A blog for sustainable energy students
The State of the Environment Report is prepared every 5 years by a committee as part of the Federal Department for the Environment and Water Resources. The latest report was released in 2006 and includes sections on Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Coasts and Oceans, Human Settlements, Inland Waters, Land, Natural and Cultural Heritage, and the Australian Antarctic Territory.
It has some interesting info and a lot of useful references.
This was the theme of Robin Batterhams lecture last night but can anyone specifically remember the 3 things we were meant to take away from it?
If I took it all in correctly I think that the first was that Climate Change is occurring but unable to be pinned on human activities, the second was that there are few other options other than Carbon Sequestration if we wish to continue growth in energy sector (and therefore continue raising living standards) but for the life of me I cant remember what the last may be (or indeed if I got the first two right). Can anyone help me out here?
Fungus Makes Biodiesel Indian Researcher’s Finding
Ravichandra Potumarthi, a researcher in India, has demonstrated and presented his findings at a conference (the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology) that using the enzyme lipase as the catalyst he can convert vegetable oils into biodiesel. The trouble, of course, with that, conceptually, is that lipase is a complex protein, difficult and expensive to synthesize. Naturally it would not be a significant breakthrough if Ravichandra did not start thinking “outside the box”, so to speak. He saw no reason to go to the trouble of refining the enzyme to a pure form, he simply found an organism that produces plenty of it, and tossed it into the mix. The main advantage here is that you don’t have to heat the oil at all for the process to work as in (many, if not most) of the more conventional methods of using methanol (or ethanol) and sodium hydroxide. The mechanism Ravichandra chose was a simple fungus called Metarhizium anisopliae. Interestingly this particular fungus is not all that difficult to obtain at the moment, because it is being investigated as a means to control malaria carrying mosquitoes.(op.cit. Wikipedia.org) It is also already being used as a means to destroy thrips (nasty little things that curl the leaves of citrus trees — we have an infestation of these in our own back yard), grasshoppers and termites.
A half baked article I wrote about Nuclear Fusion a while ago. Some aspects of it are vague for the simple reason that I am not a Nuclear physicist. Please feel free to jump in and point out any errors you spot or indeed to expand on anything I have glossed over.
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I’ll start with a quote by renowned rocket scientist and bongo player Dick Feynman:
“If, in some cataclysm, all scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence you will see an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.”
Continue reading ‘Nuclear Fusion’
Hey guys this company is located in Adelaide…. they manufacture solar panels which they claim to have 30% efficiency …. just have a look… good opportunity if anybody wants to do business in it as they are looking for franchisees
Hi all,
A piece on sustainable shipping I originally wrote for the RMIT student magazine ‘Catalyst’ in semester 1. Feedback welcome.
Christian
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Its recently been revealed that a serious source of air pollution comes from the cargo ships currently sailing the worlds oceans. I had heard this before and a claim that apparently you could trace the worlds shipping lanes by the brown haze above them but I hadn’t realized that ships actually contribute more pollution then the rest of the worlds transportation sector combined! A bit of research soon uncovered some startling statistics including this extract:
“…although emissions from road vehicles has declined sharply in recent decades, emissions from large ships have changed little while the volume of worldwide shipping has steadily increased. Those two factors have allowed pollutants from ships, estimated at 6 million metric tons in 2001, to surpass road vehicle emissions estimated at 2.2 million metric tons.
If no stringent international ship emission regulations are adopted by the International Maritime Organization, the study warns, ship emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides will soon surpass those of not just land vehicles, but all land sources, including power plants, factories and refineries.”
The Australian Greenhouse Office has published an online manual with tonnes of information regarding sustainable building practices.
Obstacles and Success Conditions for RE in Developing Countries
In many developing countries there is a much larger potential for renewables like wind and solar energy than in industrialised countries. But there are obstacles that prevent the adoption of such “new” renewables in developing countries. Ulrich Laumanns and Danyel Reiche try to identify the most important obstacles and point to success conditions that can lead to a wider dissemination of “new” renewables in developing countries.
Continue reading ‘Future of Renewable Energy in Developing Countries’
The FirstRate software is used to give Victorian houses a star rating for their energy efficiency. A demo version is available for download from Sustainability Victoria.
ABC Energy News
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