Sustaining Future

Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System

2014-02-15T10:39:00.001+11:00

Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened on 15th Feb, 2014 in Mojave Desert, USA. The 2.2 billion dollars project will deliver 400MW for the next 25 years. [source] However, there is concern about birds being scorched by the heat at the top of tower. [source]

I have started a new blog

2013-12-05T11:57:00.002+11:00

I have started a new blog - my view on Australian politics.

Americans Too Religious to Protect Climate

2013-05-06T10:38:00.000+10:00

The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date. Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change. "[T]he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them," Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly. [source]

Can we feed 9 billion people? And at what costs?

2013-04-11T09:26:00.004+10:00

This is an information dense video with both good and bad news...

Stopping Desertification (Three Proven methods in 3 videos)

2013-03-22T18:57:00.001+11:00

Bokashi vs Composting

2013-03-11T15:15:00.001+11:00

Composting releases a lot of green house gases into the environment. There is a better way. How do you get the micro organisms needed? Go to a Chinese grocery store and asked for the yeast to make rice wine. Dissolve the yeast (usually come as a ball) into a bowl of warm water. Add the solution with any of the wasted food. Don't be too wet. Mix well. Close the lid and let the micro organism to ferment the organic material without oxygen. In about 3 to 4 weeks, you will have a good fermented stuff ready for the next step. Bury the fermented stuff in soil. First dig a hole large enough for your fermented waste. Mix the waste with some soil. Then cover everything with more soil. In another three weeks, the fermented stuff will become good soil for new plants with all the nutrients. Here is a fuller explanation of the process.

Is wealth distribution as skewed as USA sustainable?

2013-03-06T16:47:00.001+11:00

If you ask me that question, my answer is "no". This is a recipe for social unrest.

Cimate Crisis

2013-02-26T17:13:00.002+11:00

Green Gold - Documentary by John D. Liu

2013-02-26T16:46:00.003+11:00

Lessons of the Loess Plateau

2013-02-25T20:23:00.001+11:00

What has been done in the Loess Plateau in China illustrates how we can restore damaged ecology system.

It was 2008 when this video was made

2013-01-15T16:45:00.002+11:00

It was 2008 when this video was made and the climate has worsen...

Extreme Weather Events! (October 2012 Edition)

2013-01-15T15:31:00.002+11:00

Evidence Of The Extreme Climate Change

2013-01-15T15:21:00.003+11:00

2012:The Year Climate Change Got Real

2013-01-15T15:17:00.000+11:00

Clean up oil spills - open source project

2012-02-20T10:47:00.002+11:00

Protei, Fleet of Oil Spill Collecting Sailing Robots

Aquaponics

2012-01-06T17:00:00.000+11:00

Aquaponics = Aqua culture + hydroponics. It is a combination of growing fish (aqua culture) and growing plants in a water media.

Simply put, the waste of the fish is used as fertilizer for the plants. Thus. the cleaned water can be reused for fish.

Fish excretes their waste mainly via the gills as ammonia (NH₄⁺). Since plants cannot utilize ammonia directly, we solicit the help of naturally occurring microbes to convert ammonia into nitrite (NO₂^-) and nitrate (NO₃^-). What we need is to allow a lot of surface area and good supply of oxygen.

In a typical design of aquaponics, a plant growth bed is built on top of a fish tank. The growth bed is typically a neutral media such as pebbles to provide support for the plant roots. Water from the fish tank is pumped up to the growth bed couple of times per day. The growth bed uses a flood-and-drain design. When the water level in the growth bed reaches a certain level, a siphon action will drain all the water back to the fish tank. As water is drained, air is sucked into the space between the pebbles providing oxygen to the microbes on the pebbles. At the same time, the water falling into the fish tank also helps to oxygenate the water.

There are many different siphon designs. The simplest is to put a bottle over an overflowing pipe. See here for some inspiration.

As the conversion of ammonia (NH₄⁺) into nitrite (NO₂^-) and nitrate (NO₃^-) releases H⁺, the water will become acidic and needs to be neutralized. Since plants do not use a lot of sodium, any non-sodium base can be used such as builder lime (calcium hydroxide) and caustic potash (potassium hydroxide). Both these bases are commonly available and inexpensive.

The input to aquaponics are fish feed (for the fish), sunlight (for plants) and energy to move the water, bases (see above) and regular topping up of water. Unlike aqua culture or hydroponics, there is no need to replace any water. This is truly a zero waste system.

The ratio of fish and plants depends on the amount of fish feed. Fish is cold-blooded and hence food is consumed for movement and growth. At low temperature, fish do not eat and hence there will be little excretion, the amount of nutrients available to plants will be reduced. Here is a calculator to determine the amount of plants and fish for backyard systems.

Aquaponics scale very well, from small system over an aquarium to commercial scale production.

The seawater farming in Eritrea is another commercial example. Seawater is ducted inland and then pumped up several meters. The seawater is first used to farm shrimps, then fish. After these two produces, the now nutrient-rich seawater is used to irrigate fields growing various Salicornia. Salicornia europaea is highly edible, either cooked or raw. The seeds of Salicornia bigelovii contain high levels of unsaturated oil (30 percent, mostly linoleic acid) and protein (35 percent),[7][8] it can be used to produce animal feedstuff and as a biofuel feedstock on coastal land where conventional crops cannot be grown. The seawater is discharged into a swamp of mangroves before reaching the sea finally. Mangroves can be harvested for fire wood and older mangroves for timber. Previously desert land at seashore can now be agricultural land for shrimps, fish, vegetables and timber.

Conversion of pool to green house (a mini farm)

2011-11-15T11:58:00.000+11:00

Thorium Nuclear Reactor

2011-11-11T12:17:00.000+11:00

I fundamentally object Uranium based nuclear reactors for the environment impact of their decay products and the potential for enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.

Scientists have long known that Thorium is a good substitute.

From wikipedia, Some benefits of thorium fuel when compared with uranium were summarized as follows:

* Weapons-grade fissionable material (233U) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from a thorium reactor;
* Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste;
* Thorium comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium contains only 0.7% fissionable U-235;
* Thorium cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction without priming, so fission stops by default.

With Thorium, I may have to change my mind on nuclear reactor as an energy source for humanity.

Time is running, fast...

2011-11-10T13:09:00.000+11:00

If humanity is to keep the global rise of temperature to within 2 deg C, the atmospheric CO2 content needs to be kept at below 350 ppm. At this moment, it is at 390 ppm and still rising fast. Unless any new power plant using fossil fuel is stopped, the chances of humanity surviving this crisis is dangerously unacceptable.

Of course, we can only capture the current CO2 from the atmosphere using projects such as Greening the desert or Seawater farming (Eritrea). Unfortunately, due to political instability, Eritrea project has ended.

Is humanity really that dumb?

Honest reporting

2011-11-03T11:31:00.000+11:00

If we continue to see more honest reporting of the effect of climate change, humanity may survive the coming catastrophe by starting to reduce green house gases right now.

No such thing as waste

2011-11-01T19:44:00.002+11:00

Skeptic Scientist Richard Muller Reversed Position

2011-10-31T11:33:00.000+11:00

The ultimate judge on a scientific issue is the unbiased observational data and respecting objective data is a good thing. One of the leading global warming skeptic has reversed his position after his own data confirming what everyone else has been reporting. [source]

Human has been walking on the Earth surface for about 100,000 to 200,000 years. Here is a long term temperature graph [source]

During the whole course of our evolution history, we are lucky to be living in a relatively stable temperature range. Conversely, the world we know has not been through a dramatic climate change. The plants that we domesticated, the infra-structure that we have built are based on a relatively stable temperature range. We have dumped huge amount of green house gases into the atmosphere in a short period (last 150 years is short in the geological time scale). Modern species would not be able to cope with such sudden temperature change. Man-made infra-structure would not be able to cope as well. Imagine a sea level rise of a few meters (as predicted by climate models), how can the largest cities with the most population cope? How can container shipping ports be moved together with other infra-structure such as the connecting roads cope with the rising water level? How fast can these ports be moved inland? How fast can we move population inland? What are the implications of moving massive number of people inland - food production, water supply,...

The most urgent question is how much time human still have before we pass the tipping point?

Why wouldn't you live with nature and swim with nature?

2011-10-26T18:24:00.002+11:00

Climatologist James Hansen on InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse

2011-10-24T20:02:00.000+11:00

The undue influence of special interest is blocking human's chance in solving the problem and the lack of political leadership.

Climate Change

2011-10-24T19:50:00.000+11:00

This is one of the better explanation of the issues human are facing.