Our free groups for summer music festivals like Oxegen, Electric Picnic, Live at the Marquee, Sea Sessions, Indiependence, Castlepalooza, Life, Body & Soul Solstice, and many others make it easy for you to find drivers or passengers going your way. If you’re having a party and want a group of your own, let us know, and in the meantime here’s to meeting new tripmates - pump up the volume, dance dance!
Teenage boys in different parts of the world have solved two of the most difficult problems facing the environment and both projects are low-tech and affordable.
Richard O’Shea from Blarney won this year’s BT young scientist top award for his invention of a smokeless biomass-fired cooking stove. Richard had visited Africa and seen first-hand how many people cook indoors on wood-burning stoves: 2 billion people across the world rely on burning biomass materials like wood, dung and plants to cook their food. Every year thousands of people in the developing world who cook indoors in poorly ventilated homes die from smoke inhalation.
Richard then spent months designing a highly efficient, smokeless stove that can be built using found materials such as tin cans. His goal is to work with charities such as Trocaire and Concern to share his invention with those who need it and can build their own.
Meanwhile, across the water in Canada, 16-year-old Daniel Burd won the Canadian Science Fair with his research on microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic. Daniel recognized that plastic, one of the most indestructible of manufactured materials, does in fact eventually decompose. It takes 1,000 years but decompose it does, which means that decomposing microorganisms do exist.
Daniel immersed ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth and then isolated the most productive organisms. The preliminary results were encouraging, so he kept at it, selecting out the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures, Burd achieved a 43 percent degradation of plastic in six weeks, an amazing result.
With 500 billion plastic bags manufactured annually and an expanding Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, Burd’s breakthrough is timely and now needs to be embraced by governments and industry alike.
A partnership of New Zealand companies have perfected the art of turning toilet waste-water – sewage, by any other name – into “bio-crude,” an oil substitute that can provide 15% of a town’s energy needs from its own waste. The secret, as with all the best inventions, is mother nature: algae process the waste and, with the help of the sun, transform it into a substance that can be further processed into oil, petrol, diesel, kerosene or bitumen.
The New Zealand project’s technology is essentially a network of wastewater ponds that grow algae, fed by carbon dioxide generated from the nearby Christchurch Wastewater Treatment Plant. The algae is harvested and sent to the Solray Energy plant, where it is routed through reaction tubes under pressures of 6,000 psi and 400 degree C heat and expressed as biocrude.
The companies behind the project are New Zealand’s Solray Energy, chemical engineers Solvent Rescue and mechanical engineers Rayners. The “Algae to Oil Conversion Technology” venture is funded by both government and private sources, a combination of Solray, the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).
While 15% of a community’s energy needs may not sound like a lot, the impact of taking all that waste out of the ecosystem can’t be underestimated.
According to Barry O’Leary, chief executive of IDA Ireland, Ireland has some of the best wind and wave resources in the world. “Onshore wind turbines could account for 35 per cent of our energy needs and Ireland has the highest wave energy resource in Europe,” O’Leary writes in the current issue of Heritage Outlook, the Heritage Council magazine. Add 15% waste water to 35% wind and that’s already half-way to sustainable Energy Independence – better than the Copenhagen targets!
Waste not want not - in these times of green awareness and financial concern, it’s more important than ever that we don’t waste precious resources. Yet in the USA, the average American dumps about 14% of the food they purchase every year. In the UK, a typical family throws away £50 worth of food – every month! If this sounds familiar, here are a few simple steps you can take to reduce, and hopefully eliminate, food waste in your household.
1. After steaming (or boiling) your veggies, keep the water, let it cool and then use it to water plants. The added nutrients from the vegetables are natural plant fertilizers – and water is a precious resource too! When rinsing fruit and veg also consider collecting this water as it might be usable in the garden as well.
2. Too many tomatoes? You can dry them in the oven, which also concentrates the flavour and makes them sweet and delicious. Just cut them in half or dice them and put them in the oven at about 150 degrees for 2-3 hours until all the moisture is gone. Ideally, you can combine this oven use with other cooking so that you’re also saving on fuel costs. Then jar them up and use any excuse to eat them! You can watch a video demo (with thanks to greenopolis.com)
3. Did you know you can freeze eggs? Just take them from their shells and use an ice tray to separate them. You can see more here.
4. Morning-after baked potatoes can be delicious, too – heat a little warm milk and butter, then slice the potatoes lengthwise and scoop out most of the inside and add it to the milk. Add sour cream, parmesan cheese, garlic salt or anything else that takes your fancy, mash or beat the mixture to whip them up, spoon the mix back into the skins, then put in a greased baking dish, maybe sprinkle a little grated cheese over them, or chives or bacon bits, then bake.
5. Pre-cycle: don’t take packaging into your home. In many places in Europe, overpackaging can be left at the store, which makes a lot of manufacturers rethink the way they package things. Precycling beats recycling hands down. Look at glass bottles, which go from green bins to recycling facilities where they get crushed and ground down and remade into bottles. Why not go back to having a deposit on bottles, so that they’re returned to the bottling plants to be cleaned and then refilled. Surely bottles should only be remelted into glass when they’re broken?
6. A great site for eco-foodies is Love Food Hate Waste. Every year in the UK £12 billion worth of good food is thrown away: Love Food Hate Waste is a campaign from WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) and has lots of tasty recipes and top tips to help us all make the most of the food we buy.
7. Finally, any organic matter whatsoever (even dog poo!) can be transformed into lovely plant-loving mulch through the magical process of composting. There are many places to learn about this ancient art, here’s just one.
“Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain…” What if our beloved Irish rain was actually a national energy asset? Following on from my last post about piezoelectricity generated from foot and car traffic, brilliant minds at CEA/Leti-Minatec, an R&D institute in Grenoble, France, have recently developed a system that can harvest energy from falling raindrops. “Our work could be considered as a good alternative to power systems in raining outdoor environments where solar energy is difficult to exploit,” Thomas Jager told PhysOrg.com, and he could be speaking specifically to Ireland, where, especially in winter, we can’t guarantee the sun, but can expect a healthy dose of rain.
For those of you with a technical bent, this is how it works: the scientists use a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer, a piezoelectric material that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. When a raindrop impacts the 25-micrometer-thick PVDF, the polymer starts to vibrate. Electrodes embedded in the PVDF are used to recover the electrical charges generated by the vibrations, thus converting the raindrop’s mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Slow falling, large raindrops generate the most energy because raindrops falling at high speeds often lose some energy due to splash. The scientists haven’t yet developed the mechanism for storing this energy, but surely with developments in wind and wave power surely this can’t be far behind?
A number of other organizations are working on piezoelectric devices as well: Zhong Lin Wang at the Georgia Institute of Technology has devised a sensor that can harvest mechanical energy by bending zinc oxide nanowires: he wants to put it in a shoe, so as you walk you generate power. There’s also Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio, who designed and used a piezoelectric boot to power his mobile phone during a hike across the Namib desert. TEXON International is looking to raise £1m to further develop these electric shoes.
One of the beauties of piezoelectricity is that the tools involved are not beyond the reach of a clever diy inventor: while not everyone has PDVF lying around, the essence of piezoelectricity is a copper wire, that when bent produces a negative/positive charge; when the pressure on the wire is relieved, an electrical current can be detected. So who’s up for singing in the rain?
Imagine generating electricity with every step you take; that every time you drive or cycle, energy is sent to the national grid; and that even your workout is powering the lights and heat of the gym, replacing fossil fuel – sounds great, right? Well, piezoelectricity is here.
Piezoelectricity is basically the use of certain materials to transform kinetic energy into electricity. I wrote in another blog about the development of piezoelectric floor tiles that turn foot traffic into electricity; now the first practical installation of this kind is in place at a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Gloucester, England, where “kinetic road plates” are being used to produce 30 kW of electricity every hour. The company’s press release describes the process as a more physical process (plates are pushed down by passing cars to create rocking motions that turn generators) than a piezoelectrical one, but the broader concept of using transient motion to generate electricity is the same.
There’s no reason why this simple, cheap and sustainable type of energy conversion can’t be used in businesses and homes all over Ireland. And genius scientists are also working on an even more Irish-friendly form of energy conversion: raindrops into electricity, in my next post!
By now, most people have seen the clip on YouTube or even the feature-length documentary about GM crushing its 1999 electric cars at the behest of Big Oil. Ironically, GM are now trying to furiously claw back their initial advantage with the Volt, though the field is a lot more crowded now.
Electric cars are all the rage, as illustrated by the British Government’s announcement last week of a £25m scheme to get the public to test-drive electric cars from various manufacturers. John Walsh of the London Independent tested several of them, including the Tesla roadster, far and away the car of choice for anyone looking for speed and style, although a US home-made drag car version is just as powerful and a little more unique.
But as I’ve written before, switching from oil to electricity is a little like switching from heroin to methadone: it’s still addictive, messy and unhealthy. More interesting to me are complete alternatives, like the hydrogen-powered car, although refuelling for this one could be a little more complicated. But my number one prize goes to the Japanese water powered car - who can fault water as the fuel of the future? Well, Big Energy, maybe! Is that why we haven’t seen any publicity about this one? The only method that could be more innocent to the environment is the velocipede - that’s right, pure calorie-fuelled energy as you pedal – for 14,000 dollars!!! Glass of water, anyone?
It’s nice to see humans getting to do something fun on the beach – whenever I take my humans out all they do is walk along by the waves! But last Saturday a big group turned out and brought their humans with them for a dance/happening/choreographed runabout…whatever it was, they seemed to be having fun and it was supposed to be doing something about this crazy weather we’re having. My ancestors were from Cuba, so I like a little tropical showers and sun, but I never expected to see that in Ireland. Anyway, take a look at the video and see if you can spot the little white dog showing them how it’s done!
In case you have any doubts about how climate will affect Ireland and the UK, have a read of this - it describes the summers we might be having soon, which are fine if you’re a lizard, but not when you have a full coat of beautiful fur! Are you carpooling yet?
Eco-Living, Eco-Loving! Would you like to live without a mortgage or an electricity bill? Last weekend’s Eco-Living Festival in Drumnsa, Co. Leitrim showed you how. The event was hosted and organized by Permaculture Ireland; permaculture, according to Wikipedia, “is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies…The intent is that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals can design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society’s reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution.” And the hosts of the event are living proof that the principles work – even in boggy “bad” Leitrim land. 
Sian Cowman demonstrated the virtues (and taste!) of permaculture food: growing your own in a non-dig garden. Non-dig is great because it doesn’t disturb the crucial earthworms underneath and also, unlike in conventional farming, the precious topsoil doesn’t dry out and blow away. Digging also releases CO2, and requires a lot of energy, human, animal, or machine. In contrast, permaculture is all about mulch: take a 6-foot patch, and in September simply cut the grass and weeds in the area that you plan to plant, leave the cuttings in place, cover this with wet cardboard, cover that with straw and leave it sit until spring, when planting is easy and the soil is rich, and plants and herbs just love it. There are far too many good ideas to mention here, but you can get more info at permacultureireland - it’s both the newest and the oldest way of living on the earth. 
Permaculture shelter is embodied in Peter Cowman’s amazing is home: a 25 metre squared “econospace,” built by himself and friends for only €7,000, where he and his family live on their own wind-generated electricity. No mortgage, no car, no connection to the grid: this family walk the green walk all the way to their outdoor bathtub, where they build a fire underneath and bathe under the stars! Check out Peter’s website for more information about courses and shelter-building. Without a mortgage and a food bill, how would your life change?
Oxegen 2009, in their infinite wisdom, have chosen Tripmi.ie as their exclusive carpooling partner – and are even offering free parking tickets to cars with 4 or more people! So if you’re thinking of joining the party at Europe’s number 1 music festival, surf over to the Oxegen Group and jump in the pool. Simply find a carpool within the group, and if there’s not one that suits you be sure to Create a Trip (whether you’re a driver or a passenger) - your trip will be saved in the system for everyone else to see. You can save money, save time and save the planet….and you never know who you might meet!
