and where it comes from are paramount. In recent decades, massive crop failures, protracted droughts, and numerous food-borne disease outbreaks caused by microbes such as salmonella, E. coli, toxoplasma and listeria have forced people to contemplate where their food comes from and how it is produced.

The proposed solution is to rethink farming, moving out of the old paradigm of farming the lands around human settlements and moving them inside. These city-based agricultural projects include rooftop gardens, rooftop greenhouses, planting beds, empty lots as farmland, and vertical farms that occupy tall buildings and abandoned warehouses. Collectively, these examples show the validity of growing food in the city. Not only could be they be carried out efficiently, but they could also operate without the pollution associated with outdoor farming.

In truth, the concept is not entirely new, as “victory gardens” or other variants have been a means of producing agricultural goods whenever national farms found themselves overburdened. These were all the rage in Britain, Canada, the US and Germany during World War I and II when naval blockades and military demand forced people to plant their own vegetables in their backyards.

In addition, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba found itself in a serious agricultural crisis. As a result, they turned to a vast network of ‘organoponicos’ – growing food for city dwellers in spare plots. These miniature agricultural operations not only staved off starvation and malnutrition during times of shortages, but became a model for sustainable local efforts that are currently being used around the world.

For example, in Wilcox, Arizona, their is the EuroFresh Farms indoor-operation – a 318 acres (1.3 square km) of one-storey-high hydroponic greenhouses that supplies fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. Similarly, the FarmedHere operation in Bedford Park, Illinois consists of a 8,360 square meter (90,000 square foot) empty warehouse that is several storeys tall that produces tilapia, a variety of leafy green vegetables, and several value-added products.

And in Sweden, the company known as Plantagon is building a vertical farm in the city of Linkoping, and has partnered with a Chinese company to research similar methods for the state of China. In addition, limited forms of vertical farming also exist in Japan, Korea, Singapore, the United States, and Canada, with new farms being planned for a number of cities in the United States.

As always, technological innovation is assisting in the process. This includes such things as grow lights that have replaced expensive fluorescent fixtures with light-emitting diodes that can be adapted to emit light spectra tailored for growing green plants. In addition to costing less to run, their yields are demonstrably higher, especially where leafy greens and tomatoes are concerned.

Another concept which is being embraced is aquaculture – indoor fish hatcheries – which could provide meat protein to go with all these vegetables. Such operations include Hazorea Acquatics, a koi farming operation, as well as the carp and mullet farm pictured below, both of which are located in Israel . Similar operations are popping up in the US, Netherlands, Denmark, Scotland and Canada, where barramundi, sturgeon, tilapia, eels, catfish, trout and salmon are being raised.

Looking to the long-run, urban agriculture has the potential to become so pervasive within our cities that by the year 2050 they may be able to provide its citizens with up to 50% of the food they consume. In doing so, ecosystems that were fragmented in favor of farmland could be allowed to regain most of their ecological functions, forests could recover, and the impact on the environment would very beneficial, for the planet as well as humanity.

In addition to ensuring that the greatest consumers of CO2 – trees and other flora – could re-advance on the landscape, allowing natural spaces to recover from the damages of agriculture would also bring countless species back from the brink of extinction. Loss of habitat is one of the chief causes of wildlife becoming endangered, and farm runoff is one of the greatest factors effecting our rivers and fish stocks.

Combined with water treatment and recycling that also happens on-site, solar, wind and peizoelectric power, and carbon capture that can turn CO2 into biofuel, skyscrapers and urban environments may very well advance to become at the forefront of the sustainability, environmental and clean energy movement. What was once the problem would thus become the solution. Truly innovative…

Source: bbc.com/future

Stories by Williams

Classic sci-fi books, reviews, and the best of from a dedicated fan and author!

Tag: clean energy

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Winning Ideas: The Bodyheat Powered Flashlight!

The Future is Here: The Electric Highway!

Powered by the Sun: Sun-Made Hydrogen Fuel

Climate Crisis: City Farms

Classic sci-fi books, reviews, and the best of from a dedicated fan and author!

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