How to Meet the Clean Air Challenge

Similar to the process of producing clean water, one method China uses to attempt to reduce chronic smog pollution moves dirty air through a filtration system.

     In Beijing, a Dutch invention cleans air using a 23-foot, cylindrical filtration tower powered by electricity from a coal-fired power plant. A 300-foot tower surrounded by coated greenhouses in Xian, Shaanxi province, is experimenting with a more complex process. In daylight hours, solar radiation heats polluted air in the greenhouses before it rises in the tower through a series of purifying filters and is released into a 3.86 square mile area. Thus far, the Xian tower, when treating severely polluted air, especially in winter when coal provides heat in the area, shows only a 15% reduction in the fine small particles most hazardous to health. Yet, Xian's developers have an ambitious plan to construct 1,640-foot anti-pollution towers, each surrounded by 11.6 square miles of greenhouses, in other Chinese cities.

     Based on the Australian study mentioned in the earlier post, "Priority: Eliminate generating electricity from fossil fuels," coal-fueled power plants are the major source of pollution. These air filtration towers would seem to do the most good, if they were located in the vicinity of power plants.

     Startups and traditional automakers throughout the world race to produce the electric cars that promise to eliminate a source of pollution, the fossil fuels that power today's cars and trucks. The challenge to up the percentage of electric passenger cars from less than 1% on the world's roads today to at least 33% by 2040 involves financing, designing, engineering, manufacturing, charging stations, searching for the lithium used in batteries, and marketing. China is the industry's acknowledged leader with Tesla in the U.S. and European automakers also in the hunt.

     Although China is expected to continue to import lithium from South America's Argentina-Chile-Bolivia Belt (See the earlier post, "Technology's Hard Sell and the Public's Role in the Lithium-ion Battery Industry."), it has its own domestic supply. In the cold, thin air high in China's mountains between the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, mining in Chaerhan Salt Lake is on track to supply a plant that will produce 30,000 tons of lithium carbonate by 2020 or 2021 and eventually plants that produce 200,000 tons annually.

     China also has ideas for creating charging methods to keep electric cars on the road away from home. When driving long distances, drivers could visit automated swap stations to switch their dying batteries for new ones in three minutes, or they could call mobile vans to come and recharge their dying batteries in ten minutes. (I cannot help but recall the toxic nano particles a high school student found, when her summer intern project at the University of Wisconsin studied the effects of decomposing lithium batteries. See the earlier post, "The Challenge of New Technologies: Prepare to Think.") By requiring foreign auto dealers to sell only electric cars and to provide charging options, China is in a position to restrict entry into the world's biggest market.

   

     

Dump the Dump

You can feel superior to those who throw plastic bottles into the ocean, flip lithium batteries into the trash, and buy new shoes instead of having a cobbler replace worn heels. But a close look at recycling finds even this "solution" has problems awaiting solutions.

     Making it easier for soda consumers to recycle plastic bottles or providing batteries with electronic tags to help pull them out of the ordinary disposal process still sends these bottles and batteries to a waste plant. The problem of disposing of the heavy lithium-ion batteries that wear out in the growing fleet of electric cars is a major matter of concern to these auto makers as well.  Waste plants, such as the Integrated Waste Management Facility at Bukit Nanas in Malaysia, boast about converting waste to electricity, but they downplay the cancer and other toxic disease emissions these plants produce. And what about the average annual rate of 300 fires at waste and recycling plants in the United Kingdom?

     In a recycling industry where price to cost margins are small, there is little incentive to monitor air quality frequently, purchase sprinklers and other expensive fire prevention equipment, keep from stacking recycled materials too high and too close together, provide employees with protective gear, or penalize and shut down illegal waste sites.

     "Repair rather than replace" has a nice ring to it, but when it is less expensive to buy new shoes or a small appliance than to have old ones repaired or even find someone who can do the job, those options aren't considered.

     Knee jerk solutions aren't always solutions. Substituting degradable paper bags and packaging for plastic that requires fossil fuel to produce and years to disappear can deplete forests. Reducing the amount of gasoline cars use by adding 10% ethanol from corn requires more electricity and might mean some people go hungry.

     When I was having a chair reupholstered, I also asked the man I called to do the repairs how much it would cost to recover a sofa chewed by the cat. He told me, "$600." I said something like, "I've seen new sofas advertised for less." He asked how old my sofa was, and I guessed about 60 years. He told me I wouldn't find anything like its interior materials and construction on the market today and that he's recovered furniture for people who go to yard sales looking for old furniture they can buy cheap, because they know the insides of these old pieces are worth the cost of upholstering them.

     Every time we are walking to the trash to throw something out, maybe we should slow down and ask ourselves: what could I do with this, who could use this, why did I buy this in the first place?

   

Turn Off, Power Down, and Act Up

The conservation-minded World Wildlife Fund included the following list of planet-helping reminders in its current catalog (wwfcatalog.org).

• Take a 5-minute shower that uses 10 to 25 gallons of the world's precious clean water resources compared to about 70 gallons for a bath.
• Turn off faucets while brushing teeth, soaping up hands, and putting shampoo in hair. Running a water faucet not only uses up clean water but running it for 5 minutes uses as much energy as lighting a 60-watt bulb for 14 hours. 
• Turn off computers or use "sleep mode" to save energy when they're not in use. Unplug electronic devices when not in use over a long period of time (overnight), because many still use energy when switched off.
• Buy local at farmers' markets and grocery stores, and eat local at restaurants whenever possible. That reduces the need for the climate warming gas used to transport fruits and vegetables up to 1,500 miles.
• Reduce the gas used for your own trips by walking, biking, or taking a bus or train.
• Replace regular light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent lights. 
• Investigate using solar panels to save energy and cost in your home. Make sure to replace failing refrigerators and freezers that can account for 1/6 of a home's energy bill with appliances that are certified energy efficient.

Read more information about energy and environmental concerns at the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment."

African Aquifers Tested

The International Water Management Institute is seeking to implement the goals of the Goundwater Solutions Initiative for Policy and Practice (GRIPP) by accessing sub-Sahara Africa's subterranean aquifers, especially for farming irrigation. Although more reliable than rain, aquifers require policies that make them sustainable or else they can be exploited and depleted as they have been in north Africa. Since sustainable use of aquifers requires community cooperation, a pilot project in China offers promise. Farmers have access to a set amount of water from the state pumping system by using their pre-paid smartcards.

     Africa also needs investment in aquifer mapping to determine the amount of groundwater available and investment in rural electrification for pumping.

Let There Be Environmentally Friendly Light

An estimated 1.3 billion people live without electricity in the so-called off-grid world. Even in countries that are moving from low-income to middle-income status, such as India, Ghana, Pakistan, and Vietnam, Bill Gates has observed that there are pockets of poverty that have no electricity. Unless families can purchase an expensive and heavy lead storage battery that needs to be carried to and recharged at a shop all day, going outside after dark is dangerous, indoor kerosene lamps release toxic fumes, and children can barely read or do homework by candlelight.

     Around the world, individuals, non-profit organizations, and for-profit companies are working on solar solutions that provide electricity without increasing greenhouse gases from fossil fuels.

     Thanks to startup funds from Pepsi, the Zayed Future Energy Prize, and other sources, Philippines-based Liter of Light is putting solar-powered lights in thousands of low-income homes in the Philippines, Colombia, Malaysia, and Mexico. Liter for Light is a project run by the non-governmental-organization, My Shelter Foundation, founded by social entrepreneur and actor IllacDiaz. While studying in the US at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Diaz discovered an invention by Brazilian mechanic, Alfredo Moser. Moser had used sunlight on water in a plastic bottle (including some bleach to prevent algae growth) to emit light from a ceiling "bulb" during the day. At night, light was emitted from a plastic water bottle holding LEDs wired to a little solar panel that had been exposed to sun for three to four hours during the day.

     M-Kopa Solar is the Kenya-based "pay-as-you-go" commercial energy supplier for 280,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda that lack electricity connections. Customers buy a $30 solar system that they operate with credits for use purchased in 50 cent increments. Of the $51 million
 M-Kopa Solar raised in 2010, London-based Generation Investment Management invested $19 million. Debt and other investments accounted for the rest.

     Solar Home System is a project developed by South Korean, Akas Kim, in order to install a rooftop solar panel that can light homes in Cambodia for four hours. Families combine their incomes to make an initial payment of $200 and another $350 in monthly installments.

     South Korea's 2007 Social Enterprise Promotion Act is worth studying by other countries. By providing work spaces, mentoring, and government and private funding from companies such as Samsung and Hyundai, the Act backs startups that have a social purpose.

(An earlier post, "Don't Study by the Fire," mentions a backpack that has a solar powered light.)

   

Don't Study by the Fire

Legend tells us Abe Lincoln studied by fire light, with a candle or in front of his fireplace. That's no longer necessary, even in poor countries and rural areas with no electric lights.

Female-owned Rethaka, a South African innovator of eco-friendly goods, now offers 100% recycled, solar-powered backpacks that double as study lamps at night. Read more about African ideas that break up big jobs to give smaller companies a chance to provide employment, ways to involve the public in the fight against corruption, new forms of conveying the news, and more at trendwatching.com (10 African Trends).

Pollution Update

Look around when you attend a music festival, 4th of July celebration, or state fair this summer. Recycling bins, found in schools and at the exits of Target and other stores, have moved outside.

     Paul Abramson, who founded Paolo Verde Consulting, observed that keeping an area clean, especially at potential littering hot spots, during an event eliminates the need for picking up the mess at the end, when everyone is exhausted. He recommends having people (I would suggest cute, smiling teenagers) at bins "making gentle suggestions," such as "You know, that paper plate is recyclable, and we're collecting compost (food scraps) here."

     Abramson also notes that keeping an event site neat appeals to everyone who likes to see immediate results rather than the invisible good their contributions are doing, when they give to the Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, or Greenpeace.

     On a larger scale, TIME magazine (June 16, 2014), in an article entitled, "Green Revolution," shows the United States's amazing shift to clean energy in the 21st century. Renewable (water, wind, and solar) power plants went from 682 in 2002 to 1,956 in 2012. While coal plants still provided 39% of U.S. electricity and 75% of emissions from electricity in 2013, cleaner natural gas generated 51% of the electricity added by new plants opened in 2013. Estimates suggest one-fifth of all coal-fired plants have been closed or are scheduled to retire. Although solar and wind power produced only a little more than 5% of U.S. electricity in 2013, they produced 30% of new power added that year and 90% of new power capacity installed in the first quarter of 2014. What is impressive about this added power from wind is the amount by which it decreased carbon emissions, the same effect as taking 20 million cars off the road.

     Even children 6 to 8 years old can learn about the fossil fuel energy cycle from sun to transportation use in Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm.

     Solar panels, once an exotic that cost $75 per watt generated in 1975, are now available to produce a watt of electricity on home and business rooftops for less than 75 cents. Technology also is meeting the conservation challenge. Products now keep track of individual energy usage and suggest ways to reduce it. Energy efficient LED lightbulbs, compared to incandescent ones, last longer and reduce consumer cost over their lifetimes. It is interesting to note that combined jobs in the solar industry (150,000) and wind industry (50,000) now match the 200,000 in the coal industry.

     Unfortunately, new items, such as plastic bottles and drones, keep multiplying and requiring additional ideas for recycling. According to trendwatching,com, plastic Coca-Cola bottles in Vietnam, and later in Thailand and Indonesia, come with 16 different caps that convert empties into new uses, such as squirt guns, pencil sharpeners, and soap dispensers. Drones also are a new pollution problem. Some have biodegradable wings, but when they crash, their metal pieces and batteries litter the land and oceans.

     Students looking for ways to eliminate pollution and stem climate change can also find a wide variety of suggestions, including the development of bladeless wind turbines, in the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment."