Ed Ring

Since we've thrown EcoWorld into the global warming debate - and it is a debate - we've been trying hard to not just report what everybody else has said, but try to understand for ourselves what the data and the theories really mean.  This is basically impossible, but it's also our obligation both as responsible journalists and as citizens of the world.  So we will try. One relatively easily understood concept is the notion of global warming causing melting of land based polar icecaps which in turn would cause the oceans to rise.  In practice, that means the approximately 1.4 mile thick icecap atop Greenland's 840,000 square miles of land mass, and the roughly 1.3 mile thick...

It seems solar thermal power has quietly grown up, while photovoltaic power has gotten all the attention.  It isn't as though there isn't a lot to like about photovoltaics - they require almost no maintenance, they last for several decades, they emit zero pollution, and if the claims of companies like Nanosolar are to be believed, they are about to get several times cheaper to make and they will change the world. In the meantime, however, solar thermal power is probably one of the most cost-effective ways to generate renewable energy; using solar power for water heating is something that countless innovative homes and commercial buildings have already implemented.  But by using...

The Tesla Roadster is the first all-electric car to rely on lithium ion batteries.  But these batteries, which have the highest energy density of any battery available, are also prone to overheating.  How has Tesla addressed this potential problem? According to the Tesla website's "how it works" page, "The system addresses thermal balancing with a liquid cooling circuit. Multiple passive and active safety devices ensure safe operation over the wide range of driving environments and scenarios. An array of sensors and a dozen microcontrollers communicate with the vehicle to allow efficient use and management of the battery pack. Finally, the entire assembly is housed in a rugged enclosure, which protects the system from the harsh road environment while supporting the internal components." It's interesting that advancements in battery technology that are leading us towards all-electric battery...

Our last post on global warming, where we referenced a Wall Street Journal article by MIT Professor of Meteorology, Richard S. Lindzen, received more than a few comments. There is an excellent resource online that identifies many of the high-profile individuals around the world who are on record as challenging global warming theories - it's called SourceWatch and their list can be found on their Climate Change Controversy page. We dug into Professor Lindzen's background a little more, we even left a message on his voicemail to which, for the record, he will hopefully respond.  In addition to his Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled "Climate of Fear," he has authored for the Cato Institute an essay entitled "Global Warming:  The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus."  They are worth reading. Unlike many global warming skeptics, Dr. Lindzen is acknowledged even by his critics as being an outstanding atmospheric scientist.  Even those who accept global warming theories usually agree there is a...

There aren't too many things more important to human survival and environmental health than watersheds. As much as any other criteria, the boundries of watersheds delineate the eco-regions where we are either meeting or failing to meet the challenge of preserving and cleaning up our ecosystems. Do you want to monitor and manage global climate change? Don't forget to follow the watersheds - because the hydrological cycle of our planet, and ultimately, our ability to store and manage fresh water - comes down to how we manage each and every individual watershed on earth. Some of the world's greatest ecological disasters as well as some of the greatest opportunities lie in how we manage (or mismanage) our watersheds. Diversions from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya river for cotton irrigation has caused the Aral Sea to dry up. Diverting excess water from the Volga watershed might help us fill...

Already the world capital for high technology, the Silicon Valley appears poised to distinguish itself as the undisputed leader in green technology as well. Not only is the most interesting new battery powered car getting built by a Silicon Valley company, Tesla Motors, but now a four year old company "Nanosolar," based in Palo Alto, California, has announced they are ready to manufacture photovoltaics on a massive scale. It's hard to imagine two more transformative green innovations than battery powered cars and photovoltaic power that are both affordable and practical. According to their website, "Nanosolar has developed proprietary technology that makes it possible to simply roll-print solar cells...

How large would your photovoltaic array have to be, if you wanted to power your electric vehicle with sunlight? The first step is to calculate the mileage of your electric car. With a gasoline car, mileage is measured in miles per gallon. With an electric car, mileage is measured in miles per kilowatt-hour. If you read our recent post "Electric Car Cost Per Mile" you will see we calculate a light-duty electric car can achieve about 3.0 miles per kilowatt hour. A more in-depth set of calculations can be found in our feature "The Battery Powered Car." The charge/discharge efficiencies of batteries are high, usually over 90%, and the efficiency of the on-board vehicle batteries is taken into account in our calculations of 2.9 miles per kilowatt hour. But if your car is being powered by photovoltaics, presumably you will be off driving to work and back during most days when you want to collect electric power. Therefore you will...

A car running on electricity drawn from the power grid and stored on-board can be fueled at about one-third the cost per mile compared to a gasoline-powered car. We prove this in our recent post Electric Car Cost Per Mile. There are at least three technologies to store electricity on-board an electric vehicle; hydrogen which is turned into electricity using onbard fuel cells, ultra-capacitors, and batteries. We reject fuel cells for reasons clearly stated in our posts The Hydrogen Hoax, and Fuel Cell Cars Aren't Ready. Ultra-capacitors are a wild card - while there probably aren't nearly insurmountable problems in eventually lowering their manufacturing costs, as there are with fuel cell / hydrogen systems, they have a relatively low energy density. This makes them impractical for vehicle applications. There is some evidence that "nanotube enhanced ultracapacitor" prototypes can now achieve an energy density of 75 watt-hours per kilogram, which lags well behind lithium ion...

There aren't many cars on the roads today that run purely on batteries, but three new models are off the drawing boards and - if the manufacturers claims are to be believed - will be selling and seen on the streets within the next twelve months.  And all three of these companies are in sunny, high-tech California. The first of these 100% battery powered cars is the Zap Zebra, which is really an oversized golf cart.  Based in Santa Rosa, California, ZAP has been around for over 10 years, and have experimented with various light duty electric cars including fuel cell prototypes. Zap's latest creation is street legal on roads where the speed limit is under 45 MPH. The Zap Zebra costs under $10,000, has a top speed of 40 mph, and a range of 40 miles. Depending on how durable this car is, and how long their batteries last, it could pay for itself in fuel savings as a 2nd car for shopping and...

In the July 27th, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, in an interview with Al Gore, he is quoted as saying the following "The fact that oil is beginning to get more expensive more quickly will contribute to the realization of how dysfunctional our current pattern is. Take the tar sands of western Canada. For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a family's home for four days." Well according to the US Geologic Survey's "World Energy Assessment Team," in a useful table of conversion factors, "6,000 cubic feet of gas equals one barrel of oil." We've checked this conversion on other websites and in some cases it's 10% low and in some cases 10% high, but that's due to what assumptions you make about the grade of oil and gas being compared. To continue, the average American household, during the winter heating season which lasts from October through March...