The creator is unknown..

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.

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.

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.

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:

1. Weapons-grade fissionable material (uranium233) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from the thorium reactor than plutonium is from the uranium breeder reactor.
2. Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium reactors.
3. 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.
4. 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:

• The Energy Amplifier: Carlo Rubbia’s solution to world energy demand
• Thorium: Is It the Better Nuclear Fuel?

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?