Did London Go Green for the Olympics?

London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics partly for the promise of making the games green. From what I can tell they have accomplished most of it.

When making room for the venues, they demolished buildings, recycled most of the materials, cleaned up the soils, re-invigorated the Lea River, and many other actions. Some of the wood utilized was not painted as it will be reused after the Olympics. That is a pretty good stab at greening the games.

Items not used were picked up by the locals for upgrading of local theaters, DIYers, etc. Most of the seating will be temporary as they will be recycled back into the community.

For a good example of low carbon building, the Veladrome was built by utilizing surplus gas pipe. That is about 1/3 of the pipe used on the Beijing Birdnest.

The London Bridge has had its lighting redone using LEDs which certainly is much cheaper and much brighter illumination. The lights can rotate to three (3) different colors and I really like that.

The streetlights on ground level are also being swapped out with LED and floodlights taking their place, for an estimated 45 percent reduction in energy use.

So what do you think? Do you believe that the Games will be greener than Beijing? Do you think that they reached a sustainability?

Green …. as the green future unfolds.

Tekon, Environmentally friendly water based cleaner/polisher

Tekon has developed the first lifetime clean glass coating process for architectural applications and is specified by leading architects for major projects, exclusively.

Tekon advanced technology opens a new chapter in the maintenance cost, visibility, appearances and life of architectural glass products.

Protective treatment, Tekon , is applied to new or installed glass. This chemical process links oxygen with carbon in the porous surface, blocking hydrolysis, making it super hydrophobic and repellant. Water beads up and runs off like quicksilver.

Tekon consists of multiple co-polymers that prevent hard water, soap and other stains from adhering to the surface. Dirt rinses away leaving the glass sparkling clear and streak-less. Cleaning is far less frequent and much easier, without “harsh cleaners” of any kind.

Under a microscope, new glass is seen to be very rough and porous. Contaminates, oil, hard water deposits, finger prints, even dust cling to the surface. Water spotting can become permanently part of the glass.

Tekon transforms glass at the molecular level creating a highly hydrophobic smoother surface that is slick, impervious to moisture, thereby blocking corrosion and permanent spots.

TEKON bonds and seals to almost all hard surfaces such as:

GLASS
FIBERGLASS
PLASTICS
GRANITE
MARBLE
STONE
PORCELAIN
CERAMIC
VINYL
ALUMINUM
CHROME
STAINLESS STEEL

Tekon products come in a variety of home kits: the Bath Kit, Countertop Kit, Stone Care Kit and Stainless Steel Kit.  They can be used on sliding glass doors, shower doors, kitchen counters, sinks and floors.

The product has been on the market for a while but there is no reason why it cannot be brought to your attention now. Especially if you can get rid of the harsh chemicals in your home when using Tekon.

Tekon …. as the green future unfolds.

Please welcome our guest writer, Lloyd Burrell who has a website offering Office Desk Reviews. I am sure you will consider his methods in going green in the office.

Go Paperless In Your Office And Help Save The Environment

Have you stumbled through a few piles of paper in your office and wondered where they came from? Not from an alternative universe, that’s for certain. Lists, receipts, bills and catalogs can take over our lives — if we let them. Don’t let that happen to you, because it’s depressing. Really, depressing — and it can be dangerous, as well, a fire hazard. What’s the point in having a swishy Techni Mobili computer desk if you can’t even see it?

Work on the paperwork which you still need, a few minutes a day or week, and try and reduce or eliminate the inflow of most of it, for the future. Get rid of this menace and get yourself more time. Being organized and less cluttered makes a person feel much better, and it saves on stress as well. If we all strive to reduce, recycle and reuse, then we’ll breathe easier and our planet will thank us.

We’ve been using the six tips below for quite a while, while trying as best we can to reduce our carbon footprint. Perhaps they will help you, as well.

1) Make friends with your recycle bin or bins. They are the main components of becoming both paperless, and greener. Recycle your catalogs after cutting off the mailing label, chuck envelopes in there after receiving mail, and put your morning newspaper in the correct bin as soon as you’re finished lining the canary’s cage with it, or using it for other meaningful purposes. If you need a pile or two for paper mache, then that’s a good way to recycle too.

2) Sort receipts into piles, but reduce your need for receipts in general, or ask for paperless ones online. Sort receipts weekly and determine which ones you need for taxes and various other things like store returns or such. Before you get a receipt at the store, and if you won’t be needing it, ask the cashier not to give you one. Enter any saved receipts or file where necessary, once weekly. Scan others and recycle those, making sure they’ve been shredded if you have to.

3) A few heavy-duty shredders can even rip up credit cards. This is also good for impulse buying but make sure you do want to be rid of the card. Shred any junk mail that contains offers of free credit cards, as identity thieves will sometimes grab these from garbage cans. Anything you shred takes up less space than simply putting it straight into the recycle can. Shredded paper can be recycled as well, of course.

4) Reduce the junk mail and catalogs you receive, or eliminate them entirely. People can opt out from these offers, or even unwanted telemarketing phone calls (another form of pollution) by various means, and these differ according to which country you are in. In six months you should only be receiving the catalogs and other mail you want to get. Keep your eyes peeled though, because sometimes the amount of junk mail starts to creep up again.

5) Request online statements and such from your bank or credit card company. This saves a ton of paper waste and costs every year. Have everything emailed to you or available online. By the way, never respond or click on an email sent to you asking for any passwords. Go directly to the site and make sure it is secure, before checking on something that may be awry or out of whack.

6) Pay your bills online and get your money deposited online. Just be aware of transactions, like in our tip above, about “phishy” emails and offers and such. I make a habit of never clicking on an email even to open it, if the sender is unknown to me or I haven’t solicited a piece of info. To keep your paperless world secure, keep your anti-virus software up to date every few days.

You’ll be able to rid yourself of at least 75% of home office paper clutter if you follow these 6 simple steps and in so doing you’ll be doing both yourself and the environment a big favor. It’ll take a few weeks, but persevere. The stress and feeling of confinement will ease up. Even if you only have a small home desk, it will seem so much bigger if it’s not covered in a sea of paper.

….  as the green future unfolds.

A Big WOW! For Earth From The Little Island Of Japan

Akinori Ito has invented a machine called Blest, which converts plastic back into oil! Yes, really.

Looking eerily like the DeLorean’s flux capacitor in the Back To The Future movies, Ito’s machine is produced in various sizes, for both industrial and home uses. It can easily transform a kilogram of plastic waste into a liter of oil, using about 1 kilowatt of electricity but without emitting CO2 in the process. The machine uses a temperature controlling electric heater instead of flames, processing anything from polyethylene or polystyrene to polypropylene (numbers 2-4).

1 kg of plastic produces one liter of oil. This takes about 1 kilowatt of electricity, which costs 20 cents. 1 liter diesel oil costs $1.50  NOW, this is what I call recycling!

Although the company still mainly produces larger, industrial-use machines, people from around the world are anxious to know if and where they can purchase a machine. So, here you go – Blest- click on the english catalogue to get you answers direct from the horse’s mouth.

A wonderful invention to sustainably utilize the huge waste problem of the wonderful invention of plastic. It’s looking better and better ….

…. as the green future unfolds.

Lagniappes, From And To, Earth And Her Kids

The leaves are starting to turn and fall. A gentle wind catches and sails them across a dusty road, so calmingly beautiful. Gratitude is the dominate feeling, a little R&R from the normal stress of life we put upon ourselves.

Earth’s seasonal changes didn’t have to be so gracefully choreographed, leaving each one of us silently relishing Mother Nature’s little lagniappe moments. Lagniappe – pronounced lan-yap, originating in Spain – a Cajun word meaning “a little something extra”, like a bakers dozen (13 instead of 12 of an item), just for the kindness of it. Her gift to invoke our instinctive delight in the beauty that comes with seasonal changes and the enjoyment in the differences of our planet’s climate. (A cosmic instinct we should cultivate when engaging the differences of one another.)

Earth takes care of us, in seemingly intelligent and loving ways. And how are we reciprocating? Well, keep smiling because here’s a little lagniappe from us to her, scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre (WAC) found through detailed satellite imagery, that on almost half of all farmed landscapes around the world, landowners are either sparing some existing trees or planting new ones, leading to what the study calls “significant” tree cover. In fact, on more than 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of farmland, which is twice the size of the Amazon, tree cover exceeds 10%. That’s a huge increase from previous estimates, which were as low as 50,000 hectares.

So if only for a moment, no matter where you are on Earth, pause and let the soft autumn (or spring) wind blow through your hair and throw a little thanks into the universe. Thanks to whomever your good deity may be, God, Allah, Wonka Tonka, or the intelligent universal science of nature that can gel stardust into a beautiful planet with changing seasons and beings with the intelligence to stand in awe and enjoyment.

…  as the green future unfolds.

Hungary Declared A State Of Emergency In Three Counties In The Aftermath Of The Worst Chemical Accident In It’s History

(Image Source: telegraph.co.uk )

On Monday, October 4, a toxic tsunami of at least a million cubic meters (264,172,052 gallons), crashed through a concrete retaining wall of a 40 square kilometer reservoir, at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar alumina refinery near the town of Ajka, 150 kilometers (93 miles), southwest of the capital of Budapest, Hungary.

The nightmarish tidal wave of poisonous red sludge slammed through the three villages of Kolontar, Devescser, and Somlovasarhely. Leaving in it’s wake death, toxic destruction and villages marinated in waste that when dry will be exponentially more toxic than the dust of 9/11. Killing at least four people; two children, ages 1 and 3, an elderly woman and a 35-year-old man whose SUV overturned in the sludge. Six people are still missing and more than 120 people were left injured. Better than 500 police officers and soldiers are on the scene, so are special detection teams to hunt for missing persons, as soldiers wearing chemical protection suits were trying to clean the sludge from the streets with high pressure water.

On first count, about 250 people had been evacuated from and can not return to their homes. As armed police patrolled some of the villages to keep looters at bay, it is unclear when the evacuated residents can return because the long term consequences of the spill is unknown.

The sludge is a waste product from refining bauxite to alumina, the material used to manufacture aluminum. Although it contains iron oxide which gives the mud the red color, the exact chemical composition of the sludge has not been revealed, but aluminum processing normally involves compounds that include cyanide, cadmium and chromium. However, Hungary’s national disaster unit says the mud contains heavy metals, such as lead, aluminum oxide, silicon dioxide, calcium dioxide, titanium oxide and oxygen-bonded sodium oxide and if breathed in as dust, the red mud can cause lung damage. People coming into contact with the sludge have suffered burns because the sludge has a high pH (alkali) content which has a caustic effect on the skin. And by the way, it is slightly radioactive. (Oh, ok, only slight radioactivity – Whew! – - NOT!)

Here’s a CNN video on the aftermath:

Speculation has heavy rain in the region in recent weeks may have caused the foundations of the concrete wall of the reservoir to subside, weakening and eventually causing a section to collapse but, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Reuters Wednesday that human error and not flooding was the likely cause of the spill.

(Image Source: rss.thisislondon.co.uk )

Hungarian authorities poured tons of plaster and fertilizers into a heavily contaminated local river, the Marcal which feeds into the Danube, in an attempt to bind with the sludge, countering it’s alkalinity and stopping the pollution from advancing. The EU concerned that the ecological disaster could affect neighboring nations, urged Hungarian authorities to ensure the sludge did not reach the Danube river.

Oops, too late! On Thursday, October 7, as emergency officials worked to contain as much of the leak as possible, the red toxic sludge reached the Danube, Europe’s second largest river.

Zoltan Illes, Hungary’s Environmental Affairs State Secretary, described the flood as Hungary’s worst chemical accident and an “ecological catastrophe.”

A Hungarian government spokesman told the BBC that the clean up will cost tens of millions of dollars and will take at least a year to complete.

The aluminum factory has said it will pay for the victims’ funerals. – Awww! Well, that just makes everything all better, don’t it?

… as the green future unfolds.

The 200-million Gallon Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Was Worst Environmental Disaster In U.S. History And The New Definition For Malice Aforethought.

On October 4th in Tucson, Arizona, the Center for Biological Diversity awarded former BP CEO Tony Hayward its 2010 Rubber Dodo Award. The award is given annually to the person who has done the most to drive endangered species extinct.

Under Hayward’s leadership, BP secured the right to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico by submitting documents to the U.S. government falsely claiming that a major spill could not happen. It also submitted a false and ludicrous spill-response plan claiming it could capture spilling oil before the oil caused any environmental or economic damage.

On April 20, 2010 BP’s risky Deepwater Horizon project exploded, pouring more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling and coating the beaches, wetlands, and the ocean floor with oil. Killing endangered sea turtles and imperiled brown pelicans, and pushing the bluefin tuna even closer to extinction.

The well spewed oil for 87 days, killing at least 6,104 birds, 593 sea turtles and 98 mammals, including dolphins. The huge number of seriously declining bluefin tuna killed has not been quantified.

“If there was ever a deserving Rubber Dodo Award recipient, it is Tony Hayward,” said Kierán Suckling, the Center’s executive director. “While famously whining that he ‘wanted his life back,’ Hayward showed no remorse for the thousands of rare and endangered animals BP killed in its spill.”

“History will remember Hayward as the man at the helm of BP when it unleashed the worst environmental disaster in American history,” said Suckling.

“Hayward not only pushed BP into causing the spill by creating a corporate culture of risk-taking and cutting corners, he failed to take responsibility after the spill and make all of BP’s resources available to contain it.”

Previous Winners:

2009 – massive land speculator Michael Winer – for his leadership of TAREX, the largest stockholder in companies developing the largest pieces of private land remaining in Southern California and Florida. These regions are also home to some the highest numbers of endangered species in North America. In California, TAREX is pushing the Tejon Ranch Company to pave over thousands of acres of federally designated California condor habitat. In Florida, TAREX is pushing the St. Joe Company to flood tens of thousands of acres of the Florida Panhandle with high-end developments.

2008 – then Alaska Governor Sarah Palin – sought to remove Endangered Species Act protection for the Polar Bear, suppressed and lied about state global warming studies, and denied that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Palin waged a deceptive public relations campaign, asserting that the polar bear is increasing. But many populations (including Alaska’s southern Beaufort Sea) are in decline and two-thirds (including all Alaska bears) are projected to disappear by 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey.

2007 – the first annual Rubber Dodo Award went to Dirk Kempthorne, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the Bush administration from 2006–2009. As of September 2007, Kempthorne held the record for protecting fewer species over his tenure than any Interior Secretary in United States history, a record previously held by James G. Watt for over 20 years. Environmental groups characterized him as someone who has “almost always favored changing laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to make them more favorable to commercial interests.”

Background on the extinction of the Dodo:

In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot-tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it’s the dodo — the most famous extinct species on Earth. It evolved over millions of years with no natural predators and eventually lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.

Its trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and out-competed by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.

… as the green future unfolds.

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In The Not Too Distant Future, The Children of Earth Can Look To The Moon To Light Up The Night, In More Ways Than One

The National Geographic Channel (NGC) recently ran a program called “Living On The Moon”, an episode in the Naked Science series. It delved into the plans and challenges of establishing a long-term human presents on the Lunar surface and what it would take to sustain such endeavors. A segment of that program showed a fascinating look into the future of constant, sustainable, cheap, energy for use here on Earth, as well as the Lunar outposts, a concept that is simply ingenious.

In 1996 David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space Systems Operation at the University of Houston, had a bright idea to solve the world’s energy needs. The Lunar Solar Power (LSP) System collects solar power on the lunar surface and converts the power to microwaves. The microwaves are transmitted as multiple power beams directly or indirectly (using orbital reflectors/retransmitters), to tens of thousands of receiving antennas called rectennas, here on Earth. Fields of these rectennas will convert over 80% the microwaves back into electricity and direct it into existing and new distribution grids. FYI: Aircraft passing through the beams will not turn into flying microwave ovens, their metal skins shields the passengers, so no worries.

Can this work? Yes. Criswell points out that successful Earth-Moon power beams are already in use, a radio telescope operating from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico regularly uses a beam of microwaves to produce images of the moon. And since the Moon receives 13,000 Terrawatts of power from the Sun, by harnessing just 1% of that solar power and directing it via microwave to Earth, fossil fuel power plants could be completely replaced. “Clean, safe, low-cost commercial electric power can be dependably delivered to receivers on Earth,” he said.

Working with NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Alex Freundlich a research professor of physics/electrical/computer engineering also at the University of Houston, and his team in the Nanotechnology lab, along with Charles Horton, senior research scientist at the Texas Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials, are working on transforming Criswell’s brilliant idea into a reality by turning the Moon’s lack of an atmosphere into an advantage. By utilizing the vacuum of space and lunar regolith (moon dust) in the manufacture of thousands of kilometers of highly efficient solar cells. The lunar regolith contains all the raw materials to make solar cells, it just needs to be collected and processed – right where it lies. The team designed a solar-powered robotic rover that would leave a trail of solar panels in its wake. Solar cells that are far more efficient at converting sunlight than those utilized on spacecraft and more resistant to damaging radiation. “The best space solar cell technology currently in use converts only about 28% of the sunlight hitting the cell into electricity. By adding a thin layer of nano-engineered material in these cells we are capable of boosting solar cell efficiencies to well above 35%,” said Freundlich.

As the rover rolls along, it first melts silica in the lunar surface to create a layer of glass, it then lays down a grid of solar cells on top of the glass. Putting multiple robots to work will transform hundreds of square miles of the lunar surface into vast solar farms. Criswell’s idea is to place these solar farms on the east and west limbs of the sunward hemisphere of the Moon, in the lunar highlands, near the equator.

The Lunar Solar Power (LSP) system can be scaled up on the Moon to supply the 20 terawatts or more of electricity required by 10 billion people, the expected population of Earth in 2050. Sunlight shines on the Moon continuously, except once a year for about three hours during a full lunar eclipse. During that period of time, stored energy could be used to keep the energy pipeline from the Moon to the Earth fully operational.

…. as the green future unfolds.

We need more people to get involved and stop them from gutting this crucial law.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of this crucial law — a day to celebrate 40 years of progress. But if the fossil fuel industry gets its way, we will be helpless to stop polluters from dumping hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases into the air each year, as if it were an open sewer.

Watch the new Clean Air Act video today and share it with your friends and family.

Running In Lane Two – 2016 Rio de Janeiro’s Green Olympics

Rio de Janeiro stands out for its natural beauty. It is a metropolis that has managed to retain its natural wealth of beautiful beaches, mountains and green areas.

For the 2016 Games, Rio has aspired to build one of the most awe-inspiring, incredibly beautiful, sustainable structures ever seen – the Solar City Tower, designed by Zurich, Switzerland based RAFAA Architecture & Design. A vertical structure on the island of Cotonduba, designed as a lasting symbol of welcome to visitors arriving in Rio by either sea or air. Looking like a futuristic waterfall, the Solar City Tower is a renewable energy generating tower and the Olympic Flame cauldron.

This self-sustaining tower for the 2016 Olympic Games is designed to create renewable energy for use in the Olympic Village as well as the city of Rio. A large solar power plant generates energy during the day. The surplus energy produced is utilized to pump sea water into a storage tank and piped up, (all within the tower) to create the waterfall outside. This waterfall simultaneously turns the turbines producing energy. At night the water is released from the storage tank, though the waterfall, to the power turbines, providing nighttime power for the city. Simply beautiful!

The eco tower’s ground floor entrance is through a plaza and amphitheater 60m (197′), above sea level, which can be used for social gatherings. On the ocean side of the 105m (344′), tower (behind the waterfall) is an auditorium, cafeteria and shops. An elevator takes visitors up to the top floor where an observation deck offers 360° views of the ocean and city. An elevator leads to various observation areas and a retractable platform for bungee jumping 90.5m (297′) above the ground.

Now let’s talk about being ahead of the green curve. After years of deforestation and crop-growing (mainly coffee), Rio’s Tijuca Forest, located in the middle of the city, was reforested – in the nineteenth century! Covering around 3,200 hectares, the largest urban forest in the world brings together much of the fauna and flora typical of the Brazilian coast. The reforestation was a pioneering initiative for Latin America and mainly involved species native to the Atlantic Forest ecosystem. Today, it is well equipped for visits, and is a particularly stunning location for bicycle rides, running and hiking.

Rio 2016 modeled its Olympic Delivery Authority after the ODA established for the London 2012 Olympic Games, a model pioneered for the 2000 Sydney Games. The Brazilian model was improved and adapted to national characteristics to transform the city by bringing benefits and opportunities for residents through new infrastructure such as traffic and transport and social, sustainability and environmental programs.

One of the environmental pledges made by the Rio 2016 Bid Committee was the cleaning of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, one of Rio’s most beautiful locations and planned venue for rowing and flat-water canoe/kayak competitions of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As of today, it has never been so clean. According to the State Environment Institute (INEA), the water quality has improved by 92% since 2006 and is now nearly up to standards required for recreational swimming. This large scale project has included the cleaning of drains and upgrading of eight sewage lifts around the shoreline. One of which is the Caiçaras sewage lift, a project worth half a million reais which will benefit 60 thousand people in the neighborhoods of Ipanema and Leblon.

The sustainability and environment program of the Rio 2016 bid is focused on four proposals: water conservation, renewable energy, and a goal to be carbon-neutral.

It’s getting exciting …

…. as the green future unfolds.

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