A City For No One

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Sep 212011
 

Green Technology

Something green is growing in the desert. A city in New Mexico is being built with no intention to hold people. A ghost town will soon be set up in the desert of New Mexico for the purpose of evolving environmental technologies. The city will be a center for testing, evaluating, and innovating new green inventions, without disrupting the daily flow of an actual city.

The city known as The Centre will have roads, houses, buildings and service stations complete with power, water, and telecommunication methods. The Centre, will mimic a city built for 35,000 people and will take up 20 square miles of desert land.

Pegasus Global Holdings, a communication, technology and defense company from Washington D.C. is funding The Centre with $200 million. According to Robert Brumley, Pegasus CEO: “The Center will allow private companies, not for profits, educational institutions and government agencies to test in a unique facility with real world infrastructure, allowing them to better understand the cost and potential limitations of new technologies prior to introduction,” Pegasus is hoping to draw in more investors to the project. The Centre will be the world’s largest testing ground set up by a private investor.

The Centre will be a boost for the New Mexico economy, providing around 350 new jobs and approximately 3,500 contracting and construction jobs. Governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, supports the project and is eager to make New Mexico a green leader for environmental technologies.

This exciting project should help to inspire inventors and investors alike to put more effort into environmental technology research. Furthermore, everyone will be able to benefit from greener innovations, which are sure to emerge from the New Mexico desert.

What Makes It Green:

What could be “greener” than a city void of people used only evolving current environmental technologies and creating new ones? As long as everybody remembers to turn the lights off, the Centre could be the “greenest” city in America. THEcommunity is looking forward to seeing what “green” things come out of the New Mexico desert.

Sources:

http://inhabitat.com/newest-us-city-to-be-built-just-for-testing-green-technologies/

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/09/science-ghost-town-to-test-out.html

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ghost-City-to-Be-Built-in-New-Mexico-Just-for-Testing-Green-Tech-221658.shtml

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/15/ghost-town-as-green-tech-test-bed/

Images:

http://www.impactlab.net/2009/08/11/green-revolution-gets-a-thumbs-down/

http://webpub.allegheny.edu/dept/bio/bio220/Milt_lectures/220Biomes.htm

Lutec Free Power Generator

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Aug 092011
 

inventors John Christie left and Lou Brits right

“John these are big claims, are you sure can live up to them?…. We don’t really need to live up to them, Chris, the technology speaks for itself” – A quote pulled from the interview with inventor John Christie. (video below)

So what are these “big claims”? John Christie believes he has invented a machine that will change the way the world get’s its power, and will make scientists re-write the laws of physics.

A machine powered using magnets and a battery can apparently produce over five times the amount of power put into it. The device is known as a “Free Energy Generator,” or Lutec 1000 motor, and aside from an initial cost to build or buy the machine the energy produced is “free” and the machine is said to run indefinitely.

According to the Magniwork website: “The generator powers itself and creates energy by itself, without requiring solar energy, heat, water, coal or any kind of resource.” The site goes on to add, “The generator is eco-friendly and doesn’t produce any harmful byproducts.” (Magniwork.com)

The technology does seem to be too good to be true. As inventors John Christie, and partner Lou Brits market their device as a revolutionary technology some scientist and entrepreneurs are having doubts about the machines practical functionality.

When asked about the critics claims against his machine John responded, “They are welcome to contact us and we will give them the names of experts who have assessed the machine, but who’s going to pay the experts, who are paid more than $US90 an hour, to sit down and explain it to them – because we’re not,”

The latest version of the Lutec

One engineer, Walt Rosenthal, discredited the machine after testing it saying his experimentation found “The inventors would start with fully charged batteries for the demonstration. They assumed that the battery terminal voltage would decrease linearly as the battery was used. So, after using the battery for, say, 30 minutes, they would again measure the battery terminal voltage, and subtract this value from the start voltage, then multiply that difference voltage times the known amp-hour capacity of the battery bank, to come up with their assumption of the total energy consumed from the battery bank. Unfortunately, battery terminal voltage is almost flat for perhaps 90 percent of the battery capacity, before it drops off rather steeply for the last 10 percent of it’s capacity. Parke Cole and I tried to explain this to the inventors. I am not sure we succeeded. We were about the 15th group of people to show up on their door step after they went public. We were the first people to bring our own test equipment. The inventors said that the first people to show up were the Russian Mafia. Our bottom line was 50 watts of DC power input, which resulted in 14 watts of rotary mechanical power output. I hope the inventors have improved their device from where we tested it so that it now matches their statements of it’s performance.” (rexresearch.com)

Despite, Walt’s claims, John is still convinced his device works and is still undergoing refinements to improve its power output and functionality. The idea of harnessing magnetic energy is not new, and has been attempted before with varying degrees of success. Check out Fuellessenergy.com for another example of a generator running from magnetic power.

John Christie says his device will be able to produce 24 megawatts of power per day, and is convinced that by 2020 energy companies will be converting to this magnetic power source for clean energy.

The device itself is not on sale yet, however, Magniwork.com offers an instruction manual for do it yourselfers who wish to try and build the Free Energy Generator themselves.

The Lutec 1000 technology has been granted patents in 17 countries including the United States.  (Lutec.com)

What do you think about the Lutec 1000? Is it a legitimate alternative energy source, or a case of misguided engineers?

Watch the videos below, and peruse the links for more information on this possible energy breakthrough.

Click Here, to read the official Lutec description of how the Lutec 1000 works.

Sources:

http://www.magniwork.com/

http://www.rexresearch.com/christie/christie.htm

http://www.lutec.com.au/

http://www.lutec.com.au/how.htm

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/28/lutecs-perpetual-mot.html

Images:

http://www.lutec.com.au/

http://www.gorillawire.com/?p=10838

Carbon Footprint: A Hard Fit

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Jul 262011
 

“The footprint is growing.”

By: James F.

 

One of the big buzz words amongst environmentalist is “Carbon Footprint”. How big is yours, and what are you doing to offset it? Well, it turns out there is more depth to the equation than the conventional slash and burn image that comes to mind when people say, “The footprint is growing.” While it’s true that our planet’s use of carbon based energy and fuel sources, such as oil, coal and propane, contribute to the amount of carbon that gets released into the atmosphere, the Carbon Cycle shouldn’t be neglected when considering just what comprises this footprint.

Let’s begin with the simple physics of Carbon’s presence on Earth. According to the Law of Conservation of Mass, matter can neither be created nor destroyed under ordinary chemical circumstances[1]. Given this principle, regular human activity, such as burning gasoline and bon fires, cannot create more carbon. That’s the long and short of it. However, we do contribute to the Carbon Cycle by throwing shrimp on the barbi and lighting political effigies ablaze.

According to Drs. Friedland, Relyea, and Courard-Hauri, the Carbon Cycle involves the compartmentalization and release of carbon from one trophic level to the next[2]. In short, carbon- like water- cycles through different ecological layers (subterranean, living and non-living matter). Now for the anthropomorphic rub. While humans can neither create nor destroy carbon, we inevitably affect where it is compartmentalized. For instance, oil is considered fossil carbon, locked beneath the earth’s crust[3]. Since oil, for the most part, is sealed underground, it is not part of the atmospheric stage of the Carbon Cycle. However, mining for and use of oil on a global scale introduces a surplus of carbon to the atmosphere.

What does it all mean? We might want to look at CO2 in terms of medicine. CO2 plays an integral role in the function of living organisms- photosynthesis and inhabitable atmospheric conditions would be impossible without carbon. Only a planetary scale then, it’s all a matter of dose. In the case of a prescription, one should only take a certain dose of whatever medicine so as to avoid a poisonous overload. The same concept can be applied to carbon and just how much is introduced into our trophic cycle.

This leaves us with the question, how much is too much? Where is the point of no return of introducing carbon into the atmosphere? Granted, reducing one’s use of carbon emitting products is good. You save gas, burn less biomass, conserve more resources. However, the qualm of answering just how bad our current carbon footprint is is simply too tough to answer with any certainty. Perhaps the planet can do just fine, metabolizing our current carbon output; perhaps it can’t. Perhaps one of the most important questions one ought to ask is where is our carbon introduction cutoff and how close are we to breaching the safety line?

Sources:

[1]http://www.mi.mun.ca/users/edurnfor/1100/atomic%20structure/tsld004.htm

[2] Friedland, Andrew, Rick Relyea, and David Courard-Hauri. Environmental Science: Foundations and Applications. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Company, 2011. 66. Print.

[3] http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/

Images:

http://jeffparker.flatoday.net/2008/05/0530-cartoon-wipe-your-feet-our-carbon.shtml

http://www.ways2gogreen.com/CarbonFootprint.html

http://www.airqualitynow.eu/pollution_health_effects.php

Wind Farms, Noisy Neighbors?

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Jan 072011
 

There are approximately 250 wind farms in the USA. Wind is free. Nobody can steal your breeze. Just like roaring rivers, wind bears tremendous natural power. Tornadoes are capable of raising houses off the ground and dropping them onto the Wicked Witch of the West. Nature is the essence of life and power. Scientist and engineers are looking to our world in a new way, not to take from it, but to harness it. From sunshine to water, to air to the earth’s core, environmentalists are tapping into natural forces and converting it into usable energy. With change, there are opportunity costs. Wind farms, provide clean power and energy cost cuts for many Americans. There are approximately 250 wind farms in the USA (NY Times). But there is a catch, many neighbors of the natural power plants are complaining of the noise. The never-ending whoosh and whirr of massive turbine blades has given headaches to……

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The Day After Tomorrow

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Jan 052011
 

A shot from the movie The Day After Tomorrow

It is starting to look like the beginning of The Day After Tomorrow, and I thought we [as human beings] had until 2012. Birds are dropping dead from the sky. Fish are washing up on shores. Wind chills and snowstorms are bringing bustling cities to a halt.

What would you do? If you looked up into the sky to see faint black dots dropping? As the dark shapes get bigger you realize it is birds, a sky full of birds falling to their fate. If you think this scenario is un-real, think again. If you ask the residents of Beebe Arkansas they would tell you this is fact. 4,000 blackbirds litter the ground of a one-mile radius.

What happened? According to autopsy, the birds suffered blood clots, causing them to fall to their deaths. The remaining question is: Why did this happen? And that is a question unanswered.

U.S. Environmental cleanup crews sporting hazmad suits cleaned up the carnage and shipped the remains to be tested in a lab. The results of the lab test will not be available for a couple weeks, according to a news article.

This incident does not stand alone, three days later it happened again in Louisiana, and Kentucky.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Never,” Said a resident witness (WPSD).

“I have outdoor pets and just assumed they were bringing them from around the neighborhood.” The resident goes on to say upon finding the dead birds. In Louisiana 500 birds fell to their deaths with no apparent cause, and in Kentucky an amount of birds in the dozen-range landed for the last time.

There are several theories as to what happened. According to a biologist from Cornell University the birds were”….probably asleep in a single tree when a washing machine-type thunderstorm sucked them up into the air, disoriented them, and even fatally soaked and chilled them.”

Another theory is that fireworks are to blame. Scientist are now saying that New Years Eve fireworks going off may have sent the blackbirds into a “tizzy” (Associated Press) and that “they crashed into homes, cars and each other before plummeting to their deaths.”

These coupled phenomenons are not alone. Recently not only are things having trouble in the sky, but also in the water. Fish are turning belly up on the coast of Paranaguá, In the Arkansas River, and in the Chesapeake Bay.

In Paranaguá 100 tons of fish washed up on shore. Sardine, Croaker, and Catfish all belly up mysteriously. A quote from a local reporter translated from Portuguese into English.

“On Thursday we began to realize very dead fish. Just one community came to bury 15 tons. We are experiencing a very sad situation on the coast, ”

For 20 miles in the Arkansas River, dead fish, 100,000 of them. But things are looking optimistic as Game and Fish worker Keith Stephens says,

“We’ll have raccoon and birds and things like that, will take care of it , so there is really no clean up, it’s really too big. It’s contained along the river channel.”

And in the Chesapeake Bay tens of thousands in the same condition as the others. The Maryland Department of the Environment said that this is caused by the stress of the cold water. The cold, has been pointed to a lot in all of these occurrences both bird and fish, as the world has been experiencing unusually bitter winters in many places.

Some people believe the carnage to be the government’s fault, that they have been testing weapons, biotechnology, secret agencies, UFO’s and so on and so forth. None of these conspiratorial claims has evidence to merit it credit.

Nor does another claim, the pollution factor. It does seem plausible that pollution could and has killed large amounts of animals efficiently. Extensive lab test have yet to be done, so toxic pollutants of some kind could be the culprits. Yet preliminary results have not showed any indication to place such blame.

In conclusion, its starting to look like the beginning of The Day After Tomorrow. And I don’t know why.

Sources:

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/112843019.html

http://www.infowars.com/is-mass-bird-and-fish-die-off-connected-to-government-testing/

http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Woman-reports-dozens-of-dead-birds-in-her-yard-112830524.html

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=136401&catid=2

http://www.wbaltv.com/r/26357581/detail.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.parana-online.com.br/editoria/cidades/news/502434/%3Fnoticia%3DMORTANDADE%2BMISTERIOSA%2BDE%2BPEIXES%2BNO%2BLITORAL

Image: http://subtitles.montages.no/

If You Printed Twitter…

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Jan 022011
 

What would happen if you printed Twitter?

Environmental Impact of Your Google search

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Dec 202010
 

Kittens on the web, the meaning of life, and the diagnosis of your itchy rash -- all can be found on Google.

When you ponder, when you question, when you argue, when you need to know how-to-do; Google it. Kittens on the web, the meaning of life, and the diagnosis of your itchy rash — all can be found on Google. Where do the pages of links come from? As magical as it seems, this is not magic.

As you strike your keys, you won’t get far before Google predicts your search. In my “Google search environmental”, I got as far as the “e” in environmental before I was linked into my search. The Top link revealed the environmental impact of Google searches. This is, in fact, what I was looking for. Technology Times online was the page I was taken to.

The article published in the Sunday Times titled “Google and You’ll Damage the Planet” claims that performing two Google searches on a desktop computer, generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle of water. An amendment to the original article clarified that that this does not refer to a one hit search, but a search that takes a user through several links.

Google and You’ll Damage the Planet implies Google-ing really hurts the environment. The following is created by the author: “It [search information] may even be sent to servers thousands of miles apart. Google’s infrastructure sends you data from whichever produces the answer fastest. The system minimizes delays but raises energy consumption.” Thousands of miles seem like a lot, but distance in the cyber world is traveled with a vast efficiency compared to the real world.

Google later released its own statistics; a one hit Google search emits .2g of CO2. Compared to A 5 mile drive in the average U.S. automobile, perhaps to go to the library to receive the very same information Google has delivered, will “cost” the same as 10,000 individual Google searches. Eating a cheeseburger is equivalent to 15,000 Google searches. Unless you search Google 3,100,000 times a month (roughly a hundred thousand times a day), the electricity used in your house will release more CO2 than will your Google addiction.

Google is well known for its green agenda, boasting on its website the company created a five-step plan comprised:

  • Minimize electricity used by servers.
  • Reduce energy used by its data center facilities.
  • Conserve fresh water by using recycled water.
  • Reuse or recycle all electronic equipment that leaves its data centers.
  • Engage with its peers to advance smarter energy practices.

Google headquarters is filled with sustainability efforts, including rentable bikes and battery-powered cars available to Google workers. Organic gardens on site provide fresh produce to the cafeteria and solar panels provide additional power. Google seems to be doing everything to go green. Google servers are the more eco-friendly than other data centers and servers as seen on the chart below.

How deeply rooted is the greenness of Google? Google-ing again I search now “How Green Is Google” and I get about 401,000,000 results in 0.14 seconds. The first link directs me to Treehugger.com where there is an article written in reference to another article in The New York Times, regarding jumbo jets. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google founders, have bought one. Previously capable of seating 300 to 400 passengers, Page and Brin remodeled their jet to hold a couple dozen people. Spending millions of dollars to convert the used 767 into a luxurious air ship, one must wonder can Google be green if those who run it indulge in such un-sustainability? Or should a blind eye be turned because of all of Google’s other environmental endeavors?

Google is a masterpiece of technology and innovation that has changed the way information is acquired, worldwide. The greenness of Google remains to fully be assessed, but with great success comes a magnifying glass that will constantly be looking over details of the company forever hereafter.

Sources:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/how_green_is_go.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/business/17megajets.html

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece