Phone books: does anyone actually use them anymore?

How many phone books end up getting recycled (one hopes that's what's happening to them) immediately, without ever even getting cracked open?

In my apartment building lobby, there is a stack of new phone books. Each sits in its own plastic wrapper. So far, the stack appears to be untouched. I'm assuming the vast majority of my fellow apartment dwellers use the Internet to look up phone numbers...so most of the phone books are wholly unnecessary. It was a complete waste to print them and package them.

I wish there were an opt-out program for phone books. What do you think? Do you use physical phone books anymore? If so ... why?

Tags: waste paper phone book

World without oil

I've taken advantage of my recent wide-open schedule to catch up on my favorite podcasts, which was a frequent pastime of mine last summer. My curiosity was piqued by a recent Future Tense podcast that describes World Without Oil -- an alternate reality game (or ARG) in which participants collectively imagine how we'd all cope with a major spike in oil prices.

Participants describe how a significant oil shortage would prompt them to work closer to home, and how proximity would play an important role in relationships: you spend more time with friends in your immediate neighborhood.

It's true; that's what car-free living is like. I should know, as I haven't owned a car for a full decade. I've always worked at jobs that are easily accessible via walking or public transit. And I tend to spend most of my social time with friends who are within walking distance. Not owning a vehicle: the thought is anathema to so many Americans. But I can say from experience that it's really not that big of a deal, particularly in a city with a functional public transit system, like Seattle.

Tags: World Without Oil

Uganda's solar-powered airport

Taking a quick study break from my team paper -- which is about blogging, so I'm technically not grazing too far afield here -- I noticed a post in the Practical Environmentalist about Africa's first "solar-powered airport," for which construction will begin in Uganda next year.

Sounds like the airport will include a lot of excellent features. For instance, rainfall will be harvested from the solar roof for irrigation purposes.

Curiously, though, I can't find any other online news sources for this story, other than the AND article. I'd like to learn more about this. Will the entire airport be solar-powered? That sounds amazing. But I can't help but suspect that we're really only talking about portions of the airport's infrastructure.

Do any other airports in the world make innovative use of alternative energy? Now I'm all curious. But I need to get back to this paper. Anyone with any information on this, do feel free to post a comment.

Tags: solar Uganda airport

Net Impact

Along with the marketing, technology, and consulting clubs at the UW MBA program, I joined Net Impact earlier this week. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I've been hopping up and down with excitement to work with this group. My new fellow Net Impact members are very plugged in to the exciting stuff happening locally, and I look forward to learning more from them about local firms that focus on sustainability.

One great resource that they introduced me to is Sustainable Industries Journal, an excellent resource that has surprisingly slipped my notice until now. See their article on the Seattle Climate Action Plan -- one more reason why I love living here.

Tags: MBA business school Net Impact Sustainable Industries Journal

Dorje-generated content

My good friend Dorje, apparently distraught over the lack of recent news updates here on Fixing Foibles & Follies, has started sending me suggestions for blog posts. Or perhaps he just thinks he's sending me interesting news stories, and I'm interpreting these emails as reminders to me to keep posting good stuff. Whatever your intent, Dorje, do keep sending me the goodies!

The first thing Dorje sent me, in the middle of my skool(intentionally misspelled cuz I'm hip like that!)-centric week, was this New York times article about Google.org, Google's new philanthropic organization. It's exciting to see what Google.org is committing to, namely:

plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline.

The philanthropy is consulting with hybrid-engine scientists and automakers, and has arranged for the purchase of a small fleet of cars with plans to convert the engines so that their gas mileage exceeds 100 miles per gallon. The goal of the project is to reduce dependence on oil while alleviating the effects of global warming.

Dorje also directed my attention to a great blog called The Greener Side, which is a truly linkalicious resource for alternative energy, socially responsible investing, and other green blogs. Check it out.

Tags: Google.org philanthropy green

Solar power: who uses the most?

From the latest Scientific American magazine, which I've been continuing to happily read on the bus:

Surprisingly, Kenya is the global leader in the number of solar power systems installed per capita (but not the number of watts added). More than 30,000 very small solar panels, each producing only 12 to 30 watts, are sold in that country annually. For an investment of as little as $100 for the panel and wiring, the system can be used to charge a car battery, which can then provide enough power to run a flourescent lamp or a small black-and-white television for a few hours a day. More Kenyans adopt solar power every year than make connections to the country's electric grid.

Interesting, no? The article goes on to mention that the demand for small solar power systems is rapidly increasing throughout Africa.

As renewable energy technologies continue to mature, they'll play a big role in shaping the economy and culture of specific regions. It's clearly already starting to happen: solar is thriving in Africa, wind turbines are sprouting up all over Europe.

When I was in high school, we learned how countries are differentiated based on their main exports. I remember how a classmate of mine got frustrated and questioned the value of this sort of knowledge. "Why do I need to know that cork is a main export from Portugal?" he asked. The teacher couldn't come up with a good answer. Ironically, because of that moment, I'll always remember that cork is a main export from Portugal.

Will kids in future school classrooms differentiate countries based on their renewable energy industries?

Tags: alternative energy solar Kenya

Green linkalicious: 8/18/06

All manner of green linkalicious news has popping up lately. It's a lot of fun to follow what's going on in the "world o' green" right now; where ideas and innovations are occurring in a variety of flavors:

• The September '06 issue of Scientific American is great stuff; it's educational and frankly, quite inspiring. It lays out a realistic plan for reducing world-wide carbon emissions over the next 50 years. I'm such a fan that I'll take the brazenly commercialistic move of putting an ad for the magazine right here in my post. There's plenty of gems on their Web site, too, like this article about the carbon-offset program at the 2006 World Cup.
• In architecture, the 2030 Challenge encourages architects to design completely carbon-neutral (using no fossil fuel GHG emitting energy to operate) buildings by 2030.
• Planning is underway for power plants that convert chicken poop into energy. The chicken poop comes from factory farms, which can redeem themselves (a bit) through their participation.
• A company called Australian Farmers' Fuels is using animal fat to produce biodiesel.
• You can read and share green information Wikipedia-style at gWiki -- the Green Wiki. Via Treehugger.
• Under talks between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tony Blair, California is cooking up a global warming reduction plan that puts the U.S. federal government -- and most other states -- to shame.
• Carbon sequestration is the growing field of inquiry into how carbon can be captured, to prevent it from entering the atmosphere. Scientists are exploring ancient Amazonian dark soil, called terra preta do indio, for clues about how to capture carbon in the soil. Via Futurismic:

  This rare rainforest soil holds two and a half times the carbon content of normal soils, but no one is entirely sure as to how the ancient tribes of the Amazon actually created the stuff. If the secret can be cracked, we would have access to a carbon sequestration method that would take biofuels from being carbon neutral to carbon negative - in other words, actually pulling out more carbon from the ecosphere than is released by the use of the fuels produced.

Quick facts: biodiesel vs. ethanol

41%  Total percentage energy gain (how much more total energy is produced than the total amount invested) for corn-distilled ethanol.

93%  Total percentage energy gain for soybean-derived biodiesel.

12%  Percentage fewer greenhouse gas emissions for corn-distilled ethanol, compared with fossil fuels.

41%  Percentage fewer greenhouse gas emissions for soybean-derived biodiesel, compared with fossil fuels.

Note that these figures compare normal ethanol with biodiesel. I'd like to see how cellulosic ethanol stacks up. It has the advantage of not competing with food sources, and may have greater overall environmental benefits.

Source: Scientific American, September 2006. Just got this (excellent) issue in the mail; it's not yet available online.

Tags: alternative energy ethanol biodiesel cellulosic ethanol

Teh linkalicious: 8/11/06

Noble readers, I bid you a happy Friday. I proffer you your daily dose of Linkalicious®:

• Wall street has a big crush right now on green energy. The question is: how much of this interest will dissipate if the price of oil drops? Perhaps that question is moot, and the price of oil will continue to spiral upwards. If that's true, green energy investors will reap big profits.
• Have you been seeing the term teh a lot lately? One blogger sounds off on this trend:

  I tell you this, without hyperbole - walk over my grave, and I shan't blink; slowly draw your nails down a chalkboard and I may shudder, but speak "teh" in my presence, and be cursed with the knowledge that you have, in that moment, shaken my soul to its core in the most unpleasant of ways.

  Perhaps some bloggers might benefit by referencing a grammar guide every now and again.
• My friend recently posted a list of ten things she hates:

  hummer limos. my god! as if hummers themselves weren't disgusting enough. do they need to be bigger? no! a thousand billion trillion times no!

• The Green Geek, a Canadian blog that I highly recommend, posted yesterday about an intriguing climate change reversal strategy. It involves seeding the ocean with iron dust, which encourages phytoplankton growth:

  If this were carried out on a large scale, it could have the effect of reducing our atmospheric carbon dioxide outputs by up to 50 percent and locking it up forever as chalk on the ocean floor. This would need to be done very carefully though, as we still know relatively little about deep ocean ecosystems and the sudden influx of large amounts of calcified algae might have unintended side effects. However, compared with the alternative of unrestrained carbon dioxide emissions, this seems like a very good avenue to explore.

• Is the rise of ADHD a sign of the approach of the singularity? In other words, are our minds becoming more hyperactive to cope with the the exponential explosion of information and technology? Velcro City Tourist Board is skeptical of this hypothesis.

Tags: green energy grammar teh

A solar-powered wireless access solution

Green WiFi, a bay-area nonprofit, is producing solar-powered networking gear for developing countries, where other sources of electrical power can be difficult to come by. Their idea is incredibly smart, and laudable to boot:

Green WiFi addresses one of the biggest barriers to success: the lack of reliable electricity in developing areas required to power the network. Green WiFi has developed a low cost, solar-powered, standardized WiFi access solution that runs out-of-the-box with no systems integration or power requirements. All that is required is a single source of broadband access. Green WiFi nodes can then be deployed on rooftops to form a self-healing network that hops the source signal over a virtual 802.11b/g grid.

You can find more information and photos at CNET.

Tags: alternative energy Wi-Fi wireless access solar power

Consumers don't mind green energy's extra cost

Consumers in the U.S. are increasingly choosing alternative energy sources, even though they cost more, according to a recent article in the Washington Post.

Utilities in 36 states offer some form of green pricing, and last year 430,000 households bought green power - up 20 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Energy Department reported.

Via Treehugger

Tags: alternative energy

Power from the pedestrians

Check out this fascinating blurb in Wired today about a project that British engineers are currently working on. It involves capturing street vibrations -- everything from trains and cars to footfalls of pedestrians -- and converting this energy into electricity.

"We can harvest between 5 to 7 watts of energy per footstep that is currently being wasted into the ground," says Claire Price, director of The Facility Architects, the British firm heading up the Pacesetters Project.

Wired refers to advocates of this technology as "vibration harvesters," a term that currently returns a grand total of 50 hits in a Google search. I'm sure that number will be going up very quickly.

Thanks to my friend Dorje, good friend of 25 years and fantastically talented artist, for the hot tip on this story.

Tags: vibration harvesters alternative energy

Holographic solar: at least 25% more efficient

Treehugger reports that holographic solar modules, which use holograms to concentrate light, may increase solar cell efficiency by more than 25%. The holographic solar modules are undergoing research and testing by Prism Solar Technologies.

See a previous Treehugger post for more information on holographic solar technology.

7/13 update: a Digg post on this has appeared, with some interesting comments.

Tags: solar energy holographic Prism Solar

Wind power's other benefit

On September 30, 2005, this report indicated that there is enough offshore wind power within 50 miles of the coasts of America to meet its current electrical energy needs.

A mere nine months later, new developments in wind power technology are occurring around the world at a (happily) dizzying pace. Within the last few weeks alone:

• Southwest Windpower released a residential small wind generator, the first fully integrated generator of this type.


• GE opened a wind turbine assembly plant in China.


• It was announced that a $200 million wind power farm will be built on Maui, which will provide 20% of its power needs.


• The big story: as mentioned in my last post, Chinese developers have unveiled a new magnetic levitation wind power generator that will provide a 20% increase in energy output over traditional wind generators.

Most of the focus is on how wind power is emerging as a truly viable source of alternative energy. But there's another benefit that we'll hear more about over the next few years: wind power is injecting new economic opportunities into communities. Take this Seattle Times story ("Wind power generates a new cash crop in state"), which discusses the construction of a large wind power farm in a rural community in southern Washington state.

Wind power is arriving in Bickleton at a time when local farming is in serious decline. Founded more than a century ago, this town of about 90 people prospered for decades as grasslands were turned into wheat fields. There once was a bank, meat market, hotel and theater. All are long gone.

Wind power can reverse this type of economic decline, which is a common scenario across rural America, by providing a steady stream of income. As Wall street continues to take note of the growing wind power industry (wind power output has quadrupled in the past seven years, according to this article that appeared today in TheStreet.com), we're bound to see this trend continue.

Tags: wind power alternative energy Southwest Windpower GE rural economy

The world's first "magnetic levitation" wind turbines unveiled in China

Chinese developers have unveiled the world's first permanent magnetic levitation wind power generator.
via Treehugger | digg story

Tags: wind power alternative energy