Farm To Table Local Sustainability

Farm-to-table (or farm-to-fork) is a food movement that promotes the traditional use of that which is closest to you. Farm-to-table advocates utilize as many local ingredients as possible, often directly from farmers in their areas or from businesses that carry local products. This sustainable approach not only results in fresher, more natural products but also helps to support local communities and economies.

This season on Top Chef Canada, 26-year old Carl Heinrich of Sooke, BC won the renowned title of Top Chef with his farm-to-table approach.

"Heinrich is deeply committed to the farm-to-table culinary philosophy. And in Top Chef Canadas final episode, Heinrich cashed in: the competitors were able to raid the garden of Hockley Valley for fresh ingredients with which they would prepare their final meal. Being from Toronto, I was also at an advantage in that I was able to say exactly which producer I wanted my product from." - Calgary Herald

Earth Friendly Farm-to-Fork Living

A low carbon diet refers to making lifestyle choices to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by energy use. It is estimated that the U.S. food system is responsible for at least 20 percent of greenhouse gases. But the 20 percent only counts from direct sources of GHG emissions. Indirect sources, such as demand for products from other countries, are often not counted, so an accurate percentage would be much higher than 20 percent. A low carbon diet minimizes the emissions released from the production, packaging, processing, preparation, and waste of food. A low carbon diet includes eating less industrial produced food in general, eating food grown locally and seasonally, eating less processed and packaged foods and reducing waste from food by proper portion size, recycling or composting.

Farm-to-table refers to, in the food safety field, the stages of the production of food: harvesting, storage, processing, packaging, sales, and consumption. Farm-to-table also refers to a movement concerned with producing food locally and delivering that food to local consumers. Linked to the local food movement, the movement is promoted by some in the agriculture, food service, and restaurants communities. It may also be associated with organic farming initiatives, sustainable agriculture, and community-supported.

Many farm-to-table advocates work hard to spread the word and to show others the importance of finding the freshest ingredients, while attempting to educate their customers about the link between farmers, farm communities, ancient food-production practices, and the food we eat. The public backlash against genetically-modified organisms in our food supply has added a note of political activism to what had been, until recently, a largely aesthetic movement. Farm-to-table restaurants may buy their produce directly from farmers, usually local. In a few cases, the restaurants and farms may be owned and operated by the same people. Restaurants who choose to buy from local food producers regularly yield healthier, better quality meals for their customers. 

This movement has arisen somewhat simultaneously with the increased knowledge and recent changes in attitude about food safety, food freshness, food seasonality, and small-farm economics. Advocates and practitioners of the farm-to-table model frequently cite as their motivations the scarcity of fresh, local ingredients; the poor flavor of ingredients shipped from afar; the poor nutritional integrity of shipped ingredients; the encroachment of genetically modified foods into the food economy; the disappearance of small family farms; the disappearance of heirloom and open-pollinated fruits and vegetables; and the dangers of a highly-centralized food-growing and -distribution system.

In the last few years the number of farm-to-table operations has grown rapidly. Recently, some food and agriculture writers have begun to describe a philosophical divide among chefs: the "food-as-art", or, in some cases, "molecular gastronomy” camp have increasingly focused on "food made strange", in which the ingredients are so transformed as to be surprising and even unrecognizable in the final food product. The farm-to-table chefs, on the other hand, have increasingly come to rely upon extremely fresh ingredients that have been barely modified, sometimes presented raw just a few feet from where they grew. Generally, the farm-to-table chefs rely on traditional farmhouse cooking with its emphasis on freshness, seasonality, local availability, and simple preparations.

Do your part and support local farmers! It is not only beneficial to the earth, it is also beneficial for the health of your families. 

xo ginny

Carl Heinrich:

Hailing from the small town of Sooke, BC, Carl Heinrich is the 26-year-old executive chef at Marben restaurant in Toronto. Although young, he has been working in kitchens since he was 13 years old and is extremely driven and accomplished for his age. Strong support from family and early mentors encouraged Carl to enter the culinary world. During his time at Stratford Chef School, Carl worked at a restaurant as a chef de partie and completed a summer stage for Daniel Boulud in New York City. After graduating, he took up an offer to return to New York and work at Daniel’s busy bistro in Midtown for nearly four years. Motivated by a desire to move back to Canada and be closer to family, Carl accepted a position at db Bistro Moderne in Vancouver where he worked alongside Top Chef Canada season one winner Dale MacKay. Carls stages over the years include time at Camilles West Coast Fine Dining in Victoria, Marron Bistro in Toronto, Gramercy Tavern and Daniel in New York, Georges Blanc, La Regalade, and Le Comptoir in France and Alain Ducasse Le Louis XV in Monaco. Carl now lives in Toronto, a city and a culinary scene he loves, where he learned the benefits of farm-to-table and nose-to-tail cooking. Inspired by ingredients and driven by French technique, Carl aims to make approachable but refined food. - Food Network

Sources: Ginny Blogs, Post City, Hockley Valley Resort, Calgary Herald, Farm-to-table, Vancouver Sun

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Back To School the green way!

It’s that time of the year again - a brand new start of the school year for students and their parents!­ Take this opportunity to introduce some new practices into your daily life that can be more environmentally friendly. You may even be able to save costs by switching to more effective and green alternatives for the start of the new school year!

Green Transportation

Reducing your carbon footprint and making healthy choices

To really make a difference and reduce your impact on the environment, beginning this fall, do your best to reduce the amount you drive your kids to and from school. One popular way is to enroll your children into a bus program. School buses reduce a great amount of emissions, especially if it’s a newer bus that is up to date with the current emission-reducing standards. There’s also the possibility of carpool – either one of your neighbours can start carpooling kids from your neighbourhood or you can start your own carpool. 

If your school does not offer a bus program, or if you just live nearby, get your children to ride their bike or walk to school! A co-op walk team can help keep your kids safe by having groups walk together and alternating parent escorts if needed. 

Eco Supplies

Taking inventory and reusing what you can

Before deciding to go out and buy brand new school supplies for your children, take some time to look at what you’re currently have and see if anything can be reused. Why buy new pens and pencils when the old ones are still usable?  No need to buy a new notebook just because a few pages have been used in one from last year, or buying a new pencil case because the old one is out of style. Making smart, economical decisions can go a long way in saving your money and reducing production and waste emissions that comes from purchasing new supplies.

If your children get hungry or thirsty, its better that they reach for a reusable water bottle and plastic container instead of a disposable plastic water bottle and plastic ziplock bag. Either plastic or aluminum, reusable water bottles make for a much better alternative. Visit Good Housekeeping to read the list of some of the best water bottles around. Also, make sure that any water bottle purchased for reuse is BPA-free (Bisphenol A). There are also alternatives to plastic containers, such as SnackTAXI, who offer reusable food sacks. One “snack-sack” can reduce the use of about 1000 plastic bags over its lifetime.

Buying new eco-friendly school supplies

When you have looked over what you have and you’ve decided that you still need some more school supplies, try to lean towards the greener alternative. Many major retailers are carrying recycled and renewable school supplies such as recycled notebooks, paper and binders, and biodegradable pencils. Paper Mate is offering biodegradable pencils that are offered at many major retailers, such as Staples. There is also Ecojot, who offer notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and more made entirely from post-consumer waste. When looking for a new backpack, look for an environmentally as well as child friendly backpack, one that’s made from recycled material and is padded to prevent back pain. You can check out The Ultimate Green Store or Ecocentric Bags for an idea on some cool backpacks being offered.

Most of the money spent on supplies will be towards new clothes that children are always in need of. If your kids don’t mind, wearing hand-me-down clothing from friends and family or thrift stores can be one of the ways to save money and reduce your emissions. If your children are style-conscious, there are many popular brands like Adidas, Levi’s and H&M that offer clothes made from more eco-friendly material.

The most important thing to consider is that your children must understand and be educated on the importance of the environment and that even the little things can go a long way in sustaining our planet.

Little Steps

Go with what you know

Going green doesnt always have to mean big changes, sticking to some basic principals can make a big difference in little ways! REDUCE, REUSE, & RECYCLE every way you can. 

For more suggestions on going green with kids visit some of our other articles:

Easy ways to get your kids thinking about the environment early

28 Ways To Build A Green Lifestyle

Green Resources: Digital Textbooks

Or check out the following links for more resources:

Meadford Independent, “Green Tips for Back to School”

Tree Hugger, “How to Go Green: Back to School”
Huffington Post, “Green your Back-to-School Routine”

SnackTAXI

Ecouterre, “Levi’s, H&M, Adidas Debut Apparel Made With Eco-Friendly “Better Cotton””

Paper Mate, “Biodegrable Products”

Good Housekeeping, “Reusable water bottle reviews”

The Ultimate Green Store

Ecocentric Bags

Ecojot

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GM’s New Plans To Challenge Tesla’s Electric Battery Dominance

Climate Progress has an article on GMs continuing interest in electric vehicles - GM’s New Plans To Challenge Tesla’s Electric Battery Dominance.

General Motors plans to challenge Tesla’s share of the electric vehicle innovation marketplace by doing two things: making a better battery, and putting it in a long-range electric car that’s affordable.

GM announced this week that it’s developing a car that can go 200 miles on a single charge — the same distance that Tesla’s Model S can. But the GM version will cost about $30,000, less than half the $71,000 sticker price of the Model S.

The company is also aiming to do an overhaul of the electric car battery. As Quartz explains, Tesla’s Model S uses Panasonic batteries made of nickel, cobalt and aluminum. GM wants to use a lithium-ion battery made of nickel, cobalt and manganese — a chemical mix that scientists think could create a cheaper and more powerful lithium-ion battery, but that right now has some flaws that GM hopes can be fixed.

Right now, GM sells two battery-powered cars: the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid which costs $35,000 and can go 38 miles on a charge before its gas-powered generator takes over, and the Chevy Spark, an all-electric car that can go 82 miles on a charge and costs $26,685 (both costs are before the $7,500 tax credit that electric car buyers are eligible for in the U.S.). GM is also focusing on making its current cars cheaper — the company has said the next generation of the Volt will cost $7,000 to $10,000 less than the current version.

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In marine current energy Siemens wants to be 800 lb gorilla

GreenBang reports that Siemens its expanding its presence in the ocean energy market - In marine current energy, Siemens wants to be 800-lb gorilla.

There’s a lot of energy in the world’s oceans, and Siemens wants to play a big part in developing that power for our use.

The Germany-based technology giant announced today that it’s taken on a larger stake in a British marine-energy company, Marine Current Turbines Ltd. Siemens first dipped its toe into the marine current tidal energy sector in February of 2010, when it acquired a minor stake in the company. It now has a 45-percent stake.

“With this increase in its stake, Siemens is strengthening its activities in ocean power generation,” said Michael Axmann, CFO of the newly founded Solar & Hydro Division within Siemens’ Energy Sector. “We will actively shape the commercialization process of innovative marine current power plants.” ...

Some estimates say tidal power plants deployed around the world could generate up to 800 terawatt-hours of clean energy each year. That’s enough to meet 3 to 4 percent of the world’s energy needs, and 25 percent more than all the energy used in Germany.

Marine Current Turbines plans to present two project investment prospectuses to the market in November: one for the 8 megawatt (MW) Kyle Rhea project in Scotland and another for the 10MW Anglesey Skerries project in Wales. The company also has lease approval to deploy a 100MW tidal farm off Brough Ness on the southernmost tip of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. ...

The company has already demonstrated its first commercial-scale project, SeaGen in Northern Ireland. Since November 2008, two turbines with a combined capacity of 1.2MW have been plugged into the grid and providing enough power to supply about 1,500 homes. With more than 2.7 gigawatt-hours of electricity generated so far, SeaGen is so far the top electricity producer in the marine current power sector.

EarthTechling reports that the Japanese are also getting in deeper with tidal energy - Kawasaki Testing Tidal Power In Scotland.

The name “Kawasaki” may be most readily associated with motors of the two-wheeled, gasoline-powered variety; but the Japanese multinational company has recently announced that it will soon be getting into the tidal power generation business. Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has announced that it will work with Okinawa Electric Power and Okinawa New Energy Development to prepare a new tidal power generator technology for testing off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. Then, KHI will test the technology at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland.

The EMEC is the first center of its kind to offer developers an opportunity to test full-scale, grid-connected prototypes under high velocity wave and tidal conditions. High velocity currents at the tidal test site at the Fall of Warness, where the KHI technology will be tested, reach almost 4m/sec (7.8 knots). The facility offers seven test beds at depths ranging from 12 to 50 meters, in an area of over three square miles.

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Carnegie Wave raises funds to fast track CETO 6

RNE has an update on wave power company Carnegie Wave Energy - Carnegie Wave raises funds to fast-track CETO 6.

ASX-listed ocean energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy Limited has completed a capital raising of $4 million, part of which will go towards fast-tracking the design of its CETO 6 project – the WA-based company’s next generation CETO unit, which is expected to have at least twice the capacity of the CETO 5 unit. Carnegie’s CETO 5 is being manufactured for the Perth Wave Energy Project, which once completed will be Australia’s first commercial-scale CETO grid-connected wave energy system.

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How To Build Wind Generator

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BMW Launches Its Answer to Tesla’s Supercharger Network

Wired has an article on BMWs foray into recharging networks for electric vehicles - BMW Launches Its Answer to Tesla’s Supercharger Network.

The biggest problem automakers selling electric cars face is limited range. No one wants to get caught without any juice. To get around this concern, Tesla, whose Model S offers the best range (up to 265 miles), is building a vast network of “Supercharger” stations that make it possible to take epic road trips. Now BMW is following suit, launching a network of charging stations to make owning its first all-electric car, the range-handicapped i3, more convenient.

The automaker announced last week that it has developed an impressively small, lightweight, and inexpensive charger that it is working to install around the country. BMW will sell the charger to “authorized partners”—starting with dealers—for $6,548. NRG eVgo, a private EV-charging company, will install at least 100 around California and offer free charging to i3 owners through the end of 2015.

The 24 kilowatt BMW i DC Fast Charger, developed with Bosch Automotive, can charge the i3’s battery up to 80 percent in 30 minutes. Compared to other chargers on the market, the BMW version is quite small: 31 inches tall, 19 inches wide and 12 inches deep. It weighs just 100 pounds, light enough to be mounted without reinforcing the wall or pouring extra concrete.

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Solar Power Installations Jump to a New Annual Record

WorldWatch has a report on the global solar power market - Solar Power Installations Jump to a New Annual Record.

The year 2013 saw record-breaking growth for solar electricity generation as the photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) markets continued to grow. With over 39 gigawatts installed worldwide, the PV solar market represented one third of all newly-added renewable energy capacity, write Worldwatch’s Max Lander and Climate and Energy Intern Xiangyu Wu in the Worldwatch Institute’s latest Vital Signs Online trend (www.worldwatch.org).

Solar PV installations nearly matched those of hydropower and, for the first time, outpaced wind additions. Even though photovoltaics continue to dwarf CSP capacity, the CSP market also had another year of impressive growth. By the end of 2013, a total of 19 countries had CSP plants installed or under construction.

Consumption of power from PV and CSP plants increased by 30 percent globally in 2013 to reach 124.8 terawatt-hours. Europe accounted for the majority of global solar power consumption (67 percent), followed by Asia (23.9 percent) and North America (8.1 percent). Worldwide, solar consumption equaled 0.5 percent of electricity generation from all sources. ... In July 2014, global PV module spot prices reached an all-time low of $0.63 per watt. For the first time, Asia overtook Europe as the largest regional market.

While global PV module production increased by only 3 percent over 2012, module shipments jumped by 24 percent, signaling an easing of oversupply problems.

Prospects are bright for solar development as prices continue to fall and approach grid parity in an increasing number of contexts. Rooftop solar is already less expensive per megawatt-hour than retail electricity in Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, and Germany. Estimates now also show that PV has become price-competitive without subsidies in 15 countries. For2014, solar installations are estimated to reach 40–51 gigawatts.

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National Bike To School Day

The SMH has an article on the unfortunate decline in children walking or riding to school - Letting kids ride to school doesnt make you a bad parent.

Early this month, and quite suddenly, our roads got busy. The reason was simple: school went back and overnight once-quiet streets were invaded by vast, urgent fleets of cars delivering children to class in the morning and picking them up again in the afternoon.

This twice-daily school-gate rush hour is now the norm but it wasnt always. Forty years ago 80 per cent of Australian children walked or rode a bike to school, and felt comfortable doing it.

But in little more than a generation weve seen a precipitous decline so that today it is thought that less than 20 per cent of children get to school under their own steam. All this despite the fact that most kids still live within two kilometres of school: they are not travelling further, just covering the same distance in the back of a car. Sadly, it has become absolutely normal for children to be driven short distances to school, many every day.

Putting aside the congestion and pollution issues, the impact of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle on these children – our children – is profound. Visit any schoolyard and its not hard to see firsthand that obesity is no longer the exception. Type 2 diabetes in children, once almost unheard of, is also on the rise.

Spot the connection? Our children arent moving as much, arent burning up as many kilojoules, and its making some of them sick. Health experts say children need at least one hour of physical activity each day for good health and many just arent getting it.

And it turns out that its not just their young bodies that are affected by the way they are being allowed to live their lives. Research completed by the Australian Council for Education Research found that children who travelled to school by car had a remarkably narrow view of their community. When researchers asked car-borne kids to draw pictures of the way they saw their world they drew abstract, isolated images of neighbourhoods where the car and the road were the central theme. Traffic lights, road signs, office buildings, shopping centres and fast food outlets dominated.

Researchers contrasted this alarmingly stunted vision with that of children who rode or walked to school. Their drawings were dominated by green spaces and people doing things; trees, grass, people playing sport, riding bikes, walking dogs.

It is hard to image a more contrasting world view.

And from this springs the obvious question of why, why are we allowing many of our children to become increasingly (alarmingly) inactive? Its a complex question with as many potential answers as there are flabby kids and the irony is that at least part of the remedy might be very simple; we need to encourage kids to walk, ride or scoot to school.

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Liquefied Air to Store Energy on U K Grid

IEEE Spectrum has an article on a variant of compressd air energy storage being trialled in the UK - Liquefied Air to Store Energy on U.K. Grid.

U.K.-based Highview Power Storage last week said that it has been awarded an £8 million grant from the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change to build a commercial-scale facility that uses liquified air to store energy. Highview is already running a smaller pilot plant, but the full-scale version will be able to store enough energy to deliver five megawatts of power for three hours. That puts it on a scale that would entice utilities to use the technology, says company CEO Gareth Brett. ...

Liquid air energy storage is similar to compressed air energy storage in that air is compressed and released to store and then generate power. With Highview’s technology, though, ambient air is compressed, then cooled and liquified. That liquefied air, which is almost -200 °C, is stored in large tanks.

When power is needed, the liquid air is released and pumped to high pressure. That causes the liquid to evaporate, turning it into a high-pressure gas which is then run through a turbine to generate power. The planned demonstration plant will be located at a waste processing center. Heat from the waste plant’s gas turbines, which run on captured landfill methane, will be piped in to improve the efficiency of the evaporation process.

One of the advantages of liquid air storage is that it uses off-the-shelf equipment. The tanks for storing liquid air, for instance, are the same as those used in the industrial gas industry.

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Australia to host geoengineering conference

The Brisbane Times reports that a geoengineering conference will be held in Canberra later this month - Australia to broach radical global warming solutions.

Clouds could be made more reflective and oceans fertilised to increase carbon dioxide absorption under ideas to be discussed at Australias first high-level climate engineering conference later this month. International interest in climate engineering – also known as geoengineering – is increasing as efforts to curb the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases continue to falter.

Scientists said the event was an important step for Australia into the controversial geoengineering debate but expressed grave concerns some proposed technologies could have dangerous and far-reaching side effects.

The two-day science symposium, starting in Canberra on September 26, is being hosted by the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Among the more controversial ideas being discussed is the injection of sulphur particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and slow global warming.

Other technologies include fertilising oceans to increase uptake of carbon dioxide and spraying aerosols into the atmosphere to increase the reflectiveness of clouds. But the meeting will also cover relatively benign ways to pull greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, including planting more trees and using climate-friendly agricultural techniques.

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Mongolian city to be cooled by giant ice cube

MNN reports Ulan Bator is considering an unconventional approach to cooling in summer - Mongolian city to be cooled by giant ice cube.

In one of the grandest geoengineering projects in the world to date, the Mongolian capital city Ulan Bator is preparing to keep cool this summer by freezing and storing a gigantic block of ice, reports the Guardian.

The ambitious project, which is being spearheaded by Mongolian engineering firm ECOS & EMI, will use the giant ice cube to reduce energy demand from air conditioners during the hot summer months, as well as to reinforce irrigation supplies. Citizens of Ulan Bator will also be able to tap the ice for their drinking water.

The plan is a practical one for Ulan Bator because of the citys unusually bipolar climate, which can be unbearably hot and dry during a few summer months but bitterly cold throughout the winter. In fact, Ulan Bator is the coldest national capital in the world. Ice can therefore be farmed during colder months and made to last through the summer.

In order to generate the giant ice cube, engineers have looked to nature for inspiration. The idea will be to artificially create "naleds"-- sheet-like slabs of layered ice, common in subarctic climates, that form from successive flows of freezing, pressurized ground water. Naled ice is far thicker than regular ice formation on lakes, since new layers continue to form so long as there is enough water pressure to penetrate the surface. In fact, naleds can be so thick that they have been used as drilling platforms, and even to build river crossings for tanks.

Officials will manipulate the naled-forming process by drilling bore holes in the ice that forms on the nearby Tuul river. As the water discharges across the surface of the ice, it will freeze in successive layers-- much like stacking ice rinks on top of ice rinks.

Although it may sound like an extreme solution to global warming, Mongolian authorities think that the technology could soon be utilized to combat rising temperatures in cities around the world. Giant ice cubes could even be used to create cool microclimates or ice-themed amusement parks that help sweaty citizens beat the heat in the summer.

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India Announces Plans to Produce 33 4 Gigawatts of Solar Energy by 2022

Inhabitat has a post on Indian plans to expand solar power capacity - India Announces Plans to Produce 33.4 Gigawatts of Solar Energy by 2022.

As the world’s second-most populous country and a growing global power, India would do well to think about its energy future, and it seems to be doing just that – according to a report by Bridge to India, the country is aiming to install 33.4 GW of solar power nationwide. That’s much more than the 20 GW previously targeted by India’s National Solar Mission.

To put that in perspective, China, the world’s largest energy consumer, is aiming to have a capacity of 50 GW by 2020. This is to ease its dependency on nuclear energy in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster and also to meet the goal of having 15% of all energy come from renewable resources by the end of the decade. Meanwhile the Desertec Project is planned to generate 100GW of solar energy which is estimated to power most of Europe.

India is currently aiming to have 14.15 GW of solar capacity by 2018, by which time putting solar energy onto the national grid will be much more established and easier. It would also make the market more competitive, not to mention decreasing the country’s emissions.

The Bridge to India report does state that there isn’t currently enough government support for small or off-grid solar power applications. This is not surprising considering how dependent India is on fossil fuels and the general reluctance of developed countries to fully embrace the benefits of alternative energy. However, industry insiders believe that with the increased production of PV cells globally and the possibility of cheap imports from China, solar costs will drop by 40% in the next three years.

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Nissan Sells 100 000 LEAFs Captures 48 Of Worldwide Market To Date

Inside EVs has a report on the progress of Nissans electric vehicle sales - Nissan Sells 100,000 LEAFs, Captures 48% Of Worldwide Market To Date.

This past weekend Nissan announced that after just more than 3 years on the market, the LEAF had reached the 100,000 vehicles sold level.

More impressive still is that InsideEVs calculated Nissan had only sold about 88,000 through the end of November, and the company themselves shortly thereafter announced reaching the 92,000 LEAF sold mark in early December - meaning the company has sold about 12,000 copies in the past two months worldwide.

Overall, Nissan has captured 48% of pure electric sales worldwide since 2010 according to the company.

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RusHydro gives go ahead to 268m marine energy centre

ReCharge News has a look at a giant tidal power development in Russia - RusHydro gives go-ahead to $268m marine-energy centre.

Russian hydropower giant RusHydro is moving ahead with plans to set up an ocean-power turbine research and development (R&D) centre as a springboard for a multi-gigawatt tidal energy project in the White Sea.



The company’s board has approved plans to begin building the Severnaya Innovative Centre of Tidal and Wave Energy on Dolgaya Bay in the Barents Sea, where it will develop turbines to be used in the 8GW Mezenskaya tidal power plant.



A development of this scale could generate 38TWh of electricity a year, claims RusHydro, “comparable to generation of the whole Volga-Kama cascade of hydropower plants”.



The Severnaya centre, which will be run by RusHydros R&D institute, JSC NIIES, is expected to cost RUR7.5bn ($268m) in total to construct. It should open its doors in four years.

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Oslo On The Hunt For Rubbish To Burn

The NYT has a report on the increasing competition to find rubbish to burn in Europe - A City That Turns Garbage Into Energy Copes With a Shortage. Its not exactly the cradle to cradle manufacturing economy that we should be aspiring to but I guess its better than landfill.

This is a city that imports garbage. Some comes from England, some from Ireland. Some is from neighboring Sweden. It even has designs on the American market.

“I’d like to take some from the United States,” said Pal Mikkelsen, in his office at a huge plant on the edge of town that turns garbage into heat and electricity. “Sea transport is cheap.”

Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn.

The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people. Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply. “Northern Europe has a huge generating capacity,” said Mr. Mikkelsen, 50, a mechanical engineer who for the last year has been the managing director of Oslo’s waste-to-energy agency.

Yet the fastidious population of Northern Europe produces only about 150 million tons of waste a year, he said, far too little to supply incinerating plants that can handle more than 700 million tons. “And the Swedes continue to build” more plants, he said, a look of exasperation on his face, “as do Austria and Germany.”

Stockholm, to the east, has become such a competitor that it has even managed to persuade some Norwegian municipalities to deliver their waste there. By ship and by truck, countless tons of garbage make their way from regions that have an excess to others that have the capacity to burn it and produce energy.

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Addiction to tanning

Summer is coming in the northern hemisphere, which means, perhaps, more time in the sun. We had a look here at the surprising role that the anti-cancer protein p53 plays in tanning. Beyond that, we know that getting a tan feels good, if not overdone (so to speak).

(And by the way, studies like this one have shown that vitamin D, which is a byproduct of tanning, has beneficial anti-cancer effects for breast and colorectal cancer, in spite of the risk of melanoma from too much UV exposure. Other studies show protective effects of vitamin D for ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, and prostate cancer too.)

Anyhow, it seems that some people cant get enough sun tanning, in spite of the risks. Perhaps its addictive:

New Study Indicates Tanning May Be Addictive

Despite repeated health warnings about the dangers of tanning from sunlight and artificial light sources, there are still those whose mantra “bronzed is beautiful” remains unshaken. Dermatologists have long suspected that some people may be addicted to tanning – similar to addictions to drugs or alcohol – and refuse to alter their behaviors, even knowing they have an increased risk of developing skin cancer. Now, a new study of college co-eds indicates that some people may be addicted to ultraviolet (UV) light.

Why would this be? Most likely for the same reason that the process of getting a tan feels good. Dermatologist Robert Hornung, who led a questionnaire study to investigate the motivations of dedicated tanners, explains:

“We also know from previous experiments that UV light causes endorphin release, similar to the euphoric sensation associated with intense exercise commonly referred to as ‘runner’s high’ or other pleasure-seeking behavior. Our study set out to find whether certain individuals, particularly those who classify themselves as frequent tanners, exhibit addictive behaviors toward tanning.”

However, its not clear from whats reported here whether frequent tanners have an actual chemical dependency to their own endorphins. For instance, do they have withdrawal symptoms if they stop tanning abruptly? Are there other signs of a biochemical effect?

Perhaps its time to head to Maui to do a little more research... Or perhaps the nearest nudist resort would be a good choice for some field work. Id volunteer. Wonder where to apply for a grant...

Tags: sun tanning, endorphins, cancer, vitamin D

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Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began

Bloomberg has an update on the Fukushima nuclear disaster - Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began. Weirdly this story has changed since it was first published, which initially claimed radiation readings had fallen to zero - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-27/tokyo-water-radiation-falls-to-zero-for-first-time-since-crisis.html.

Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station rose to the highest since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, impeding efforts to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Two robots sent into the reactor No. 1 building at the plant yesterday took readings as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said today. That’s more than four times the annual dose permitted to nuclear workers at the stricken plant.

Radiation from the station, where four of six reactors have been damaged by explosions, has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and contaminated farmland and drinking water. A plan to flood the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 with more water to speed up emergency cooling efforts announced yesterday by the utility known as Tepco may not be possible now.

“Tepco must figure out the source of high radiation,” said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University. “If it’s from contaminated water leaking from inside the reactor, Tepco’s so-called water tomb may be jeopardized because flooding the containment vessel will result in more radiation in the building.”

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Zinc Battery Seen as Way to Cut Heat Related Power Losses

The heatwave in the northeast US seems to be setting new records for power consumption - the NYT has an article on interest in increasing energy storage capacity to help make the grid more reliable - Battery Seen as Way to Cut Heat-Related Power Losses.

As scorching weather envelops the Northeast and the Midwest, electric utilities are scrambling to keep the power on while air-conditioners strain utilities’ capacity. By Tuesday afternoon in New York City and Westchester County, for instance, Consolidated Edison had logged nearly 7,700 interruptions since the heat arrived on Sunday, and it had dispatched crews to restore almost all of the power.

Such disruptions have plagued utilities for years: how do they keep extra electricity on hand and ready to go, avoiding the need to cut the voltage in stressed neighborhoods and lowering the risk of blackouts?

Now, several utilities, including Con Edison, National Grid and the large European utilities Enel and GDF SUEZ, have signed up to fine-tune and test what they hope could lead to an answer — a battery half the size of a refrigerator from Eos Energy Storage, the company said Tuesday. If the testing goes well, the batteries hold the promise of providing storage that until now has been unaffordable on a large scale. “Energy storage is no longer an idea and a theory — it’s actually a practical reality,” said Steve Hellman, Eos’s president. “You’re seeing a lot of commercial activity in the energy storage sector.”

Part of the appeal is economic: utilities could buy power from centralized plants during off-peak hours, when it is cheaper, and use it to feed the grid at peak hours when it is typically more expensive. That could also relieve congestion on some transmission lines, reducing strain and the need to spend money upgrading or repairing them. In addition, batteries could help integrate more renewable sources like solar and wind into the power grid, smoothing out their intermittent production.

“Energy storage in general has been kind of a holy grail for utilities — a lot of the generation and demand is instantaneous,” said Joseph Carbonara, project manager in research and development at Con Edison, who is managing the Eos program. “The utilities have always been looking to buffer that.”

Utilities and institutions across the country, many with grants from federal or state energy departments, are testing energy storage technologies. Con Edison and the City University of New York are using a different zinc-based battery from Urban Electric Power to help reduce the school’s peak energy use as part of a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority program. In California, Pacific Gas and Electric is studying sodium-sulfur batteries that can store more than six hours of energy. And Duke Energy is working with lead acid batteries from Xtreme Power that are linked to a wind farm in Texas.

At the same time, there are a host of start-ups racing to develop different technologies for a wide range of applications, and already there are some large-scale batteries tied to the grid. But the technology has generally proved too expensive for widespread adoption.

Eos says it has gotten around that problem. Its battery relies on zinc, a relatively plentiful and cheap element. The company projects that its cost will be $160 a kilowatt-hour, and that it would provide electricity cheaper than a new gas power plant built to help fulfill periods of high demand, Eos executives said. Other battery technologies can range from $400 to about $1,000 a kilowatt-hour.

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The Limits to Growth Revisited

Ugo Bardi at Cassandras Legacy has a post on his new book on The Limits To Growth - The Limits to Growth Revisited. You can read the book online here at Springer Link.

In some respects, "The Limits to Growth Revisited" is a rather technical book. It goes in some depth in describing the controversy that flared between critics (mainly economists) and supporters of the system dynamics methods used for the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth" (LTG). But "LTG revisited" is not just a technical book. It also tells the whole story of the LTG study: how it was conceived, what were the political reactions to it, how it was demonized and misunderstood, and what is its relevance - also in its more recent versions of 1992 and 2004 - to the present situation of the world.

Writing this book has been a fascinating work. Re-examining the story of LTG opens up a whole new world that urban legends and propaganda had tried to bury under a layer of lies and misinterpretations. We all have heard of the "mistakes" that the authors of LTG, or their sponsors, the Club of Rome, are said to have made. But LTG was not "wrong": nowhere in the 1972 book you find the mistakes that are commonly attributed to it. LTG never predicted catastrophes to occur soon, never estimated that some specific mineral resources should run out by some specific date, it never contained prophecies of doom. In other words, LTG was not, and never was, "Chicken Little with a computer."

What caused the demonization of the study was, in large part, the fact that it was so new and so advanced for its times that it was widely misunderstood, often by its supporters as well as by its detractors. But the misunderstanding was enhanced by a media campaign very similar to the one that has been recently directed against climate science. The trick of these campaigns is always the same: find a single mistake and use it to demonize the whole concept. It doesnt matter that the mistake is real or an invention, it doesnt count whether it is relevant or not. The trick is to repeat the concept of "mistakes" a large number of times and that is enough to confuse the public and cloud the issue. In recent times, the method has been used to demonize climate science with the alleged mistake found in the "hockey stick" temperature reconstruction of past climate. For LTG, the "mistake" was found in a few numbers taken from just one of the many tables of the 1972 book. There was nothing wrong in these numbers, but the concept of the "mistakes of the Club of Rome" went viral and it is still widespread, and perhaps prevalent, whenever the LTG study is mentioned today.

Understanding the real message that LTG sent to us in 1972, and that it is still sending, takes a certain effort. First, you have to free your mind from the layers of legends that have accumulated around it over four decades, but that is not enough. You have to free yourself also from the common attitude that prevents us from understanding how complex systems behave. There is no fixed future for systems such as the worlds economic system, only trends. But these systems still obey physical laws: the limits of natural resources, the finiteness of the world system, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And there are the constants of human behavior: mainly our tendency of preferring immediate satisfaction to a future one, a phenomenon known as "discounting the future."

All together, these factors push the world system to follow a well defined path. We cannot determine exactly what the future will be, but we can produce a "fan" of trajectories that show to us how where the system is heading to. The original 1972 LTG study had already identified the main factors that have been dominating the behavior of the worlds economy. The combined effects of resource depletion and pollution accumulation (seen today mainly in terms of climate change) have been gradually reducing the ability of the industrial system of accumulating capital and of fuelling growth. These factors will, eventually, cause the worlds industrial and agricultural systems to start a decline that could be defined as "collapse" which, later on, involves also the worlds population.

It is not possible to determine exact dates for these events but, still, the insight that this kind of modelling offers to us is amazing. Just think how, already 40 years ago, the LTG study may have anticipated the worldwide financial crisis that occurred in 2008 and also the present debate on whether climate change or "peak resources" is the most important problem that we face. Dynamic modelling is a flexible tool, something that enhances the capability of the human mind to understand the world that surrounds us. The 1972 LTG study was the first to use this tool, but it is not the only possible way. Simpler dynamic models will tend to produce the same final outcome.

If we use this tool, and we use it wisely, we can discover that nothing of the future is written in stone. The future is something that we create every day with our actions. At the same time, we can also discover that the future has a life of its own, that it resents being forced into what we think it should be on the basis of obsolete ideologies. We will have to adapt to the future and that may not be painless but, if we try to understand the future, we may discover that it doesnt need to be our enemy.

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