My grandmother could never have made this connection in a million lifetimes. But she would have cursed me for suggesting that the menacing elephants that occasionally come to our dusty village somewhere in remote Africa to pillage on our crops and the geckos that roam the village paths could have a connection with her lying on her death bed and needing the knife of a surgeon for her perennial ulcers.

But two separate scientific studies and discoveries in very different settings in Africa and the US can easily make the connection, if you may.

Connecting the Elephant and the Gecko
The pounding feet of the 15,000 pound African Bush Elephant make protective crevices in the savanna grasslands that help the geckos hide from their predators and the hot, penetrating African sun, according to Robert Pringle, an ecologist and conservation biologist at Stanford University in California, who conducted his research at the Mpala Research Center in Kenya. Significant numbers of geckos have been reported in the aftermath of an elephant’s feeding - the vertebrates often finding breeding space and security in fallen tree limbs and stripped barks. This makes the Elephant a change agent of habitat creation at the patch scale for small species that seem insignificant.

Connecting You and the Gecko
The gecko is a small to average sized lizard belonging to the family Gekkonidae that come in 1,196 different species and which are found in warm climates throughout the world.

Many species have specialized toe pads that enable them to climb smooth vertical surfaces and even cross indoor ceilings with ease. Some species like the house lizard are entirely harmless and feed on irritant house insects, which is good. But that is not all.

You and the Gecko, Again
A joint team of MIT and Harvard researchers were inspired by the sticky feet of the gecko to create a dissolving bandage that can be issued on soft tissue within the human body. Sounds incredible.

They borrowed from principles that allow the gecko to stick upside down on walls and identified the gecko-special effects (nanoscales) that would produce the required result, and completely biodegradable, improving on earlier trials that have been available since 2001.

In a concept called the “biorubber”, the bandage was first tested on intestinal tissue taken from pigs, after creating profiles that would be stickiest yet maintain a grip and lock effect with the underlying tissue.

This type of gecko-inspired adhesives have been tried for a number of years but without the profound results of this creation which is biocompatible and biodegradable and elastic at the same time and good to use on the human body. With a very thin layer of a sugar-based glue, it sticks perfectly to surface tissues like those of lungs, intestines, heart or bladder.

This makes this unique bandage a high potential for sealing wounds and replacing damaged organ tissue, thanks in part to the elephant and more so to the gecko.

So the next time my grandmother goes to the surgeon for her ulcers, before she passes out under the bright lighting on the ceiling, she might just as well make the connection…

Further reading and resources:
Ecological Society of America, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Lizard Longue

Photo credit: David Clements via Wikimedia Commons

Link 1:  http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/steffen/greenland/melt2005/

More recently there has been a flurry of activity in the media, spurred on by a comment or two from James Hansen, (GISS), alleging recent alarming increase in the rate of melting, but most of it being in vague terms, with some saying double the rate and some triple, relative to something not elucidated.

One of the sources of this seems to be the following November 2007 release from NASA:

Link 2: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/greenland_recordhigh.html

Here is the Intro’ for that release:    “A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire [sic] Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was greater than ever at 150 percent more than average…”

This seems a very strange way of putting it….for instance in 2002; a declared record high; it was simply stated as the highest since 1991 ….simple! (Later, and similarly, 2005 became legend as higher than 2002, but the data says no!)

“Tragically” though, 2007 was a notably LOWER melt, than in seven major previous years over two prior decades, depending on source thus: {1987}, {1991}, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004 and 2005; {for 1987 & 1991, see link1 graph}; for the other years, see link 2 graph.

In other words, the 2007 “alarming” recent melting, although more than that in 2006, was actually typical of 1987, twenty years ago!

Of course, the “disappointing” number for 2007 does not make exciting news, so rather than say it was a flop, they found that it was better to say it was higher than the average from 1988 to 2006.

(Why average from1988!? Uh? Maybe because there was a statistical “benefit” in choosing 1998 - 2006, i.e. 1987 was avoided as a high melt year and 2006 was a low melt year?…. very convenient!)

They also failed to mention that there was a well instrumented warmer period in Greenland, especially 1920-1930, that should be compared with today, concerning melt potential. However melt data in those warmer times is not available; find more at:

http://bobfj.greenoptions.com/

Funny business this; why don’t they talk straight to us mortals!

For instance, the respected journal; Geophysical Research Letters, 13 June 2006, has published this  paper by Chylek et al: 

ABSTRACT:
We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming period with the previous (1920-1930)
Greenland warming. We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 - 2005.

For more information:  http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html 

A 2002 paper by a lead author in the 2007 IPCC report on this topic; J BOX and colleagues studied a longer time series of Greenland temperatures and also show the same 1920’s -1930’s highs.    http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/jbox/BOX_2002_Greenland_Temperature_Analysis.pdf 

Polyakov and Johnson 2000, discusses relevant  natural climatic cycles, including primarily the Arctic Oscillation (AO) which is apparently described by others as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO = basically that of regional natural atmospheric pressure cycles) http://denali.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu:8080/~igor/research/pdf/50yr_web.pdf

It is interesting that figure 1 in that paper showing the NAO cycle record, has an impressive correlation with theGreenland temperatures.

It should be noted that most of the temperatures evaluated in
Greenland were necessarily on the coastal fringes away from the prime ice sheet. However, Johannessen et al 2006, in the only comprehensive study (45 million of data) of the prime Greenland ice sheet show that the ice sheet is growing significantly.  They also identify the NAO as a key factor, and higher air temperatures resulting in increased snow precipitation.  (Others argue, based on modelling, that coastal melting exceeds this growth, but in reality, such modelling is immensely complicated, and arguably controversial)   http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1115356 

Finally, here is a brief extract from a recent release by NASA’s JPL:  

“Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.” 

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html 

Is anyone interested in discussing some GOOD NEWS? 

The first innovative step towards stacking cars was the parking structure, where layers of cars could be stacked upon each other. The next innovative step is to actually stack cars up against each other to reduce the absurd amount of space we require for vehicular parking. The concept is a hybrid of car sharing systems, spatial planning, alternative fueling systems, and personal convenience.

Developed by MIT Media Lab students from the Concept Car Design Workshop sponsored by GM, the key behind this concept is the redesign of the wheel and axel. Rather than having a rigid axel, it will actually fold in a way that will allow the car to rotate upwards 90 degrees. In this, the long dimension of the vehicle is perpendicular to the ground while parked. Since each car has the same form and design, they perfectly nest together to reduce surface space consumption. The stackable car will be able to reduce required curbside parking space by about a third to a half. This allows for more sidewalk space, biking lanes, and comfortable city conditions.

Due to the small dimensions, the stacks of cars will be conveniently placed in locations all over the city- where you would normally come out of a building and hail a cab; you can jump in an electric city car and advance to your next desired location. The concept City Car system includes solar paneling on the rooftops of buildings adjacent to the stackable parking depositories. These panels will be the power supply to charge the electric cars while parked.

This car-sharing concept is a solution to the missing link between public transportation and the front door. Often people don’t use public transit due to the time necessary to switch from the subway to the bus to the next bus. Now people can commute into the city, get off the train, jump in a city car, and drive that extra three to ten miles to the office. This is a reasonable solution to a very prevalent problem. Instead of unnecessarily consuming a parking space while in the office all day long, you can use a city car in the morning and evening, while others use it all afternoon; and the convenience of hopping in a city car is what will make this work. In addition, since these cars aren’t personal vehicles and people will be in them on an average of five to thirty minutes, hopefully the new system will encourage people to share rides across town thus influencing our sense of community, status, and ownership.

Note: For the latest on Algae Biodiesel, head over to Gas 2.0 (http://gas2.org).

Looking to buy your own algae biodiesel manufacturing plant?
You may be in luck.

AlgaeLink has developed the first made-to-order industrial algae production facility in the world.

Sure, we’ve all read 50 stories about algae biodiesel the panacea—the only biofuel that will make a serious dent in petroleum usage—but none of those stories have materialized yet. But the fact that commercially harvesting algae could produce yields of 10,000 gallons of oil per acre on agriculturally poor land has not been lost on green entrepreneurs. See my other posts on the topic here. While most of my coverage on algae biofuel research has focused on the United States, AlgaeLink N.V., based in the Netherlands, is the first company to market industrial algae production systems. The 5-year old company began selling units in the third quarter of 2007, after 4 years of investment and research.

How are AlgaeLink systems different?

Industry trend has primarily focused on development of closed bioreactors, most commonly an array of clear tubing that maximizes light and nutrient flow. In this model, algae is grown inside this transparent tubing with a constantly circulating supply of carbon dioxide and food. AlgaeLink’s design doesn’t seem much different than some of the other proposed systems I’ve already discussed: it’s based on 118 feet of 25 inch diameter tube fed by a water pump.

But several improvements make AlgaeLink unique, most notably the claim that they’ve solved the high-yield photoefficieny problem. As algae growth increases, the photobioreactor tubes get clogged with biomass, thereby reducing light that can penetrate into the center and reducing overall yield. AlgaeLink is currently patenting some mysterious technology that allows them to get around this.

Economically speaking, the company has also improved efficiency of transport and assembly of plant materials, along with creating proprietary sensing technology that can monitor algal growth from anywhere in the world. Such a sensing system would ostensibly allow the company to provide tech support from half a world away. The system is also self-cleaning, so no disassembly interrupts production.

AlgaeLink requires a demonstration plant for each potential site in order to optimize algal strain and test local climate conditions. Since AlgaeLink ships the reactors with 10 species of algae, there’s plenty room for experimentation.

How Much Does it Cost?

About $98,000 for the demonstration plant, which is required, and $821,000 to $14 million for different sized models.
You can also take a two-day algae production course in the Netherlands for $2,547.

Does it work?

Apparently, a demonstration plant is already running, producing about 2-4 kg of dry weight biomass per day. AlgaeLink claims yields of 10-100 TONS per day after 4-6 months of site monitoring to optimize algae strain based on local climate and water conditions. 10 tons is a lot more than 2-4 kg, so the scalability of the system must be incredible.

How much biodiesel is that?

I’m not really sure about that, but AlgaeLink has conducted an analysis on the suitability of producing algae biodiesel.

How much does the oil cost?

Cost of production varies by climate, but AlgaeLink claims their demonstration plant in the Netherlands is currently producing oil for 50 cents per gallon.

So why hasn’t anyone else made this technology available?

I’ll let the company’s president and CEO, Hans van de Ven, speak for himself:

We have a unique system and that’s the reason nobody else can offer it. They don’t know how to do it.

Someone needed to be first. We have put at least four years of work into our system. We have put a great deal of money into it and have had engineers and biologists working on it all over the world. We are ready to sell commercial plants. A lot of people over the Internet have been ripped off by people who promised a lot and nothing happened. We have a very good name in the industry and we would like to keep it like that.

See the original article from the Nov. 2007 Biodiesel Magazine here.

Photo Credit: AlgaeLink.com

Digg this story.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) denied permits to two large, 700-megawatt plants proposed by Sunflower Electric Power. The plants would have cost about $3.6 billion and spewed 11 million tons of CO2 into the air each year. That’s almost the same amount of CO2 that the Northeastern states planned to have saved by 2020 with their cap-and-trade program. The attorneys general of those states had petitioned Kansas officials to deny the coal plants that would have effectively negated their efforts.

Interestingly, while the KDHE staff recommended that the plants be permitted, state law also allows the KDHE secretary to deny a permit if there is an unregulated emission that threatens public health or the environment. And that's what happened here: Secretary Roderick L. Bremby disagreed with his staff because of the unregulated CO2 emissions that pose a threat to global warming. He wrote in his news release: "I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing."

Recent energy policies, combined with pre-existing crop subsidies, tax policies, global market conditions and trade barriers all provide economic incentives for conversion of retired and other cropland to corn production for use in ethanol production. Such conversions could lead to corn production on an additional 16 million acres...

The Dead Zone, an area in which there isn't enough dissolved oxygen to support aquatic life, has been measured in the Gulf of Mexico since 1985. It's caused by agricultural runoff overenriching the waters at the end of the Mississippi River - the downstream effect of millions of acres of intensely fertilized crops. Nitrogen and phosphorous, intended for corn but ending up in the river, make their way to the Gulf causing excessive phytoplankton production. In the process, all available oxygen is used up (hypoxia), and marine life has to move out or suffocate.

It turns out that the greater Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB) drains a grand total of 40% of the contiguous United States. The cumulative effect of all this runnoff creates a Dead Zone approximatly 20,500 sq. km. - roughly the size of the state of New Jersey.

To address this issue, the Science Advisory board recommends a 45% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorous fluxes from farmland. Unfortunately, recent trends pushing corn-based biofuels are not exactly aligned with this strategy:

While the idea of sending giant solar panels into orbit around the Earth is nothing new — the idea has been kicked around with varying degrees of seriousness since the '60s and 70s — changing times have made the concept a lot more feasible today, according to a study released Oct. 10 by the National Security Space Office (NSSO). Fossil fuels are a lot more expensive, and getting harder to access, than they were in past decades. And technology advances are making possible today projects that were all but inconceivable in years past.

"The magnitude of the looming energy and environmental problems is significant enough to warrant consideration of all options, to include revisiting a concept called Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) first invented in the United States almost 40 years ago," the report's executive summary states.

Oil prices have jumped from $15/barrel to now $80/barrel in less than a decade. In addition to the emergence of global concerns over climate change, American and allied energy source security is now under threat from actors that seek to destabilize or control global energy markets as well as increased energy demand competition by emerging global economies.

A meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) has improved the hopes of the cod and local cold-water corals off of the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador.

See, not very sexy!

But the fact is that as it stands at the moment, the amount of cod swimming around in our oceans are stacking up at 6% of their historical abundance. And it's a figure that will no doubt be replicated across the world with continued over-fishing.

So it's heartening and thrilling to see that there are people out there who are taking this seriously, and people with influence to boot. WWF is as excited as I am as well.

"For some time NAFO has been talking about protecting habitats and recovering depleted stocks," said Dr Robert Rangeley, WWF-Canada's Vice President for the Atlantic. "Today, NAFO has begun to move from words to action by committing to conservation measures that, when implemented, will make a real difference on the water."

GreenFuel Technologies has finally produced some results:

This summer, GreenFuel Technologies and Arizona Public Service Company (APS) were able to grow algae successfully at APS’ Redhawk natural gas power plant at levels 37 times higher than corn and 140 times higher than soybeans using CO2 from a natural gas-fired power plant as input to theGreenFuel system.

Algae cultivation has always promised exceptional yields for multiple end-use products: oils are processed into biodiesel, starches into ethanol, and the remaining protein components are used in animal feed. It's a great idea, but no one has been able to do it in real life yet. GreenFuel Tech., in conjunction with APS, was the first to make commercially viable biodiesel and ethanol from algae cultivated at a commercial power plant in 2006, but these new results are the first indicator that commercially viable production levels are possible.

The utilities involved have more than 20 million customers and cover 22 states: Con Edison (ED), Edison International (EIX), Great Plains Energy (GXP), Duke Energy (DUK), Pepco Holdings (POM), PNM Resources (PNM), Sierra Pacific Resources (SRP), and Xcel Energy (XEL). Up until now, the only utilities that want to grow profits through energy efficiency investments have been in California.

The move by these utilities comes at a time when demand is growing, concerns and lawsuits about emissions abound, and global warming is a hot political and business issue.

Energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest way to cut global warming emissions, and the utilities agree: " …we share a common belief that energy efficiency is the greatest untapped resource in addressing global climate change in the near-term." Here are the major elements of their plan:

• Boost investments in energy efficiency projects to $1.5 billion per year in the next 10 years.

• Create a national institute for electric efficiency. The Energy Efficiency Institute will work on regulatory policy models, notably how utilities can make money when customers use less energy rather than more. It will be formed within the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s investor-owned utilities.

The week began and ended with major international climate change conferences. The first was a United Nations meeting, prepping world leaders for the December talks in Bali that will be the first step to determining emissions goals after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The meeting that closed out this week was held by President Bush in Washington. Sixteen nations, the UN, and the European Union were invited.

At the start of the two-day “Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told delegates that the U.S. while being a major emitter of global warming pollution, the government is very serious about fighting climate change. In a soundbite gobbled up by the media, she said that global warming, like terrorism, needs the nations of the world to work together to fight it.

Like the meeting earlier in the week, the Washington meeting was billed as a starting point for negotiations beyond Kyoto. But while the U.N. meetings discuss measurable emissions cuts and targets, Bush prefers voluntary measures or “intensity targets,” that call for emission reductions per each unit of economic production.

The problem is that intensity targets don’t mean overall emission cuts, and that makes many at home and abroad suspicious of the real motives behind the Bush meeting.

There have been some major wake-up calls in the fight against global warming, starting with the United Nations scolding the U.S. for not doing enough to mitigate its contributions to the problem.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press that it's "very clear" the U.S. is not on the right track, despite the Bush administration's recent openness to even discussing the problem and the series of meetings President Bush has scheduled with world leaders.

More U.N. meetings begin today to prepare for the Bali talks in December that will include negotiations of how to proceed after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. On Thursday, President Bush convenes his own two-day meeting with 15 big-emitter nations. Some worry that his smaller, more limited round of negotiations will undercut the Bali discussions.

Our friends across the pond didn't hear any good news on the climate change front, either. A representative of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told the BBC that it’s unlikely the European Union will achieve their goal of keeping global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

The first report, released by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), represent the data at the end of the melt season, or summer. According to the report, released yearly at this time, the 2007 levels of ice in the Arctic Ocean are lower than ever before.

Dr Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the Boulder University of Colorado National Snow and Ice Data Center, says that "It's amazing. It's simply fallen off a cliff and we’re still losing ice."

The report was blunt in its appraisal of the current conditions, stating that "As of today (September 3), ice extent in 2007 was 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) less than the same day in 2005." Sea ice normally stops melting and begins its regrowth sometime in September, and according to reports, that is still a few weeks away. "The bottom line," the report states, is that "2007 has already unseated the 2005 record, but we don't yet know by how much."

It is as a result of these figures that the estimate has arisen that by 2030 there will be no more summer ice if the current rate of drop-off continues.

In fact, the drop off is so total that the Northwest Passage, the space that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together, is now almost completely open. It was only a hundred years ago that it would have taken over two years to find a safe passage through what was then thick and compact ice. Researchers also believe that the northeast passage (not yet capitalized due to its unpopularity apparently) could open later this year.

Sony recently announced their current activity in developing a new bio-battery. The battery generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. The sample battery has proven to be able to output 50 mW, or enough to power a portable mp3 player. This is the world’s highest yet for a passive-type bio battery.

According to the Sony Press Release:

Sony developed a system of breaking down sugar to generate electricity that involves efficiently immobilizing enzymes and the mediator (electronic conduction materials) while retaining the activity of the enzymes at the anode. Sony also developed a new cathode structure which efficiently supplies oxygen to the electrode while ensuring that the appropriate water content is maintained. Optimizing the electrolyte for these two technologies has enabled these power output levels to be reached.

The newly developed bio battery incorporates an anode consisting of sugar-digesting enzymes and mediator, and a cathode comprising oxygen-reducing enzymes and mediator, either side of a cellophane separator. The anode extracts electrons and hydrogen ions from the sugar (glucose) through enzymatic oxidation as follows:
Glucose -> Gluconolactone + 2 H+ + 2 e-
The hydrogen ion migrates to the cathode through the separator. Once at the cathode, the hydrogen ions and electrons absorb oxygen from the air to produce water:
(1/2) O2 + 2 H+ + 2 e- -> H2O
Through this process of electrochemical reaction, the electrons pass through the outer circuit to generate electricity.

LS Power Group wants to build a 750-megawatt (MW) plant near Waterloo, and Alliant Energy wants a 630 MW coal plant near Marshalltown. A new MidAmerican Energy coal plant just began operation near Council Bluffs on June 1.

Local and regional supporters of clean and efficient energy will fight the plants. Besides the economic drain of having to import coal from Wyoming, supporters argue that powering the Iowa's ethanol plants with coal power does not make environmental sense or economic sense. Cleaner methods of production – like using a biomass gasification system to produce ethanol – is a smarter choice, noted Carrie LaSeur of the Iowa law firm Plains Justice: "Biofuels are supposed to make us less dependent on fossil fuels and reduce CO2. Using coal to power a biofuels plant has the opposite effect…Coal is a thing of the past. Why keep falling back on this old technology, when clean alternatives are out there?"