Dust tales

It is well past Earth Day. Some of us did our bit, some forgot in the bustle of everyday life. But here is something again that reminds us how connected we all stand (and we are not speaking spiritually as Dan Brown does in The Lost Symbol!) This is the ecological web of life we are talking here.

Have a look at the picture first. Is it just another shot of our home planet? Look again. See the dust trail? Dust from the Sahara Desert – the world’s largest desert, encompassing around 8.6 million sq km – can be transported over thousands of kilometres by atmospheric convection currents. These convection currents form when warm, lighter air rises and cold, heavier air sinks.

Sandstorms are very common over the Sahara, and large concentrations of the dust can be found in the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean. The dust contains many nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and iron, which act as a fertiliser and stimulate the production of massive plankton blooms.

Planktons are microscopic marine plants that drift on or near the surface of the sea and are the basic food on which all other marine life depends. They contain chlorophyll pigments and are able to convert inorganic compounds, such as water, nitrogen and carbon, into complex organic materials.

With their ability to 'digest' these compounds, they remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as terrestrial plants. As a result, the oceans have a profound influence on climate. Since plankton influence the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, it is important to monitor and model them into calculations of future climate change.

Did you ever spare a thought to a plankton? Do you now agree they are important in the scheme of life? Did you ever realise how connected we are to the remote regions of our planet, thanks to its dynamics? Next time you swear at dust, just stop and think. Where did it come from?!

A day and more

Friday is Earth Day. To save the planet we need a billion acts of green, and hey! let us remember we are saving the planet for our sake. The planet needs no saving, we need saving from our own greed. Already damage has crossed the danger threshold, and any damage control will have to be substantial. It will need strong action from the top, but every individual can do his bit.

If governments place a market value on living trees and primary forest, or every person reduces his carbon footprint to 2 tons per year, the contribution can be immense. Imagine if even one out of ten decides to ride the bicycle to work instead of the car – you straightaway have reduced your greenhouse gas emissions from 0.85 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile for the average car, to zero!

Tree planting is something easy and calls for no sacrifice except for some responsibility. All of us can plant a seed somewhere on Earth, in homage to a life form that has sustained life on the planet. A healthy tree absorbs about 50 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, besides supplying vital oxygen.

All you need to do is write a petition to your government on some green campaign – be it against polluting coal plants or mines that destroy forests. Show governments that the public care. Buy energy efficient goods; buy local food, waste as little as you can of anything and everything. Whether saving energy, or using less water, or adopting alternative transportation, small steps taken together can make a leap.

At least for a day, why not use the Facebook to send across a green message instead of posting snapshots?! Why not encourage friends to go green? From one Earth Day, why not extend the pledge to more days? Why not make sustainable living a daily habit?

Smart grid and the hacker

Smart is the way for grids to go in future. It seems to be the inevitable way ahead given the route charted by technology. A smart grid will tell the consumer when best to switch on, also how much he has consumed already, and it will also tell the utility who and where the power is being consumed.

Fine. Sounds great. Has all the elements to get consumers to start tightening energy budgets. of course, there is some doubt about that, given the Jevons paradox which indicates that energy saved in one mode would end up more than consumed in some other usage.

But, that aside, smart grid seems to be the panacea of a time when theft and wastage rule the roost. Again, a new note of dissent has crept in. What about the hackers? What happens if they hack into the system? Who will tackel the chaos?

A year ago, an unidentified computer intruder tried to penetrate the US Lower Colorado River Authority's power generation network with 4,800 high-speed log-in attempts that originated at an Internet address in China, according to a grid official's confidential memo that was leaked to the media.

The smart grid increases the complexity of the system. There is more technology, and more networks highly interconnected to share information. You've increased the overall attack surface. You're deploying technology that is no longer in a building you control, and you are deploying it over the air, right up to the home.

When the technology is deployed at such a grand scale, it's a real challenge to manage and maintain security. The smart grid will make technology management a core part of what any utility is.

What is the confidence we have that our technology will not end up creating more troubles than solutions? Any ideas?

Sweet sugar is cool too

Come summer and who does not love to gulp a glass of sugarcane juice? Turns out sugarcane is not only cool for the human body but also for the planet!

Scientists from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have found that sugarcane has a double benefit. (In the Brazilian context where this is a crop being pursued for its fuel side) expansion of the crop in areas previously occupied by other Brazilian crops cools the local climate. It does so by reflecting sunlight back into space and by lowering the temperature of the surrounding air as the plants "exhale" cooler water.

Shifting from natural vegetation to crops or pasture results in local warming because the plants give off less beneficial water. But the bamboo-like sugarcane is more reflective and gives off more water -- much like the natural vegetation. Hence, using sugarcane to power vehicles reduces carbon emissions, while growing it lowers the local air temperature!

The scientists found that converting from natural vegetation to crop/pasture on average warmed the cerrado by 2.79 °F (1.55 °C), but that subsequent conversion to sugarcane, on average, cooled the surrounding air by 1.67 °F (0.93°C). The researchers emphasize that the beneficial effects are contingent on the fact sugarcane is grown on areas previously occupied by crops or pastureland, and not in areas converted from natural vegetation.

So Brazilians and the rest of the world can have their sugar and fuel their vehicles too!

Blacker than coal!

In the desperate search for new sources of energy, natural gas from shale has sent many enterprises drilling away new areas, and not only in the US. But is this any cleaner source than coal?

Researchers at Cornell University are raising alarms over the expected increase in use of natural gas from shale deposits. They argue that replacing coal and gasoline with natural-gas alternatives could worsen, rather than improve, the impact of greenhouse gases. The greenhouse-gas footprint of shale gas over a 20-year period is at least 20 percent higher than that of coal and "perhaps more than twice as great," they say in a study published online in the journal Climatic Change.

To extract natural gas from shale, drillers hydraulically fracture the rock by injecting a cocktail of water and chemicals into a horizontally drilled well at high pressures. A significant amount of gas also mixes with the water-chemical mix and escapes into the atmosphere when the fluid returns to the surface. The drilling out of well plugs that separate fracking stages also results in temporary emission releases, giving shale gas a "significantly larger" greenhouse-gas footprint than conventional natural gas.

When burned to generate electricity, natural gas emits roughly half as much carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour as coal. But over its life cycle, natural gas could result in far more greenhouse-gas emissions, whether through intentional venting, equipment leaks, or fracking. And the leaks would consist of methane, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Of course, as the Cornell study points out, thera are ways that drillers and pipeline operations could reduce methane emissions by up to 90 percent. But, these technologies are currently not in wide use.

Well, the hunt goes on as an energy hungry civilisation keeps at it.

Magnetic discovery

Researchers at the University of Michigan have made a discovery about the behavior of light that could change solar technology forever. Stephen Rand, a professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics and Applied Physics and William Fisher, a doctoral student in applied physics, discovered that light, when traveling at the right intensity through a material such as glass that does not conduct electricity, can create magnetic fields that are 100 million times stronger than previously thought possible.

The result is an “optical battery, which could lead to “a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation”, according to Rand.

In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source.

The catch is that this occurs when you read that the light needs to be focused to 10 million watts per square centimeter to realize the effect. Sunlight isn’t this intense on its own, but new materials are being sought that would work at lower intensities.

Materials will provide the key to many cutting edge solutions of tomorrow, for sure.

Product ratings on efficiency

The UK Coalition Government has just launched a campaign to persuade the country’s consumers to buy energy efficient appliances that will save them money and the environment.

This summer, new energy efficiency labels for appliances like TVs, washing machines, dishwashers and fridge-freezers will be introduced across Europe, but UK consumers are the less likely to buy energy efficient appliances than their European neighbours.

The new mandatory European Energy Label features rainbow-coloured bars indicating the energy rating of a product, but those ratings will now include A+ and A++ for appliances that have improved their efficiency over and above the highest A rating level.

As manufacturers further improve the performance of appliances, additional A+++ categories of energy efficiency may also be introduced.

“These new energy saving ratings will help people make the right choice when out shopping for TVs and white goods by choosing those which are rated the darkest green on the labels,” said Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, launching the campaign.

Energy labels started appearing on appliances in the mid-1990s and are now being applied to a wider number of products, including boilers and vacuum cleaners.
The European rules covering energy labelling now require that the actual amount of energy that a product uses are included in the information, with the energy performance rating shown in adverts as well as at the point of sale.

Of course, will it help unless the consumers are educated on the need to buy these appliances? What kind of incentives will attract a consumer to buy a certain product are many. Immediate savings play a bigger role often than long-term savings. At least that has been the case in India where most of these products fall in the upper cost bracket. Share your views. Would you buy an energy saving product?