Green Options

The United Kingdom is definitely ahead of the game when it comes to wind power, despite America’s claims to the contrary. The entire UK wind sector equated to 2.389 gigawatts in 2007 up from 1.962 gigawatts in 2006, and is expected to continue to grow.

However these statistics only take into account the large scale wind farms that are sprouting across the country. What they fail to take into account, are the individual wind turbines that are being installed on homes, businesses and farms.

According to a new report by the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), 7,844 private wind systems were set to be installed this year, 4385 more than in 2007.

Indigenous groups from the Americas, Africa and Asia are worried that, if industrialized nations are allowed to purchase carbon rights from their forests, they will lose out, seeing ownership change hands without them even being consulted.

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Ever since I first saw Ernie and almost the entire felt-cast of Sesame Street do “The Rubber Duck, Duck” dance on Sesame Street, I have had a strange fascination with rubber ducks. They aren’t the common toy here in Australia that they appear to be elsewhere. And though looking back at that video now presents me with a bit of a moral and architectural dilemma, considering just how many people are naked together in that tub, my love for the rubber duck continues.

And now, once again, the rubber duck is coming to the aid of science. US rocket scientist Alberto Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has sent 90 rubber ducks into the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland in an attempt to figure out what is happening inside Greenland’s fastest moving glacier.

With my complete lack of faith in the US federal government, it warms my heart aplenty to see so much initiative by local governments and businesses in going green. On Friday of last week, the 19th, two announcements were made that saw plans revealed for two new renewable energy sources. The first announcement saw Oglethorpe Power Corporation (OPC) announce plans to buld as many as three 100-megawatt biomass electric generating facilities in the state of Georgia. The second, was an announcement by SBD International promising the future construction of a small solar farm in Florida, capable of generating up to 20 megawatts. And these sorts of announcements come across our desks almost every day. But there are only so many articles we can write that would be as long as this introduction.

As the US federal government has failed to step up to the plate, many smaller forms of government have realized it will be in their hands to bring about environmental changes. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley revealed Thursday details for the Chicago Climate Action Plan. The plan will add Mayor Daley to about 800 US mayors who have adopted the Kyoto global warming protocols. Chicago’s new plan will build upon measured already in place and under way in the city, in an attempt to make Chicago the most environmentally friendly city in the US.

I’ve said from the very beginning of my writing here at Green Options, as have many other pundits and journalists the world over, that it will be big business that not only will, but has too lead the way to an environmentally friendly future. And one of those companies that have taken this challenge in hand is Internet search and advertising giant Google. And now, announced on Wednesday, Google and technology giant General Electric will be teaming up to promote the need for a change to the US power grid and cleaner energy. They will also be working together on green energy technologies, as well as lobbying US political leaders to support what they call “visionary policies” focusing on renewable energies.

Under a scenario that is nothing short of fairy tale-optimistic and unrealistic, a pair of authors from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has predicted a minimum warming of 2.4° C (4.3° F) above pre-industrial levels. And even an increase that is seemingly that small, falls within the IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) threshold range of temperature increase that would see a massive loss of biodiversity, deglaciation and a variety of other negative environmental effects.

In a time before powerful and technologically advanced computers, and possibly still to this day with all that equipment, a trained ‘pilot’ was given the reins of any vessel that attempted to pass through the Port Phillip Heads, into Port Phillip Bay, in Melbourne, Australia. The reason was because of the powerful rip tide that connects Port Phillip Bay to Bass Strait. Now Singapore company Atlantis Power Resources is looking at that very same rip as a possible location for water turbines that could feasibly power up to a thousand homes.

One of the biggest roadblocks to a future of renewable energy production is the ability to store such generated electricity. The current networks of power supply and storage simply have no chance of being able to provide necessary storage capacities for renewable sources such as solar and wind, given the propensity for spikes in generated electricity. However engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have made a breakthrough in the development of a new carbon-based material that they believe might allow for at least a doubling of current electricity storage capabilities. The new structure is called grapheme, and measures in at one atom thick.

By now, we’ve been well taught to view the steady decrease of Arctic ice as a bad thing; and for good reason, it is. But by now, I also hope that I have been able to teach you that, when dealing with the climate, nothing is simple. If that lesson has managed to make it through, then this latest piece of “good” news is going to be very interesting. According to two separate research groups, new evidence supports the possibility that the disappearing Arctic ice is a good thing for the planet.