This morning I was sent a link to an amazing collection of art by Chris Jordan called Running The Numbers. The thumbnail of the detail view to the right really doesn’t do it justice either – you have to see the full size image to understand exactly what this image is. What it represents is 28,000 42-gallon oil drum: the amount of oil consumed in the US every 2 minutes.

And then keep looking at the other images in the collection. Others that stood out for me were:

• One hundred million toothpicks, representing the number of trees cut down to support the junk mail business (what a total waste);
• One million plastic cups: the number used on US airlines every 6 hours;
• Two million plastic bottles: the number used in the US every 5 minutes (that’s an amazing 576 million bottles a day!);
• 426,000 cell phones being “retired” every day in the US (most probably still working perfectly);
• 1.14 million brown paper bags: the number used every hour in the US;
• And finally, 60,000 plastic bags: the number used every 5 seconds in the US (that is over 1 billion every day).

In addition to the environmental issues represented by these numbers I’ve highlighted, there are also other social issues in the collection, including an image representing smoking, healthcare and even the issue of prisoners, both in the US and in US run detention facilities outside the US.

Light Bulbs

One image though I have a slight disagreement with: the image of 320,000 light bulbs floating in space. Said to be equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc.). The issue I have with this statement is that it is missing the real solution to this problem. The solution is not for consumers to unplug everything. The solution requires two parts:

1. More equipment designed to really use a lot less power when in sleep mode;
2. More electricity being generated from clean and renewable sources.

The second of those is perhaps the most important. Once we can produce enough electricity from clean renewable resources, why shouldn’t we use it to make our quality of life better? Sure, cutting consumption helps keep the bills low, and in the short term, while the world still depends heavily on dirty coal, and other non-renewable resources for our electricity, will help reduce emissions. But the logical extrapolation of that argument is to say that we should just stop using electricity completely. That’s a stupid argument. Much better to talk about how we can use technology to bring our clean generation levels in line with our consumption needs. Sure, don’t waste electricity unnecessarily, but the Vertography position is one of moderation. Sleep mode, done correctly, is a useful compromise, and better than just leaving the kit on all the time!

While walking through Venice, we noticed an unusual looking public bench being installed. Looking somewhat out of place amongst the very old buildings, this bench has a number of metal stalks coming out from its center and reaching towards the sky. On the top of each of these stalks is installed a small solar panel.

I have no idea what these solar panels are going to be used to power. If I had to guess, I would say that there are batteries under the seating and the power will be used to provide lighting after dark. The lower one of the two collectors in the close-up shot looks like it might have a light fitting there. And if it is light the rest of the Venetian public lighting we saw, it will be using CFL, or perhaps another low power technology (perhaps LEDs).

Have read a couple of articles recently that presented ideas for using our road networks as ways to harness the sun’s energy.

The first article, in Inhabitat, talked about a solution from Australian company Going Solar. Their idea combines solar panels with a sound barrier along the sides of freeways that pass through residential areas. This cuts the noise level in the houses, while at the same time supplying them with electricity.

(more…)

As if the environmental record of the oil companies wasn’t bad enough, the World Bank estimates 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas are burnt off at oil fields around the world annually. In addition to being a terrible waste of resources, those gas flares contribute 400 million tons of CO2 emissions too.

Why this incredible waste? Turns out it is simple economics: it is cheaper for these companies to burn this gas, and pollute the atmosphere than it is to transport it to where it can be used. Perhaps some financial penalties for their polluting actions would help, but Synfuels thinks they’ve found another way to get these companies to clean up their act.

(more…)

Last week PG&E announced that it had signed two deals for a total of 800MW of photo-voltaic solar power.

One is with High Plains Ranch II, LLC, a subsidiary of SunPower Corporation, for 250 MW of solar power. The other is with Topaz Solar Farms LLC, a subsidiary of OptiSolar, for 550 MW more.

As we commented last week, solar power is currently a very small part of the power mix for PG&E, and in fact for the state of California as a whole, contributing less than 1% today. Investments like these two will go some way to turning that around, and making better use of that environmentally sound solar energy that warms and lights the state every day.

A couple of articles about T. Boone Pickens, the man behind the Pickens Plan in the green media yesterday:

• Earth2Tech is asking about the reported loss from Pickens’ natural gas company, Clean Energy Fuels. A little unfair in the headline perhaps since the company has improved relative to the same quarter last year, and is showing increased revenues too.
• Energy Power Alternatives asks “T Boone Pickens – Visionary Or Profiteer?” Looking at the details of the plan, they seem to be concluding that the main component of the plan is the switch to natural gas for automotive use. It goes on to say that the wind energy component, which at best would supply 20% of the needs of the US, is included to “make his proposal politically more attractive.”

Interesting to see that neither of the articles have anything to say about his water project in Texas, and the controversy surrounding that project and the motives for the wind energy being to make it simpler for him to run a pipeline for his water project that we reported on a while back.

Glenn Fleishman (of Wi-Fi Net News and TidBITS fame) has a good write up over at WorldChanging on the Green Plug solution to the phantom power problem.

Their solution is based on an the idea of standardising the power connector that is used by electronics on the standard USB connector. They have developed a variant of it for devices like laptops that need more power than a regular USB connector can deliver. This seems like a smart move since that connector is already becoming a de facto standard for low power electronics like cameras, phones etc. Additionally, USB power outlets are appearing on aircraft and even in airport lounges now, allowing people to power and recharge their small devices easily with just a cable.

(more…)

California utility companies are required to provide Power Content Labels to their customers letting them know the mix of power sources in the electricity that they use. Here in Alameda we have our own city owned utility, Alameda Power and Telecom, that provides a relatively clean mix of power. Other parts of California, including our immediate neighbours here in the SF bay area, don’t do so well.

The table below shows the projected 2008 mixes for PG&E and Alameda, alongside the 2007 mix for the whole state. As you can see, Alameda Power & Telecom is doing a pretty good job of using renewables (79% total when you include the large hydroelectric mix), whereas PG&E, one of the largest electricity utilities in the state, is still reliant on natural gas and nuclear power.

(more…)

Perhaps one of the more unusual ways to turn wind power into electricity, Dutch scientists have found a way to generate electricity by flying a kite! At first glance this idea sounds really strange. Why fly a kite to harness wind energy when you could build a more conventional windmill?

The main reason is that the wind 1km or more above the earth’s surface carries about 100 times the amount of energy when compared to the wind at tower height, at least in countries near the jet stream. The trick will be finding a way to make this into a reliable system that can be installed and operated economically.

[Via EcoGeek]

Having had John McCain’s campaign use her in one of their ads, Paris Hilton is hitting back with her own political ad. Claiming that since the “white haired dude” mentioned her in his ad, she must also be running for president, Paris puts forth her own energy policy.

Not really anything new in what she proposes though, and she’s not backing either of the mainstream candidates. Instead, she’s proposing a “hybrid” approach with limited offshore drilling, and development of alternative fuel solutions. Others have indeed suggested the same thing.

(more…)