The Global Warming Statistics

Diatoms are one of the most common types of phytoplankton.

Climate change isn’t just warming the atmosphere, it’s also warming the ocean’s surface and deeper levels of the water column. This is known as the pelagic ocean (the “pelagic zone” is any part of the water column other than that at the sea floor) and it just so happens to harbor the most productive ecosystem on planet Earth. The pelagic ocean is responsible for an estimated half of the world’s primary production (i.e., the basic food or nutrient making needed to sustain other life), and sustains most of the world’s natural fisheries.

The pelagic zone also plays a very complex but important role in the global carbon cycle. Inorganic carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) can be “drawn down” from the atmosphere by two main processes: the respiration of photo-synthetic algae and plankton (which produce oxygen and serve as a food source as well), and, secondly, the sedimentation of carbon (in the form of sinking, dead marine matter) onto the sea floor. Most algae and phytoplankton have chlorophyll and live in the upper most layer of the water column where there is sufficient sunlight penetration (this is called the euphotic zone; from the surface down to 200 meters is the epipelagic zone). Although carbon is also removed via “outgassing” (the exporting of carbon and carbon-based molecules into the atmosphere via ocean-air circulation), these two processes keep carbon out of the atmosphere. And of the two, bottom accumulation (via sinking) is the predominant means by which carbon is removed from the water column.

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On October 21st, which is Southwest Airlines annual media day, they announced the launch of a green prototype airplane which will be used to test more eco-conscious materials and products in their travel environment.  Southwest hopes that through the establishment of this prototype plane, they will be able to settle on a way to make their cabin more eco-friendly while still offering their customers the same level of comfort that they’re used to.

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SOLARIG, a company based in Spain that incorporated about four years ago, just began construction of eight photovoltaic parks in Italy this month. The parks will provide 8 MW of energy in total. Over the next few months, it plans to construct photovoltaic projects producing 30 MW throughout different regions of Italy.

But this is just the beginning. SOLARIG has a more global vision.

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Eskom, the South African state owned electricity generator, recently announced that it has budgeted a billion dollars over the next ten years for a demonstration and pilot concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. However, moving from budget to implementation is proving more difficult!

Why Concentrated Solar Power

Two of the widely used alternatives for collecting the suns energy are the concentrated solar power (CSP) plant where sunlight is focussed on a receiver in which a circulating working fluid is heated and used as the heating media for a conventional power station and the photo voltaic (PV) plant where sunlight is converted directly into electrical energy.

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A partnership between two companies will develop a home energy monitoring device for residential solar power installations.

Two startups – Tendril Networks, known for its home energy monitoring technology and Fat Spaniel technologies, a solar panel monitoring company – make up the partnership. The purpose of the partnership is to develop a monitoring device for homes that can gauge the sun’s intensity for any particular time and automatically adjust, or even shut down, home appliances as needed.

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The largest US-China joint investment in renewable energy to date is slated to take form in Texas. This 600 MW wind power project is a joint venture by the U.S. Renewable Energy Group (US-REG) and Cielo Wind Power LP along with China’s Shenyang Power Group, a power industry alliance.

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Nano carbon Graphene is already being produced in decidedly non-nano quantities by Ohio-based Angstron. Yet the atom-thick nano-material was discovered so recently that researchers are still in the process of discovering what to use it for.

Graphene is an extremely low density material, almost an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. It has been the focus of much research because of its exceptional electrical, mechanical and optical properties. It holds great promise in renewable energies.

Among the so far underutilized advantages Graphene offers are that it is fifty times stronger than steel, and it has five times the conductivity of copper, with only one quarter of the density.

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Renewable energy comprised more than half the energy added this year to the Northeast grid, comprising part of Canada and 6 US states. 17 GW of renewable energy projects in the region will be completed in the next five years.

It is no coincidence that each of these states has a state renewable portfolio standard which requires utilities to add an increasing percent of renewable power to the grid each year. New York’s RPS requires 24% by 2013, Maine:40% by 2017(met), Vermont:20% by 2017, New Hampshire:16% by 2025, Rhode Island:16% by 2019, and Connecticut:27% by 2020 )

The Renewable Portfolio Standard is a sure way to get more homegrown climate-friendly renewable power on the grid and is up for votes yet again this year (in the American Clean Jobs & American Power Act) after multiple previous attempts to pass it.

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A-Power Energy Generation Systems won one aspect of the clean energy race and made history, as it will become the first Chinese manufacturer to export wind turbines to the United States. A-Power Energy Generation Systems and a consortium of Chinese and American companies — U.S. Renewable Energy Group, Cielo Wind Power, and the Shenyang Power Group — are planning to build a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas.

The project, which could power as many as 180,000 homes, will require 240 2.5-megawatt turbines and the farm will occupy 36,000 acres of land in West Texas. Nearly shovel ready, the construction effort is projected to create about 30 permanent jobs and 300 temporary ones. Ground-breaking on the wind farm is slated for March of 2010.

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Here’s a low carbon cooling technology that uses hot water from waste to make A/C without fossil fuels, saving 80% over fossil-fueled chillers.

This industrial scale chiller from the Chinese company Broad Central Air can convert many different kinds of waste heat into air conditioning. The waste heat can come from many industrial sources, including what the Chinese site calls “town gas”  – methane from town landfill, collected and burned to generate heat.

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Sarah Kuck In less than two weeks, Alex Steffen will be at Town Hall Seattle presenting Worldchanging’s latest thoughts about the planetary challenges we face and…

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Earlier this month, Governor Schwarzenegger signed legislation to buy solar power from relatively small private generators for rates above market value. Hawaii is next in line with this European-style tariff — the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission and Governor Lingle just recently set a similar initiative for Hawaii.

Hawaii’s initiative will make it possible for homeowners and businesses to sell power they generate from small to medium-scale renewable energy projects (i.e. solar panels) to Hawaii’s main power producers at higher than market-value rates.

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E. coli bacterial evolution can be accelerated with the MAZE technique to produce favorable mutations

Bacteria are prolific replicators, and some species can replicate into the millions in number in just a few hours. Bacteria, in the functioning of their cellular and biochemical machinery, also just happen to manufacture some very useful chemicals and bio-active molecules. The microbes also have a relatively high rate of mutation which can confer adaptive features, over time, onto the newer, variant population.

These attributes of bacterial life forms have been exploited in the lab (and in other industries) for some time, but generating genomic diversity in the lab has been challenging; inserting genes or entire genetic sequences into a cell’s nucleus (and DNA) can be done readily, but controlling or directing how exactly these hybrids mutate, is quite another thing. Further, new phenotypes (the main physical traits or properties) don’t usually happen fast or frequently enough for practical uses. But with a new technique called MAGE (Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering), bacteria are now being engineered (and “directed”) to perform these functions much faster and much more efficiently.

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WorldChanging Team Image Caption: In St. Louis, some farming goes on right next to the airport by Sarah Goodyear Today on the Streetsblog Network, St. Louis…

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Adam SteinLet’s talk parking. Recently I suggested that building new parking garages isn’t an environmentally friendly thing to do, even if such garages are nicely landscaped…

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