As you know, population is straining our natural resources a lot. There are only a few resources left for our future generation, some of which are facing extinction. If you want to give your children the same standard of living that we have enjoyed, you must preserve these natural resources. So it is inevitable for us to go green.

Internet service will help you to lead a Green Life. You will be able to use the power of Internet to decrease even global warming. Follow these tips for a green living. They will help you to save your money and earth.

1. Switch on to Online Shopping
If you are able to buy some of your things online and don’t use vehicles on the road, you can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will help you to save your fuel and time.

2. Use of Electronic Invoices
Electronic billing system helps you to save a great amount of paper by avoiding the need for printed invoices. These electronic invoicing will also help you to save your time to reach and pay the bill. The real environmental cost of traditional invoicing is much greater than that of a paper. The printed bills also need ink and energy to be printed and fuel to be transported to the customers. So by using electronic invoices you can save your paper, energy, fuel, time and money.

3. Use of Second Hand Books
The Internet is an absolutely reliable source to search and find and buy what your essential goods. If you are a student, your textbooks take big amount from your budget. A student spends a very huge sum each year on textbooks and notebooks. To lessen the costs of it, you can search for new or used textbooks at online markets. If you want to a search a textbook, all you need is the ISBN number of the book you are searching for. You can also save money and decrease the use of paper by using used books and sell those books which you don’t want to keep any longer at home.

4. Sell or Recycle Your Electronic Equipment
The management of electronic wastes is more important because of the increasing number of electronic equipment, we use. There are some web sites from which you can learn how to sell or recycle your old electronic equipment.

5. Giving Public Awareness
Use all the search engines of social network such as twitter, post blogs, send emails etc. to share the idea of recycling and reuse.

More Green Tips
Internet is an ultimate source for learning Do It Yourself and green tips. Green living Tips and The Daily Green are among the millions of web sites to reach green living tips and they’re all free.

These simple tips will help you to reduce your energy use and budget which means less dependence on the fossil fuels and paper.

Please remember these 3R’s to reduce wastes and live green.

The three R’s namely Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Manage wastes means not to produce it. This can be done by careful shopping. This is Reducing.

Reusing makes economic and environmental sense to reuse products.

Recycling is a series of steps to sell a product as a new one. Begin it from home itself.

These 3R’s help us to reduce the amount of waste we throw away and also conserve natural resources and energy.

Article by Rebecca Jones, a blogger by profession. She loves writing on topics related to parenthood and technology. Beside this she is fond of automobiles. These days she is busy in writing an article on sustainable design style.

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CoolPlanet Energy Systems (CoolPlanet) is a Camarillo, California, company that is developing a “negative carbon” drop-in gasoline replacement fuel from biomass.

According to the company’s web site, the fuel is made using proprietary biomass fractionator technology, which extracts the useful carbons from biomass and leaves a solid carbon byproduct that can be sequestered. Even better, the sequestration entails burying the carbon byproduct in soil so it can be used as a fertilizer.

CoolPlanet owns several patent applications relating to its biofuel production processes, including two directed to the biomass fractionator technology.

U.S. Patent Application Publications Nos. 2010/0180805 and 2011/0177466 are related applications entitled “System and method for biomass fractioning” and directed to a biomass fractionator and method (Fractionator Applications).

An embodiment of a biomass fractionator includes a load and dump station shown in FIG. 2 below. Biomass is placed in a hopper (6) resting on a sliding gate valve (10). A transfer plate (11, 11A) is retracted to a fill position by a control bar (12, 12A).

While the transfer plate (11, 11A) is in the fill position, airlock door (15) is pushed down to the closed position, contacting pressure bulkhead (16) through guide slots (17), and transfer fill slots (18) are located in the hopper fill zone (19). The hopper sliding gate valve (10) is retracted to fill the transfer fill slots (18, 18A) with biomass.

The transfer plate (11, 11a) is then moved to the right and proceeds through airlock door (15) to a dump position. Entrained in the transfer lots (18, 18A), biomass is then free to fall through transfer opening (25) on to a biomass reaction compartment of discs or hinged plates (1, 2, 3) shown below.

According to the Fractionator Applications, the system effectively fractionates biomass pyrolysis products into various working streams of syngas.

U.S. Patent Application Publications Nos. 2011/0209386 and 2011/0212004, entitled “Method for making renewable fuels” and “System for making renewable fuels,” respectively (Fuel Processing Applications), seem to pick up where the Fractionator Applications leave off.

The Fuel Processing Applications are directed to systems and methods of converting biomass to renewable fuels including a series of processing stations and a series of catalyst channels comprising a dehydration catalyst, an aromatization catalyst, and a gas-upgrading catalyst. Volatile gases are routed through the catalysts, which react with the gases to produce renewable fuels.

Finally, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0257775, entitled “System and method for atmospheric carbon sequestration” (’775 Application), is directed to methods for carbon sequestration in which biomass is subjected to pyrolysis, and the resulting biochar and filtrate carbon are heated to form inert carbon. The ’775 Application also contemplates using the biochar as a capture element for the filtrate carbon.

Together, the Fractionator Applications, the Fuel Processing Applications, and the ’775 Application seek to protect CoolPlanet’s key systems and processes from different angles.

That protection may go global as well. According to Cleantech PatentEdge™, CoolPlanet has two international, or PCT, patent applications based on the Fractionator Applications and the ’775 Application.

Eric Lane is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and the author of Green Patent Blog. Mr. Lane can be reached at elane@luce.com.

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A new analysis calculates that vegetation in the world’s tropical regions stores about 229 billion tons of carbon, which is about 21 percent more carbon than previously believed.

Using remote sensing satellite data — including cloud-penetrating LiDAR — and field observations from forests, woodlands and savannas across Africa, Asia, and South America, researchers say they were able to create the first “wall-to-wall” map depicting carbon density.

According to their results, Brazilian rainforests store about 53.2 billion tons of carbon, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (22 billion) and Indonesia (18.6). “For the first time we were able to derive accurate estimates of carbon densities using satellite LiDAR observations in places that have never been measured,” said Alessandro Baccini of the Woods Hole Research Center the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The results could help improve the accuracy of reporting carbon emissions as part of the UN-based REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative, which provides incentives to developing nations to prevent large-scale deforestation.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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To simplify where we are as a civilization and where we’re going with respect to energy consumption, economics, and environmentalism, it’s useful to postulate three broad “plans”:

Plan A: We continue on our current course. We ignore the fact that our population will soon be growing from 7 billion to 10 billion, and that an ever-growing percentage of that population is joining the ranks of consumers. Our leaders know that we’re in the process of driving off a cliff; they may lack basic decency, but they’re long on intelligence, and they exploit voter ignorance of this core truth as long as they possibly can. During this time, they and the extraordinarily powerful forces that elected them desperately look for new ways of extracting fossil fuels, while obfuscating the effects on global climate, ocean acidification, social chaos, war, respiratory disease, etc. The elite remain in power until the planet is in ruins.

Plan B: We aggressively adopt what Jeremy Rifkin and others refer to as “The Third Industrial Revolution,” which contemplates continued economic growth by focusing on renewable energy and the many other components of sustainability. As Rifkin conceives this, there are “five pillars” at play here: shifting to renewable energy, developing buildings as power plants, deploying hydrogen and other storage technologies, using Internet technology, and transitioning the transport fleet to electric, plug-in and fuel cell vehicles. Not to give anything away, but this concept is embraced by several of the people I interviewed in my second book, due out shortly: “Is Renewable Really Doable?”

Plan C: Although we’d probably love to believe in Plan B, we just don’t see it as a pragmatic reality. We regard the phrase “sustainable growth” as an oxymoron, and find a way to cut back on energy consumption and deal with a period of negative growth, because this is our only choice. By the way, this too is addressed in my next book, and it’s the core belief of Bill McKibben and many other great minds.

My job is to pull this apart, to unravel the issues that underlie each of the three major plans. And now may be a good time to thank you, reader, for being here, and offering your insightful comments as we work this through together.

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The sun is the base energy source for the Earth. What it emits is either absorbed or reflected. Observations showed some “missing energy” in this balance. Two years ago, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., released a study claiming that inconsistencies between satellite observations of Earth’s heat and measurements of ocean heating amounted to evidence of missing energy in the planet’s system. Where was it going? Or, they wondered, was something wrong with the way researchers tracked energy as it was absorbed from the sun and emitted back into space? Well it was found. An international team of atmospheric scientists and oceanographers, led by Norman Loeb of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and including Graeme Stephens of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., set out to investigate the mystery.

The Earth’s climate is a solar powered system. Globally, over the course of the year, the Earth system—land surfaces, oceans, and atmosphere—absorbs an average of about 240 watts of solar power per square meter (one watt is one joule of energy every second). The absorbed sunlight drives photosynthesis, fuels evaporation, melts snow and ice, and warms the Earth system.

The Sun doesn’t heat the Earth evenly. Because the Earth is a sphere, the Sun heats equatorial regions more than polar regions. The atmosphere and ocean work non-stop to even out solar heating imbalances through evaporation of surface water, convection, rainfall, winds, and ocean circulation. This coupled atmosphere and ocean circulation is known as Earth’s heat engine.

The climate’s heat engine must not only redistribute solar heat from the equator toward the poles, but also from the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere back to space. Otherwise, Earth would endlessly heat up. Earth’s temperature doesn’t infinitely rise because the surface and the atmosphere are simultaneously radiating heat to space. This net flow of energy into and out of the Earth system is Earth’s energy budget.

The researchers used 10 years of data – spanning 2001 to 2010 – from NASA Langley’s orbiting Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System Experiment (CERES) instruments to measure changes in the net radiation balance at the top of Earth’s atmosphere. The CERES data were then combined with estimates of the heat content of Earth’s ocean from three independent ocean-sensor sources.

Their analysis found that the satellite and ocean measurements are, in fact, in broad agreement once observational uncertainties are factored in.

“One of the things we wanted to do was a more rigorous analysis of the uncertainties,” Loeb said. “When we did that, we found the conclusion of missing energy in the system isn’t really supported by the data.”

“Our data show that Earth has been accumulating heat in the ocean at a rate of half a watt per square meter (10.8 square feet), with no sign of a decline,” Loeb said. “This extra energy will eventually find its way back into the atmosphere and increase temperatures on Earth.”

Scientists generally agree that 90 percent of the excess heat associated with increases in greenhouse gas concentrations gets stored in Earth’s ocean. If released back into the atmosphere, a half-watt per square meter accumulation of heat could increase global temperatures by 0.3 or more degrees centigrade (0.54 degree Fahrenheit).

Loeb said the findings demonstrate the importance of using multiple measuring systems over time, and illustrate the need for continuous improvement in the way Earth’s energy flows are measured.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

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The European Environment Agency published a report on the cost and toll of air pollution due to industrial facilities to the European Union last November.

The costs are staggering as the 10,000 facilities induced up to 102 and 169 billion euros in 2009 alone.

However, only a small number of these plants are responsible for the vast majority of this pollution. The EEA notes:

Fifty per cent of the total damage cost occurs as a result of emissions from just 191 or 2 % of the approximately 10 000 facilities that reported data for releases to air.

Three quarters of the total damage costs are caused by the emissions of 622 facilities — 6 % of the total number.

This proves that solving the problem of industrial air pollution could be relatively easy.

The energy sector is the most polluting one as it is responsible for 66 to 112 billion euros of damages. Excluding carbon dioxide, the pollution still costs the 27 country members up to 26 to 71 billion euros.

Other sectors like production processes and manufacturing combustion are responsible for much less pollution, and thus much less induced: 23 to 28 billion euros and 8 to 21 billion euros respectively.

Meanwhile, the report notes that carbon dioxide contributes the most to the overall damage costs with approximately 63 billion euros in 2009. But this is not enough:

Air pollutants, which contribute to acid rain and can cause respiratory problems – sulphur dioxide (SO₂), ammonia (NH₃), particulate matter (PM₁₀) and nitrogen oxides (NO_x) – were found to cause €38-105 billion of damage a year.

The bottom line: the European Union needs to change the way it is producing electricity and to improve its few remaining plants to get much cleaner air.

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When you live with 5 million other people on a relatively small island, finding ways to live more sustainably isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity.

That’s why Singapore—which has the third greatest population density of any sovereign state in the world—has become something of a pioneer in finding ways to live in a more sustainable manner.

Start with water. For years, Singapore has relied on imported water from Malaysia to provide 40 percent of its water supply.

To become more self sufficient, Singapore has invested billions of dollars in membrane filtration technologies that allow wastewater to be reclaimed, filtered, and transformed into high purity potable water called NEWater. This is in addition to heavy investments in desalination plants and rainwater-catching reservoirs that further reduce its reliance on imported water.

Another area where Singapore excels is building efficiency—an area with huge potential impact, given that an astounding 90 percent of the population lives in some form of high-rise condominium. Singapore has set an ambitious target of greening at least 80 percent of its buildings by 2030, including existing stock.

Clean technology advancements are also allowing Singapore to make great strides in transportation, particularly around the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). Since roughly 85 percent of Singapore’s power supply comes from natural gas, EVs provide a cleaner solution compared with conventional oil burning vehicles.

And while EVs typically travel a shorter distance compared with conventional vehicles, that’s not really a concern on a 26-mile wide island.

Singapore-based clean tech company Greenlots is developing the best way to charge these EVs. Since 2008, the company has been committed to designing and delivering hardware and software to enable utilities, municipalities, electric vehicle manufacturers and distributors and other private businesses to install, own and operate their own EV charging network. Already, Greenlots has established charging stations in major parking lots in the city, including those at Bedok Point Shopping Centre and Kovan Residences.

By investing in clean technology innovations, Singapore is able to tackle multiple areas that impact its future. Its forward-thinking design solutions to environmental problems are sure to yield benefits both today and tomorrow.

Susan Gladwin leads the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program, which provides clean tech innovators powerful software and opportunities to help them develop solutions that address our most pressing environmental issues. In North America, Europe, Japan and Singapore, the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program offers $150,000 of Autodesk software for $50 (JPY 10,000 in Japan).

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Israel has earned a leadership status in the international water arena, but to stay at the forefront innovation must keep pushing forward. A joint project by Israel NewTech, the Neaman Institute and the Israeli Export Institute has been launched in order to map out the needs for new water technology innovations in the largest industries in the world. The preliminary results will be presented in the beginning of next month at a conference at the Israeli Export Institute.

“Israel’s water sector must be very cautious not to rest on its laurels, but to continue to act to cement its leadership,” said Dita Bronitzky, CEO of Ormat, a leader in geothermal energy, at a recent conference run by The Marker magazine on environment and industry.

Israel NewTech, The Israeli Export Institute and the Samuel Neaman Institute for national policy research, are also thinking about how Israel can further leverage its success in the water sector, that’s why they have joined together to work on improving the competitiveness of Israel’s water sector. One of their joint projects maps different industrial sectors with high water use, which need technological innovations to increase efficiency, and even to survive in their competitive markets.

This joint research project was launched in July 2011 and is meant to stretch out over a year, led by Dr. Gilead (Gili) Fortuna, head of the Center for Industrial Excellence, and a senior research fellow from the Neaman Institute. Fortuna brings with him rich experience in Israeli industry, having held senior management positions in the past at TEVA and Israeli Petrochemicals, and he is also one of the entrepreneurs behind the successful water purification company Aqwise. Aiding in the project is Shiri Freund Koren, his research assistant.

“We examine international industries which are heavy consumers of water and whose growth rates can be significantly impacted by improved innovative water technology,” explains Fortuna, “For example the gas and oil production industries. Today their need for vast amounts of water greatly impacts production. The deeper the well the more water they need to consume in order to produce the gas or oil. The world always turned to the cheaper sources for gas and oil production, but today the situation necessitates turning to the more expensive source. One of the main reasons for this high cost is the huge expenditure on water use and treatment that the process demands.”

The research outlines seven industrial sectors which are heavy consumers of water and in need of innovative water technologies to make their processes more efficient:
1. Gas and Oil
2. Mining
3. The pharmaceutical industry
4. Heavy metal processing
5. The semiconductor industry
6. Food Industry
7. Tourism industry (hotels, swimming pools, spas, sites that serve global tourism)

The project is meant to bring a deeper understanding of each sector’s needs, while pinpointing the challenges that require solutions. In other words, the objective is to map needs in different industries in order to create market-focused Israeli solutions, which will be in demand globally.

In order to support the research endeavor the Samuel Neaman Institute is cooperating with Israeli academics, under the supervision of the noted water expert from the Technion (Israel’s leading technology university), Professor Raphael Semiat.

The first two chapters of the project, on the gas and oil production industries and the mining industry, will be presented to a list of “who’s who” in Israel’s water industry at a conference which will take place at the Israeli Export Institute on February 7th, under the title: Water Challenges in Industry – Leveraging your Technology. Dr. Fortuna emphasizes that his motivation to hold the conference now is to create an open ongoing dialogue with Israeli water companies and get their feedback and guidance. “This will make our work more business oriented to the industry’s real needs and its abilities to implement.”

In parallel to the research, practical steps have begun to be taken to implement the initial learnings, and thus Israel NewTech and The Israel Export Institute have begun to create connections and mediate with the mining industry. An Israeli delegation visited Chile recently, where there is a large mining industry which is in need of technological solutions (click here for the post on this visit).

In addition, the three bodies responsible for the research project are working on identifying local partners in the different target countries, in order to facilitate the penetration of Israeli water companies to those industries which were mapped out in the research as needing innovative technologies. Likewise, in each sector a consultant with practical experience on the ground is employed. For example, for the pharmaceutical industry Meirav Avigdor, who manages the ecological department at TEVA, will provide consulting. The project begins with research, but will result in successful business implementation.

Article by Israel NewTech.

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To produce $1 of sugar, manufacturers use 270 gallons of water. A dollar of pet food takes 200 gallons of water. These figures include the sourcing of raw materials, processing, packaging, and shipping, according to Carnegie Mellon University scientists. A 2010 study published in Environmental Science and Technology, leveraged computer models to estimate water usage by 400 industrial sectors. No surprise, it was discovered that the food and beverage industries account for about 30 percent of what’s being called the “water footprint” or consumption of water during the entire product life cycle.

While water doesn’t get the high-profile attention in conservation that fossil-fuel energy sources enjoy, it is as critical a resource for survival of planet earth and the people on it. Warnings come from diverse sources such as the Second UN World Water Development Report that there will not be adequate water for human, industrial, and agricultural use. Some set the date of 2025 for a kind of Armageddon. That’s when it is anticipated that two-thirds of the global population will be water-short.

The causes are many and they intersect, compounding the possibility of disaster. They include:

• increased industrial activity especially among emerging economies;
• climate change;
• more irrigation;
• intensive dam construction;
• simple waste, usually a result of ignorance or indifference; and, of course,
• increased demand because of population growth.

It’s no surprise that companies, especially multi-national ones, have responded in shrinking water consumption, according to GreenBiz.com. They range from Coca-Cola to General Electric. Part of the concern is, of course, cost-related because failure to be water conscious translates to being fiscally reckless. Further, companies need to comply with regulations around the world about water efficiency, reports demanded by consumers, investors, and activists about the size of the water footprint, and the risk to the brand of being perceived as a kind of water “hog.”

Coca-Cola is typical of how companies are going about becoming water savvy. Frequently, companies, like Coke, team with a third party such as the World Wildlife Fund to identify consumption patterns and how efficiency can be increased. Then, they set a target for achieving their goal. In 2004, Coca-Cola set out to reduce water consumption by 20 percent by 2012. With that deadline approaching, Coca-Cola Enterprises is setting out to reduce production consumption regarding water by an additional 20 percent by 2020.

In addition, Coca-Cola is going the extra mile by investing in ensuring the quality of drinking water in the nations in which it conducts business. For example, it donated $12.7 million to the Water and Development Alliance.

One thing is certain; we don’t know what we don’t know. While companies are focused on reducing water consumption, the first step has to be finding out what they are currently using or, in many cases, wasting. Leaks and faulty systems can wreak havoc on utility bills and consumption totals. The solution is simple. Manage energy usage by measuring it. It’s the only true way to know how much water – and money — is going down the drain.

Article by Bari Faye Siegel, a technology writer and marketing consultant at Noveda Technologies, an innovative leader in real-time, web-based energy management, solar PV monitoring and water management. Noveda also offers real-time collaboration tools that leverage social media to educate and empower stakeholder communities and make the smart grid a reality today. For more information, visit www.noveda.com.

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Duke University researchers have predicted that climate change in California will result in a declining percentage of rangeland. Such a change will have widespread impact on the state’s large cattle industry of California’s Central Valley. No matter if climate change will cause wetter or drier weather, available pasture will decline. Forage areas, known as one of nature’s free services, may no longer be so free. The grasses will either wither as arid conditions creep north, or be pushed out as inedible shrubs and brush take over.

The study has been published in the journal, Climatic Change, by Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment in conjunction with the Environmental Defense Fund. The change in the rangeland ecosystem is expected to occur gradually over the coming century. Total costs expected to hit California ranchers over the next sixty years may be as high as $209 million a year if the ecosystem dries up.

Less grazing land will mean smaller herds, and less productive herds. Movement of cattle will also be much more difficult because of highways and suburban sprawl.

If the weather becomes wetter rather than drier, biodiversity is expected to increase. However, this will come at the expense of the ranchers. Cattle like to eat grasses, not trees or bushes.

The US Department of Agriculture has estimated about 5.2 million head of cattle in the state of California. Of these, less than 10 percent are raised in large feedlots. The rest can roam across the range, munching on free grasses.

A decline of rangeland may result in an increasing percentage of cattle raised in feedlots, where cattle food has to be bought and fed, adding to the costs of beef production.

California’s cattle industry brings in over $2 billion in total income through about 11,800 ranches. The hit the industry will take will likely affect the state’s overall economy. If similar climate changes occur in states like Texas and Oklahoma where cattle are much bigger slice of the economy, the nation’s economy may be affected.

In order to prevent this, rangeland preservation efforts may be required. This may be legislated through California’s new cap and trade system.

Article by David A. Gabel, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

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