A new home for solar panels?

Here comes the good news of solar panels, the engineers at TU Wien developed the Heliofloat, a creative solution to choppy waves and stormy skies.

When estimate how much solar energy can be collected for our house we usually measure the size of our roofs. The larger the roof , more panels can be installed, more energy output to the house. So space really matters when we talk about solar panels. How about putting them on the ocean? Of course not in the old days. But Heliofloats offer a platform to install the solar panels and they claimed that it has a huge potential with their ability to support installations as large as football fields.



Heliofloat System Solar Power:The flotation system is constructed differently from others, allowing the platform to withstand even heavy storms.

I think this invention will really make a different to our future renewable energy resources. I still remember John Blair mentions if you have to give a rating to the example between 1-10 , 1 is totally not sustainable while 10 is totally sustainable, I would give it a 8/10. Because besides the materials and energy used to make the platforms, I believe that if the installation and the maintenance are done correctly and regularly, the solar panels could be functioning  probably for quite a long period of time. And solar energy is actually a very clean energy that will not cause pollution to the ocean. If the Heliofloat really able to withstand the storm and waves in the ocean, I think it is a new and good choice to install the solar panels other than our roofs in the future.

Reference:

New tech could keep solar panels afloat on the ocean - even during storms. (n.d.). Retrieved May 9, 2016, from http://inhabitat.com/new-tech-could-keep-solar-panels-afloat-on-the-ocean-even-during-storms/heliofloat-solar-panels-on-ocean/

A new hope to air pollution?

A new invention uses fluorescent lights to remove air pollution and stinky odours. It uses the Gas Phase Advanced Oxidation (GPAO) system was invented by Matthew Johnson. The system changes gaseous forms of pollution into a solid state using ozone and fluorescent lightbulbs. It functions as the free radicals form and attack the pollution, making it clump together like bits of dust. Once the gas pollution becomes dust, it’s just as easy to remove from the air as any other type of dust particle—with electrostatic charge. It not only make air cleaner, but it also works on unpleasant odours e.g. the toughest stinks associated with wastewater treatment. 

Matthew Johnson, chemistry professor at the University of Copenhagen, has invented an air purification method using fluorescent lights.

I think it is a good invention in commercial buildings in dense and crowded area. As the office use a lot of fluorescent lights and the streets are always full of cars where the air quality is really bad on the street. But I got one question : Is the fluorescent light can only purify the indoor air but not the outdoor air? If the answer is yes, I think the effect of air purifying function is less than what I thought it would be as the indoor air pollutant are much lower than the outdoor air. Because before the outdoor air flow into the office , it already have filtrated. What we actually need is to improve the air quality on the street. I am also worried on the light pollution and the pollution created by the used fluorescent light bulbs. As the fluorescent light bulbs may contain toxic substance like mercury which is poisonous to human. Therefore ,if I have the give a sustainable rating to this invention out of 10 (10 is totally sustainable), I would give 3/10 as it's air purifying function is not applicable to outdoor air and the waste pollution created by the fluorescent light bulbs.

Reference:

New invention uses fluorescent lights to remove air pollution and stinky odors. (n.d.). Retrieved May 5, 2016, from http://inhabitat.com/fluorescent-lights-remove-air-pollution-and-stinky-odors-without-filters/

An environmental responsible art chapter 2

Machine for Living Interdependently 2012 - 2015 by artist Amy Young

Last chapter we were talking about as an artist what should we pay more attention to and what we should beware of. In this chapter let us look into a good example of being an environmental responsible artist.

Artist Amy Youngs has begun this work by creating a series of artworks designed to help humans get comfortable with having worms as roommates. Amy's series of Worm Cozies are  function as softening interfaces to help us get used to the idea of living with worm ecosystems. Hidden inside domestic items – teddy bears, paper shredders, plant stands and cook pots – worm ecosystems work to rid our homes of food and paper waste, transforming it into rich fertilizer for houseplants. She has also designed a hydroponic plant tower named the Machine for Living Interdependently, powered by a combination of worm composting and the human action of rocking in a chair, which circulates water and nutrients through the system.

I love how the artist created an installation not only raise the awareness of waste pollution and green house gases but how the installation also have sustainable functions that is actually working and cleaning our earth. The plants provide cleansed air and the worms provide local waste disposal services. Worm composting keeps waste out of the landfill, saving us from generating more greenhouse gas. The artist has also considered the methane gas usually found in landfill areas. While methane is a greenhouse gas that is coming from rotting food, even inside of traditional, outdoor compost bins. Worm composting doesn't produce methane and doesn't create odours. This installation has been to places around the world, the visitors can actually touch the installation and interact with the installation. It is so important for the visitor to understand how the worm ecosystem works and how they can do it themselves at their home. I would give 10 out of 10 sustainble rating to this artist and this art installation.

Reference:
Amy Youngs - Machine for Living Interdependently. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2016, from http://hypernatural.com/machineforliving.html

Artist advocates worm composting solution to reduce waste and methane emissions. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2016, from http://inhabitat.com/artist-advocates-worm-composting-as-solution-to-reduce-waste-and-methane-emissions/

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An environmental responsible art chapter 1

Have you seen this image before? This is a current light installation in Uluru. The artist Munro named his latest installation, Tili Wiru Tjuta Nyakutjaku. This translates to “looking at lots of beautiful lights” in Pitjantjatjara, the language of the Aboriginal locals. This is available until the March of next year. It is quite amazing in terms of its lighting effect and the size of the installation. I admired the artist's creativity and this installation is on placed on the earth but not damaging the land physically. However, I personally thinks this installation may create quite a numbers of problems to the environment.  

Firstly, to keep the lights on every night until the next March in such a large scale. I would ask how much electric energy are actually used in the installation.

Secondly, the installation may suggest a light pollution in the area. As the whole area will be lit up the whole night, it might already affect the animals habitat around the area. 

Lastly, I am also interested in where this large amount of optic fibre will be placed after this installation ends. I hope there is better place to use these optic fibres then just let them become a large amount of waste. 

I reckon the recently art installation has actually created many waste and sadly to see most of the beautiful and creative art installations become a piece of waste once after the exhibitions. I think either reusing the waste to form another piece of installation or simply just be more aware of how much waste and pollution the installation has created will be a good start to be an environmental responsible artist.

Bruce Munro / Field of Light, Uluru, 2016

Reference:

Bruce Munro's multicolored Field of Lights blooms in stunning desert display. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2016, from http://inhabitat.com/bruce-munros-multicolored-field-of-lights-blooms-in-stunning-desert-display/bruce-munro-field-of-light-uluru-2016-mark-pickthall-afar/

So you think electric cars are clean?

VW Golf TDI 2009

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sues against the Volkswagen company in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on last Tuesday. The agency said U.S. consumers suffered "billions of dollars in injury" as a result of deception by VW, which has admitted to using software that allowed 580,000 diesel vehicles built since 2009 to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution. The FTC claims VW falsely advertised more than a half million diesel vehicles as environmentally friendly when it knew they were emitting excess pollution.

There is effective technology to cut nitrogen oxides (NOx), but sadly the car manufacturers are not implementing it because of its cost and weight.

Diesel cars tested in Norway produced four times the NOx emissions of large buses and lorries in city driving conditions, according to a report from the Norwegian Centre for Transport Research. An independent study for Transport for London showed that a small car emitted several times more NOx than most bus and heavy trucks.

Since cars release toxic gases and lots of green house gases. People tends to think electric cars are way more cleaner than diesel or petrol car. However, a Electric vehicles study by Yale University stated that the carbon footprint of EVs could be “indistinguishable from those of a diesel vehicle” depending on the distance they are driven and the location they obtain electricity.

An Electric Car recharging its battery

In the study, they calculate all the energy needed to manufacture the vehicles, also the amount and sources of energy used during operation and the energy needed to recycle them. they found out the predominantly coal- and natural gas-powered grid in Germany means an EV will generate 100 to 120 g of CO2 per km. The situation is even worse in China, which generates 85% of its electricity from coal. China is already at a miserable levels of urban air pollution, which will only get worse if Chinese consumers embrace electric cars. However, most of the electricity in France generated from nuclear power, an EV may generate only 15 g of CO2 per km, which is really clean.

In addition, a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency on the life-cycle research of lithium-ion batteries discovers they may cause resource depletion, global warming, ecological toxicity and human health impacts.

I love driving electric cars because it is really quiet and smooth in driving. I will not drive electric cars in Sydney until I find out where is the electricity of Sydney comes from. But for now I think I would probably still choose public transport or bicycle. To conclude, I think electric cars are not sustainable yet because of the life cycle of the batteries and the origin of the electricity.

Reference:
"World Environment News." Planet Ark. Accessed April 25, 2016. http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/74298. 

Carrington, Damian. "Diesel Cars Emit up to Four times More Toxic Pollution than a Bus, Data Reveals." The Guardian. 2015. Accessed April 26, 2016. 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/21/diesel-cars-emissions-toxic-pollution-than-a-bus-data-reveals. 

"Electric Vehicles Not Sustainable." Electric Vehicles Not Sustainable. Accessed April 26, 2016. http://wardsauto.com/blog/electric-vehicles-not-sustainable. 

"VW Might Not Be Able to Make Rigged Diesels Compliant with U.S. Air Quality Rules." TreeHugger. Accessed April 25, 2016. http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/vw-it-might-not-be-able-make-rigged-diesels-compliant-us-air-quality-rules.html. 

"Electric Vehicle." - Simple English Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed April 27, 2016. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle.

Building with a sustainable material - Bamboo

In the year one of my master studies , I did a studio project that is a mixed used residential project in Cambodia. Starting from that time, I became aware of natural building materials that is low cost and sustainable. Therefore, timber, bamboo, thatch has come to my mind.
There are not much bamboo built structure that can last long because unprotected bamboo weathers and will be damaged by insects and get eaten to dust. Therefore, in Asia living in bamboo house represent you are really poor that you can't afford better building materials.

In the following TED talk, Elora Hardy introduced how to use bamboo as a structure material in her magical house in Java. She mentioned that we needed safe treatment solutions firstly. Borax is a natural salt that makes bamboo become a viable building material.

"Treat it properly, design it carefully, and a bamboo structure can last a lifetime."- Elora Hardy


Then, build something imaginative and special to inspire people. She said Balinese culture values craftsmanship fortunately.They value the artisan and join them with the adventurous new generations of locally trained architects and designers and engineers, unlike the conventional formulas and vocabulary of architecture, they have had to invent their own building methods.In this project, the building speak for itself for its sophisticated skills and innovative design.

Why bamboo is a sustainable material?
Bamboo regenerates very quickly. It is one of the fastest growing plants in the world, with the fastest growth rate reaching 100cm in a 24-hr period. Bamboo can be harvested every three to six years for construction purposes; whereas trees range from 25 years (for softwoods) to 50 years (for hardwoods).

Moreover, bamboo gives 35% more oxygen to the air compare to trees, as well as absorbs 40% more CO2 than trees, creating better air quality. Bamboo can grow perfectly without the use of any fertilizers or pesticides, so its harvesting process is kinder to the Earth. Bamboo also has a wide spreading root system that keeps twice as much water in the watershed and prevents soil erosion.

Reference:

"Transcript of "Magical Houses, Made of Bamboo"" Elora Hardy: Magical Houses, Made of Bamboo. Accessed April 21, 2016. https://www.ted.com/talks/elora_hardy_magical_houses_made_of_bamboo/transcript?language=en#t-30360.

"Benefits of Bamboo Wood vs Other Hardwoods | Bamboo and Tikis." Benefits of Bamboo Wood vs Other Hardwoods | Bamboo and Tikis. Accessed April 21, 2016. https://bambooandtikis.com/blog/benefits-using-bamboo-versus-other-wood-materials.

"Uses for Bamboo in Sustainable Building - Www.greenbuild.org." Wwwgreenbuildorg. 2012. Accessed April 21, 2016. http://www.greenbuild.org/new-construction/uses-for-bamboo-in-sustainable-building/. 

Uber's plan to get more people into fewer cars

In the TED talk, Travis talks about the future of human-driven transportation; about how we can cut congestion, pollution and parking by getting more people into fewer cars; and how we can do it with the smartphones using the Uber app. 

He mentioned In the US, people spend 7 billion hours a year, wasted, sitting in traffic. 160 billion dollars in lost productivity, of course also sitting in traffic, and 1/5 of our total carbon footprint is spewed out in the air by those cars that we're sitting in. And that is only 4% of our problem though. Because if you have to own a car which means 96% of the time your car is sitting idle. And so, around 30% of our land and our space is used storing the cars. 

And in the beginning of 2010, Uber created the method where people simply push a button and get a ride. It turned out that lots of people use it and ultimately they started to discover that there was a lot of duplicate rides. They saw a lot of people pushing the same button at the same time going actually heading to the same place.Then, they introduced the uberPOOL. It is working as more people getting around the city in fewer cars, taking cars off the road. They have taken 7.9 million miles off the roads and  taken 1.4 thousand metric tons of CO2 out of the air.

I remembered once in the lecture, the guest lecturer mentioned in the future, there will not be any individual owned cars about replaced by bikes and shared cars. Michael Glotz-Richter, a German Marshall Fund Fellow from Bremen stated that 45% of vehicle kilometers traveled were declining due to the use of car sharing, and people were selling their cars or not buying cars, and the reductions in energy use and CO2 emissions were notable it also shows people are changing their behavior.

Travis is combing the concept of car sharing and carpool together which would help to reduce the Co2 emission. I am looking forward to see and try if there is uberPOOL in Sydney as well. Save the cost as well as help the environment.

Reference:

"Uber's Plan to Get More People into Fewer Cars." Travis Kalanick:. Accessed April 19, 2016. https://www.ted.com/talks/travis_kalanick_uber_s_plan_to_get_more_people_into_fewer_cars?language=en.

"Susan Shaheen: How Car Sharing Accelerates Sustainability." GreenBiz. Accessed April 19, 2016. https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/10/14/shaheen-how-car-sharing-gets-us-here-sustainability.

"Car Pool." - Sustainable Living. Accessed April 04, 2016. https://www.bendigobank.com.au/generationgreen/sustainable-living/transport/car-pool.asp.

Where does you old phone goes?

The average US citizen change their phone in less than a year

In the United States the average citizen change their phone in less than a year. When they replace it, most of them send it to a landfill or incinerator where toxic substances can get into the soil, water and air. Every year, 140,000,000 cell phones, that is every 4 second a mobile phone will be dumped into a landfill, where there will be 80,000 pounds of lead going into the earth and groundwater supply of surrounding communities. 

Dumping mobile phone into landfill is not sustainable, it will cause long term pollution risk to the environment. Mobile phones and accessories consist of high concentrations of toxic heavy metals or other metals including cadmium, lead, nickel, mercury, manganese, lithium, zinc, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, and copper. They may leach into the water courses or contaminate the soil. Metals build up in the soil and they can then enter the food chain and in sufficient concentrations may cause health problems.

What really makes me worry is the chemicals above will have a range negative health effects, including damage to the nervous system, reproductive and developmental problems, cancer and genetic impacts. The health effects of lead poisoning are well known. If too much lead is absorbed into the bloodstream, it will cause serious liver and kidney damage in adults and neurological damage in children. Nickel and mercury are toxic and are classed as hazardous substance. I wonder how many adult and children are sick because of the metal poisoning in the developing countries like some developing cities in China and in South-East Asia.

A polluted river flows past a workshop that is
used for recycling electronic waste in GuiyuTyrone Siu/Reuters

If you are attached to your cell phone as I do to mine, don't change it until your phone really stop working, even it is not working well just go to a local mobile store and fix it. The information shown here about the pollution of cell phones on the environment and the impacts on your health will probably make you uncomfortable, but you can help to minimise the impact and tell your friend about this.  And remember, when you really decided to give up on your old phone be sure to donate or recycle your old one! I will be thankful if you could do one more step before you chuck it in the bin. It is meaningless to chase the latest cell phone, as the main use of mobile phone are phone calls, messages and internet. Maybe let's ask ourselves a question: Do I WANT it or I really NEED it?

Reference:

"The Environmental Impact of Cell Phones." Techi Fresh Daily Technology News. Accessed April 15, 2016. http://www.techi.com/2011/01/the-environmental-impact-of-cell-phones/. 

"ARP : Mobile Phone Waste and The Environment." ARP : Mobile Phone Waste and The Environment. Accessed April 15, 2016. http://www.arp.net.au/envcha.php. 

"Guiyu Waste Dump: The Chinese Tip Where Your Old Mobile Phones and Computers Go to Die [Photo Report]." International Business Times RSS. 2015. Accessed April 15, 2016. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/guiyu-waste-dump-chinese-tip-where-your-old-mobile-phones-computers-go-die-photo-report-1509187.