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A leading website dedicated to providing avid car enthusiasts, environmentalists and everyday consumers with information about green vehicles, green energy and technologies.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Endless water supplies from ElementFour's WaterMill product
An unrecognized looming crisis is the availability of fresh clean water. Water supply systems are overloaded delivering water to current populations, and in many countries the water simply is not safe. And of course our ancestors also had to deal with unsafe water supplies, it was modern water treatment with all its chemicals that enabled us to have safe clean water available just by twisting the water tap.
In any case ElementFour has developed something cool. The WaterMill is a gadget that draws water directly out of the air. As they say: "The atmosphere contains 4 to 25 grams of water vapor per cubic meter, while the WaterMill can change 10% to 40% of that to liquid. Water vapor is constantly replenished by Earth's natural cycle, so extracting water from the air can continue indefinitely without impacting local ecosystems."
Their current product is meant for home use. It mounts to the outside of a home, and provides up to 13 quarts per day of water. For the future they claim the technology can scale up to larger scale use such as irrigation systems, disaster relief, bottled water production, etc. Oooh... an obvious brand name for a future bottled water company: AirWater ..
Uh... trying that domain name led me to a competitive product: Xziex Atmospheric Water Generator
Both of these companies have a message: One sixth of the worlds population does not have access to clean water, and this kind of product can reduce that number
Maybe so but only if the price is low enough for an indigenous poor person in a primitive rural place can afford to pay for the gadget. The WaterMill is not yet available for purchase, but the XZIEX unit is available right now for $2500. Eek. That price is affordable only by the rich in modern societies where there already is clean water (generally). Perhaps this unit could be popular in India where there are rich people and the water system isn't so clean.
They present an idea that the water in the atmosphere is naturally replenished by the natural ecosystem. This is true, the water in the atmosphere is what we call humidity. Humidity is added from water evaporation from lakes and streams, humidity becomes clouds, and humidity becomes rain. This is the natural ecosystem that ends up producing the fresh water we draw from lakes and rivers.
A question comes to mind is if a gadget like this were to become widespread what disturbance does it make to the natural ecosystem?
The atmosphere already produces the water we drink, through natural means the atmosphere produces rain which produces lakes and rivers. It behooves us to make the best use of that resource, of course. The question I'm pondering is about deploying gadgets that also draw water out of the atmosphere, in addition to the water the ecosystem naturally draws out of the atmosphere. The natural ecosystem produces from the atmosphere the water that feeds lakes and rivers, so gadgets which also produces water from the atmosphere draws water from the same source as what feeds the rivers and lakes.
Of course if there are only a few of these units in use there's nothing to worry about. What if these companies are successful and they deploy billions of these units, and deploy large scale units?
An article in the Gaurdian discusses the WaterMill with statements like ... The demand for water is off the chart. People are looking for freedom from water distribution systems that are shaky and increasingly unreliable. Yeah, there's a big business opportunity here to provide water outside the normal water distribution systems. And there are many places in the world which lack good normal water distribution systems.
Another point: For the environmentally conscious consumer, the WaterMill has an obvious appeal. Bottled water is an ecological catastrophe. In the US alone, about 30bn litres of bottled water is consumed every year at a cost of about $11bn (£7.4bn). Yeah, bottled water is a crazy product especially in countries where adequate clean safe water is available at every tap. And to think of the oil being used to produced those bottles...
There are other methods through this madness.
We can make better use of the water supply we already have. Rather than use the water once and pour it down the drain, what about greywater systems? A grey water system diverts water from being poured down the drain and uses it for irrigation. There are known safe methods and regulations about the use of grey-water.
Direct collection of rainwater is simple in many places and again can be used for many purposes. Rainwater is usually safe clean water, and can certainly obviously be used for irrigation.
Links:
http://www.elementfour.com/ Friday, November 21, 2008
Green Supply Chain
URL:
Description:
An online training program offering online education about sustainability. Companies need information about being sustainable to practice social responsibility, remain competitive, or meet the needs of global markets. They provide online sustainability training and sustainability professional certifications through the Global Sustainability Institute of Technology.
The courses include:
Green Purchasing Fundamentals
Sustainability 101 & Corporate Social Responsibility Essentials
Carbon Strategies
Senior Certified Sustainability Professional Certification (SCSP)
Certified Sustainability Professional Certification (CSP)
Green Supply Chain Professional Certification (GSCP)
Green Maven
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Description:
A website that brings the best of the Green Web together. Use it as a research tool, or keep up to date on the latest trends in the Green Revolution.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The low level EV Technician
While processing the update on the Dagne motorcycle a thought resurfaced. One thing that's necessary for the EV Industry to take off is that there be trained low level EV technicians just as today there are a wide range of technicians for servicing oil burning vehicles. While electric vehicles tend to be very reliable they can and do break. Nothing is perfect and as the Buddha said everything in the manifest universe is impermanent. I think he really said the only permanence is impermanence. In practical terms this means your EV will break down and unless you want to learn how to repair it yourself this means having a local shop that can deal with it.
Obviously most people are too busy with their lives to learn how to maintain their EV. Obviously they'll do with their EV's as they've grown accustomed to doing with their gas car where they take it to Jiffy Lube every 3-5,000 miles and generally service shops do all the maintenance.
By way of example -- the lack of EV technicians is important enough that Auto Blog Green covered a technician job opening at Tesla Motors in a recent blog post.
Mid-Del Technology Center Electric Vehicle Center is a training center teaching electric vehicle repair including - Basic Electricity; Electric Vehicle Basic; Ground Support Equipment; Introduction to Hybrids; Hydrogen Fuel Cells; Hybrid Safety; Electric Vehicle; Non-road Vehicle Workshops
Advanced Transportation Technology & Energy Initiative (ATTEi) was established by the California Community College’s Economic and Workforce Development Program. In particular it was created as a means for keeping competitive as a national leader in advanced transportation technologies and to transform the workforce in the rapidly developing, technology-driven transportation industry, while improving the environment and stimulating the economy. This is not purely about electric vehicles but "alternative fueled vehicles".
I found a job description based in Sacramento for a Electronic / Battery Laboratory Test Technician where the job is to Provide Battery Test and Electric / Hybrid Vehicle Technician services for a ...automotive service supplier in the electric and hybrid vehicle industry.... is involved with new cutting edge battery and electric / hybrid vehicle technology, works closely with the top auto manufacturers on testing of future production battery prototypes, and performs repairs of existing electric and hybrid vehicle production vehicle systems. etc...
Skills and Knowledge
- Electronics degree required (2 year degree minimum).
- Previous electrical and diagnostic experience (2 years minimum). Previous electric vehicle, hybrid vehicle, fuel cell, battery testing or high voltage experience a plus.
- Good hands-on skills and familiarity of a wide range of hand tools and electronic test equipment
- Recent forklift certification and warehousing experience a plus.
- Must be smart, analytical and be able to perform root cause / diagnostics on high voltage equipment with little or no guidance. Ability to follow procedures and work on tasks independently.
- Excellent computer skills (Word, Excel and Outlook).
Qualifications include "...2. Ability to lift 50 lb. objects up to 100 times each day..." .. uh, can you say "Batteries"?
A job listing from http://www.nicecarcompany.co.uk/ in August says Don't worry if you don't have experience on hybrid or electric vehicles .. it's a plus but not essential as training will be provided.
Automotive Research and Design Company offers Hybrid Electric Vehicle Educational Tools & Training. They offer in-person training workshops, multimedia training on CD-ROM and the following 8-book set
- Book 1 - Hybrid High Voltage Electrical Safety
- Book 2 - Hybrid Battery Pack & Energy Management Systems
- Book 3 - Hybrid Regenerative Braking & Climate Controls
- Book 4 - Hybrid High Voltage Vehicle Safety Systems
- Book 5 - Hybrid Electrical Machines
- Book 6 - Hybrid Power Inverters
- Book 7 - Hybrid dc-dc Converter Systems
- Book 8 - Hybrid GM Flex Power PHT
The U.S. Department of Energy, Vehicle Technologies Program, Advanced Vehicle Testing page lists a slew of different tests for electric vehicles. This isn't directly about technicians but would give an idea what sort of things technicians would have to look at.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Open Sustainability Network
Description:
Thousands of organizations and millions of people are currently working to effectively tackle a set of profound global challenges through the creation, adoption and commercialization of sustainable approaches and clean technologies. Our efforts are fragmented. It is time to promote a culture of working together while maintaining our own special niches by leveraging shared and openly licensed solutions.
Join us for the first Open Sustainability Network unconference as we explore free content and knowledge sharing in sustainability, international development, appropriate technology and solutions to poverty.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
MSNBC Going Green network
I recently learned of the MSNBC Going Green network, which I'd never heard of. Sounds like an interesting possibility to access "content" plus gain some extra visibility for the blogging I do through this web site. I want to first take a look at the service as there is an interesting question here irregardless of whether this blog joins their 'network' or not. There is a need for people to have access to good quality news and information about "green" issues and sustainability, so does MSNBC or MSN have a good quality service?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ -- This is MSNBC's home page, and looking over the top level navigation it's completely unclear how to get to "MSN Green" or whether they cover any environmental, green or sustainability news. U.S. News, nothing, World news, nothing, Business, nothing, Tech & Science, nothing. Uh?
http://www.msn.com/ - It does have a link, "Green Living", which goes to http://green.msn.com/ ... Presumably if I were to login in and create a custom home page it could include a block for Green Living news items from green.msn.com
I see they have supporting partners including: Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Earth 911, Grist, StopGlobalWarming.org, Treehugger, The Daily Green
There's a set of links at the top for 'msn' leading to News, Lifestyle, Travel, etc, content and it appears there is "green" content among the regular content of their news & information site, and that these links assist the reader to view the green subset of the news they publish.
In general it looks pretty reasonable. It's interesting that some of the content they publish is coming from their partners.
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