Post Comments like this:
1. Your Name
2. A Title
3. A short personal commentary what you learned from it or what made you curious about it given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to human-environmental interactions.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste the article or topic you found.
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
Post for the first week on this thread. I'll set up a new main post each week, and then we will do the same.
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This is a test comment of what to do.
ReplyDelete1. Mark Whitaker
2. My Comment's Title
3. There is something about the following article that interests me, fascinates me, and/or makes me wonder what the article leaves out, etc. I can write as much as I want on this blog about my view on the article and the issues that it discusses. I can write about personal experiences that the article reminded me about. I can write about a different view of the same issues that the article mentions. I can convince people of something, express my intelligence, and express my emotion in this comment.
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[repost article here]
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[URL / web location of the article]
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1.Yoo GaEun
ReplyDelete2.Global Boiling: Australia's Hellish Black
Saturday Of Extreme Fire
3.I've once heard that Australia has suffered
from a massive bushfire and arid weather condition. But, actually, I didn't thought it was
that serious as this article reported.
In Korea, we often have forest fire in spring,
especially in Kwangwon-do, which I compared
the frequency of bushfire with that of Australia.
(It was my stupic mistake-_-..)
But here says, the underlying problem is global
climate change ensuing the total desturction of
the ecosystem of this beautiful forest!!
How tragic! That human activities(human-ignition
component)resulted in this giant fire made me ponder upon an inseparable relationship between
human,social effects and the environment.
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Even in Australia, where people have learned to live with large wildfires, February’s “Black Saturday” fires in Victoria blew away all expectations. Of the hundreds that died, those who stayed had no time to prepare, and many who fled were overtaken by the fast-spreading flames and died in their cars. Multiple days of above 100-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, extremely low relative humidity and 100 mile per hour winds resulted in an unstoppable spread of the flames, 100-200 foot flame lengths, and fire intensity unlike anything ever before recorded anywhere on the planet.
Wildfire expert Max Moritz, a professor at the College of Natural Resources and Center for Fire Research and Outreach at the University of California, Berkeley, explains these extreme conditions raise new questions:
Although we won’t know many of the details until an assessment of the recent Australian fires is completed, the weather conditions and rates of fire spread we’re hearing about are extreme. It highlights a special case for both agencies and homeowners, and we have a lot to learn from each other about what does and does not work under weather conditions that are this bad.
So what caused this colossal inferno? In pointing to arson as the cause of these fires, we miss the overall significance of the fire dynamics that gave rise to this event. While arson is a lamentable and criminal source of ignition, with relative humidity and fuel moisture at below four percent, a lit cigarette or a spark thrown off by a moving vehicle could have caused similar wildland fires. Where there are people, there are always sources of ignition — what fire scientists call the “human-ignition component.” The larger issue at stake here is what gave rise to such extreme fire weather
……
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http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/02/global-boiling-australia%e2%80%99s-hellish-black-saturday-of-extreme-fire/
plus,
(if you want to know exactly what happend in
Australia: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aWaqBae3snfI&refer=australia )
1. Yoon HyeSung
ReplyDelete2. WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?
3. Global Warming. I've heard about this problem for a quite long time. When I first heard about it, I didn't regard it as my problem because I couldn't feel how serious the problem is. I just knew the fact that as the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere increases, then the temperature rises. But I didn't believe it would be a big problem... Now, I feel that 4 seasons in Korea are changing. The temperature in winter is not 'too' cold at all. The number of people who die because of the scorching heat of summer is increasing. I was really surprised that it has been 40 degrees or more for more than 6 days recently in Australia. It was terrible for me to hear the sad news that people died because of the shortage of water, a forest fire, and extraordinary phenomena in weather. I really think people should stop destroying the Earth. People have been ruining the environment for a long time. I'm afraid of the future. How will the Earth change? Will human be able to live in the healthy planet? We are always worried about our own health, however, we don't care much about the Earth. Of course, I also did many harmful things un consciously. From now on, we all have to think about the Earth more deeply. And this article may awaken us to the realities. We should protect the Earth for ourselves and our descendants!
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Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.
The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence.1 The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.
We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.
The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.2
Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.3
The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.4
At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.5
If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.
Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.6
Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.7
Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.8
More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.9
There is no doubt we can solve this problem. In fact, we have a moral obligation to do so. Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping to stop global warming. The time to come together to solve this problem is now – TAKE ACTION
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http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. Grace Huh
ReplyDelete2. Glaciers No More?
3. It seems that the past posts have been about global warming, so to stay on topic, I also found an article related to global warming. It seems that global warming is the main issue at the moment. I must admit I don't know all the details to how global warming has come about so drastically. I understand the ozone layer holes and toxins and such, but as to exactly what's the biggest cause or how it can be solved (with big measures) I must say I still need to research more. However, I see the effects of global warming more and more, and I'm sure everyone else does to. I'm just surprised by how little people seem to really act on it. It is rather a replay cycle of damage, shock, and move on. (particularly to people who are not directly involved in the damaging occurences). For instance, I'm not so sure about NOW to be exact, but I hear about Australia having the biggest skin cancer problems because it has a huge ozone hole right above it. As a Californian inhabitant, I heard of the several chain fires that have quickly and randomly.. exploded I guess.. last year. (some of my friends were victims)
Yoon HyeSung's article about the facts for the future really shocked me. The "death" is spreading so rapidly. To think of all those people dying and animals becoming extinct is quite devasting. Whether we be alive to see it or not (looks like we most likely will), the future looks so bleak for generations to come at this rate. This article talks particularly about Glacier National Park and about how all the glaciers may disappear by 2020. It says that many animals and plants will go extinct probably because of this. "A lot of our sensitive and rare plants are associated with the edges of glaciers." When the glaciers melt, at first the plants will seem to flourish because of the land space, but the crowding will cause drying and then.. death. And as glaciers "feed the streams," water becomes scarce which "For some aquatic species, that's a threshold event...You only have to dry up once and you're history." It reminds me about how Professor Whitaker was talking about the chain reactions (with the plankton) and ecosystems changing, last Friday. I mean looking at all this death in one park, think about it happening in all parts of the world. Chain reaction after chain reaction. The world changed a lot in the past as organisims adapted to different environments but thats over sooo many years, and now we're just looking at (in this case) less than 20 years, so death of course is inevitable. To think that our uncleaned trashcan might be the model for our world's future....
It really makes me wonder, if society is advancing so much, particularly technologically, why not are we educated to do it in a way that DOESN'T destroy ourselves. True, I don't have enough knowledge in the area to make any claims or accusations, but I am just stating my opinions simply based on what I see and hear.
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No More Glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2020?Anne Minard
National Geographic News
March 2, 2009
It's an oft-repeated statistic that the glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park will disappear by the year 2030.
But Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who works at Glacier, says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of schedule, endangering the region's plants and animals.
The 2030 date, he said, was based on a 2003 USGS study, along with 1992 temperature predictions by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"Temperature rise in our area was twice as great as what we put into the [1992] model," Fagre said. "What we've been saying now is 2020."
The 2020 estimate is based on aerial surveys and photography Fagre and his team have been conducting at Glacier since the early 1980s. A more standardized measure of what's happening to a glacier comes from arduous documentation of its mass, which requires—among other techniques—multiple core samples.
Fagre said the 2020 estimate could be slightly revised after his team conducts the mass measurements—hopefully this year—and their computer models are retooled with current temperatures.
Nonpolar ice is disappearing all over the globe, Fagre said. Major glaciers have entirely disappeared from the Andes, and the Himalaya have lost a third of their snow. (See video of Alpine glaciers melting.)
Animals at Risk as Glaciers Melt
Fagre is concerned about ecological implications of glacier melt.
"A lot of our sensitive and rare plants are associated with the edges of glaciers," he said.
At first, retreating glaciers will expose more growing area for plants. But eventually plants will crowd the area, and reduced water could cause drying and die-offs.
And as glaciers retreat, the streams they feed can become intermittent, he added.
"For some aquatic species, that's a threshold event," he said. "You only have to dry up once and you're history."
Andrew Fountain, a Portland State University professor of geography and geology, acknowledged that the glaciers of Glacier National Park shrank by 67 percent in the past hundred years.
"As a group, that is the fastest recession of any glaciated region in the lower 48 states" in the U.S., Fountain said.
But he's cautious about predicting the demise of any glacier.
In some situations, local topography can balance out climate change, he said.
"Take the Colorado Front Range, for example," he said.
"There is no reason for glaciers to inhabit Rocky Mountain National Park, climatically speaking. If it were not for … the drifting snow from the high plateau into the cirque basins"—valleys hollowed out by past glacial erosion—"you would not have glaciers there. But they are holding on fine."
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090302-glaciers-melting.html
1. Mikah Lee
ReplyDelete2. Controlling CO2
3. Excess CO2 from power plants is one of the main causes of the environmental mess we find ourselves in today- so what do we do? We capture that gas and sweep it under the rug, so to say. Apparently scientist are working on a way to 'bottle up' the carbon dioxide that power plants continue to release into our atmosphere. There's a good place for it deep inside the earth, they say- you could call it 'geo-bottling'. What worries me about this idea is that we humans always seem to mess up when we deal with nature; what if all this bottled up CO2 is accidentally released one day, leading to our gaseous demise? 'Oops, we hadn't thought of that' is what we seem to be saying a lot these days, especially concerning all the waste we can't get rid of.
Of course, the pressure underground will (as scientists claim) liquify that CO2 and eventually turn it into rock... Let's just hope it doesn't cause an unexpected catastrophe in years to come. It's as if THE ONE THING we didn't think of (or hope will never occur) always happens. Like the way our oh-so-practical-and-awesome plastic is now gunking up the planet. Whoops.
I find it interesting that all kinds of laws have to made for this project to even begin. I quote, "A carbon-storage industry will be virtually impossible without a national policy that puts a price on CO2 pollution"- this means that we basically have to blackmail those 'responsible' in order to try and fix our environment. It's sad, but true. Some of us just aren't very responsible about the mess we make, and we don't seem to CARE. After all, it's easy to ignore the results of our mess as long as WE have food to eat and better things to do (...like eating). Shouldn't saving our planet be our top priority here? That's easy to say but ridiculously hard to do these days.
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There's no word for the sound you hear upon opening a can of soda. But the tchk-ptoop-fshchss! of a top being popped is distinctive, immediately recognizable. It is the sound of carbonation — or CO2 — rushing from the can. And it's a sound that brings to mind a technology, much overlooked in the popular press, that could safely recapture and store much of that emitted carbon, and has the potential to prevent an impending climate catastrophe.
The CO2 in carbonated drinks is the same CO2 that is spewed from tailpipes and power plants and causes global warming. In fact, the CO2 that makes the bubbles in your soda comes from those same power plants. Instead of being released into the atmosphere as a global-warming gas, the CO2 is captured from power plant exhaust, purified and sold to the nation's bottlers and soft drink fountain suppliers. When you pop the tab, however, the CO2 escapes into the atmosphere anyway.
But there's a silver lining. The same process that captures CO2 from power plants to make drinks fizzy is the one half of a process that has the potential to capture and stash as much as 90% of all CO2 from coal-burning power plants. Engineers and scientists are working on several ways to catch the carbon, either before or after coal burns. One technology known as integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC, would turn the coal into gas before it's burned for energy; gasifying it releases the carbon for capture, transportation, and sequestration deep underground. Another process, called "oxy-coal" combustion, removes nitrogen from air before combustion; when coal is burned, the waste gas is close to pure CO2, which can be easily captured.
Scientists and engineers hope to pump this captured carbonation through mile-long straws that reach deep into the Earth's crust, into salt mines, aquifers and oil fields. Underground, the pressure will liquefy it and perhaps eventually turn it to rock. Think of it as "geo-bottling" — except we never want to pop the cap. From Houston to Huainan, scientists are already digging holes and pumping down CO2 by the ton. "The carbon belongs underground," Susan Hovorka, a geologist at the University of Texas, Austin, told one of us in 2005. "I say, put it back."
Today, the CO2 captured for producing soda is only a very small percentage of the total CO2 from power plants, but the technology for large-scale carbon capture and storage looks to be just around the corner. Spurring action from industry and governments has proved difficult, however, because the long-term economic, social and environmental costs of CO2 pollution are not included in the price we pay for energy. That makes CO2-intensive sources of energy like coal-fired power plants look like a better deal than cleaner technologies. But the truth is, it's a "pay me now, or pay me later" situation. In the context of climate change, it's more like, "pay me now, or your kids will pay me even more later."
Fortunately, a combination of efficient markets and smart policy could level the playing field. A carbon-storage industry will be virtually impossible without a national policy that puts a price on CO2 pollution. One such policy involves the creation of a national cap for greenhouse gas emissions and an accompanying market for tradable carbon emission credits. This summer, the U.S. Senate will likely consider legislation that would set up such a market. By making carbon a pollutant and unleashing market forces to find a price for it, the nation will essentially be revealing fossil fuels' true social cost — and giving cleaner technologies, including carbon capture and storage, a fair shot.
Even before the federal government creates a national cap — which is generally considered inevitable — the economy will need a bridge, economic nudges, so that the private sector can test carbon capture and storage before scaling it up. More than 30 states are looking at legislation that would give carbon storage technology a boost. Some call for comprehensive studies of the technology, while in Wyoming — one of several states identified as having underground carbon storage potential — laws are already being written to address questions about ownership of and liability for the underground CO2 vaults. These laws will help U.S. "geo-bottling" incubate while the federal government catches up to state and private efforts. At Duke University's Climate Change Policy Partnership, for example, researchers are modeling optimal routes for gas pipelines, based on engineering, social and environmental factors, to move the CO2 from plant to storage site.
There is little doubt that we'll need help from many new technologies to fight the inexorable rise in greenhouse gas emissions. And indeed, reversing emission trends is truly an all-hands-on-deck affair. But to achieve the targets talked about in current legislation — and notably by each of the presidential candidates — reducing carbon from our power production has to be disproportionately responsible for overall progress. If thorny questions surrounding carbon capture and storage are not answered, and if the technology is not implemented soon, we will have lost precious time in the quest to ward off irreparable consequences of climate change.
Today we bottle CO2 to make soda. Tomorrow we need to be bottling industrial carbon on a grand scale. It's something to think about when you take a soda break on this Earth Day. Pop the tab — tchk-ptoop-fshchss! — drink, think, and, of course, don't forget to recycle.
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http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383_1731989,00.html
1. Soo-Bin, Lee
ReplyDelete2. Overpopulation seen as worst environment threat
- I notice this problem dimly but it was a chance to think about it a little bit more deeper.
3. Articles about the polulation decrease in Korea is not rare nowadays. And the news sometimes says that population groth is something to do with the national power. Actually I still don't understand fully about the realtionship between population and national strength. However I thought about the enviornmental problem it will cause while reading or watching the news.
It is clear that the enviornment will worsen the world where we live.Because for example, the amount of waste will be much more and rescources people use will increase. But why does all the countries stress or suport to increse their population? And what can we do to lessen the impact?
Frankly speaking, I can't anwer the first question. However there are few personal opinions about the second one.
When I lived in Germany for several years, I was surprised that the flee market is so organized and loved by the people. It is actually impossible not to produce anything. Then, I think, we should try to reuse as much as we can. Also the fare of (especially) water should be higher. In Korea, when people don't think and use something to much, we say 'using sth like water'. What does it mean? It is the reflection of a thought that Korean consider water as not wasteful. There should also be a 'realizable' campain (there is already a few) or kind of things to encourage people not to overuse it.
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HALTING the world's rocketing population growth is the key to solving global warming -- a solution that has been ignored or overlooked by leading climate change advocates.
That was the warning yesterday from an Australian health expert, who said UN forecasts of a global population of more than 9 billion people by 2050 spelt disaster for the world's ecology.
Roger Short, honorary professor at the University of Melbourne's faculty of medicine, nursing and health sciences, told a conference in Sydney yesterday that government-commissioned reviews -- such as the Stern report in Britain and Australia's Garnaut report -- had not even mentioned the word "population". Even the film by former US vice-president Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, had failed to focus on the dangers posed by unsustainable population growth.
"Global warming is a direct result of human activity," Professor Short told The Weekend Australian.
"The more people there are, the worse the global warming threat gets.
"So we have got to do everything we can to control human population growth.
"We haven't given the women of the world freedom from the tyranny -- and I do mean tyranny -- of unwanted fertility.
"If we could restore that freedom to women, the world could breathe a lot easier and we could look forward to the future because women would sort out the future for us."
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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25150829-5013871,00.html
1. Sohyun Park
ReplyDelete2. Plastic ocean: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
3. I was really shocked after watching the video “Alphabet Soup” and learned the seriousness of plastics in ocean. I found an article about the same crew we watched in the video and was interested to review about what we had seen and find more details about it. There were more appalling facts such as one animal dissected by Dutch researchers containing 1,603 pieces of plastic.
I liked how the reporter said, “None of plastic's problems can be fixed overnight, but the more we learn, the more likely that, eventually, wisdom will trump convenience and cheap disposability.” There was also information about organizations attempting to clean up the ocean which I thought was useful to know.
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LONG BEACH, California (4 Nov 2007) — Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life's purpose in a nightmare. Unfortunately, he was awake at the time, and 800 miles north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
It happened on August 3, 1997, a lovely day, at least in the beginning: Sunny. Little wind. Water the color of sapphires. Moore and the crew of Alguita, his 50-foot aluminum-hulled catamaran, sliced through the sea.
Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita's course, veering slightly north. He had the time and the curiosity to try a new route, one that would lead the vessel through the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean, a place most boats purposely avoided. For one thing, it was becalmed. "The doldrums," sailors called it, and they steered clear. So did the ocean's top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters, flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert—a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.
The area's reputation didn't deter Moore. He had grown up in Long Beach, 40 miles south of L.A., with the Pacific literally in his front yard, and he possessed an impressive aquatic résumé: deckhand, able seaman, sailor, scuba diver, surfer, and finally captain. Moore had spent countless hours in the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. He'd seen a lot of things out there, things that were glorious and grand; things that were ferocious and humbling. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.
It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.
How did all the plastic end up here? How did this trash tsunami begin? What did it mean? If the questions seemed overwhelming, Moore would soon learn that the answers were even more so, and that his discovery had dire implications for human—and planetary—health. As Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the "Eastern Garbage Patch," Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a week through bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the 21st-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body...
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http://www.cdnn.info/news/article/a071104.html
1. Martin Weiser
ReplyDelete2. Plankton and Plastic Waste
3. All that massive information about plastic substituting plankton, hypotoxic areas and plastic pollution in general made me kind of interested in that topic. Just meaning I had a look what else is out there in the internet about that.
First of all, google lead me to the wikipedia entry for plankton. Interestingly it says there is plankton even smaller than the 3mm diameter of Charles Moore's net in that alphabet soup video we saw. It goes on with arguing that plankton is assumed to make up the largest proportion in size and - how I assume here - in weight of plankton. So the 1:9 ratio seems doubtable. Although micro particles of plastic haven't been taken into account as well. Additionally, zooplankton (that plankton not using photosynthese but eating other plankton) like Krill normally does not stay at the surface (according to the encyclopedia of earth article on plankton). It's going down during daytime to be less visible for predators. Making it a victim of discrimination due to absence in Moore's project. Taking into account that the weight of plastic molecules is said to be high in the gyrecleanup article, I wonder why Moore had to take a weight-based measurement for his plastic project. Leading me to the conclusion that this ratio might be scary (which actually is a 1:1 already) but manipulatively exaggerated if it comes to the actual ecosystem.
By the way, try to search for fish and gyre with any search engine. You will get surprisingly many results related to plastic pollution and the so called garbage patch. Making me unable to find any results about real fish or plastic in fish. Except the general assumption fish might swallow the plastic compounts and thereby also accumulate heavy metals.
I also found an article by the British Independent citing someone that the garbage patch might be twice the size of the USA. Seems like a hot debate with some people trying to even stir it up.
Then I found an article by Charles Moore. I did not read it but saw a picture that caught my attention. A carcass of an albatross stuffed with plastic waste (http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm). It really looked shocking to me. I guess that's the reason why you can find it on many other pages, too. However, I am wondering how a bird can eat plastic until it makes up the whole inside. And think this photo is a fake. I have seen another video in German television which smaller birds but much less plastics inside – until they die. Unfortunately I couldn't get a copy of that to upload a subtitled version yet. For those who can't wait you can find it here some where in the mid of the video:
http://schampi.com/space/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=283:abenteuer-wissen-fluch-der-bunten-plastikwelt&catid=8:wissenschaftforschung&Itemid=9
The small plastic bag the longhaired guy is holding in his hand in the end would be the average amount of plastic a human-sized bird would have eaten (before dying in 93% of all cases due to digestion problems).
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Wikipedia:
The existence and importance of nano- and even smaller plankton was only discovered during the 1980s, but they are thought to make up the largest proportion of all plankton in number and diversity.
Encyclopedia of Earth:
Diel vertical migrations by zooplankton consist of moving up in the water at night and down in the day time. Being in deeper water during the daylight provides protection from predators that use vision to capture prey. This behavior is seen in animals from all different phyla that are in the plankton, so it must have enormous survival value.
Independent:
Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."
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http://www.gyrecleanup.org/articles/gyretrouble.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html?action=Popup
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
1. Kyuhee Shim
ReplyDelete2. Auto makers need to become more enviro-friendly
3.
The official name of the program is the '50 by 50 Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI)’. Devised by UNEP, it proposes a realistic long term plan to substantially increase fuel efficiency and decrease pollution levels.
If car manufacturers can double fuel efficiency the world can also cut back on the toxic fumes that pollute our air and water. In my opinion this is not a radical plan. It presents a reasonable plan, a reasonable timeline, and does not demand a huge sacrifice from the auto industry.
Green technology exists and green cars have already been proven on the market. Many manufacturers have already released green vehicles into the market such as electric cars, hybrids, and cars which run on alternative fuel other than the conventional fossil fuel.
But manufacturers can also increase fuel efficiency by making cars more compact in size and lighter in weight; changes that do not require the use of complex technology.
The article does not mention whether UNEP and other authors of the strategy will actively jump into the automobile industry to encourage executives into committing to the plan. Unfortunately non of the manufacturers present at the Geneva Auto Show that day agreed to participate in the 50 by 50 strategy.
But for an initiative like this to succeed it is crucial to bring in as many governments and manufacturers into the program. Even the best plan cannot succeed if it cannot be executed. UNEP needs to engage closely with both governments and manufacturers to join in on the effort.
One factor UNEP can stress to those reluctant to commit is that ultimately the initiative is a benefit to themselves. The world does not have an infinite supply of fossil fuel. And faced with rising oil prices consumers will naturally look to purchase cars efficient on fuel.
Even now with the economic crisis, with has been dubbed the worst since the Great Depression, has discouraged customers from purchasing new cars and the automobile is suffering from staggering sales. Possessing a car today has become a higher economic burden for owners, and people are reluctant to make such a long-term commitment in harsh times.
Fuel efficient vehicles can be the answer to these worries. Even though they may be more expensive to buy owners will be able to save money in the future. More people would be willing to purchase automobiles and companies will earn more in profit.
On an ending note I would also like to add that the 50 by 50 strategy is by no means radical or indeed sufficient in reversing the ecological problems attributable to the automobile industry. But if successful it will be an important stepping stone towards a better, cleaner future.
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UNEP, others present plan to boost fuel efficiency
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
GENEVA: The U.N. Environment Program and three other world bodies presented a plan on Wednesday for doubling fuel efficiency in automobiles by 2050, calling it a key test for an industry so closely linked to the problem of global warming.
The "50 by 50" strategy �standing for 50 percent less gasoline per mile or kilometer by 2050 �calls for companies to exploit existing technologies for better engines and drive trains, reduced weight and improved aerodynamics. Since the number of autos on roads worldwide is expected to triple by 2050, the plan would not actually cut carbon dioxide emissions from current levels, but in theory would stabilize them.
Still, it was not officially endorsed by any of the car manufacturers present at the Geneva Motor Show, where the plan was launched in a news conference featuring the heads of UNEP, the International Energy Agency, International Transport Forum and Formula-1 racing body FIA.
U.N. environment chief Achim Steiner described the challenge most forcefully, calling for a clean break with the "pipe dreams that some car companies have sold us for 10 or 20 years now while opposing any kind of fuel efficiency standards through government regulatory frameworks."
He said naysayers to the plan would be repeating old mistakes.
The auto industry, Steiner added, had a key role to play because it produces nearly a quarter of the carbon dioxide emissions that most of the world's scientific community say are a leading cause of global warming.
"This is a building block to make the transport sector part of the solution to the carbon problem," he said.
The agencies also put out an 18-page report that also offered governments a number of policy options from standards, fuel taxes and green incentives to help limit CO2 emissions from cars. Meeting the target would mean over 6 billion barrels of oil can be saved per year by 2050, a benefit of $600 billion at an assumed price of $100 per barrel, the report said.
Nobuo Tanaka, head of the Paris-based IEA, said new cars should aim to meet the benchmark by 2030. That would take nearly all older, dirtier autos of the road by 2050, since car generations are measured per 20 years. By that time, millions of cars are also likely to be running on electric power or other new technologies, making the overall goal even more realistic for companies and countries.
"We're not saying nobody can have a car," said Jack Short, head of the 51-nation transport forum. "The car has brought so much to people in terms of mobility and independence."
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International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/04/business/EU-Geneva-Auto-Show-Fuel-Efficiency.phpd
1. Jee H Choi
ReplyDelete2. CLOSING THE NET ON ILLEGAL FISHING
3. On the last class, I reached to a conclusion that equilibrium of the ecology system on oceans was somewhat changing because of 'the tragedy of the commons'(according to Ostrom's article.)
and to stay on the 'common issues' that degrade the environment, I chose an article about illegal fishing; unlicensed boats floating on the occean near the developing countries like West Africa have been controversial for over centuries. Only few attention, however, has been given so far. That fishery is a scarse resource in the long run, UN associations need clear-cut and coercive plans to prevent and reduce illegal vessels. And this is what concerns me most because most of the articles seem to focus on revealing how bad situations are and only try to alert readers(us) to open our eyes to a whole new world out there.
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5.
Illegal vessels rarely come into port in order to avoid detection
"The problem of illegal fishing is enormously widespread," observes Michael Lodge, an OECD fisheries expert.
"We have estimated the problem as being as much as 20% of the global catch."
Since 2000, the UN has been warning about the grave consequences of overfishing in the world's seas.
However, the impact of illegal fishing is adding to the strain on the already overexploited oceans.
The skippers of the illegal fishing boats tend to favour the waters of some of the poorest nations, which are often inadequately policed as a result of a lack of resources.
The Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of West Africa, is one of the most fertile fishing grounds in the world.
For centuries, the waters have supported generations of small coastal communities, but as the world's appetite for fish continues to grow, the rich fishing grounds have attracted the attention of illegal vessels.
Many developing nations do not have funds to police their waters
Almost half of the boats in the area are estimated to be operating outside the law.
Marine conservationist Helen Bours, who has been tracking illegal and unlicensed boats for more than 20 years, says that it is a hidden world of which very little is known.
"These vessels are at sea for years," she tells Television Trust for the Environment's (TVE) Earth Report programme on the BBC World News Channel.
"They transfer their fish on to other vessels, they get refuelled at sea; even the crews are changed at sea.
"So nobody sees what's happening, and there's nobody to go there and tell them to respect the rules. It's another world."
Fisheries experts from the UK government have attempted in recent years to assess the scale of the problem.
"In 2005, we commissioned a major study of the impact of illegal fishing on developing nations," said Tim Bostock, a fisheries advisor for the UK's Department for International Development.
"We were able to derive a total figure for the value of fish stolen from the world each year. This figure was of the order of US $9bn (£6.3bn).
Taking stock
Two inspectors from Guinea, during an expedition organised by Greenpeace and the Environmental Justice Foundation, headed out to sea with a list of the vessels authorised to fish the nation's waters.
Local fishermen say illegal fishing is threatening their way of life
From the air, a group of Chinese trawlers was spotted and after a quick check it was found that one of the vessels was not licensed.
"This vessel is under arrest for fishing without a licence in Guinean waters," explained Helen Bours.
"They never expect a surveillance patrol to come that far from shore because they know the Guinean authorities don't normally have the means to come out this far."
During the month-long expedition, about half of the 92 vessels spotted in the region were found to be fishing illegally.
Many of the unlicensed boats use huge weighted nets with a very fine mesh. These are scraped along the sea bed, scooping up everything in their path.
This method catches a very large amount of juvenile fish, wiping out the chance of these creatures reaching sexual maturity and spawning future generations to replenish the fish stocks.
Not only is the problem threatening the long-term economic opportunities for the region, it is depriving the population of a very valuable source of protein.
"It's stealing the fish, killing people and endangering the marine environment and the fish stocks; not just here but all over the world," said Ms Bours.
The precise figure for the number of vessels fishing illegally is unknown, but officials are worried that the size of the unlawful fishermen greatly exceeds most national fishing fleets.
"China is the largest fisher in the world, and the illegal fishers would come second," says Joe Borg, the EU fisheries commissioner.
"So we are speaking of fishing carried out legally by bodies like the EU, Chile and Peru being outranked by illegal fishing.
"We are speaking of a very, very big problem."
The Television Trust for the Environment's (TVE) Earth Report - Stolen Fish - will be broadcast on the BBC World News Channel on 20-25 February 2008. Please check schedules for further details
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7900431.stm
1. Daniel Cheng
ReplyDelete2. Battle Over Clean Air is Bound to Get Dirty
3. During the YouTube video from the last class, one line stuck out in my mind. That being, "every piece of plastic ever created still exists today." (The only exceptions being the ones that were incinerated). This was a shock to me, considering I am a very conscious person when it comes to recycling. Yet it made me question where the recycling actually goes. The article I chose to review for this week is one that takes a similar counter-stand point on what is going on in the environmental debates in America. I do like how progress is being noted, seeing as how the Bush administration set the world back in terms of environmental technology advancement. I hope that the battle for 'going green,' isn't just a fad that will create jobs, but actual progress will be made and not undone (i.e. electric car).
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AFTER EIGHT YEARS, our long-suffering air is already breathing easier. In just the first month of the Obama administration, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson began revisiting Bush administration policies that some scientists say have set us back more than a decade on global warming. A prime candidate for reversal is the agency's decision to turn down a California request to set tough emissions standards that would effectively create a vehicle fuel efficiency standard of 42 miles per gallon by 2020.
In addition, Obama's climate czar, Carol Browner, recently said that the EPA will soon finally announce whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contributing to global warming are officially a public danger requiring regulation under the Clean Air Act. There is little doubt the EPA will find that they are.
In Capitol Hill testimony two years ago, Browner foreshadowed the assertive tone of the new president by saying the EPA had the moral and legal authority to "protect the health of future generations." She said, "We have the science; the will has been summoned; the technology will come. Have no doubt: We can stop global warming. Anything less would be a felony against the future."
This was even before Obama's budget proposal to raise hundreds of billions of dollars by closing tax loopholes or imposing fees on the fossil fuel industry and polluters. These industries, of course, wail that this idea is a felony against profits. In an unprecedented war, industries are summoning lobbyists and lawyers to twist the arms of senators and representatives, trash the science, and thwart the will of the people.
The Center for Public Integrity, with data from the Center for Responsive Politics, published a report last week that found that 15 percent of all lobbyists on Capitol Hill now do some work on climate change, as more than 770 companies hired an estimated 2,430 lobbyists to deal with such legislation over the last five years. It is an increase of more than 300 percent. That is 4.5 lobbyists for every man and woman in Congress.
The fierce resistance is symbolized by William Kovacs, vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce. He told the Wall Street Journal that carbon dioxide regulation through the Clean Air Act "would completely shut the country down."
The resistance also comes in the fine print. In December, General Motors submitted a restructuring report that pledged an average car fleet fuel efficiency of 37.3 miles per gallon by 2012. But in a revision submitted to the Treasury two weeks ago, the company slid backward to 33.7 miles per gallon. It also downgraded its 2012 goal for trucks from 27.5 miles per gallon to 23.8.
If General Motors, on its knees for another $17 billion in bailout funds, remains this sneaky and arrogant, what will other fossil fuel-related companies do to delay regulation and destroy the future? It is another reason GM and Chrysler should not get another dime of taxpayer money until they get real. More broadly, it is a reason for Obama - as much as he is being stretched by the overall economic crisis - to signal he will not tolerate any more corporate shenanigans.
The first thing Obama should tell Gary Locke to do after Locke is confirmed as commerce secretary is tell the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers to send away the lobbyists and bring in the engineers to retool America. Obama should also hold a public event with Jackson and Browner at his side to tell the polluters that, just like Vice President Joe Biden, you don't mess with Lisa or Carol.
Obama has to make it absolutely clear to his environment officials that he will not abandon them, in contrast to the way Bush humiliated his first EPA administrator, Christine Todd-Whitman, openly trashing her agency's reports on climate change. Obama must officially declare that the trash talk of the Chamber of Commerce and the toxic dump of lobbyists for polluters have no place in his White House. The air did breathe easier on inauguration day. But with lobbyists outnumbering members of Congress more than 4 to 1, a choking smog is about to envelop Capitol Hill.
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http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/03/03/battle_over_clean_air_is_bound_to_get_dirty/
1.Shuang Bin (Sharon)
ReplyDelete2.The source of air pollution in Beijing and related issues
3.One of popular topics among my family and my friends is the air pollution in Beijing. We often discussed the very stuff that causes the smoggy Beijing. We reached agreement on following reasons.
a. Many factories here are producing tons of hazardous substance. As citizens in Beijing know, to develop industry in big cities, China government decided to build different types of factories in different cities. While in the past Beijing was supposed to be a city with Beijing ShouGang which produces steel materials, and automobile industry, and some chemical factories. Though most of those factories have been shut up and move to other places, toxic gray shroud still left in the air.
b. So many buildings are built in Beijing, and thus the dust of those construction site are always blew from place to place by the wind. People who have ever been Beijing might got deep impression that if you wash your car in the morning, after a day the care will be covered by ash. That means there are not only hazardous chemical substance in air but also dense ash.
c. I study in another city which is also heavily polluted, but our campus are mostly covered by trees. Hence we find the air in campus is really good. Therefore I think the low vegetation cover is another important reason why air in Beijing is so bad.
After reading the report, I find pollution is not only a campaign for only a city. First, the pollution in Beijing might be caused not only by industry in Beijing, but also other areas near Beijing. Second, Beijing is famous as being capital of China, thus it is the focus of media. But other areas are suffering similar problems, and thus people living there are also taking a high risk on their health. So moving factories from Beijing to other places is not the essential solution. People should still pay more attention to green industry. Also the article misses the point that though "The particles of air pollution form atmospheric clouds, visible by satellite, that reflect sunlight back into space" which helps to cool down the global warm, the industry itself produces more heat which causes the global warm.
However, China is still a developing country, and thus has little advanced technology on control pollution from industry. The government are supposed to spend more money on related research, however the price is not only the money spent by government but also implies those industry company should increase their cost in order to role as an environment friendly corporation. That is still a tough task for China.
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Beijing Smog Cleanup: Has It Worked?
Gold medals, athletic glory and national pride are all up for grabs at the 29th Summer Olympics in Beijing. But to Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego, the sporting events are just a sideshow to the real excitement: air-pollution studies.
To pre-empt complaints about Beijing's typically horrendous air pollution — the Chinese capital ranks among the world's most polluted urban areas — city officials embarked on a massive cleanup operation in the months and weeks leading up to the Games. Hundreds of dirty factories and power plants were closed down before the Olympics began, and authorities forced at least 2 million cars off the road. Chinese officials are interested in a cleaner Games, since high levels of pollution could be particularly damaging for endurance athletes like marathoners. But to researchers like Ramanathan, these are the Olympics of atmospheric science — scientists can see firsthand the regional effects of the most furious antipollution effort of all time. "The Chinese are performing a grandiose natural experiment," he says. "They've made Beijing a huge lab, and a bunch of us on the sideline are excited over what's unfolding."
So far, it might seem as if the Chinese plan has worked. The air has been remarkably clear in Beijing these days, despite the heavy pollution and the sapping heat and humidity during the opening ceremony and the first couple days of the Games. The first day of the track-and-field events, Aug. 15 — when athletes would have been most affected by air pollution — featured a brochure-worthy blue sky. "The recent days have had very good air conditions indeed," said International Olympic Committee medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist. Aside from a cycling road race on Aug. 9, which saw more than one-third of the competitors drop out because of the heat, humidity and pollution, few athletes have complained about the air.
But scientists who have long studied Beijing's weather patterns say the blue skies have less to do with the city's $17 billion antipollution programs than with simple meteorology. Kenneth Rahn, a professor emeritus of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, points out that much of the pollution we see in Beijing is actually brought in on winds, originating in a belt of heavy, dirty industry to the south — plants and factories that have not been turned off during the Games. He estimates that during the city's dirtiest days, about 75% of the pollution would be coming from outside the capital, meaning that, at best, the measures taken by Beijing officials might impact 25% of the pollution overall. "It's really hard to reduce that further," says Rahn. "It's not that the antipollution measures did nothing, but [their effect] is a lot smaller than city fathers would like to admit — possibly so small we can't detect the difference."
Minute differences may be what distinguish gold medalists from mere contenders at the Olympics, but it doesn't quite work the same way with air quality. So Ramanathan, one of the foremost atmospheric scientists in the world, is using Beijing to better understand pollution on a massive scale. Ramanathan and his team are launching a series of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from South Korea, which will measure the plumes of pollution that rise from the Beijing area and are carried westward. Another UAV will operate in California to determine how much of China's pollution — and which pollutants — make it across the Pacific. "The pollution plumes can be as high as 2 km to 3 km, which has a huge impact," says Ramanathan. "Up at that height, they can travel across the Pacific in three to four days."
In addition to measuring individual pollutants within the plume, Ramanathan's UAVs will use onboard photonic instruments to measure the contributions of various aerosols to atmospheric warming. Here's the surprising thing about the noxious smog that hangs over much of China: it may poison the air, but it also actually offsets global warming. The particles of air pollution form atmospheric clouds, visible by satellite, that reflect sunlight back into space. It's not clear exactly how much the aerosols cool the planet — that's what Ramanathan is trying to figure out — but he believes that without such pollution, Earth might be considerably warmer today.
That means that as developing nations like China clean up their conventional air pollution — as the world is seeing now in Beijing — it could paradoxically release one of the last restraints on global warming. "How large and how rapid global warming is going to be over the next few decades may depend on how fast we unmask the pollution," says Ramanathan. "That's the uncertainty we're trying to narrow down." It's a scary thought: in making our air cleaner, we could be making the planet warmer.
In polluted Beijing, however, such cleanups can and should continue, to make the air clearer not just for Olympians but also for the 17 million people who live there year-round. And if the weather patterns change and the air darkens with smog again before the end of the Olympics, Beijing officials shouldn't bear too much of the blame. Though the spectacle of the Games can make it hard to forget, China is still a developing country, with a developing country's problems — pollution included. "They're trying to squeeze in over the last few weeks a job that should take 30 to 40 years," says Rahn. "No one should be surprised if it doesn't work."
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http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1833371,00.html
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. Guirang Choi
ReplyDelete2. Salt solution: Cheap power from the river's mouth
3.
There is an simple idea long times ago. It could be disapear to the air with tapped. But somebody hung in there and keep improving, doubting, fixing and reversing, till it can be practise in reallity.
It is very impressive whenever i find that there's certain people have enthusiasm of environmental solution- While most time I live without concerning this worlds getting lose the resources.
I credit the bright side of the progress those believers have been and whould be acheive. Maybe there's no perfact conception, ideal system. As I doubt about this salt solution idea won't harm anenvironment at all- if the water salinated, some species whould get rid of the water. That will change the food chain and ecosystem which is very big finally.-
But still, I think this effort is much more worth than do nothing, we can keep fixing and doing somthing to see the environmental pay off gradually. I hope this plant keep detected by goverment and society. Finding the substitude and improving it is happening and for sure it doen't just pop out solitarily, This is the result of fantastic collaboration with lab and supports.
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STAND on the banks of the Rhine where it flows into the North Sea, near the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and you'll witness a vast, untapped source of energy swirling in the estuary. According to Dutch engineer Joost Veerman, it's possible to tap this energy without damaging the environment or disrupting the river's busy shipping. For rather than constructing a huge barrage or dotting the river bed with turbines, Veerman and his colleagues at Wetsus, the Dutch Centre for Sustainable Water Technology in Leeuwarden, believe they can tap energy locked up in the North Sea's saltwater by channelling it, along with fresh water from the Rhine, into a novel kind of battery. With a large enough array of these batteries, he says, the estuary could easily provide over a gigawatt of electricity by a process they've called Blue Energy - enough to supply about 650,000 homes.
"Salinity power" exploits the chemical differences between salt and fresh water, and this project only hints at the technology's potential: from the mouth of the Ganges to the Mississippi delta, almost every large estuary could produce a constant flow of green electricity, day and night, rain or shine, without damaging sensitive ecosystems or threatening fisheries (see map). One estimate has it that salinity power could eventually become a serious power player, supplying as much as 7 per cent of today's global energy needs.
In an attempt to prove that this isn't just a pipe dream, Veerman's team has done lab tests on a prototype salinity power generator, and are now planning to scale it up. Yet a group of Norwegian engineers have gone one stage further, with their own twist on salinity power.
In the next few months, engineers at Norwegian power company Statkraft plan to throw the switch on the world's first salinity power station. Though their prototype is small, its impact could be huge. So what are these rival technologies, how do they stack up, and what are the obstacles to making electricity wherever rivers meet the sea?
Salinity power emerged from a rather different use for sea water. In the late 1950s, Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan, then working at the University of California, Los Angeles, came up with a new trick to extract drinking water from the sea. Their idea was based on osmosis, a natural process in which water passes spontaneously from a dilute to a concentrated solution through a semipermeable membrane. The pair realised that by using a synthetic membrane and high pressure pumps, they could run osmosis in reverse and literally squeeze fresh water from sea water. This approach is now used in desalination plants worldwide.
About 15 years later, Loeb had another brain wave. He realised that their design could be exploited to generate power. Working at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Beer Sheva, Israel, he envisaged a tank with two chambers separated by a semipermeable membrane. With saltwater on one side and fresh on the other, osmosis would draw fresh water into the salty side, raising its pressure. This pressurised saltwater could then be piped through a turbine to generate electricity (see diagram). Loeb named this process pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) and patented it in 1973.
His plan was to harvest power where rivers meet the ocean, close to the point where fresh water meets salt. Fresh water would be piped to a generating plant from upstream and saltwater from downstream. Inside the plant, the fresh and saltwater would be channelled along either side of a membrane. Osmosis would then provide sufficient water pressure on the salty side of the membrane - up to 12 atmospheres, Loeb reckoned - to make electricity generation profitable.
The key lay in finding the right membrane. It would have to be permeable to water but not salt, and very thin yet extremely durable. This proved too tall an order and Loeb retired in 1986, his dream unrealised.
The concept was revived in 1997, when Thor Thorsen and Torleif Holt, working in Trondheim at the Norwegian research organisation SINTEF, became convinced that membrane technology was finally advanced enough to make Loeb's idea feasible. With their enthusiasm, and detailed calculations, they convinced Statkraft that salinity power could pay off in Norway. Using a design much like Loeb's original, they now believe they are close to their goal.
Membrane development remains the biggest headache, says Stein Erik Skilhagen, manager of the PRO project at Statkraft. Unfortunately, membranes used in desalination plants are too thick, he says, and cannot draw enough water through. So Statkraft's engineers have been working with membrane developers to improve designs. While their first membranes generated about 100 milliwatts per square metre, the latest version generates over 3 watts per square metre, close to their target of 5 watts.
Skilhagen reckons these membranes are now efficient enough to be worth testing beyond the lab, and in the next few months the company plans to turn on the world's first prototype PRO plant at the Södra Cell paper pulp factory in Tofte, alongside a fjord 60 kilometres from Oslo.
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7. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126972.000-salt-solution-cheap-power-from-the-rivers-mouth.html