My Work for LOE: Aerographite

It’s been a slow summer in terms of uploading this blog, but part of the reason lies with the fact that I’ve been busy at my wonderful internship with Living on Earth, where I’ve been producing stories and voicing over smaller ones. Here’s a sample of my work that was recently put on air: it’s a short piece about aerographite, the new record-holder for the lightest material on earth. Its potential uses are still mostly hypothetical, although scientists do have hope it can help create light-weight microbatteries that would advance green transport technology.

 

Enjoy! http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00032&segmentID=3

A Bike-centric Approach to Transportation: Superhighways in Copenhagen

In Denmark, a new highway was recently opened, only this one wasn’t for cars but for bikes. Copenhagen is renowned for being extremely bike friendly–perhaps one of the friendliest cities to cyclists. And this highway is proof of the cycling culture enjoyed by its residents.

Copenhagen residents prefer biking to taking a car or public transit, both for its convenience and the pleasure (Flickr, Creative Commons, Montgomery County Planning Commission)

Apparently the highway’s construction is motivated not so much by the desire to create a more sustainable living environment, but rather for people’s enjoyment and convenience. People already bike so much in Copenhagen central, and this highway allows those who live out in the suburbs and nearby metro area to bike as well and avoid the chaos of public transportation or having a car.

Dubbed “Superhighways,” there were originally supposed to be 13 of these roads. Since 2009 when the initial plans were being drawn up, that number has doubled, with 26 now in the works. 300 kilometers (or 186.4 miles) of bikeable highway will be built, stemming out from Copenhagen to nearby areas. The highways are more than just bikepaths, too. Cool initiatives are being taken to make these routes as enjoyable and efficient as possible.

Among the cool innovations are garbage cans placed at an angle to make for easy rider access. Two lanes in each direction allow bikers to ride next to one another and chat while commuting. Ramps on the side of the road provide riders with a footrest when they need to stop. And they’re even going to try and coordinate the signals on roads and the superhighways, to ensure that bikers don’t have to wait long for pauses in road traffic.

Commuting to and around the city of Copenhagen will now be easier, thanks to the 26 bicycle highways to be built (Creative Commons, Flickr, grapfapan).

Additionally, Copenhagen ran a successful “karma campaign” last year, which consisted of street volunteers who would patrol the superhighways, rewarding conscientious bikers with chocolates and other goodies. Anything from wearing a helmet to waiting patiently for the traffic lights was considered good–and rewardable–behavior.

Let’s just hope office buildings in Copenhagen have showers and changing rooms so that professionals aren’t walking around in sweaty athletic gear!

Gardens by the Bay

In Singapore, a new park is opening called Gardens of the Bay. The place is dedicated not only to creating a beautiful open space for people to enjoy as a getaway from the city, but also aims to create a living, breathing work of art. While I like the fusion, I wonder how natural the place really is.

A view of the garden from afar–the two rounded buildings at the far left are the conservatories. (Creative Commons, RnD.de.Portraits, Flickr)

The park has been in development since 2006, when Singapore first announced its plan to develop a garden within the city. There was a contest for designs, and of over 70 entries from 24 different countries, two finalists were chosen, each assigned to their own gardens–Bay East and Bay South (by the way, as a lover of London, I’m proud to say that both finalists were firms in the UK! But that’s beside the point…).

The bay gardens (a third, Bay Central was added into the works later) have opened to the public in the last year or two. They provide city-goers with a nice distraction from urban life and offer a cool setting for events, weddings, and the like. While I don’t know how much of an actual “garden” these bays really are, there’s no doubt that they’re cool. And they have a distinctly sustainable focus, too.

The central lakes in the gardens feed the nearby Marina reservoir, as well as have specifically engineered water beds that filter the water and irrigate the rest of the garden. And, of course, the lakes serve as an ecosystem for fish and other aquatic animals.

The Flower Conservatory (Creative Commons, chooyutshing, Flickr)

There are also two conservatories in the gardens–giant glass buildings with swaying, rounded shapes. Inside, carefully controlled temperatures mimic tropical and mediterranean climates, allowing plants unseen in the region to thrive. The design of the conservatories is 30% more efficient than standard cooling houses (although you can bet they’re already sucking up plenty of energy). BUT…the buildings are made of special glass that allows light in for growth but minimizes heat, and there are even automated sails on the roof that pop up to provide a cooling shade for the plants. Furthermore, the conservatories run on energy that is partly generated by horticultural waste both from these gardens and other neighboring parks. So while the conservatories probably aren’t the most energy friendly things around, the engineers made a specific effort to reduce energy consumption and waste.

The supertree grove under construction in 2011. (Creative Commons, chooyutshing, Flickr)

Coolest of all, in my opinion, are the Supertrees. First off, they just look awesome. The grove of supertrees is more of a sculpted arboretum, with giant “trees” up to 16 stories high made of metal and other materials. At the top of one tree is a bistro, providing a beautiful panoramic view of the garden, city and bay area, while other trees have connecting bridges that span over a hundred metres suspended in the air. And, perhaps most magical, at night the trees glow to create a beautiful light display. Again, this isn’t a very natural look, but it’s beautiful in its own, surreal way. Furthermore, some of the trees are fitted with photovoltaic cells to absorb solar energy during the day and use that to glow at night. Other trees serve as “air exhaust receptacles,” according to their website. Not quite sure what that means, but it sounds like it’s a good thing.

Overall, this park/garden sounds pretty awesome and like a great tourist destination. I’m not sure I’ll ever jet over to that part of the world, but if I found myself in Singapore, I’m sure I’d go right away.

Western Wildfires and Climate Change?

You’ve heard about it on the news, and if not, you’ve probably read a related post or status on Facebook regarding the wildfires raging through Colorado and other western states at the moment. More than 32,000 people have been evacuated from the Colorado Springs area, while hundreds of homes are destroyed and many big cities are threatened by the flames of the Waldo Canyon Fire. The High Park Fire, located in Fort Collins, CO, is also turning into one of the worst wildfires on record for the state.

Utah and New Mexico are also dealing with wildfires at the moment. Dozens of homes have been burned and there have been several casualties.

Considering this is an environmental blog, the obvious question is: to what extent are these wildfires related to climate change? Turns out, quite a bit. A wildfire in and of itself is a naturally occurring phenomena that is actually vitally important to the forest ecosystem. It serves to regenerate the habitat, and some species even depend on the fire to fluorish. But there is still such a thing as too much fire, and this summer, like the one before, seems to show that these natural wildfires can get out of hand and go beyond the desired scope.

There are certain conditions that cause wildfires to start in the forest. First off, the presence of a hot and dry summer, which creates lots of vegetation that’s ripe for burning (dry wood burns more easily than soggy wood). Secondly, you need a spark, which could be a natural thing like lightning or someone’s cigarette butt. Another helping factor is the wind, and out in the west, they’ve got plenty of it. Combined, these forces create wildfires that grow and spread at largely uncontrollable rates.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a 2007 report linking the increase in global temperatures to various factors that could contribute to a greater prevalence of wildfires. Factors such as decreased snowcover areas (which prevent vegetation from getting too dry over the winter and less susceptible to burning) and increased droughts and heat waves combine to create prime wildfire conditions.

So what does the western U.S. need to quell the fires? RAIN! Firefighters are currently fighting the blazes, but it’s hard to contain something so powerful and large. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much rain in the forecast for CO, NM or UT. If only Boston could have sent its rainy gray weekend out west! For the time being, let’s keep our fingers crossed for a prompt reprieve.

Frogs & Horses

We all know from our childhood that frogs can be slippery, slimey and gooey. But did you know that slime can actually be a drug, and a very powerful one at that?

Waxy Monkey Tree Frog by adamcfink on Flickr

It turns out that the waxy monkey tree frog, a small green critter in the dry prairies of South America, produces the chemical demorphin on its back as a way to ward off predators. Demorphin is an extremely strong chemical that, when consumed, produces an effect 40 times greater than morphine.

And traces of demorphin are now being found in the bloodstreams of racehorses in Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma. More than 30 horses so far have been subjected to this chemical treatment. Not only does the drug dull  pain for injured horses, but it simultaneously acts as a stimulant that makes them run faster.

Demorphin can alter the outcomes of races as well. Apparently in the Louisiana Delta Downs, three different horses who had won either first or second place in races were found to have traces of the drug in their bloodstream.

Recent discoveries of these traces are being investigated and will, hopefully, be severely condemned by the racing industry.

To read more about it, here’s an article in the NYTimes.

Cell Phones and Water: An Unlikely Combination

Here’s something you don’t hear every day: in rural Africa, cell phones are directly helping locals gain access to clean, fresh water.

Already astounding (and depressing) enough is the well-known figure that says more people in Africa have access to mobile networks than to clean drinking water. As the Journal of Hydroinformatics reported (and the BBC as well), researchers at the University of Oxford are aiming to use this fact to their advantage in order to provide locals with cleaner water.

Water pumps in Africa: while the local citizens rely on these pumps for clean water, it is estimated that as many as a third of them are not working at any given time.

Millions of Africans across the continent rely on hand pumps for their water supply, and according to the report published by Patrick Thomson, Rob Hope and Tim Foster, an estimated one third of those pumps don’t function properly. Help is usually slow to come in such rural areas–it can easily take more than a month for repairs to occur–and in the meantime, people must deal with their lack of clean water.

But now, a team from University of Oxford has developed a monitoring technology that is carefully calibrated to send out text messages when something goes wrong with the pumps. Using the mobile networks available in Africa (easier to access, as we said earlier, than water itself), maintenance arrives much sooner to the site, helping improve the quality of life and health of the community.

The team is still trying to find the best way to run these devices; they are battery operated for now, although they would like, eventually, to have them running on renewable resources, such as solar power. In the meantime, however, the implementation of these devices in 70 villages across Kenya is making a big impact on local life.

While I find it immensely depressing that water is harder to provide for these people than access to mobile networks, the benefits of pairing the two resources to strengthen the health of the community are ultimately worth admiring and appreciating.

A Whiter Sky for a Greener World

In this age of seeking methods to reduce our impact on global warming, some scientists are taking the science in the opposite direction, and using geoengineering to create a greener world by way of non-natural means. What Ben Kravitz and Ken Caldeira, two researchers from the Carnegie Institute for Science, recently came up with was an idea that sounds, at first glance, totally bizarre and kind of frightening–eject aerosols into the atmosphere to reinforce the protective layer over the earth and help reflect the sun’s rays away from the earth’s surface.

A beautiful natural sky. Researchers suggest we pump aerosols into the atmosphere to decrease the amount of direct sunlight hitting the earth’s surface, but this action doesn’t come without its consequences…

This is actually a method that largely mimics natural processes to begin with. When volcanoes erupt, temperatures drop for a period of years, largely due to the ash pumped into the stratosphere, which then serves as a blanket over our planet. This blanket effectively blocks some of the sun’s rays from hitting the earth, and rather reflects them back outwards. Thus the cooling effect that a volcano achieves for several years after a big eruption, we want to artificially simulate by steadily pumping aerosols into the atmosphere and reflecting the sun away from the earth.

Kravitz and Caldeira’s projected plan would only seek to reduce the amount of direct sunlight by 2 but is still considered, according to the study, to be effective. This aerosol injection would potentially offset a carbon concentration twice as large as the amount that existed at pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

And yet perhaps the biggest effect discernible to us would be the  color of the sky. the aerosol injections would cause the sky to appear 3 to 5 times whiter than it is now, much like the sky above urban areas is grayer and whiter than the skies hugging a pastoral landscape. Furthermore, sunsets would probably be more intense (color-wise, i.e. pinker, redder), and there would be a more visible glow after the sun had set. While the psychological effects of such a change were not examined in the study, it’s certainly worth taking into consideration before pursuing the project more seriously.

We don’t want a colorless sky, do we? But we want to fix the planet’s problems…

Whether this proposal is in fact a good path to follow is still up in the air. While the aerosols would block sunlight and limit the greenhouse effect in the stratosphere by increasing the planet’s albedo, it would simultaneously make it harder for plants to perform photosynthesis. And whether it’s ethically appropriate to solve anthropogenic problems with more human geoengineering is another question altogether.

Earth Friendly Football

As a football fan, I’m pleased to say that the NFL is making some big strides to set itself in a more sustainable direction. The Philadelphia Eagles franchise announced recently that it is moving forward with its plan to install solar panels along its stadium, which should provide more than 6 times the amount of energy required for a regular season’s use. According to reports recently released, the Eagles have officially signed a contract with NRG Energy from Princeton (shout out to Princeton!), and will have completed the installation by the end of the year. More than 11,000 solar panels will be installed along the walls of the stadium, as well as some along the top of the building and dispersed throughout the parking lot.

Among other teams that are gearing up to make similar sustainable changes in the coming years are the NY Giants and New England Patriots. The Redskins already boast 8,000 panels on their stadium and the Seahawks have invested in solar as well.

This is great news, in my opinion. Not only will NFL stadiums become more sustainable and energy friendly, but it will send a message to all the football fans out there that solar power is a doable alternative to other energy sources. While the stadiums definitely require a lot of energy for each game, the biggest impact will be the message the panels send to the millions of viewers who tune in every weekend and the fans who visit the stadium. Score!

P.S. To Massachusetts residents: speaking of renewable energy, did you know that NStar utility company provides customers the opportunity to select energy generated from wind turbines? Although the pricing goes up a little bit, it ends up being a very negligible increase, and it’s worth the investment in clean energy!