The World’s First Carbon-Neutral Zero Waste Town – “Masdar City”

By admin on November 11, 2009

Masdar

Welcome to the world of Energy!

In Physics, Energy is a scalar physical quantity that shows the amount of work that can be performed by a force, an attribute of objects and systems that are subject to a law of conservation. Any form of Energy can be transformed into another form, but the total energy always remains the same: that’s the principle of the conservation of Energy.

Nowadays, about 18% of global energy consumption comes from renewables, such as Biofuel, Biomass, Geothermal, Hydroelectricity, Solar energy, Tidal power, Wave power and finally Wind power.
Indeed,the use of renewable energy has an enormous potential future thanks to sustainable development and global warming groups that have proposed the use of 100% renewable energy source supplies without using fossil fuels or nuclear power. For example, scientists from the University of Kassel have suggested that Germany can power itself by only renewable energy!

Secondly, there is the world’s first carbon-neutral zero waste town: “Masdar City”, a planned city in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirate. Masdar City aims to become the Silicon Valley for clean, green and alternative energy. A global centre where over 1,500 companies will converge to address one of man’s greatest energy challenges and city where current and future technologies will be funded, researched, developed, tested and implemented. Continue reading “The World’s First Carbon-Neutral Zero Waste Town – “Masdar City””

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What Are the Best Recycling Methods?

By admin on November 5, 2009

Recycling Bin

Many people think that recycling is the be all and end all of helping this planet, however, this is simply not true, as many people have seen there are no truly perfect ways for recycling but true recycling does no start at the bin, it starts with the buying of products.

The first thing that you need to learn is that not only do you have to dispose of your material correctly but you must also buy the correct kinds of products to eliminate your waste, a quick example would be to buy your milk in recyclable plastics or to get your butter wrapped in wax paper rather than it being put inside a non recyclable plastic container.

As you can see not only do your disposal techniques have to change in order for the environment to get better but you also need to change your buying habits, for example, earlier mentioned was the buying of recyclable containers rather than the non recyclable ones. Granted you may end up paying a penny or two more but in the most case these products will usually cost you less to buy as the manufacturing costs of them are a lot cheaper.

Plastics are not the only thing you can look into though, for example, with food waste you would usually put it on a compost heap, however, you can not put a battery there and you can not put, or at least should not be putting your batteries in the bin. In fact with a quick search of the well known search engine Google you should be able to find companies that will actually take your batteries of you in order to dispose of them correctly.

This is also the same for old mobile phones as companies will take rather old and pathetic phones of you and may even pay you for them in order to either recycle for computer parts or to give to the elderly, as even without a sim card they can still dial the emergency number.

Also remember that those plastics you can’t seem to find a way around could still be washed out and maybe given to your local school or nursery as many play groups like to cut up egg containers and milk containers in order to make something to give their parents (that’s right your distributing the waste to others secretly). These are just a few examples of things you can do, in fact if you have children of our own then maybe you could use them in your day to day activities, lets face it playing with new things that you would normally put in the bin costs a lot less than buying your children new toys.

Lastly remember that cloths and other items that you don’t want can easily be sold in a car boot or given to charity, good luck with your recycling.

Bag It Don’t Bin It offers a range of recyclable alternatives to plastic bags such as cotton and canvas jute bags.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_V_Powell

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Critical Water Shortages – Practical Solutions to Save Both Water and Money

By admin on October 29, 2009

Flowing Water 2

As of 9:15am, October 14, 2009, Lake Lanier has returned to full pool for the first time since October 2005. The lake had reached the 1050.97 foot level on December 8, 2008 and many declared Atlanta’s primary source of water dead. It has risen over 19 feet since then. Most Atlantans are probably sighing in relief as the memory of a four year drought has been replaced by other concerns. Unfortunately the problem is not over. Two other states and a federal judge have made that clear. So what can we do to solve the water problem? We cannot solve the political issues but if we are proactive as individuals we can lessen the impact of any future decisions. What follows are some ideas that you can employ in your own life to not only help water issues but save money.

Atlanta is one of the largest cities with the smallest sources of water. Many large cities started as ports at the mouth of large rivers.  Atlanta grew up around transportation. First were the railroads then the interstate highways and then an international airport. Metropolitan Atlanta grew from 1.5 million people in 1960 to over 5 million today.

Water used by Atlantans comes from the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers (ACF River Basin). In the area north of West Point, we withdraw from 700 million to 1 billion gallons per day. We return over 80 percent of that water during months we do not water our lawns and only 66 percent on average during summer months. Non thermoelectric power production (water is used in cooling towers) usage varies from 35 percent to 58 percent. Again during summer months we water crops for agriculture and lawns, so there is not only higher usage as a percentage total but also a larger percentage that is absorbed in the ground and not returned.

This takes us back to the original question. What can Atlantans or other citizens of cities with similar water issues do to help the situation? We consume a large portion of the total water used outside of electric generation and during our heaviest use in the summer months return much less than normal as we water lawns. The largest impact we can make is to rethink our yards particularly lawns. Outside of lawns our consumption of water for use in the home at best only returns 82 percent of the water used. So reduction of water usage in the home is important as well. Continue reading “Critical Water Shortages – Practical Solutions to Save Both Water and Money”

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