Zero Waste Ottawa

In 2008, the Ottawa City Council contracted with Plasco Energy Group to build, own, and operate an 85 tonne per-day waste conversion evaluation facility. Plasco’s technology uses plasma torches to gasify waste and use the gas to generate electricity.

Household waste collected by the City will be delivered to the plant, including up to 8% non-recyclable plastics otherwise destined for landfill. For every tonne of waste processed, enough energy is generated to power the facility and provide 1,150 kWh of electricity to Hydro Ottawa. That’s enough to power a household in Ottawa for 45 days. The site will in other words provide electricity to approximately 3600 Ottawa households. The system will also produce a small amount of inert residual solid that is useful as aggregate for concrete and asphalt.

Plasco Energy Group is assuming all associated risk in building the evaluation facility, guaranteeing environmental performance and removing the facility if the evaluation is not a success. The City of Ottawa will provide the site, the waste and a $40 per tonne tipping fee—about the same as it costs the City to dump waste at the City owned landfill.

The process of transforming mixed waste into clean synthetic gas produces zero impact on the environment:

• No harmful air emissions
• No leaching (contaminates to our land and water)

The products of the Plasco Conversion System are safe and usable:

• Synthesis gas (PlascoSyngas) is used in the generation of electricity that is green and clean
• The reusable solid (Slag) has a variety of uses, such as a concrete additive. The substance has been tested and is completely inert, leaching less than the glass that is used to make a common soda bottle.

The process for generating electricity is well-known:

• The same engines/turbines are used to convert natural gas into electricity
• The electricity produced is, on a lifecycle basis, cleaner than natural gas
• Electricity generation that substantially outperforms the most stringent air emission standards in the world

The City of Ottawa and Plasco Energy Group has created a website, Zerowasteottawa.com, to evaluate the project. At the website anyone can view the monthly performance of the trail site.

Read more…

Electric Cars Driving the Revolution

General Motors’ EV1 was one of the first electric cars that the average person could actually drive. The company’s campaign to ‘kill the electric car’ might have ended that model, but electric vehicles are today widely trumpeted as the way of the future.

The poster child for electric cars is Tesla Motors’ sexy Roadster that has turned heads since its launch. Created to ‘take the pain out of driving an environmentally friendly car’ the Tesla has received rave reviews from environmentalists and car enthusiasts alike. Besides its desirable appearance the Roadster can travel from 0 – 100km/h in under 4 seconds, faster than a Porsche 911. Boasting with a range of 350km, it offers a real alternative to ‘traditional cars’, albeit an expansive one (they sell for about $100 000). Other manufacturers have followed Tesla’s lead in creating with sports models as their higher prices can subsidise much of the development costs. The Fisker Karma, an electric hybrid, is one such example and so is the Lightning GT.

Another approach by manufacturers is to go for smaller, more compact ‘city cars’. Some examples are: the i MiEV by Mitsubishi, the ZENN (Zero Emission, No Noise), THINK City Car and a new electric car by Mercedes built on the Smart fourtwo platform that should get 115 kilometers between charges and get the equivalent of 125 km/l.

As far as more traditional vehicles are concerned, those driving the revolution is the BYD F3DM, the much anticipated Chevrolet Volt (both plug-in hybrids), an electric version of the Toyota RAV 4 SUV and a trio of concept cars by Mercedes called BlueZERO . Much is also expected from the South African designed Joule electric sedan.

By far the most avant-garde looking of current electric car models is the Aptera 2e, a super-efficient electric vehicle that has attracted investment from Google. The all-electric model will sel for $27 000 while a plug-in hybrid, that would get 125 km/l, will sell for $30 000.

For a gallery of leading electric vehicles, click here…

Could Solar Highways Power our Cities?

In the search for a solar solution to power our cities, one of our biggest obstacles is the massive acreage required by conventional arrays. Photovoltaic panels are flat and expansive, and urban centres are at a serious loss for free space.

Now Australian renewable energy retailer Going Solar has conceived of a clever strategy that infuses urban transit systems with energy producing potential - install solar panels in highways as sound barriers! Going Solar’s first highway installation was completed on the Tullamarine Calder Interchange in Australia. The solar sound barrier comprises 500 meters of photovoltaic panels that are attached to a public display showing the project’s power output.

As the highway is located near some residential areas, energy doesn’t have to travel far to reach its destination and the massive solar panels provide much needed soundproofing to the houses nearby.
It is expected that the installation will produce 18.7 megawatts per year, which is enough to cover its cost in about 15 years. The innovative application has netted Going Solar the ATRAA’s award for best grid-connected system.

Original article: Jorge Chapa. Inhabitat. 30 August 2008. Read more…

Sun + Water = Fuel

With catalysts created by an MIT chemist, sunlight can turn water into hydrogen. If the process can scale up, it could make solar power a dominant source of energy.

What Daniel Nocera has developed was a reaction that generates oxygen from water much as green plants do during photosynthesis – an achievement that could have profound implications for the energy debate. Carried out with the help of a catalyst he developed, the reaction is the first and most difficult step in splitting water to make hydrogen gas. And efficiently generating hydrogen from water, Nocera believes, will help surmount one of the main obstacles preventing solar power from becoming a dominant source of electricity: there’s no cost-effective way to store the energy collected by solar panels so that it can be used at night or during cloudy days.

Storing energy from the sun by mimicking photosynthesis is something scientists have been trying to do since the early 1970s. In particular, they have tried to replicate the way green plants break down water. Chemists, of course, can already split water. But the process has required high temperatures, harsh alkaline solutions, or rare and expensive catalysts such as platinum. What Nocera has devised is an inexpensive catalyst that produces oxygen from water at room temperature and without caustic chemicals – the same benign conditions found in plants.

Original article: Kevin Bullis. Technology Review. November/December 2008. Read more…

Fuel from Coal-Eating Microbes

Luca Technologies, a start-up based in Colorado, USA, has raised $76 million to scale up a process that uses coal-digesting microorganisms to convert coal into methane. The process is designed to operate underground, inside coal beds. Methane, the key component of natural gas, can then be pumped out and used to generate electricity or power vehicles.

If the process proves economical, it could help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, since burning natural gas releases half as much carbon dioxide as does burning coal.

As little as one-hundredth of 1 percent of the coal in the United States converted into methane by microbes would supply the country’s current annual natural-gas demands, says Andrew Scott, a former professor of economic geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott is the founder of Altuda Energy Corporation, based in San Antonio, TX, which is developing a similar process.

Original article: Kevin Bullis. Technology Review. 8 January 2009. Read more…

Video: The Story of Stuff

Vertical Farming

According to current estimates, by the year 2050 70% of the world’s population of 9 billion will reside in urban centers. An estimated land area of 20% bigger than Brazil will be required to grow enough food to feed them, if current farming practices continue as they are today. Adding the transport component of getting crops from distant farms to urban centres exacerbates the challenge.

Prof. Dickson Despommier at Columbia University in New York, tasked his students to come up with innovative solutions to this problem. They started studying the idea of rooftop gardening for cities but quickly discarded that approach – too small scale – in favour of something more ambitious: a 30-story urban farm with a greenhouse on every floor.

These high-rises will utilise hydroponic farming and require 4 – 6 times less acreage (depending on crop) than traditional farming, be entirely organic, utilise grey-water and recycle black-water, produce energy via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of the plants and greatly reduce the transport requirements of food.

Valcent, a tech company based in El Paso, Texas, is trying out the process. At their lab, potted crops grow in rows on clear vertical panels that rotate on a conveyor belt. Moving them gives the plants the precise amount of light and nutrients needed, an optimization that lets him grow 15 times as much lettuce per acre as on a normal farm, using 5% of the water that conventional agriculture does. The company aims to finish a commercial-scale facility by early 2009.

Despommier’s plans are even grander. He has drawn up models for a 30-story, city-block-size vertical farm that would have transparent walls to maximize sunlight and would produce enough food for 50,000 people. “With about 160 of these buildings, you could feed all of New York,” he says. His idea has intrigued architects, but Despommier concedes that it would cost hundreds of millions to build a full-scale skyscraper farm. That’s the main drawback: construction and energy costs would probably make vertically raised food more costly than traditional crops. At least for now.

Original article: Bryan Walsh. TIME. 11 December 2008. Read it… or read more here…

Personal Rapid Transit System

A novel kind of transit system, in which cars are replaced by a network of automated electric vehicles, is about to get its first large-scale testing and deployment. Two of these Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems are being installed this year, one at Heathrow International Airport, near London, and one in the United Arab Emirates, where it will be the primary source of transportation in Masdar City

PRT systems are supposed to combine the convenience and privacy of automobiles with the environmental benefits of mass transit. Automated electric vehicles, or pods, each designed to carry from four to six people, wait at stations throughout a city or development, like taxis waiting at taxi stands. A person or group gets in a pod and selects a destination and the vehicle drives there directly.

Although PRT systems vary, the basic design involves a network of stations connected by a track that loops past all of the stations in a system. Large networks can include many interconnected loops. When a vehicle leaves a station, it travels along an on-ramp until it merges with the main loop. When it reaches the destination station, it exits this central loop via an off-ramp. The ramps allow individual pods to stop at a station while others pods continue to travel at top speed along the main track. As a result, it can be faster than buses, which have to stop frequently. Simulations suggest that the systems could run with as little as half a second between each vehicle, but the initial systems, such as the one in Masdar City, will keep the vehicles three to four seconds apart–enough to stop a pod should the one in front of it suddenly break down. A central computer controls the traffic.

At both Heathrow and Masdar City, the vehicles will be battery-powered, driverless cars.

The system at Heathrow - built by Advanced Transport Systems, based in Bristol, UK - uses cars powered by lead-acid batteries along a concrete track and guided by laser range finders, says Steve Raney, a consultant for the company. For Masdar City, a Dutch company called 2getthere has developed cars powered by more-advanced batteries made of lithium iron phosphate. The pods travel on pavement equipped with embedded magnets placed every five meters, which the vehicle uses, along with information about wheel angles and speed, to determine its location, says Robert Lohmann, the marketing manager at 2getthere. When a person selects a destination, a central computer designates a path for the vehicle, and an on-board computer makes sure the car sticks to the path. (The system is being used now to control vehicles that transport cargo in warehouses.)

Original article: Kevin Bullis. Technology Review. 9 February 2009. Read more…

Modular Cellophane House

Environmentally-savvy and forward-thinking architecture firm KieranTimberlake Associate has high hopes of bringing customized prefabricated homes to the masses starting with their new Cellophane House. The prototype that formed part of a MoMA exhibit was a 1800 square foot house and was assembled in 16 days.

Thin photovoltaic panels integrated into the house’s wall can produce enough electricity to run the house entirely off the grid. The walls also include an inner layer of solar heat and UV blocking film to let in plenty of sunlight while also keeping the heat at bay. Ventilation is achieved through a cavity in the wall which keeps the interior cool in the summer and warm during the winter.

Considering that the average lifecycle of a building is a mere 10 years, coupled with an increase in transitory habitation, KieranTimberlake integrated easy assembly and disassembly into the planning and building of the Cellophane House. The modular construction enables the house to be broken down into parts, or to be reused in another residence all together. It also means that the house can grow and shrink as families go from child-bearing to empty-nesters. Renderings indicate that the Cellophane House can serve as a single-family home, or a multi-family complex. The house is wrapped in NextGen SmartWrap.

Original article: Evelyn Lee. Inhabitat. 19 September 2008. Read more…

Student Invents Solar-Powered Fridge for Developing Countries

Proving once again that the best ideas are often the simplest, 21-year-old student/inventor/entrepreneur Emily Cummins has designed a brilliant portable solar-powered refrigerator that works based upon the principle of evaporation. Employing a combination of conduction and convection, the refrigerator requires no electricity and can be made from commonly available materials like cardboard, sand, and recycled metal.

Simply place perishable foods or temperature-sensitive medications in the solar refrigerator’s interior metal chamber and seal it. In-between the inner and outer chamber, organic material like sand, wool or soil is then saturated with water. As the sun warms the organic material, water evaporates, reducing the temperature of the inner chamber to a cool, 6 ºC [43 ºF] for days at a time!

Original article: Daniel Flahiff. Inhabitat. 12 January 2009. Read more…

Next Page »