www.bytr.nl

In the Jan van Lieshoutstraat in Eindhoven (NL) – a mainly pedestrian street adjacent to a shopping mall – BYTR suggested that public space be cleared of lampposts and small planters, which were forming obstacles. The design – called the GREENSPOTLIGHT – combines these two elements, greenery and street lighting, into one integrated design: a special green public light where living plants form the shade. In the bottom of the shade, a ring of integrated planters are situated. The lights are hung from cables between the street walls. This low-key intervention raised the quality of the street from a back alley to a shopping street.

The project is part of a larger commission called ‘Greenspots Eindhoven’ in which Eindhoven municipal council has asked BYTR to look for opportunities to realise green projects in the city centre. While statistics show Eindhoven to be one of the greenest cities in the Netherlands, this is not particularly apparent walking through the city centre, which was principally built after the Second World War and comprises mainly large-scale concrete structures. In the coming years, the city will develop a series of projects in which greenery is the key element, thus trying to upgrade biodiversity in the city at the same time.

<Click on link for pictures>

reefvideo.net

coralsforconservation.com

Coral Gardening from Jonathan Clay on Vimeo.

Many reef aquarium owners get their corals by trading them with nearby reefkeepers. Once corals get to a certain size it’s pretty easy to propagate (or frag) them by cutting off a branch here or a a few polyps there. It’s usually cheaper and easier than buying from a local dealer and the corals tend to do much better in the long run, because they haven’t gone through so much shipping stress. It’s also a good way to “insure” your corals because if anything ever happens to a coral you in your aquarium, you can just go back to your friend and ask him to cut you off a piece of the coral you gave him. The hobby has begun to depend on tank raised corals so much that many places that sell corals are beginning to change their stock to include more corals that are grown inside aquariums.

In this video by Jonathon Clay, locals and resort owners who live around large reefs are propagating corals in a similar fashion as reef hobbyists. A group called Corals for Conservation teaches people to preserve declining reefs and fish populations by coral gardening. The idea is that by preserving and regrowing reefs, fish will come back to the area and help replenish areas that have been over-fished.

The methods they use are very similar to that of the common aquarium keeper. The main difference is that it is on a larger scale and they use the ocean as their aquarium. It is a genius idea, promotes conservation, educates, creates jobs and supports the local community. Hopefully we will see more of these projects popping up throughout the world.

This is a sequence from the film “Fragile Paradise“, part of the BBC’s documentary series “South Pacific.“

CleanEdge

Despite growing economic uncertainty over the last year, the three major clean-energy sectors — solar photovoltaics (PV), wind power, and biofuels — kept up a blistering growth rate, increasing 53 percent from $75.8 billion in 2007 to $115.9 billion in revenues in 2008, according to the Clean Energy Trends 2009 report released today by Clean Edge, Inc. By 2018, Clean Edge forecasts that these three sectors will have revenues of $325.1 billion.

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Global production and wholesale pricing of biofuels reached $34.8 billion in 2008 and are projected to total $105.4 billion by 2018. Last year, the global biofuels market consisted of more than 19 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel production worldwide, and in Brazil, ethanol surpassed petroleum use for the first time.

Wind power became the first clean-energy sector to surpass the $50 billion mark. Its $51.4 billion in worldwide revenue in 2008 is expected to grow to $139.1 billion in 2018. Last year’s global wind power installations reached a record 27,000 MW, including more than 8,000 MW in the U.S., pushing the U.S. ahead of Germany as the world’s leading generator of wind energy.

Solar PV (including modules, system components, and installation) totaled $29.6 billion last year and will reach $80.6 billion globally by 2018. Annual solar PV installations reached more than 4 GW worldwide in 2008, a fourfold increase from four years earlier, when the solar PV market reached the gigawatt milestone for the first time.

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Clean Energy Trends 2009 also outlines five trends poised to make an impact on the markets in the coming year. It describes:

What happens when the smart grid goes online
How energy storage will become a key issue for utilities
Where new clean-energy markets are emerging around the world
Why grid transmission capacity will be making headlines in 2009
The unseen growth in “micropower” grids

“The clean-energy sector, like the broader economy, faces many challenges,” said Clean Edge co-founder and managing director Ron Pernick. “But while 2009 will be a difficult year, we believe that clean energy will play a central role in any global economic recovery.”

cnet

Google now wants to organize your home’s energy information.

The search giant on Tuesday muscled into the burgeoning smart-grid software business, showing off a prototype Web application that displays home energy consumption broken down by appliance. The software uses so-called smart meters, which can communicate home energy consumption back to utilities every few minutes.

The driving idea behind the Google PowerMeter iGoogle gadget–and nearly all smart-grid companies–is that giving consumers access to more detailed home energy data will lead to lower usage. There are dozens of smart-grid trial programs now going on, offered through utilities.

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Google cites figures showing that regularly viewing real-time energy use will prod people to cut electricity by 5 percent to 15 percent on average through behavioral changes. The product is now in private beta.

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Through its Google.org philanthropic arm, the company has invested in a number of renewable energy firms, as part of an effort to make renewable energy cheaper than coal-powered electricity. It has installed a large solar array at its company headquarters and is testing a fleet of plug-in electric cars.

In the smart-grid arena, Google is taking a more overtly commercial position by introducing its own product. To gain broader acceptance for PowerMeter, it is creating a partnership program for hardware manufacturers, utilities, and government agencies. A company that makes a smart meter or in-home display for energy usage could, for example, make its information available in an Google gadget format or build a specialized application using PowerMeter.

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For a hint on where Google might go next, one could look at demand response software, which gives utilities the ability to remotely control home appliances with a consumer’s consent and ability to override. Google joined an industry association called the Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition in November.

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Google’s effort to influence smart-grid policy reflects the potential disruption that energy-efficiency regulations and smart-grid products pose to utilities.

Incentives for smart-grid deployments–the Obama administration has set a target of bringing smart meters to 40 million homes over the next three years–are a big part of the stimulus package being considered by Congress, with as an early draft offering $11 billion for research.

Yet many utilities are lukewarm or unenthusiastic about smart-grid technology. That’s because utility regulations are traditionally structured around making investments to build new power plants and selling more electricity, not energy efficiency, said Roy Ellis, who focuses on energy, utilities, and chemicals regulatory relations at consulting firm Capgemini.

“Today, the vast majority of utilities are serious about carbon reduction. But once you say that, the business case still has to work for them to operate their business,” Ellis said. “The business case starts to bump up against shareholder value.”

thefuelfilm.com

Oscar contender FUEL is an insightful portrait of America’s addiction to oil and an uplifting testament to the immediacy of new energy solutions. Director, Josh Tickell, a young activist, shuttles us on a whirlwind journey to track the rising domination of the petrochemical industry—from Rockefeller’s strategy to halt Ford’s first ethanol cars to Vice President Cheney’s petrochemical company sponsored energy legislation — and reveals a gamut of available solutions to “repower America” —from vertical farms that occupy skyscrapers to algae facilities that turn wastewater into fuel. Tickell and a surprising array of environmentalists, policy makers, and entertainment notables take us through America’s complicated, often ignominious energy past and illuminate a hopeful, achievable future, where decentralized, sustainable living is not only possible, it’s imperative.

The film won the following awards:
• Sundance Film Festival: Audience Award for Best Documentary
• Sedona Film Festival: Best Screenwriting
• Sedona Film Festival: Most Compelling Documentary
• AFI Dallas Film Festival: Current Energy Environmental Award
• GAIA Film Festival: Audience Award for Best Documentary
• Santa Cruz Film Festival: Producer’s Award
• IVCA Clarion Award: for Corporate Social Responsibility
• Cinema for Peace Award: Berlin Film Festival

reuters

Elephant seals swimming under Antarctic ice and fitted with special sensors are providing scientists with crucial data on ice formation, ocean currents and climate change, a study released on Tuesday said.

The seals swimming under winter sea ice have overcome a “blind-spot” for scientists by allowing them to calculate how fast sea ice forms during winter.

Sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, so less sea ice means more energy is absorbed by the earth, causing more warming.

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Conventional oceanographic monitoring from ships, satellites and drifting buoys, cannot provide observations under sea ice.

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The elephant seals have provided scientists with a 30-fold increase in data recorded in parts of the Southern Ocean, said the study by a team of French, Australian, U.S. and British scientists and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Between 2004 and 2005, the seals swam up to 65 kilometers (40 miles) a day, supplying scientists with 16,500 ice profiles. The seals dived to a depth of more than 500 meters (1,500 feet) on average and to a maximum depth of nearly 2 km (a mile).

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The experiment involved 85 seals with sensors attached to their heads.

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The polar regions play an important role in the earth’s climate and are changing more rapidly than any other part of the world, with the Southern Ocean warming more rapidly than the global ocean average.

Sea ice not only affects the amount of energy reflected back into space, but also the amount of dense water around the Antarctic which drives ocean currents that transports heat around the globe.

Sea ice also provides a critical habitat for krill, penguins and seals.

An elephant seal is seen with a special sensor fitted to its head in South Georgia in this undated photo released on August 12, 2008 by the Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

REUTERS

International Herald Tribune

The nation’s mayors voted Monday against spending taxpayer money to buy bottled water, a blow to the beverage industry that has enjoyed growing profit from water sales in recent years.

A majority of about 250 mayors at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Miami voted to phase out regular use of bottled water for its employees and functions. One example is that attendees of city council meetings around the country could more often see pitchers of water instead of clear plastic bottles on the tables of local legislators.

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The nonbinding vote is the latest salvo against an industry that includes PepsiCo Inc.’s Aquafina, The Coca-Cola Co.’s Dasani and Nestle Waters North America’s many brands, which included Poland Spring and Deer Park.

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Corporate Accountability International said in a statement that cities spend about $70 million a year to dispose of plastic water bottles. The group’s Gigi Kellett said, “It’s just plain common sense for cities to stop padding the bottled water industry’s bottom line at taxpayer expense.”

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Leading up to the vote, more than 60 mayors around the country had taken some measures to reduce or eliminate bottled water use, Corporate Accountability said. Most recently, the cities of San Jose, Calif., Miami and Orlando, Fla., decided to phase out bottled water.

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Critics of bottled water point to the energy wasted in production of plastic bottles and the shipping process. Bottled water consumption has been growing at double-digit rates. The mayor’s resolution claims the industry is already $15 billion in size.

Bottled water became popular as consumers sought convenient yet healthier alternatives to sodas. Environmentalists and now mayors, who want to protect the reputation of tap water that comes from municipal water systems, have pushed back.

The mayors recognize the importance of bottled water during emergencies when tap water is not feasible, the resolution said.

yahoo news

Singapore is known for its greenery but it may soon be recognised for its blue — as in blue water.

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Recently finished after about three years of construction, the 240-million Singapore dollar (176 million US) Marina Barrage will create a new source of precious water in a city-state with almost no natural resources of its own.

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Below the bridge are nine steel gates that act as a tidal barrier, the developers said. The gates are activated by giant black cylinders that look like cannons.

On one side of the bridge, sun glints off the rippling greenish sea filled with ships. On the other side, the still water is brownish against a backdrop of Singapore’s business district.

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PUB officials say rainwater will eventually flush out that sea water. Probably by early 2010, they say, the flushing will have created a freshwater lake for drinking and recreational use on the edge of the city’s commercial heart and a burgeoning tourist and entertainment district.

Yap said the type of fish in the water will change along with the water. “There will be a different biodiversity,” he said.

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The barrage itself is completed but final work continues on a visitors’ centre.

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During heavy rain, the barrage’s steel gates can be opened to release storm water into the sea at low tide, the PUB says.

At high tide, seven pumps inside a spacious and bright building at one end of the barrage will send the excess storm water into the sea, helping to ease the threat of flooding in older, low-lying parts of the city.

During a test of the flood gates, water pours into the sea, making it look like a wide stretch of frothy rapids.

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Water from Marina Reservoir and others in the city is one of four sources of Singapore’s water. Some is imported from Malaysia, some comes from a desalination plant, and the rest is known as NEWater. The NEWater starts as treated sewage, which is reclaimed and further purified. Most of it goes to industrial and commercial users, PUB says.

For Singapore, the Marina Barrage project marks the culmination of a cleanup effort that began about two decades ago when working barges still plied and polluted the main Singapore River.

Now, tiny fish dart about in city river water, which is visited at times by long-necked white birds.

But the water is certainly not blue. After heavy rain the rivers become a soupy olive-brown and filled with vegetation, discarded plastic drink bottles and other garbage.

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Clean-up crews in small boats patrol the water system but the PUB is counting on the public to play their part in keeping their aquatic playground and drinking fountain clean.

“We want them to understand that water should be something that you cherish,” Yap said.

Eventually, he said, they hope the water will be blue.

The Marina Barrage is seen under construction in Singapore, in April. Recently finished after about three years of construction, the 240-million Singapore dollar (176 million USD) Marina Barrage will create a new source of precious water in a city-state with almost no natural resources of its own.

(AFP/File/Roslan Rahman)

dailybreeze.com

It’s an everyday conundrum, a question we’re all asked once, twice, maybe several times a week:

“Paper or plastic?”

How about, “Neither, I’ve got my own”?

Turns out what was once the token accouterment of a Birkenstock-wearing few has become the latest fashion accessory.

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Cobb’s site, which has been around since 2003, sells more than 150 different kinds of reusable grocery bags, because studies have shown both paper and plastic take their toll on the environment.

Paper bags, for instance, often thought to be the “right” choice, actually require 40 percent more energy to manufacture than plastic bags, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; they also require 91 percent more energy to recycle, pound for pound.As for plastic bags, 500 billion to 1 trillion are consumed annually worldwide. Consequently, they rank as one of the 10 most common trash items along the American coast and pose serious health hazards to sea animals who accidentally ingest them, mistaking them for jellyfish.

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Last year, the city of San Francisco banned nonbiodegradable plastic bags from being distributed at all large supermarkets, as well as smaller chain stores (including Rite Aid and Longs). The stores can now only offer recyclable paper bags, reusable bags or compostable “bio-plastic” bags made of cornstarch or potato starch.

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“We don’t think bans are the right approach,” said Keith Christman, senior director of packaging for the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council, an organization representing plastic-bag manufacturers. “Bans will result in a switch to alternative materials; the likely switch is to paper. If you switch to paper, it doubles energy use, doubles greenhouse gas emissions and water use.”

Furthermore, he said, surveys have shown that 92 percent of Americans reuse their plastic bags as trash can liners, lunch bags and for pet waste pickup – which saves new bags from being made for those purposes.

But Cobb maintains that the problem isn’t using disposable bags; it’s wasting them.

“It doesn’t matter that it’s paper or plastic; it matters that you use it and you toss it,” Cobb said. “The problem is the mindless overconsumption of use-and-toss items.”

The fashion world is on his side. In the past couple of years, reusable shopping bags have earned a celebrity chic status.

British designer Anya Hindmarch’s “I’m Not A Plastic Bag” unbleached cotton bag, for instance, sold out on the day of its release last year, with some shoppers lining up as early as 4 a.m. to get their hands on the $15 tote.

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If you don’t mind shelling out $960, Hermes has its Silky Pop grocery bag made of hand-wrought silk. The bag collapses into a wallet-size calfskin pouch.

Other designer shopping bags include Castiglioni’s foldable nylon bag, which retails for $843, and Stella McCartney’s organic canvas shopper, $495.

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Trader Joe’s sells a variety of reusable bags for less than $3. Upping the incentive to reuse: Customers who use any reusable grocery bag at Trader Joe’s can enter the store’s monthly lottery to win $50 worth of free groceries.

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Some bags have double do-gooding incentives.

The West Los Angeles clothing boutique Intuition (www.shopintuiton.com) donates $35 from the sale of every $85-$100 Market bag to the International Rescue Committee.

And, proceeds from the natural burlap and canvas FEED (The Children of the World) bag, designed by presidential niece Lauren Bush, benefit the U.N.’s World Food Program.

“We tried to make it a dual purpose in helping the kids who are hungry and also using fewer plastic bags,” said Ellen Gustafson, Bush’s partner in FEED Projects. “If we sell 500,000 bags, we’ll be able to feed all the kids in Rwanda’s school feeding program in 2008.”

And really: You can’t get that with a disposable bag.

Variety of reusable market bags at Whole Foods Market in El Segundo. (Brad Graverson/Staff Photographer)

Kansas State University

Research by two Kansas State University scientists could help with the large-scale cultivation and manufacturing of oil-rich algae in oceans for biofuel.

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Algae are a diverse and simple group of organisms that live in or near water. Certain algal species are high in oil content that could be converted into such fuels as biodiesel, according to Pei and Yuan. Algae also have several environmentally-friendly advantages over corn or other plants used for biofuels, including not needing soil or fresh water to grow.

Pei and Yuan plan to identify attributes of algae and properties of materials that enable growth of certain algae species on solid carriers. Solid carriers float on the water surface for algae to attach to and grow on.

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Yuan, who has studied biodiesel for several years, said the major problem with making the fuel has been finding sustainable oil and fat sources.

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Pei said the project also will have an educational benefit, with K-State College of Engineering graduate and undergraduate students to be involved in the multidisciplinary research.

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