NewWays

Hydrogen Fuel Tanks Made from Chicken Feathers Could Save $5.5 Million

Alex Bailey — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:48:18 +0000

By Bryan Nelson via CleanTechnica

Scientists have discovered a remarkable, unexpected and cheap way to store hydrogen fuel– using carbonized chicken feather fibers.

The problem of storing hydrogen as fuel has traditionally been a perplexing and expensive dilemma. For instance, a car with a 20-gallon hydrogen storage tank made from carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides– two of the best ideas so far– would add $5.5 million or $30k respectively to the price of that vehicle.

A storage tank made from carbonized chicken feathers, however, would only mark up the cost a measly $200. The green bio-material would also help solve the problem of how to dispose of the 2.7 billion kilograms of chicken feathers generated each year by commercial poultry operations.

» See also: GE to Cleantech Startups: We Can Help
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One of the major reasons hydrogen-powered vehicles aren’t commonplace on our highways is the immensely difficult problem of how to store enough of the fuel on-board to give those vehicles a cruising range that approaches that of gasoline or diesel fuel. Storing sufficient quantities requires placing it under extreme pressure, which can add significant weight to the vehicle and increase the potential for a dangerous explosion.

That problem has led scientists to look toward structures like carbon nanotubes for a solution, since they can pack large quantities of hydrogen at normal pressure within a fairly small space. The catch is that manufacturing carbon nanotubes is very expensive and ultimately impractical.

Enter scientists at the University of Delaware, who while researching the potential of keratin derived from chicken feathers to improve the performance of microcircuits, unexpectedly discovered that by heating the keratin fibers they could strengthen its structure enough to compare to the strength of nanotubes. In other words, the hydrogen storage capacity of the strengthened keratin was essentially equivalent to that of carbon nanotubes, but using nothing more than chicken feathers as raw material.

In addition to hydrogen storage, the new method could turn chicken feather fibers into a number of other eco-products like hurricane resistant roofing, lightweight car parts, as well as the aforementioned bio-based computer circuit boards.

Furthermore, utilizing this technology would be recycling at its best. Previously, there has been no major use for all the feathers leftover from chickens in the poultry industry.

Image Credit: Just chaos on Flickr under a Creative Commons License

Newly Uncovered Enzymes Turn Corn Plant Waste into Biofuel

Alex Bailey — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:15:03 +0000

By Steven Ashley via Scientific American

“Visualize three tons of moldy bread.” It’s not the most appealing image, perhaps, but it’s a description of the moist mound of growth media tended by bioscientist Cliff Bradley and his partner, chemical engineer Bob Kearns at their biofuel facility in Butte, Mont., that could help cut ethanol costs at the fuel pump.

Selected soil fungi that eat cellulose—the hard-to-digest, structural component of woody plants—thrive on the big pile of putrefaction from which Bradley and Kearns harvest certain powerful enzymes. The special enzymes allow standard biofuel plants to produce ethanol at lower cost by replacing some of the high-priced corn (starch) they process with cheaper corn stover “waste”—the leaves, stalks, husks and cobs of the maize plant itself.

Replacing 35 percent of the corn (which goes for $4.28 a bushel) now used in a typical ethanol plant with inexpensive corn stover (at $65 per ton) could save a quarter on each a gallon of ethanol the facility produces, the researchers calculate. And that’s before any blender’s credit or tax benefits from government for processing cellulose. Bradley and Kearns say that the basic integrated starch–cellulose process also works for biofuels produced in Brazil where ethanol is distilled from sugarcane and bagasse, or highly cellulosic cane plant residue.

Supporting development of the promising new technology is Cupertino, Calif.–based AE Biofuels, which has constructed a commercial pilot facility in Butte, where the pair demonstrates their integrated fermentation technology to potential licensing customers. The patent pending process “can be a bridge to cellulosic ethanol,” says Andy Foster, executive vice president at AE Biofuels. The use of cellulosic feedstocks effectively enables farmers and producers to squeeze more ethanol from each acre of farmland, he states.

AE Biofuels is one of several companies in the U.S. that is trying to jump-start progress toward greener biofuels made from nonfood feedstocks with high cellulose content. But most of the demonstration efforts have slowed or halted “since the banking meltdown which made it very tough to arrange capital,” says biofuels expert George W. Huber, a chemical engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Despite last year’s economic turmoil, however, new pilot cellulosic biofuel plants were opened by KL Energy, Verenium Corp., and POET, LLC, he notes.

For the past few decades, Bradley and Kearns—self-styled “industrial fermentation guys”—have focused on developing effective ways to raise hard-to-cultivate soil fungi that secrete the crucial enzymes. Unlike their competitors, they grow fungi on the moist surfaces of solid nutrient particles. Standard large-scale fermentation processes, in contrast, take place in water-filled tanks. “They put an organism in a tank where everything’s in a water solution,” Kearns explains, “and then they try to get enough oxygen in there to make the aerobic fungi happy.” Rather than “trying to adapt the organism to a desired environment,” the two researchers created an environment that suits the organism.

One of the pair’s special enzymes readily degrades cellulose and another has the unique ability to break down corn starch at ambient temperatures, a talent that enables existing corn ethanol plants to incorporate cellulosic feedstocks into their standard starch fermentation processes. “The integrated process uses the same equipment, which is important now that capital financing is so hard to get,” Bradley says.

Study: Toxins found in scents

Alex Bailey — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:02:03 +0000

By Sandi Doughton via AJC.com
The fumes that waft from top-selling air fresheners and laundry products contain dozens of chemicals, including several classified as toxic or hazardous, says a University of Washington study published recently.

None of the chemicals was listed on product labels, nor does the federal government require companies to disclose ingredients in fragrances, said study author Anne Steinemann.

“I was surprised by both the number and the potential toxicity of the chemicals that were found,” said Steinemann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public affairs.

The health effects of the chemicals are unclear, but Steinemann launched her analysis after years of fielding complaints from people who said air fresheners and other household products made them dizzy, left them short of breath or caused headaches, seizures or asthma attacks.

“After you hear about a hundred of these stories, you realize there’s something going on,” she said.

The report is the latest in a string of unsavory news reports about consumer products, from the presence of lead in children’s toys to the discovery of hormone-disrupting compounds in plastics and baby lotions.

Steinemann’s study focused on six widely used products: dryer sheets, fabric softener, laundry detergent, a liquid spray air freshener, a plug-in air freshener, and a solid disc deodorizer used in commercial-airplane toilets. A contract laboratory sealed each product inside a container, then used two types of instruments to identify chemicals emitted into the air.

Collectively, the six products gave off nearly 100 volatile organic compounds, including acetone —- the eye-stinging ingredient in nail-polish remover and paint thinner. (VOCs are compounds that vaporize easily, like paint and gasoline fumes. Many VOCs are known to be harmful.)

The study didn’t report the levels of individual chemicals, but all six of the products emitted at least one substance the federal government classifies as toxic or hazardous.

Among them are three chemicals the Environmental Protection Agency considers “hazardous air pollutants” with no safe exposure levels: acetaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both likely human carcinogens; and methyl chloride, which has been linked to liver, kidney and nervous-system damage in animals.

A spokeswoman for the Fragrance Materials Association of the United States, an industry group, said all ingredients are tested for safety and the results reviewed by independent scientists.

“We are certain that, when used in compliance with standards, these fragrance ingredients are safe and can be used … with confidence,” Cathy Cook said in a written statement.

For most healthy adults, slight exposure to toxic or hazardous chemicals is probably not much of a health concern, said Lance Wallace, a retired EPA scientist who is collaborating with Steinemann. But up to 30 percent of people are sensitive to perfumes and other fragrances, he pointed out.

Studies in Denmark and the United States confirm even healthy male college students report headaches, eye irritation and other effects when exposed to volatile organic compounds.

When Steinemann and a colleague surveyed more than 2,000 people in 2004 and 2005, they found 20 percent were in some way sickened by air fresheners. For those with asthma, the figures were nearly twice as high: Up to 37 percent reported headaches or trouble breathing.

Studies conducted by the industry-funded Research Institute for Fragrance Materials have generally reported few health effects.

Children are more sensitive to chemical exposure than adults, said Steve Gilbert, founder of Toxipedia.org, a clearinghouse on toxic chemicals. And people are usually exposed to a stew of substances, which may interact in unknown ways.

“At the very minimum, we should have a right to know what is in these products,” said Gilbert, a Seattle toxicologist who was not involved in the study.

Manufacturers are not required to list ingredients in air fresheners, laundry products or most other consumer products, Steinemann said in her study, published in Environmental Impact Assessment Review.

“There needs to be more testing of these products and greater disclosure … so that people know what they’re being exposed to,” she said.

Steinemann wouldn’t name the specific products tested, partly out of fear of industry lawsuits. She also said it would be unfair to single out specific companies at this point. A larger analysis, which looked at 25 different products, found many other brands contain similar chemicals. The second study will be published next year.

Her advice for people who want to reduce their exposure is to avoid use of air fresheners and buy fragrance-free laundry products.

But even that’s no guarantee, she pointed out. Some products marketed as “unscented” or “fragrance-free” actually contain the same chemicals as scented products —- with the addition of a “masking fragrance” that cancels out the smell.

And many products labeled “natural” or “organic” also contain some of the same chemicals.

The fumes that waft from top-selling air fresheners and laundry products contain dozens of chemicals, including several classified as toxic or hazardous, says a University of Washington study published recently.

Top 25 Green Energy Leaders:

Alex Bailey — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:21:42 +0000

By Katherine Harmon via Scientific American

It is no longer enough to just conserve energy. More and more corporations, government agencies and entire cities are making large, long-term commitments to ensure that the power they do use comes from renewable sources. To recognize these trendsetters, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publishes a quarterly list of the top American users of green power: organizations that generate their own renewable energy, buy it from suppliers, or purchase offset credits to compensate for their traditional energy use. To put things in perspective, the average U.S. home consumes about 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity a year. That means number 25 on the list buys enough green energy to power more than 14,000 homes.

The most direct method to make energy consumption more sustainable is for a user to generate its own power by, for example, installing solar panels or by burning waste gas. A major do-it-yourself project, however, might not fall within the expertise of, say, a clothing retailer, so some entities hire outside operators to do it for them.

A second path is to purchase power directly from alternative energy producers, such as a nearby wind farm. The third and most common route is buying credits to offset the amount of conventional energy an organization is using. The bulk of these trades is orchestrated by brokers such as 3Degrees and Sterling Planet, which make a commission. For example, buyers can request 300 million kWh of wind power from Texas. Once energy enters the grid, it cannot be isolated, so even the biggest buyers aren’t literally powering their air conditioners with breeze-buffeted turbines. But offsets are like certified environmental karma: what comes around in the end is cleaner power production.

1. Intel
Santa Clara, CA | Information Technology
1,301 million green kWh, 46% of total power used
Buying the most renewable energy in the country is actually an honor Intel could do without, according to Will Swope, vice president of Intel’s corporate sustainability group. The company’s massive purchase is not just to stay ahead of the curve, he says, but “to give confidence to people who are creating sustainable energy.” Meaning that with increased green power supply, costs will go down for everyone—Intel included. The computer chipmaker buys the eco-sound electricity through offset credits, which pay for greener energy to enter the grid even though Intel can’t isolate it for use directly. The credits can be expensive, but Swope notes that shareholders have been behind the program. “Economics have shown,” he says, “that companies that maintain a more sustainable footprint have done better—even in economic meltdown—than those that don’t.”

2. PepsiCo
Purchase, NY | Food & Beverage
1,145 million green kWh, 100% of total power used
The conglomerate, which is separate from the Pepsi bottling groups, made a splash when its headquarters went all green with its power buys in early 2007. PepsiCo drinks in $39 billion in net revenues through brands from Aquafina to Quaker Oats; it has turned to renewable power brokers to purchase offset credits.

3. Kohl’s Department Stores
Menomonee Falls, WI | Retail
601 million green kWh, 50% of total power used
This chain is already the biggest solar electricity host in the U.S. To soak up rays on 60 (and counting) store and corporate rooftops, the retailer has partnered with Sun-
Edison, which owns and maintains the solar panels and sells the electricity to Kohl’s. The largest setup is the roof of a distribution center in San Bernardino, Calif., where 6,208 panels can crank out a full megawatt of power.

4. Dell
Round Rock, TX | Information Technology
554 million green kWh, 158% of total power used
In August 2008 managers declared Dell’s headquarters “carbon-neutral” after buying energy credits, increasing efficiency and reducing emissions. As a result, the company reported saving $3 million, disproving skeptical claims that running on green technology is bad for staying in the black. To compensate for overseas operations, Dell buys more U.S. offset credits than it needs at home; hence the 158 percent figure.

5. Whole Foods Market
Austin, TX | Retail
527 million green kWh, 100% of total power used
Since December 2005 Whole Foods Market has entirely offset conventional power consumption at its stores nationwide. At that time, its buy was the biggest renewable energy purchase ever in North America. Employees at the regional or store level determine what kinds of energy to purchase (or generate) for the most locally sound decisions.

6. Pepsi Bottling Group
Somers, NY| Food & Beverage
470 million green kWh, 100% of total power used
As the largest bottler and distributor of Pepsi products, the group jumped headlong into running fully on green energy just months after PepsiCo did (#2 above). The group, which sells more than 1.7 billion cases of drinks annually, offsets all its U.S. power use through credits.

7. Johnson & Johnson
New Brunswick, NJ | Health Care
435 million green kWh, 38% of total power used
Johnson & Johnson began setting sustainability goals in 1990. These days, to meet more than a third of its U.S. power consumption, the company plays the full trifecta: on-site generation, energy purchases and offset credits. It generates power from landfill gas and solar panels, purchases both wind and hydropower directly, and buys offset credits for biomass and wind power.

8. U.S. Air Force
Various bases | Government
426 million green kWh, 5% of total power used
The air force’s program started with Edwards Air Force Base in California about 10 years ago. Engineers there “were doing renewable energy before there were renewable goals,” says Jim Snook, renewable energy program manager. Since then, bases around the country have started finding ways to buy and generate renewable energy “simply because it was the right thing to do,” Snook says. About 50 bases are onboard, he estimates, and about half of those are doing on-site generation. Wind turbines at F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming can sweep up about 3.3 megawatts of power, and just outside of Las Vegas at Nellis Air Force Base, solar panels can produce 30 million kWh a year, which the air force asserts is the largest solar energy installation in the Western Hemisphere.

9. Cisco Systems
San Jose, CA | Information Technology
401 million green kWh, 46% of total power used
By switching nearly half its operations to renewable energy, Cisco has eliminated the carbon emissions equal to those of more than 31 million gallons of burned gasoline. That is the equivalent of removing 335,000 car trips (at 30 miles per gallon) between New York City and Los Angeles.

10. City of Houston
Texas| Government
350 million green kWh, 27% of total power used
Look out Chicago, Houston might be on its way to stealing the Windy City moniker—and not because of the politicians or the climate. The city’s government is now running on 27 percent fixed-rate wind power. Although that is less than a third of its total demand, Houston’s sizable purchase makes it the largest city or state buyer in the country.

11. City of Dallas
Texas | Government
334 million green kWh, 40% of total power used
After hosting an eye-opening climate conference, the city government decided to help lower statewide ozone levels by decreasing its conventional power use, says Jill Jordan, an assistant city manager. Right off the bat, the city went 40 percent green, primarily with wind power. It hasn’t been a penny saver yet, Jordan says: “You actually pay a premium.” But “it was just a commitment on the part of the council and the city… to be good leaders.” In June 2008 Dallas became the first U.S. city to be certified for its Environmental Management System by the International Organization for Standards, which recognizes companies and institutions across the globe for compliance with rigorous criteria.

12. (tie) Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, PA | Government
300 million green kWh, 30% of total power used
In the summer of 2008 Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania signed more than $650 million to the state’s Governor’s Green Government Council, which was created 11 years ago by former governor Tom Ridge. A chunk of that change is earmarked to help boost renewable energy use and development in the commonwealth—an industry that in 2008 already employed 3,000 people.

12. (tie) HSBC North America
Buffalo, NY | Banking & Financial Services
300 million green kWh, 93% of total power used
The international institution set itself apart from the rest of the finance crowd in October 2005 when it became the first bank to assert that it was carbon-neutral. To make up for the 7 percent of power consumption it hasn’t purchased through renewable energy credits, the bank ponies up for carbon offsets.

14. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC | Government
285 million green kWh, 100% of total power used
The organization that launched the Green Power Purchasers project—way back in 1999—comes in at number 14 on the list. Since 2007 the agency has offset all the power it uses to run its 200 buildings and labs with the purchase of renewable energy credits.

15. Wal-Mart
Texas, California | Retail
243 million green kWh, 8% of total power used
Leave it to the world’s largest retailer to lock in wind power at a market rate. Wal-Mart has a four-year contract to buy energy from a West Texas wind farm to help power the state’s hundreds of stores and facilities. Additionally, solar panels have been going up under 10-year contracts on some buildings in California. All this might be a drop in the blue-and-white bucket, but the bargain box chain has set a goal of eventually going all-renewable.

16. Kimberly-Clark
Dallas, TX | Consumer Products
223 million green kWh, 7% of total power used
The maker of paper products from Kleenex to Huggies has landed on the list simply by putting waste to good use. The papermaking process doesn’t just produce pristine rolls of paper; it also generates wood scraps, chemicals and other by-products rich in potential energy. By incinerating some of these would-be wastes, the company is helping to power facilities from Alabama to Washington State—and cutting costs by doing so.

17. City of Chicago
Illinois | Government
215 million green kWh, 20% of total power used
The Second City has outsourced its sustainable power generation to its western neighbor, Iowa. Des Moines–based MidAmerican Energy owns a wealth of wind farms, which generate the electricity Chicago funds through offset credits.

18. Starbucks
Seattle, WA | Restaurants
211 million green kWh, 20% of total power used
A 2006 audit showed that a whopping 81 percent of the coffee giant’s greenhouse emissions came from the conventional energy it used to power its North American stores; each square foot consumed an average of 6.57 kWh of electricity a month. Today the renewable wind energy the chain buys can supply more than 30 million square feet of coffeehouse—room for a whole lotta latte.

19. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA | Education
193 million green kWh, 46% of total power used
This Ivy League university has greened its halls by locking into a 10-year renewable energy credit contract with Community Energy (now owned by international giant Iberdrola Renewables), which has a wind farm in Bear Creek, Pa. Since that first purchase, the school has also expanded into the national market, where buyers can get more offset credit per dollar, according to Dan Garofalo, the school’s environmental sustainability coordinator. He admits that the energy is not cheap now but says that “it’s very, very difficult to anticipate what energy prices are going to do.” School administrators have been able to justify the price tag by upgrading to more efficient cooling systems for the campus. Garofalo praises other sustainability practices such as recycling, at the same time noting that efficiencies and credits—“the stuff that people don’t see”—have a much bigger impact on the environment.

20. DuPont
Wilmington, DE | Chemicals
180 million green kWh, 4% of total power used
Ten years ago the chemicals giant committed to running on 10 percent renewable energy by 2010. It still has a way to go—more than 200 million kWh, in fact—but the company is already getting energy from a wide range of sources, including biomass incinerated to make steam energy and landfill gas that fuels boilers.

21. Wells Fargo & Company
San Francisco, CA | Banking
175 million green kWh, 14% of total power used
Like many organizations, Wells Fargo has been purchasing credits to offset some of its prodigious energy use. But as a lender, it has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects, among them a wind farm in Texas and a 64-megawatt solar-photovoltaic plant outside of Las Vegas.

22. Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts
Whittier, CA | Government
171 million green kWh, 54% of total power used
What could be clean about a landfill? The energy it yields, of course. The sanitation districts, which manage landfills and wastewater treatment facilities, run 10 power plants off their own waste. Most of the energy comes from burning methane gas that seeps from landfills (as garbage decomposes) or that is emitted from water treatment (as bacteria break down solids). The departments are required by law to recapture the gas, and they’ve been turning it into energy since the 1970s. How long will the landfills keep coughing up fuel? One of the power plants is still running off a dump closed in the 1960s. The group is set to open a new 12-megawatt landfill power plant in Calabasas, Calif., in October.

23. U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, DC | Government
158 million green kWh, 3% of total power used
The Energy Department is partially powering its own headquarters through offset credits from geothermal energy, and its goal is to reach 7.5 percent renewable power by next year. The department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., also promotes research and design of new and improved technologies.

24. PepsiAmericas
Schaumburg, IL | Food & Beverage
157 million green kWh, 100% of total power used
Quick to follow the lead of PepsiCo, PepsiAmericas—which, like the Pepsi Bottling Group, is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of the soda company’s products—went all-renewable in a flash. By July 2007 energy for all its U.S. operations was entirely offset by green energy credits.

25. Vail Resorts
Broomfield, CO | Travel & Leisure
151 million green kWh, 100% of total power used
Put on those goggles—schussing just got a bit breezier. All the chairlifts, resorts and shops operated by the Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Heavenly ski resorts are now run by green wind power generated in less mountainous states, such as Oklahoma and Iowa, and procured through offset credits.

Drinking Water From Air Humidity

Alex Bailey — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:31:17 +0000

via ScienceDailey

Not a plant to be seen, the desert ground is too dry. But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity. The system is based completely on renewable energy and is therefore autonomous.

Cracks permeate the dried-out desert ground, the landscape bears testimony to the lack of water. But even here, where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air. In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent – in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water.

Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart working in conjunction with their colleagues from the company Logos Innovationen have found a way of converting this air humidity autonomously and decentrally into drinkable water. “The process we have developed is based exclusively on renewable energy sources such as thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic cells, which makes this method completely energy-autonomous. It will therefore function in regions where there is no electrical infrastructure,” says Siegfried Egner, head of department at the IGB. The principle of the process is as follows: hygroscopic brine – saline solution which absorbs moisture – runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed.

Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure. This effect is known from the mountains: as the atmospheric pressure there is lower than in the valley, water boils at temperatures distinctly below 100 degrees Celsius. The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air.

“The concept is suitable for various sizes of installation. Single-person units and plants supplying water to entire hotels are conceivable,” says Egner. Prototypes have been built for both system components – air moisture absorption and vacuum evaporation – and the research scientists have already tested their interplay on a laboratory scale. In a further step the researchers intend to develop a demonstration facility.

Grey Water Recycling

Alex Bailey — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:46:02 +0000

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS via jpost

Grey water has one-third to half the contamination of black water, which is from toilets.
Photo: Courtesy Water-Arc

If the pilot is successful, the government would consider permitting systems in the public sector and in businesses to recycle shower water for flushing toilets or watering gardens. There is also the potential for new construction to contain grey water purification systems.

Grey water is the leftover water from showers, sinks and washing machines, as opposed to black water – the water from toilets. With the proper treatment to reduce bacteria, it can be reused in toilets or to water gardens.

Grey water recycling has become a hot topic around the world, with water-strapped countries like Australia and others installing such systems. In Israel, the Health Ministry has generally prohibited grey water recycling because of the unacceptably high bacteria count in the water.

The pilot project, initiated by the environmental organization Shomera for a Better Environment, would only focus on reusing shower water, as there are additional problems with reusing kitchen-sink and washing-machine water, Shomera executive director Miriam Garmaise told the Post Tuesday.

The collaborative project is unique in that for the first time, the Health Ministry has been in the picture from the very beginning.

Shomera had attempted a grey water recycling project in connection with mikvaot (ritual baths) seven years ago, but it did not meet the standards of the Health Ministry, and Shomera decided to suspend the project. This time around, Shomera is looking to create a demonstration site at a mikve, which would exhibit the potential for the public sector.

To do that, Garmaise reached out to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Dr. Eran Friedler, one of the country’s foremost experts on grey water recycling, who eagerly joined. Together, the two approached Water Authority Water Conservation Branch deputy department head Amir Shisha with their proposal. Shisha immediately realized the Health Ministry needed to be brought in for the project to have a chance at success, and made the connection. The Water-Arc Company was chosen to implement the project.

Friedler has been investigating grey water recycling at his lab for some time and has compiled reports for the Water Authority on the topic in the past.

Friedler told the Post on Tuesday that the potential water savings from grey water recycling depended on the penetration level into the population.

“The savings depend on the penetration rate. We did a study in 2003 that showed that with 20 percent to 30% of households [not just public buildings] utilizing such systems, the potential annual savings were between 25 million and 50 million cubic meters of water per year. That’s the equivalent of a small city’s annual water use,” he said.

Thus far, the project is in the planning stages. The idea is to take two different types of technologies – one suitable for household use and one for municipal use – and test them on the showers of a Jerusalem mikve for about a year. The technologies themselves were not new, Friedler said, but no one has done any “real-world” testing with them in Israel.

After the testing phase, Garmaise said, the intention was for the mikve to become a demo site to showcase the potential for other buildings like dormitories, country clubs or hotels and other end-users.

Garmaise chose mikvaot because one of Shomera’s goals is to make the connection between Judaism and the environment. However, in this case, each partner brings a different target audience to the project, she noted.

“Moreover, inherent to the initiative are additional educational opportunities. The choice of a mikve as the site for a water conservation effort invites the opportunity for dialogue between Jewish precepts and concepts of environmental sustainability.

“This is a prime example of Shomera’s ongoing attempts to inspire new population groups to join the environmental community by illuminating those places where Judaism and the environment meet,” she said.

Garmaise added that she was still looking to raise the final necessary funds for the project.

The Health Ministry, meanwhile, got involved with the project because they were afraid that more people would attempt to reuse their grey water on their own because of the water crisis.

“We became involved because we were afraid that people didn’t realize how many disease-causing bacteria there are in untreated grey water. People are under the mistaken impression that one can just use grey water without treating it first, and that is not true,” warned David Weinberg, national planning and treated-effluent engineer at the Health Ministry.

“Studies have found that there are millions of pathogenic microorganisms in 100 ml. of grey water. It has to be treated before it can be used,” he explained.

Weinberg greatly stressed that the pilot project was not intended to pave the way for private grey water recycling systems.

“Individuals should not be putting in grey water recycling systems. The treatment needs constant monitoring that the individual just cannot provide. Rather, the idea is for local authorities or businesses to take responsibility and install large-scale systems which are constantly monitored,” he said.

The constant monitoring that the Health Ministry demands would force someone to take responsibility for the system. While public buildings or hotels are ideal in that respect, it could potentially extend to new construction, where the municipality would monitor the building’s system.

“There’s another potential problem with individual systems: If a contractor who does not know what he’s doing installs or fixes the system, he could accidentally hook up the grey water pipe directly into the water supply and thus contaminate the entire household’s water supply,” he said.

The Health Ministry released regulations for municipalities interested in recycling grey water last summer, but this is the first project to test the systems in real-world conditions.

Car-less School Days

Paul Rathgeb — Thu, 21 May 2009 04:51:29 +0000

About three years ago I helped jump start the Alternative Commuter Fund Drive (ACPD) at the school I teach at. The ACPD is a simple idea to move further in the direction as a school in leaving less of a carbon footprint behind.

During the month of May our community of parents and students pull together to take the pledge to either car-pool, bus, bike, or walk to and from school. The family committed to the green cause then collects sponsors to donate a particular amount per mile that goes towards a family opting to take an Alternative route (i.e. walking, carpooling, busing, biking, etc.) to and from school. At the end of the month the family calculates the total amount of miles for a given month, collects money from the sponsors, and the dollars earned go towards becoming a more sustainable school. The school then takes the money raised during the month to implement environmental-based curriculum or to support the school in investing in greener standards, such as weatherizing the building, installing CFL lights, upgrading doors and windows, etc.

Students walking, biking, busing, or bicycling with their parent/guardian/nanny also learn about their decisions in the world is important and meaningful to making change. Students can get directly involved by calculating the distance they travel to and from school, keep track of the miles, promote what their doing through gathering sponsorships, and support the sustainable growth of their school. For a school considering becoming a “green school” or has already made considerable strides, an Alternative Commuter month can empower those in the school community to tread lighter when it comes to commuting, share in the greater green cause with the younger generation, and raise the right amount of “green” to shoot for more sustainable strategies.

In our third annual ACPD, our Community School is poised to purchase eco-friendly flooring and a dual flush toilet. We’re also wanting to revitalize our play yard to spruce it up with gardens and a rain barrel for students to access water for stirring up projects or for watering plants. And I think such an idea has the potential for growth at other schools.

Carbon Footprint of US Junk Mail Equivalent to 480,000 Cars

Alex Bailey — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:18:01 +0000

by Alan Velasco via Matador Change

Feature photo by Oran Viriyincy. Photo above by Claire L. Evans

Ever wonder how many trees are cut down just so you can get more junk mail in your mailbox?

The average person in the US receives nearly 11 pieces of junk mail each week, or 560 pieces a year. This amounts to 4.5 million tons of junk mail yearly, of which 44% goes straight to the landfill unopened and unread.

Here are some more facts:

100 million trees are cut down each year to produce junk mail.

1 million trees offset 48,000,000 pounds of carbon emissions.

Eliminating junk mail in the US would offset 480,000 cars.

Conclusions

These numbers only reflect the amount of carbon emissions offset by the raw materials alone. They do not take into account all of the carbon emissions created in transporting the trees from the forest to the pulp mills, much less the emissions generated in manufacturing the paper. Nor do they take into account the carbon emissions created in distributing the junk mail via mail-trucks, planes, and cars nationwide.

It’s safe to say that were we to include those factors in our equation, the actual emissions created through junk mail would easily be in the millions of cars, perhaps in the tens of millions. Anyone want to work on that formula?

How to Stop Receiving Junk Mail

For a quick and easy guide to stop receiving junk mail, please visit the Native Forest Network.

Tibet’s Prayer Wheels Could Generate Both Positive and Kinetic Energy

Alex Bailey — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:53:22 +0000

by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California via TreeHugger

Buzz up!

Image via Inhabitat

Tibet’s prayer wheels are used to generate positive energy, good vibes, and other happy things that help make the soul feel better. But maybe they can generate and harness another form of energy that makes the earth feel a bit better. Kinetic energy. Oh yeah.

Inhabitat notes:

Taikkun is a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s GFRY Studio, and his design was one of our favorite projects presented at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair. It is constructed simply around used bicycle parts and a discarded fan motor, making it ideal for efficient production and use in the developing world.

The idea is simple. With each spin, a small amount of energy is created. The design would harness that energy and send it straight into the electrical grid, helping to power nearby lights or meet other needs.

It’s one of those designs that makes you say, “Of course!” and want to gather the energy potential of anything that moves, or slap a solar panel or turbine on anything sitting out in the sun and wind.

Via Inhabitat

220MPH Solar-Powered Bullet Train on Arizona Horizon

Alex Bailey — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:35:04 +0000

by Jorge Chapa

Clayton Homes, a US-based company which makes and sells manufactured (prefab) homes, is getting in on the i-naming game with their latest bit of construction. The iHouse is a prefabricated, customizable house that is so energy efficient that Clayton estimates it costs about $1 per day to cover all of its electricity and heating needs. The house makes use of solar panels, energy-efficient appliances, thick walls, heavy insulation, a rainwater-catching system, a tankless water heater, and dual flush toilets to meet its eco-friendly goals. The company, which sold about 30,000 manufactured homes last year, thinks that the iHouse could quickly come to represent about 10 percent of its business. Prototypes of the house — which at around 1,000 square feet costs $140,000 completely furnished — are popping up all over the US, and as of last Saturday, are officially on sale nationwide.

Green Bacteria: Solar Power of the Future?

Alex Bailey — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:10:33 +0000

via ScienceDaily

An international team of scientists has determined the structure of the chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria that are responsible for harvesting light energy. The team’s results one day could be used to build artificial photosynthetic systems, such as those that convert solar energy to electrical energy.

A research paper about the discovery will be published on 4 May 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists found that the chlorophylls are highly efficient at harvesting light energy. “We found that the orientation of the chlorophyll molecules make green bacteria extremely efficient at harvesting light,” said Donald Bryant, Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology at Penn State and one of the team’s leaders. According to Bryant, green bacteria are a group of organisms that generally live in extremely low-light environments, such as in light-deprived regions of hot springs and at depths of 100 meters in the Black Sea. The bacteria contain structures called chlorosomes, which contain up to 250,000 chlorophylls. “The ability to capture light energy and rapidly deliver it to where it needs to go is essential to these bacteria, some of which see only a few photons of light per chlorophyll per day.”

Because they have been so difficult to study, the chlorosomes in green bacteria are the last class of light-harvesting complexes to be characterized structurally by scientists. Scientists typically characterize molecular structures using X-ray crystallography, a technique that determines the arrangement of atoms in a molecule and ultimately gives information that can be used to create a picture of the molecule; however, X-ray crystallography could not be used to characterize the chlorosomes in green bacteria because the technique only works for molecules that are uniform in size, shape, and structure. “Each chlorosome in a green bacterium has a unique organization,” said Bryant. “They are like little andouille sausages. When you take cross-sections of andouille sausages, you see different patterns of meat and fat; no two sausages are alike in size or content, although there is some structure inside, nevertheless. Chlorosomes in green bacteria are like andouille sausages, and the variability in their compositions had prevented scientists from using X-ray crystallography to characterize the internal structure.”

To get around this problem, the team used a combination of techniques to study the chlorosome. They used genetic techniques to create a mutant bacterium with a more regular internal structure, cryo-electron microscopy to identify the larger distance constraints for the chlorosome, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to determine the structure of the chlorosome’s component chlorophyll molecules, and modeling to bring together all of the pieces and create a final picture of the chlorosome.

First, the team created a mutant bacterium in order to determine why the chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria became increasingly complex over evolutionary time. To create the mutant, they inactivated three genes that green bacteria acquired late in their evolution. The team suspected that the genes were responsible for improving the bacteria’s light-harvesting capabilities. “Essentially, we went backward in evolutionary time to an intermediate state in order to understand, in part, why green bacteria acquired these genes,” Bryant said. The team found that the more evolved, wild-type bacteria grow faster at all light intensities than the mutant form. “Indeed, the reason that chlorophylls became more complex was to increase light-harvesting efficiency,” said Bryant.

Next, the team isolated chlorosomes from the mutant and the wild-type forms of the bacteria and used cryo-electron microscopy — a type of electron microscopy that is performed at super-cold cryogenic temperatures — to take pictures of the chlorosomes. The pictures revealed that chlorophyll molecules inside chlorosomes have a nanotube shape. “They are like Russian dolls, with one concentric tube fitting inside the next,” said Bryant. “The mutant bacterium’s chlorosomes contain only one set of tubes, whereas the wild-type chlorosomes contain many tubes, each arranged in a unique pattern, like those andouille sausages.”

The team then went a step further and used solid-state NMR spectroscopy — a technique in which samples are spun very rapidly and exposed to a magnetic field — to look deep inside the chlorosome. This technique enables researchers to understand the relationships between atomic nuclei in a sample and, ultimately, to acquire structural information about the molecules of interest.

“The NMR data revealed to us that the individual chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria are arranged in dimers — molecules consisting of two identical simpler molecules — with their long hydrophobic, or water-repellent, tails sticking out of either side,” said Bryant. “We also learned precisely how the chlorophyll molecules attach to one another, and we were able to measure the distance between chlorophyll molecules. The cryo-electron microscopy pictures showed gross structural details and distances, and the NMR results allowed us to quantify these distances as well, and confirmed to us that what were were seeing was, in fact, stacks of the chlorophyll molecules all lined up,” he said. The NMR results also enabled the scientists to determine that the chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria are arranged in helical spirals. In the mutant bacteria, the chlorophyll molecules are positioned at a nearly 90-degree angle in relation to the long axis of the nanotubes, whereas the angle is less steep in the wild-type organism. “It’s the orientation of the chlorophyll molecules that is the most important thing here,” said Bryant. The last steps for the team were to pull together all of their data and to create a detailed computer model of the structure.

“At first it seems counterintuitive that green bacteria have managed to evolve a better light-harvesting system by increasing disorder in the chlorosome structure,” said Bryant. “Most people would think that if you make something that is more highly ordered, you’ll end up with something that works better. But this is clearly a case where that isn’t true. If all of the chlorophylls are identically arranged in a chlorosome, then the energy from the photon, once it is absorbed, is going to wander around over all of those chlorophylls, which could take a long time. In the wild-type form, you have these different domains where chlorophyll molecules are located and, therefore, the ability of photon energy to migrate becomes restricted. In other words, the energy in an individual photon visits a smaller number of chlorophylls, and that’s an advantage to the organism because the energy can get to where it needs to go faster. Speed is the name of the game that green bacteria play with light. The organisms have only a couple of nanoseconds for the energy to get someplace useful or else the energy is going to be lost. The speed required can be a problem for bacteria that receive only a few photons of light per chlorophyll per day.”

Bryant said that the team’s results may one day be used to build artificial photosynthetic systems that convert solar energy to electricity. “The interactions that lead to the assembly of the chlorophylls in chlorosomes are rather simple, so they are good models for artificial systems,” he said. “You can make structures out of these chlorophylls in solution just by having the right solution conditions. In fact, people have done this for many years; however, they haven’t really understood the biological rules for building larger structures. I won’t say that we completely understand the rules yet, but at least we know what two of the structures are now and how they relate to the biological system as a whole, which is a huge advance.”

The team also includes researchers from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry and the Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute in the Netherlands, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany. This research was supported by the United States Department of Energy.

Antibacterial Soap Won’t Protect You from Swine Flu

Alex Bailey — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:22:26 +0000

by Gina Solomon Senior Scientist via The Daily Green
It’s amazing how confusing it can be when a new disease emerges, and advice starts flying around. One thing that I want to nip in the bud right now is the idea that “antibacterial” soaps can be helpful for fighting Swine Flu. Wrong!

Hand sanitizers, which are usually alcohol-based, and are designed for use when you’re not near a sink, are beneficial against the flu. Antibacterial soaps are useless and could be dangerous. Here’s why:

First, influenza is a virus, so antibacterial products are useless. That goes for antibacterial soaps and for oral antibiotics as well;

Second, the soaps that are sold as “antibacterial” have been tested and found to be no more effective than regular soap and water;

Third, some research suggests that these antibacterial soaps may actually create antibiotic resistance in bacteria; an article from the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases that summarizes this issue is here: pdf.

Finally, the ingredients in antibacterial soaps – triclosan or triclocarban – have some serious toxicity concerns. These chemicals pollute rivers and streams, are toxic to wildlife, can enter and accumulate in people’s bodies, and disrupt hormone systems (triclosan interferes with thyroid hormone, whereas triclocarban has a testosterone-like effect). Stay tuned for more on this soon.

The bottom line is: Don’t use antibacterial soaps! Do wash your hands frequently with regular soap and water, and do use hand sanitizers when you’re not near a sink! Stay well!