The idea of tapping the ocean’s different thermal layers to generate electricity was first proposed in 1881 by French physicist Jacques d’Arsonval but didn’t receive much attention until the world oil crises of the 1970s. In 1979, a US government-backed partnership that included Lockheed Martin, lowered a cold water pipe from a barge off Hawaii that was part of an OTEC system generating 50 kilowatts of electricity. Two years later, a Japanese group built a pilot plant off the South Pacific island of Nauru capable of generating 120 kilowatts.
In the first flush of success, the US Department of Energy began planning a 40 megawatt test plant off Hawaii. Then in 1981, the funding for ocean thermal technologies began to dwindle. It dried up altogether in 1995 when the price of oil began to drop, eventually falling below $20 a barrel.
Now rising fuel costs have revived interest in this neglected technology. In September, the Department of Energy awarded its first grant for ocean thermal energy in more than a decade, giving Lockheed Martin $600,000 to develop a new generation of cold water pipes.
Cohen believes this could eventually lead to 500 MW OTEC plants on floating offshore platforms sending electricity to onshore grids via submarine cables, and factory ships “grazing” the open ocean for power.
Landscapes consume the lion’s share of urban water, and are overwatered by 30-to-300%. Add to that, water rates are rising across North America. But the real cost of overwatering — property destruction, water runoff and liabilities — is 5-to-10 times as high as water bills. These expenses, combined with increasing social responsibility, drive companies to smart water management. HydroPoint’s proven solution integrates into existing irrigation systems and deploys quickly to deliver ROI faster than any other green initiative.
Americans drank 9 billion gallons of bottled water last year, or slightly more than 29 gallons for every man, woman, and child in the country.
They also spent $22 billion on a product that critics of the bottled water industry say they should be getting for free from their home faucets.
Most of the criticism has focused on the environmental impact of bottled water. But an investigation released two weeks ago also raises questions about the purity and even safety of commercially available water.
WebMD looked into many commonly asked questions and concerns about bottled water. Here is what they found.
President Bush’s vision for protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation, a move that would constitute a major expansion of his environmental legacy, is running into dogged resistance both inside and outside the White House and has placed his wife and his vice president on opposite sides of the issue.
With less than three months before Bush’s term ends, his top deputies are scrambling to try to execute a plan that would shield some of the world’s most diverse underwater ecosystems. The original plan, which included four potential “marine monuments” and was well received by environmentalists, has already been scaled back.
USGS has published “Ground-Water Availability in the United States” as USGS Circular 1323. “This report examines what is known about the Nation’s ground-water availability and outlines a program of study by the U.S. Geological Survey Ground-Water Resources Program to improve our understanding of ground-water availability in major aquifers across the Nation. The approach is designed to provide useful regional information for State and local agencies who manage ground-water resources, while providing the building blocks for a national assessment.” Quoted from the USGS release.
They are one of the world’s greatest and most precious natural resources, yet are entirely hidden. Now, for the first time, a high-resolution map shows where underground aquifers store vast amounts of water.
The map of “blue gold” (pdf format, 4 MB) is the result of nearly a decade of sometimes difficult talks between neighbouring governments, mediated by UNESCO. The hope is that it will help pave the way to an international law to govern how water is shared around the world.
Aquifers are underground layers of rocks or sediments from which water can be extracted – normally by drilling boreholes or digging wells. They hold 100 times the volume of freshwater that flows down rivers and streams around the world at any time.
What the UNESCO map reveals is just how many aquifers cross international borders. So far, the organisation has identified 273 trans-boundary aquifers: 68 in the Americas, 38 in Africa, 155 in Eastern and Western Europe and 12 in Asia.
Each trans-boundary aquifer holds the potential for international conflict – if two countries share an aquifer, pumping in one country will affect its neighbour’s water supply.
The report finds that more than three quarters of the world’s population lives in countries whose consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal. It warns that reckless consumption of “natural capital” is endangering the world’s future prosperity, with clear economic impacts, including high costs for food, water and energy.
WWF’s international director-general James Leape says world leaders must put ecological concerns at the top of their agenda and ensure the environment is factored into all decisions about consumption, development, trade, agriculture and fisheries management.
“If humanity has the will, it has the ways to live within the means of the planet, but we must recognize that the ecological credit crunch will require even bolder action than that now being mustered for the financial crisis,” he says.
Emissions from fossil fuels are among the top culprits for placing excessive demands on the planet cited by the three environmental groups. Yet, these could be regulated by a successor to the Kyoto protocol, due to be agreed by member nations of the UN at the end of 2009.
ColaLife is a campaign to leverage the distribution muscle of a multi-national corporate institution to save children’s lives in developing countries.
It was launched by Simon Berry, who had an idea during a live webchat: What about Coca Cola using their distribution channels (which are amazing in developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts? Maybe by dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as ‘the life saving’ compartment?
Since floating this idea on his blog, Simon has managed to create a huge community around the campaign, through a Facebook group and appearances on Radio 4’s iPM programme. He is now in discussions with Coca-Cola and is looking to engage with an international NGO to move the project forward.
