Hot Air_Credibility By the Numbers

Lisa K. Williams editor of Envronmental Protection Webzine picked up a few "Without Hot Air" crackers in her article: "Credibility By the Numbers", which I am sure will help Prof David MacKAY to continue feeding anecdotes for the Environmental and Renewable energy themes themes of his freely available book of the same name, "Without Hot Air." David of course brings great credibility to his approach, numbers and graphs.

Background
"Many news outlets on Aug. 5 picked up the Department of Energy (DOE) release noting that the third analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 agreed that the costs to consumers will be low—about 23 cents a day. The statement said: "The EIA analysis projects an increased cost of about $83 (adjusted for inflation) by 2030 — or roughly 23 cents a day." (Is that $83 more dollars or roughly 23 cents a day on top of what I pay now?)

Lisa took a closer look at the figures, hiden in page42. and and what about the admin jargon? Again!

"Consumption losses? Oh, that means consumer spending, Jonatan Cogan the DOE spoesman explained.

Continuing her search for the truth:

"Alan Beamon, director of the Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting's Coal and Electric Power Division. This is the office that developed the report. I asked Beamon about the 23 cents. Here's his response: "The quote you cite … did not come from EIA and is not in our report.

That old adage "Lies, damned lies and statistics". Serious mathematians and statistitians must turn in their grave.


More ... read Lisa's full article

Reference:
David Mackay's Book, Without Hot Air

Is trash the solution to tackling climate change? or Where there's muck there's money?

"Where there's muck there's money" is an old adage in the UK.

Could the following report "Could trash be solution to tackling climate change?" be another twist to the the money game?

Quote:
"SINGAPORE -- September 2009 -- Converting the trash that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%."

The team used the United Nation's Human Development Index to estimate the generation of waste in 173 countries. This data was then coupled to the Earthtrends database to estimate the amount of gasoline consumed in those same countries.

The team found that 82.93 billion litres of cellulosic ethanol could be produced from the world's landfill waste and that by substituting gasoline with the resulting biofuel, global carbon emissions could be cut by figures ranging from 29.2% to 86.1% for every unit of energy produced.

"If this technology continues to improve and mature these numbers are certain to increase," concluded co-author Dr. Lian Pin Koh from ETH Zürich. "This could make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future."

COMMENT STARTER:

How can burning gas for transportation reduce CO2 emissions substantially?
Lets get down to some of our own calculations.
Remember only every Big counts says Prof.David Mackay in Without Hot Air> not every little bit! (30 to 80% reductions) Is it 30% or is it 80% reduction.

Then waste must be disposed of in a healthy manner, and energy must be captured. Current manovers in such energy, water and waste management (EDF and Veolia here in France) may give a hint to likely directions in environmental interests, to the tune of 4_5 Million Euros in only one PDG's salary, that's strategic thinking. Will the planet and her citizens be better-off or "Debter-off?

More in (and from)
1. ScienceBlog

2. PHYSORG
September 29th, 2009

"Converting the trash that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%."

3. Biofuels from urban waste

4. World of Renewables

My Twitter Presence and How to Create your own twitter logo.

After a fairly long trial period, readers will be able to follow all my blog posts with more leads via twitter hence the inclusion and addition of Twitter to my social network and "neighbourhood".

More of my bookmarks may be found on Del.ici.ous. I shall maintain Delicious bookmark as far as possible...time willing.

Create your own twitter logo

List of Embodied Energy and CO2 equivalents for a wide range of materials. Short introduction and illustrative graphs.

Embodied Energy and CO2 equivalent are respectively two very important concepts which, when taken into account, allow intelligent, sustainable development-environmental protection decisions to be taken. Importantly for practice, these are quantifiable.

-Embodied Energy: MJ/Kg-mega joules of energy used in processing per kilogramme of material product.
-CO2 equivalent: (Kg) estimated or measured throughout processing.

Here is a link to an extensive list of diverse materials, composites, laminates etc established by the Inst. of Mechanical Engineers UK, for use in student education via the formula student race initiative category Class 1A (sustainable).

The Formula Student is a regular attraction both for our students in my old University in Glasgow Strathclyde and my new neighbours and their young school ISAT-Institut Superieur de L'Automobile et des Transports here in Nevers. Strath Alumi news in Spring proudly featured a "last word article on two recently graduated students now employed by McLaren Racing team. While congratulating them and the schools involved, I believe the most lasting educational value for all involved in the racing project will derive from the "project building and sponsorship-seeking financial support aspects as well as the ability to shoulder a huge work load since involvement is of a voluntary nature-the power of motivation.

In writing this I hope to dispel any over harsh treatment I reserve for all things Bling and Pie in the sky - I trust I read the Univ. motto "A place of useful learning" correctly and in an acceptable sufficiently wide sense.

Undoubtedly cutting edge engineering helps drive creativity, great invention and innovation, I trust eventually for the public use and more and more in the global context.

For those seeking information on both concepts embodied energy and CO2 equivalents these are more extensively documented by the building and architectural industry




not to mention the highly specialised Cambridge materials engineering people whose computer materials selector deals with both concepts in their "Green Eco selector extensions available from
Granta Design Ltd. Direct link CES Eco Selector eg. cf. graph below



It is to be expected that the packaging industry and the learned materials institutes will show an increased interest in these subjects/

Innocentive Challenges in the field of Corrosion_Link

Innocentive Challenges in the field of Corrosion
LINK

Some facts on waste - innovation required!

Some Facts from Trendinfluence's Insight Blog:

-Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!

-Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!

-Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.

-Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups every year.

-In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills.

-Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.

-According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons.

-It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water. That’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.

-Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.

-In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.

-Plastic bottles can take up to 1000 years before they begin to decompose once buried.

-If everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. One month on the same plan would save 112 million bottles, and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.

-For every ton of paper recycled, we save 4,100 kilowatts of electricity for three hours. [12.300KWh saved]

- Half of all polyester carpet made in the United States is made from

recycled plastic (PET) and

- Aluminum cans produced in the United States can contain at least 50% recycled content.

Source
Industrial Designer gets a Shock

ebook _3rd World Industrial and Sustainable Development_A metallurgist replies to the D.Thomas Memorial Prize 1999.

3rd World Industrial and Sustainable Development

Systems approach to 3rd World development, esp Industrial, Social and Environmental Development.

The prize honours the Financial Times journalist who's interested by the above themes.

Link:
Submitted for the FT_ D.thomas Memorial Prize -3rd World Industrial Development