Barriers to acceptance of Green Practices?

I thought that, with the end of the course, that I should bring up the many barriers to green thinking that still exist. As previous posters have mentioned, there are those forward thinkers that design with sustainability in mind, but then there are still those to whom sustainable thinking does not appeal to, whether it be merely to use recycled paper or on a more grand level of design thinking.

One such example that I feel strongly about is the development that is happening in emerging economies, in particular, China. It’s been projected that at the currently rate of development in China, the amount of CO2 emissions from China will exceed that of the US in 2 to 3 years. Just recently, the Chinese government released a program to curb their greenhouse gas emissions (link here) but, while the document promises to use new methods of industrialization, it also clearly states that economic development will take preference over curbing emissions, ie, development will not be sacrificed for the sake of lower greenhouse gases.

Though this may be promising for future development to be designed with lower emissions in mind, this seems that, in the long run, sustainability is still a lower priority. I think the following example can illustrate just how far Chinese businesses might go for economical gain:

This picture is of the condition of fan blades of a jet engine on a internationally bound passenger plane from a Chinese airliner that was allowed to take off in China. One of the four engines was so damaged that the Chinese technicians used seat belts to tie the blades down to immobilize the engine such that the plane would use the other three engines in flight. The other three engines weren’t in very good shape either. Because of the extra turbulence that the imbalance caused, the plane had to land in Germany for refuel, but when the Germans saw the condition of the engines, they refused to let the plane go back up into flight.

http://iagblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/chinese-aircraft-maintenance.html

One could argue that with a population 4 times the size of the US that CO2 emissions on par with the US isn’t really that bad and that the US should really put more efforts into changing its emissions. However, even with the US having such a long industrial history with a lot of money invested in previously established methods, there is a growing awareness of the need for sustainable thinking and reform whereas in China, where there is still a lot of industrial growth and where sustainable design can be implemented much more easily, it seems that there is less enthusiasm. Is there anything that can be done to make sustainable thinking and design much more appealing to developing countries so that we can curb CO2 emissions from the start without sacrificing their growth potential? Or do sustainable methods cost too much money for developing nations to even think about investing into?

Caleras Water Treatment Plant

Hi Everyone,

In case you wanted reference, here are the slides that Jim and I put together for our trip to the Caleras water treatment plant in Pacifica.

If you have any questions, I will try my best to answer them.

Amy

The Green Office

I just finished talking to a friend who will be working in China this coming summer. His first project at his firm is going to be teaching and implementing sustainable office practices. I decided to poke around internet to see if I can help him find anything, and I came up with this great website from which you can buy sustainable office supplies.

http://www.thegreenoffice.com/

All the products have a clear labeling system that informs the consumer of the product’s environmental benefit (e.g. percentage of post-consumer recycled content, biodegradable/compostable) without having to do independent research.

Interestingly, they still carry conventional products. They actually offer a very sensible explanation (quote below), but I wonder if their inclusion of these “non-green” products deters customers from switching over to more environmentally sensitive alternatives.

“While our vision is to offer a full line of sustainably designed, high quality office products, most workplaces still find it virtually impossible to avoid the use of conventional products. Instead of forcing well intentioned consumers to shop in two or more locations – itself a wasteful act – we offer a convenient selection of “brown” necessities.”

On the website, they also have a wealth of articles on the best practices in the office. As a frequent user of different glues/tapes, I found their section on adhesives really informative (they suggest using white glue and cellulose-based tape).

Of course, having green products is one thing, but it ultimately comes down to usage patterns and behavioral changes on an individual level. In an architectural talk I recently went to, an architect was describing how an office building was designed such that no one has his/her own desks (which not surprisingly discouraged people from printing/owning a lot of paper, instead relying on digital files).

Wireless Power Transfer

Just a brief entry on an article I came across in the MIT news. A research team there lit a 60 watt bulb from a power source 2 meters away. The hope is that it can eventually be used to power small electronic devices like laptops, mobile phones and mp3 players. It works through a magnetically resonant coupling between copper coils affixed to the power source and a receiver separated by some distance and attached to the bulb (or laptop, phone or player).

Although the article doesn’t mention it, the research paper reports a 60% power loss in the transmission. That seems somewhat non-trivial, but even if they’re able to improve the technology, it’s unlikely to become as efficient as wired transmission anytime soon. If something like this were to become commercially available, I can imagine it actually increasing energy demand: not just from the incentive to use more electricity because of the added convenience, but to make up for the transmission loss.

That’s not the only rub. One of the researchers states that “the fact that magnetic fields interact so weakly with biological organisms is also important for safety considerations.”

I did some homework to find out how concerned we should be about the field strength. The research paper describes the point halfway between the coils as having a field strength of 1 A/m (Amp/meter), which is equivalent to 12.57 mG (milliGauss). For comparison, an electric distribution line has a magnetic field of 80 mG under the line. A microwave oven also has a field of 80 mg from about a foot away. So far, it doesn’t sound that much more dangerous than ordinary levels of exposure, duration aside.

A pdf of the research paper can be found at the Sciencexpress site listed below. Follow-up references:

Goodbye wires…

Sciencexpress abstract

WHO Summary of health effects

PGE electric and magnetic fields

Stanford Business School Gets in on the Sustainability Action

A month ago, Stanford Business School announced that it would begin a new program dealing with sustainability and corporate responsibility. This new initiative, called the “Business Strategies for Environmental Sustainability Executive Program” will consist of 5-day workshop to be offered in the fall at the Stanford Sierra conference center, located on Lake Tahoe (perhaps to inspire some appreciation for natural resources?). The workshop is targeted at senior executives of private, public and non-profit organizations [GSB].

Faculty director William Barnett had this to say about the motivation behind the program:

Today, environmental sustainability has become an objective both in our public policies and our business strategies. Consequently, best practice in environmental sustainability needs to be understood by business executives, environmental activists, public administrators, and regulators alike. The goal of our program is to bring together executives from each of these worlds, to expose them to state-of-the-art knowledge on environmental sustainability in business, and to facilitate their learning from one another. The program aims to be a watershed event in each participant’s career, accelerating the development of those who will shape tomorrow’s sustainable business and public policies [GSB].

[1] Stanford Sierra conference center, [2] William Barnett

On the agenda for the workshop are sessions dealing with avoiding greenwashing to “understand how environmental strategies can be both pragmatic and authentic,” how to incorporate environmental sustainability into the supply chain, and even how to manage the pressures of high-profile activism [GSB].

It is extremely encouraging to see a program such as this being targeted at executives and those with the power to make decisions with a significant impact. The curriculum seems to discuss these matters in a meaningful way and try to get participants to really think about sustainability as an integral part of their business strategy. Throughout the quarter, we have been discussing how sustainability can also make good business sense – in our final presentation on office paper usage, our group showed a case study of how much money (and resources) Citigroup managed to save by switching to duplexing printers. However, many of the people who are running things now were just never taught to see the decisions they make in this light. As Amory Lovins discussed in his lecture, in business schools it is taught to look at the part costs, rather than the costs of an integrated system over time. Hopefully this seminar will be a step in the right direction for the executives who attend. But the success and impact of the program also depends on who decides to attend. Hopefully sustainability has at least made it onto the radar enough for larger corporations to have heard about a program like this and for them to be willing spare some of their key decision-makers for five days.

Sources:

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/exed/bses/

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2007/04/30/daily22.html?from_rss=1

Sony’s Jaunt into ‘Green’ Electronics

Although they certainly don’t seem to be to be any gadgets that I “have to have”, or think that there will be blocks and blocks of people lining up for the opening-day sale of these new products, Sony’s release of a small line of consumer electroncis called “Odo” may be the first marker in a new trend for the desirable little gadgets many of us covet.

Now, i wouldn’t expect these products to make waves, but perhaps this is part of a larger movement for Sony – an attempt to revive it from the slump it’s been in lately (PS3 and MP3 player financial issues).

One product is a digital camera that gets recharged by simply putting your index fingers through the ’stereo’ view-finder holes and spinning around. Certainly this won’t replace my advanced point and shoot digital camera, or the really nice DSLR I want so bad, but there’s a certain attractiveness associated with the simplicity and convenience here. Consumer products will sell based solely on their ‘greenness’ or sustainability (though I think it can help for some sectors), so that the product is made of recycled materials and is easily, manually rechargeable has to be a benefit for other reasons.

Also, although I don’t think Cradle-to-Cradle is the ultimate solution to all our environmental problems, I do think that it could make a lot of sense in the area of consumer electronics. It’s hard to tell how far Sony’s intentions for these products go – maybe they have a closed loop plan for them, but it’s probably unlikely. It would be great to see some gadgets that attempt to do just that.

I think Sony does have something here, but I’m not sure it’s enough to make a wave. The consumer electronics market is expected to exceed $135billion in 2006, and if Sony can be successful in making even the tiniest ripple, it could represent a huge pay-off for the planet, down the line.

Perhaps Apple will jump on board and start producing iPods and iMacs with added benefits thanks to green-design.

Green Circuit Boards

In Cradle to Cradle they mention monstrous hybrid materials. These are materials that combine biological and technical nutrients. The example discussed was a leather shoe. Leather shoes used to be biodegradable when tanned with vegetable chemicals, but in the past 40 years the industry has moved to chromium tanning. This mixture of technical nutrients with natural ones in effect prevents these nutrients from being reclaimed by nature or people.
Perhaps it is because I have spent the past 5 years studying electronics, but this mention of monstrous hybrids scared me. It made me think, “… are electrical circuits monstrous hybrids?” And if so does that the world will have to say goodbye to electronics in order to make a sustainable world? While I am not sure it falls in their definition of a monstrous hybrid material (there doesn’t seem to be much of a biological component), I could defiantly see circuits being a product from which little can be reclaimed. If the goal of a sustainable designer is to make their products cradle to cradle there must be something done with electronics. I see no way to convince the world that they must give up their computers, cameras, cell phones, alarm clocks, or TVs. (In addition electronics could hold some form of environmental benefit. Bits and bytes are virtually an unlimited resource.)

So I decided to dive a little deeper into this topic. Firstly let’s look at printed circuit boards’ material make up. As there is great variability in the function of circuits there is also a wide variety of materials. This summary is a very broad summary of PCBs. The boards they are printed on act as insulators for the circuits. Typically they are of paper-plastic composite materials. FR-2, FR-4, and Kapton are some typical examples. The traces connecting the various electrical components are typically made of copper with outer covering for beter soldering contacts. Upwards of 24 different layers can be found in a board. Though double layer is a more typical number Other metals such as silver, lead, and gold are also used at times. This is the board before adding any electrical components such as integrated circuits, resistors, capacitors, etc…
There are processes out there to reclaim materials from electronics. The process is fairly involved:

[source]

They are able to reclaim valuable metals such as gold, silver, and copper. Though in doing so there are considerable hazardous materials that are also collected. Due to the toxicity, this is typically done overseas in countries with less stringent working conditions. This certainly raises issues concerning the sustainability of this process. There are other alternatives to this expensive recycling process. The non-metal portions of the boards can be added in “plastic wood” and concrete to act as a strengthening component. I have also seen products such as clipboards and other knickknacks in stores made from circuit boards without their electrical components. Then there is also the occasional use of scrap electronics in craft and art projects. Anyone notice the circuit board egg on University Ave.?
As sustainability becomes a more prevalent issue more people are looking at ways of handling our electronics waste. I read in one of the articles, that electronic waste is the fastest growing streams of waste. In Europe they have the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. This requires manufacturers to take responsibility for the collection and ecologically friendly disposal or reuse of equipment. Perhaps involving the manufacturers is the correct direction for electronics waste. They would know best how to reuse their own components, and it may force them to begin considering the full lifecycle of their product when in the design process.
Sustainability around electronics certainly seems like it should be a big issue. Though in my brief research of the end of life options for electronics, it seems like there isn’t that much focus in this area. In broadening my search to sustainability of electronics during it’s life (not just at its end) there seems to be a little bit more information. The most popular emphasis is on its energy consumption. While energy is certainly an important issue, perhaps we should also be thinking about how to preserve the technical nutrients of our electronics.

Sources:

http://p2library.nfesc.navy.mil/P2_Opportunity_Handbook/2_II_8.html

http://www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0113_prei/index.html

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/444217/444663/1106248/?version=1&lang=_e

http://www.iaer.org/aboutrecycling.htm

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/how-to-green-your-electronics.php

Wave Power

A couple of years ago I remember hearing that there may be a huge potential for power generated by ocean waves. After hearing so much discussion this quarter about renewable and sustainable energy sources, I decided to do some research to see whatever happened to this intriguing new method I had once heard a rumor about and hadn’t heard mentioned since. It turns out that the research is still going strong and there is some evidence for some huge potential in wave powers… so where is all the hype? Sure I realize that this isn’t exactly an obscure and unheard-of field… but I wonder why it doesn’t often grab the attention and imagination of most people who are searching for ways to create a sustainable future.

Serious wave energy research began earlier then I had imagined, back in the 1970’s. Back then; technology had not advanced enough to capitalize on wave energy. Wave energy requires disciplines such as oceanography, fluid mechanics, structural engineering, and much more. As technology advanced, R&D of wave technology was almost entirely government funded and based in academia, since industries could not yet profit from the emerging technology. By the mid to late 1990’s, industries did pick up on the technology and devices started being built.

Despite recent research done in America, which shows promise and feasibility of wave energy, it seems the excitement still hasn’t caught on with the public.

Perhaps this isn’t the case for the general public overseas. Scotland seems like it may be the leader in Wave Power research, as the potential energy for waves around the UK is so huge (roughly 2.5 x what is needed for the country). In 2004, the Ocean Power Delivery Corporation brought wave power to the electrical grid for the first time through full-scale preproduction of their generator known, as a Pelamis , prototype in Scotland.

In February of ’07, funding was granted to develop the UK’s first wave farm. The grant includes 14 million pounds of funding for the project in Scottish waters.

Wave energy has several amazing benefits that I would like to believe can truly be implemented. First, the conversion of ocean energy into electricity may be one of the most environmentally benign methods of energy generation. Second, unlike wind or solar panels, wave energy does not encounter difficult issues of socially acceptable placements. The devices can be located far enough off shore that they won’t even be visible from shore. Wave energy is also much steadier then solar or wind energy and may be one of the lowest cost of renewable energy sources because of its high power density.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050215091103.htm

E-Waste Crisis

Although I will be presenting some of this information with my team during DP3 this afternoon, I wanted to share more of the experience of learning about electronic waste dumping and recycling.  This project opened my eyes more then any other project this quarter as to how large and dangerous a particular issue is.  Since we were studying something as broad as E-waste, obviously the numbers are more powerful then teams focusing on a more specific subject, yet some of the background and details I’ve learned about E-waste was just beyond what I was prepared for. 

 For our project, we focused on a small group of electronic recyclers called GreenCitizen, located in Los Altos and San Francisco.  From what we’ve learned, these guys have really got the right idea as far as how they are handling the recyclables people bring to them.  They are one of the few recycling centers that has signed the Electronic Recyclers Pledge of True Stewardship, created by the Basel Action Network to promote proper recycling methods.  However, the most powerful thing about this company is the knowledge they offer about just how big the E-Waste crisis is.  The walls in the main room of GreenCitizen are covered with powerful images, taken from the Basel Action Network, of huge amounts of trashed electronics that have ended up in developing countries.  One particularly painful image shows a small child sitting on top of a huge stack of garbage. 

In addition to the photos, powerful statistics and information about what is happening with E-Waste are readily available in an effort to educate the public.  One large poster is devoted to showing extra steps GreenCitizen has taken to educate the public outside of their stores through community events. 

I was also impressed by how knowledgeable all the workers were at the center.  Both times I visited the center to gather information, the two different women behind the desk were very informative and clearly understood the recycling process GreenCitizen and other recyclers were using.  One of the workers was even a graduate from Berkeley, not what I would have expected from someone working behind the desk at a recycling center.  James Kao, the founder of GreenCitizen was particularly proud of the level of education in his staff.  He said that he felt it was important to have the best staff possible since educating the public is such a large part of GreenCitizen’s goal. 

 

 The method of educating the public seems to be working.  Even though GreenCitizen must charge customers to take many of their recyclables, diligent data logs kept at the center show a 95% satisfaction rate from customers even with most transactions (60%) being paid transactions.   Once the public understands the importance of proper recycling steps and that many companies offering to take electronics for free end up dumping the majority of their items (or sending them to developing countries), they are willing to pay the fees for their recyclables and then come back to do it again. 

 My team and I will be talking more about the process and statistics related with E-waste during our presentation, but I encourage people to check out GreenCitizen and the Basel Action Network and to spread the word. 

Green Flying

It seems as though people who are aware of the environmental impacts of burning oil are of the opinion that the majority of their impact can be made by reducing their transportation inneficiencies.  Prius sales are going up and people are celebrating national bike month by riding their bikes to work.  But this isn’t the only way our lifestyles impact the earth.  Someone commented that one could have just as much as an impact as driving hybrid as they could by becoming a vegetarian.  After the presentation by Terrapass on Carbon Offsets it became pretty obvious to us that our flying is a huge environmental problem.  If one flight in a private jet is just as bad as a year in a Hummer, why would any of us continue to fly?  Clearly we aren’t about to go purchase a fuel chugging Hummer…

Not an option.  While everyday commuting and lifestyle choices like riding a bike or using the public transportation is a reasonable replacement, you simply cannot replace a flight to Asia.  We are fortunate to live in an age where flight allows us to visit places of drastically different cultures but hasn’t had the time to homogenize the human race and culture.  I can jump on a jet and land in Europe by tomorrow, just a hundred years this trip would take months.  Flying is freedom and our lives and experiences are greatly enhanced by this technology.  Also, commercial flying has become a vital element of the world economy, something we simply cannot do without.

So where’s the future of flying?  Clearly jet fuel is of such a powerful energy density that the new Airbus 380 at 1 million pound gross takeoff weight can still lift off the ground.  What could possibly replace this energy source?  Heres some interesting research I came upon:

http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1248

The article lists a number of emerging technologies that could save aviation from the oil-peaking phenomena.

For long distance and high demand flying, superconductivity and nanotechnology hope to create high density energy storage. These are however the furthest from being realised. One of the most interesting technologies is the low speed electrically powered supersonic flight created by Supersonic Aerospace International. Researching on the reduction of the sonic boom they created a configuration that could be flown at Mach 1.5 quietly, while theoretically being powered by electricity. High-Temperature superconductive energy storage systems could supply a set of subsonic and supersonic engines. The supersonic engine would look much like a ramjet. The ramjet engine uses a shock wave within the engine to hike the temperature. A high effeciency axial flow compressor could increase the pressure 8 – 1 further increasing temperature. This would then be fed into a diffuser where the energy from temperature is traded for velocity and thrust.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to the future of e-flying!