The next big thing..? Very eco-friendly:
The creator is unknown..
Archive for the 'environment' Category
I normally prefer organic products, not because I’m so worried about food additives or ionizing radiation, but because of the potentially environmentally harmful synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used in conventional agriculture.
But sometimes the marketing depts go too far. Like when they promote 100 % chemical free compost. Unfortunately, many people appear to be afraid of chemicals in general, but everything around us is chemicals: you, me, compost… Another funny example is the carbon-free t-shirt, given that humans consist of ~ 18 % carbon by mass. By the way, we consist of 65-90 % dihydrogen monoxide :)
Writing about organic, I just learned that Cuba is in the lead when it comes to organic farming — because of the US trade embargo! The country is beeing looked at as a model for other nations. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention.
More and more ads nowadays contain the word “green”. The world has woken up, environmental-friendly products sell, and advertisers understand that. Which is all good. But “green cars”? What is a green car?
Manfred Braunl, head of marketing in Germany for BMW, says that rather than try to impress TV viewers with ads about new fuel-saving technologies BMW is experimenting with “metaphorical” ads that aim to put viewers in a positive mood about the company and its approach to reducing fuel consumption (via Environmental leader).
And most green car ads are highly metaphorical. If a car company has developed one car that is “greener” than the others, they use this for all it’s worth to promote themself as a green and idealistic company. Like this ad for Toyota Prius.
But the good news is that there are reactions on these ads. Some days ago, Friends of the Earth told Saab to stop portraying its cars as environmentally friendlys or face legal action for misleading advertising.
In Norway, the producers of the electric car Buddy complained about these ads in April last year. What I didn’t know before today what that new guidelines were set into force in Norway in October that states that no car can be called “green”, “clean” or “environmentally friendly”. “Cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others,” Bente Oeverli, a senior official at the office of the state-run Consumer Ombudsman, told Reuters.
… or a single can of dissolvent can pollute millions of litres of water. Effective message from the World Wildlife Fund:
Via Sensibilid (where one more ad from Tokyo is shown). Norwegians wondering what to do with their paint remnants should check out this recycling guide.
Let’s say you need to import timber for some reason. Although there are a lot of timber in Norway too, there are not very many species, so certainly some branches need to import their timber. Well, where should you import it from? From one of the few remaining rainforests that contains the largest biodiversity on the planet? Hmm… is that a good idea? Well, so you just decided to import your timber from a rainforest because you had to have that color (and you couldn’t fix it with funny chemicals :)). So what rainforest do you choose? Maybe that in Burma? Hmm.. is that a good idea? The military dictatorship there has monopol on selling rainforest timber, so that means you don’t just destroy the rainforest, but you also support a military dictatorship. That’s killing two birds with one stone, you might think – if you are one of the Norwegian companies that import rainforest timber from Burma… or probably you didn’t think?
Despite it’s boring name, Novec 1230 (C-6 fluoroketone) is a really fascinating chemical. It’s liquid at room temperature and looks and acts very much like water. But it’s not wet! It’s also generally very little reactive, so you can sink your LCD in it while keeping it powered on! You can also sink books in it, and it appears that the liquid doesn’t get adsorbed or make any damage. I don’t know why it doesn’t wet, maybe because of very high surface tension? Anyway, that makes it perfect for putting out fires without damaging the interiour like water does. And unlike other halogenated fire suppression agents, like halon, it doesn’t deplete ozone! Finally it appears to be non-toxic and easy to handle. Hm.. Could someone send me a sample? :D
… but we won’t :(
I’ve already written about the advantages of using thorium as a nuclear fuel. There has been quite a bit research on this topic in CERN in the nineties. The next step now is to build a prototype-reactor, but unfortunately EU hasn’t been willing to fund this.
So who could fund this? Professor in physics at the University of Bergen, Egil Lillestøl, suggests Norway. We have one of the largest known thorium-resources in the world, we already are a big energy-supplier (of natural gas) and we do have a lot of money. Egil says the prototype-reactor will cost 550 million € (4,4 mrd NOK) – which is only 48 million € (400 million NOK) more than the Norwegian government just decided to spend on handling CO2 from our new natural gas power plants.
Of course this is a big investment, and even though the possible profit (both economic and ecological) is enormous, this is many years ahead in time. However, it seems obvious that thorium should be on the agenda in Norway? We should at least arrange a conference to have a look at the possibilites of thorium?
Unfortunately, the politicians don’t quite agree with this. The only party mentioning thorium is FRP, a populistic party that I really don’t like to identify with. Well, one should be able to distinguish between case and ideology sometimes.. I do applaud FRP for submitting an interpellation to the Norwegian parliament on the thorium-topic this week. Unfortunately, none of the other partys showed interest, even for arranging a conference on thorium to discuss the possibillities.
I’ve been very sceptic to the idea of nuclear fuel as the solution to the worlds energy problem. However, there’s a new fuel in town. Carlo Rubbia has suggested the use of thorium in a new kind of reactor, called an «energy amplifier». Some advantages of using thorium instead of uranium are:
- Weapons-grade fissionable material (uranium233) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from the thorium reactor than plutonium is from the uranium breeder reactor.
- Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium reactors.
- Thorium comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium contains only 0.7% fissionable U235.
- Because thorium does not sustain chain reaction, fission stops by default if we stop priming it, and a runaway chain reaction accident is improbable.
So there are clearly some advantages. There has also been some talk about burning waste from old uranium-reactors… and some speculation on eliminating the waste completely by using multiple burn cycles.
Read more:
After a long summer holiday, which I mostly spent working at The Mediecentre, my thirst for new knowledge has again grown big – and starting to study therefore feels really good. This term I will be following courses in inorganic chemistry, chemical thermodynamics and basic mechanics. So far, especially inorganic chemistry appears to be in the middle of my sphere of interest. It starts with a basic look at orbital theory and the Schrödinger wave equation, which is really fascinating stuff. Also, the lecturer does research on Molecular Modelling, a topic that is a possible candidate for my Master thesis, which in itself is inspiring.
I like to think that I care more about the environment (and other important stuff) than about myself, although I admit it’s probably not the real, deep truth. Well, at least getting my hair trimmed is something I tend to forget. A week or so ago I discovered that it really was in need to be done soon. Then on thursday I heard some good news: Huldra, the first ecological hairdresser in Bergen has just established. That made the choice of hairdresser easy. Even though a normal haircut can’t really be ecological, I really love to support such a project. It’s not everyday you can get good conscience by going to a hairdresser!
So what is an ecological hairdresser? Basically, they avoid the use of hairproducts with certain chemicals known to damage either people or the environment. On their homepage they’ve made a list of chemicals to avoid. As a chemistry student I love most chemicals, but I also see it very clear that many of them really shouldn’t leave the lab. Of them are many found in haircolouring and other cosmetic products. In fact I’m happy to be a boy without the big need for cosmetics. I’m really not jealous on you girls! Well, enough about that. I’m satisfied with my haircut and I’m quite sure I will go there again.
Do you want this sweety in your hair?
