Let’s talk about environment and green technology

Let’s talk about environment and green technology

 

Environment is a hot topic now. World leaders are meeting to discuss this issue, as if we are facing some sort of global crisis. How much do we really understand about environment? Is Al Gore telling the truth, or he is spreading his propaganda when he made the film An Inconvenient Truth? Should we trust conventional wisdom? What can we do to improve the environment? These are the issues that we should talk about.

 

Conventional wisdom tells us that we are facing a problem called global warming, which is caused by green house gasses trapping the heat in our atmosphere. Although the amount of CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere, there is no solid evidence indicating that CO2 is the main cause of global warming. Our earth goes through cycles of global warming and cooling. It is a normal process. Without global warming, our world would still be in ice age, and human civilization will not be the same as today. It is hard to tell whether greenhouse gas is as deadly as people claim to be.

 

Although we should be skeptical towards conventional wisdom, we should also be careful with those who shout against it. Some large companies try their best to deny global warming and pollution, deploying scientists to support their stand or refute scientists who are against them, because they want to protect their own interest. According to Bill Bryson, these companies have been refuting the claim that leaded petrol is harmful to the environment. One moment, scientists say it is harmful, the next, they say it is harmless. Which one is the truth? Today a human body contains 600 times more lead than centuries ago.

 

We are fed with information regarding environment from many parties. People respond to incentive, and everyone has their one interest and agenda, so different entities will preach their own information to benefit themselves. My point is that we should not accept information blindly, and we should think rationally for the long term benefit of the world, as pointed out by my reader, Sihan.

 

The hardcore environmentalists are saying that global warming is killing many species of organism. Some of the sea corals are temperature sensitive. When the water temperature rises by a few degrees Celsius, their colors will fade, and then they will die later. Actually this is a natural event. In nature, the fittest will survive. Those that cannot adapt to survive will go extinct. Many creatures have gone extinct in a period of millions of years. KT event and super volcano have wiped off many organisms on earth, and things start anew.

 

Since it is natural for those who cannot adapt to survive to go extinct, how come environmentalists can infuse fear into us that we should prevent natural extinction? It is because we are not seeing the situation objectively. We judge nature based on human moral standard. We want to preserve these creatures as we have fear of death (and we love to play super hero). With this fear, the public is manipulated by these environmentalists. Instead of doing pointless things, we should solve more critical problems. Many animals are deforming and mutating. We have mutated frogs due to chemical pollution. This problem is not natural and man-made, and needs urgent attention. Another problem is illegal hunting. Some animals become endangered in unnatural means, and it should be stopped.

 

Many people are not well learned about environmental issues, and tend to see things in a very simplistic manner. They might think we should shut down all nuclear power plants and coal energy plants and go green. Talking is easy.

 

In terms of generating energy, there is no perfect solution. Every kind of energy source has its own weaknesses, which give economists, engineers, politicians etc. a lot of headache. Hydroelectric dam is criticized for the destruction of forest and releasing large amount of methane (a type of powerful greenhouse gas); People have fear for the melt down of nuclear power plant and its radioactive waste is dangerous; Wind energy fails to cover energy demand, is expensive to build and is not suitable for all kinds of weather; Solar energy is green, but is very expensive and low in efficiency; Coal power plant releases a lot of CO2. The story goes on.

 

Some people say that Malaysia is a tropical country with a lot of sun light. Therefore, solar energy should be implemented. Do you know that the basic installation for a home solar energy system costs about 36000 USD? Even that is without battery system, and you cannot light your home at night, but you can heat up your bath water in the afternoon. Photovoltaic solar panel is very expensive, and most developing countries cannot afford it. What about wind energy? Unfortunate, the weather in Malaysia might not be suitable for it. We need stronger wind like in countries such as Denmark. These green technologies are very difficult to be implemented in Malaysia.

 

Energy comes in two aspects. We generate energy (input), and we consume it (output). Besides solving the problem of energy source, we need to find ways to use the energy wisely. Human beings are over consuming natural resources, including energy, which will strain the earth and create problems. We need to reduce our overall consumption to preserve the environment. For energy consumption, we can use energy efficient tools in daily life, such as LED light. We should save energy as much as possible and avoid wastage.

 

If you are rich enough and love the environment, maybe you can consider going off the grid, which means being independent from the main power source and generate your own clean energy. For this I recommend you to watch the show Off The Grid With Les Stroud, produced by Les Stroud the Survivorman. I think the video is still available on YouTube. You can learn a lot from it.

 

What do you think of hybrid car? It uses more than one source of energy, such as oil, electricity, and possibly hydrogen fuel. In my opinion, hybrid car is a problem itself, not a solution, even though it emits less pollutant than normal cars. It is just like a 100 dollar shirt with 50% discount. When you buy it, you are not saving 50 dollar, but spending 50 dollars. Even if hybrid car pollutes less, it still pollutes. It can only lessen the severity of the problem, but it is not a solution. It is better to travel short distance daily, on foot or by bike. I strongly believe that it is possible to do so, although it is very hard for those who are severely dependant on car driving.

 

Our environment is badly polluted. We churn out tons of rubbish that goes into the landfill. Do we really have enough land to contain so much rubbish? Factories and homes are pouring out a lot of poisonous fluid like mercury. Where does this fluid go? Can we filter the liquid waste? They are problems haunting the scientists.

 

What are the practical steps we can do to save the environment, as individuals and governments? I think as an individual, we should consume less to reduce the straining of resources. We should be aware of environmental issues and try our best to use environmental friendly products (they can be expensive). Governments and companies can allocate fund into research and development to develop cheap alternative sources of energy and ways to reduce pollution. I think this is really a good and practical step. I am going to introduce you some of the technological breakthrough that might solve some of the environmental problems.

 

A company called Nanosolar has developed and commercialized very low cost solar cell, which is much cheaper than normal solar cell. This means there is high hope for the cost of solar energy to drop drastically. This is a good news especially for developing nations. I hope with the help of this new technology, more countries can afford to implement solar power. Cheaper solar energy will encourage more people to go off the grid, reducing the pollution and the strain on natural resources.

 

Recently, China developed a type of wind turbine that is more efficient than European triple blade turbine. Unlike normal wind turbine, which spins about a horizontal axis, this kind of wind turbine has a vertical axis, and utilizes magnetic levitation (maglev). Permanent magnet like rare earth neodymium magnet is used to reduce the turbine friction and increase its efficiency. Maybe this will boost the popularity of wind energy. The problem is that rare earth magnet is a bit rare for large scale implementation.

 

Plasma waste converter is a cool stuff used to treat garbage. It has a plasma torch to create plasma (fourth state of matter, ionized gas). The plasma is very hot, where the temperature can reach over 6000 degrees Celsius. At such temperature, garbage does not stand a chance, where molecules break down into elemental components of the molecules. For example, cyanide will end up as carbon and nitrogen. There is no oxidization (burning) in this process, unlike in normal combustion, which releases greenhouse gases.

 

Organic molecules (those that are carbon-based) turn into gases, which can be used as fuel if properly cleaned (wow, converting garbage into fuel is so cool). Inorganic compounds melt down or change into a hard substance, and metals melt down to combine with the rest of inorganic matter to become “slag”. The slag is virtually unleachable, meaning that any hazardous materials are inert and will not dissolve out of the slag.

 

Imagine, with new technology, we can manage waste in such a green way. With plasma converter, waste is converted to fuel (yeah!) and the waste product is not dangerous. It will be a great alternative to landfill and reduces unwanted pollution.

 

Another amazing technology is Skyonic’s SkyMine technology, which  captures CO2 gas from industrial exhaust and converts it into…. baking soda (harmless substance and is very useful), together with hydrogen gas and chlorine gas, which can be sold for profit (Wow! Converting pollutant into money is just crazy). Some of you might love to know the equation:

 

CO2 + H2O + NaCl –> NaHCO3 + H2 + Cl2

(carbon dioxide + water + salt –> sodium bicarbonate + hydrogen gas + chlorine gas)

 

This amazing technology also partially removes mercury and acid rain gasses from the flue gases that pass through the system. We might need to wait for the cost of such technology to drop and factories will be much greener. Possibly we will have too much baking soda by then.

 

I think Stargate SG1 fans will like this stuff: Several governments are now collaborating in a 10 billion USD nuclear fusion research project called ITER. ITER is an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France to experiment energy extraction from nuclear fusion. Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion is much cleaner, safer, and produces much less waste product. The diagram below shows the comparison of required fuel (which is correlated to the amount of waste production) between nuclear fusion and other energy sources.

 

 

This is a new technology where a current of very hot plasma (100 million degrees Celsius) is created to cause the nuclear fusion (hydrogen nuclei merge to become helium nucleus and release a lot of energy). Only one gram of hydrogen fuel is fed into the plasma. The fuel sources (hydrogen isotopes) are easy to obtain and breed. The waste product is relatively safe, with relatively short half life (the time for the radioactivity to reduce by half), which means we just need to store the waste somewhere safe for a while and it will become harmless substance years later. Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion has very low risk of melting down, making it a safe energy source.

 

Scientists are now researching a technology called cold fusion. It is just like the nuclear fusion explained above, but happens at room temperature, which means less energy is needed for the nuclear fusion to happen.

 

Too bad nuclear fusion is not yet available commercially. I think nuclear fusion will be a great solution for energy resource problem, but for now, we can only wait.

 

 

 

ITER nuclear fusion reactor

 

 

All the amazing technologies mentioned above show that investing in developing green technology is the right way to go. With new technology, less waste will be produced and more energy will be generated and saved, which is important to save our environment.

 

We have talked a lot about environment and green technology, but it is just the tip of the whole iceberg. Environment is such a complicated topic, which is impossible to cover in a blog post. However, with this post, I hope we can spawn a meaningful discussion.

 

Talking is one thing, we have to walk the talk otherwise this discussion is useless. Let’s preserve our environment in our daily life so that our future generations can enjoy a greener world.

 

After reading through so many things, you might be feeling a bit tired. Let me entertain you with a refreshing, environmental friendly song. The lyric is quite simple so let’s sing together:

 

Running

 

This is me and you
And we are running
To change the world
Where hope is shining through
Gaia’s green and blue
And we are running
To save the world

That we’re about to lose

We’ll be running
Watch it coming
Green is shining through
Love is rising
Worlds colliding
Green is shining through

 

Subscribe in a reader