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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!

“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!

Imagine a city that is completely green - not just ecologically sound and sustainable, but literally, visibly, green as far as the eye can see?  This fantasy is becoming a reality around the world.   The movement known as vegitecture, or vegetated architecture, is taking off,  and is not just beautiful, but is also an environmentally friendly way to literally add life to a city.
The Musee du Quai Branly in Paris has an 8,600 square foot vertical garden featuring more than 170 different plant species.  The walls use a combination of sunshades, solar panels, and ventilation to catch water, making them self-sustaining ecosystems. The benefits aren’t just aesthetic — the walls reduce noise and provide natural cooling for the surrounding buildings because they soak up noise and heat, whereas concrete just reflects those things. Architects imagine people one day being able to grow and harvest food from vertical gardens.

One of the main leaders in the field is Ken Yeang, a Malaysian-born architect and writer who first designed the Tropical Skyscraper in 1992.  Examples of his visionary work can be viewed here. The technology required to create and sustain a vertical garden is rather complex, but considering it can reintroduce biodiversity to urban areas and even cut down on air conditioning and air purification costs, maybe Ireland’s urban planners could start including vertical gardens to their designs - we certainly have enough rain to water them!

According to the green US website The Good Human (which I recommend following on Twitter, for those of you tweeters out there), many neighbourhoods in the US and Canada are bringing the strength of collective bargaining to greening their homes.  More and more, neighbours are getting together and approaching green energy companies with a collective agenda.  Sometimes the community reps are able to negotiate far lower (sometimes as much as 25% less) rates for installation of solar panels.  In Colorado, the reps also found a company who were able to rent them the panels, thereby avoiding the large financial investment that installing them would have required, as well as the difficulties of maintenance.  Most of us who live in towns and cities in Ireland have access to a residents’ association, and in rural areas there are also local groups or locally elected representatives.  So if you’d like to go green but are concerned about the costs involved, don’t go it alone – see who else in your neighbourhood wants to join in - you might be surprised by the size of your new green community!

How would you like to get your electricity from wind power, and at cheaper rates than the ESB?  It’s really easy to switch to Airtricity online, all you need is your ESB account number (on your bill), and if you have the number of the meter reading to hand it makes things even quicker.  Within 5 minutes you can be finished with ESB and fossil fuels!

Airtricity is owned by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE).  The renewable-energy company, established in 1999, was the first independent supplier of green energy to customers both in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  It has now built up a considerable infrastructure of wind farms across Ireland, with 17 onshore wind farms generating 878 mega watts of electricity – enough to power 180,000 households. At present, the company provides green energy to just over 60,000 customers across the island of Ireland, of which 45,000 are SMEs and 15,000 are domestic customers.

Airtricity has also just announced that they are to create 200 jobs in the Irish market, in the areas of sales, customer support, billing and support services. Fifty of the positions will be created in Airtricity’s headquarters in Sandymount, Co Dublin, with the remaining 150 comprising outsourced roles.  Green, clean, and profitable: these are the kind of green shoots that matter.

Now I really feel famous! I’m in the Femme section of the Evening Herald. It’s my first time in the company of Sarah Jessica Parker, too, and I think she probably was pretty happy to be on the same page as me.  In fact, that’s the only thing that was missing from Sex in the City - a little white dog - maybe she and I should do lunch…!

As a sometime film technician, for me the most noticeable impact of climate change in Ireland has been the increasing wind speeds – in the past 18 months I’ve been on two commercials that were closed down because it was too windy to shoot; that had never happened to me in the previous 15 years. However, there are may be some positive side effects to this new phenomena, energy independence being chief among them.  The creators of Spirit of Ireland view Ireland as infinitely rich in the sustainable and ecological power of wind.  The group’s idea is clever because it addresses the issue of wind’s intermittent nature by storing the energy in the form of reservoirs, which then create hydroelectricity on demand.  It’s pretty neat. And for proof that energy independence is not just possible but profitable, Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker article is a must-read: she describes how the residents of a Danish island went from impoverished to wealthy in a matter of a few years, simply by using the wind that was already rushing across their land every day.

Besides capturing the wind itself, the future of wind power technology in Ireland is promising as well, as last week’s announcement of 250 new jobs in Mayo testifies.

So if you agree that the future of wind is mighty, you can start using it yourself today: Airtricity gets at least 70% of their electricity from Irish wind farms, it’s cheaper than the ESB and it only takes 5 minutes to switch: isn’t that as refreshing as a cool breeze?

Just think – right this second, millions of people in gyms across the planet are running, stretching, lifting weights, stepping, cycling and leaping around the place, God love them.  Imagine how many units of energy are being burned – and all of it simply floating into the ether, unused, untapped and unappreciated.  Now that may all be about to change, thanks to some imaginative inventions.  The “Bike Power Generator” is a stationery bike that can directly power some DC appliances such as water pumps, but is primarily designed to charge a deep cycle, 12-Volt battery.  For those of you concerned about bingo wings you can get the irresistibly-named Human Power Generator (power from the people!).  But wait – there’s more!  The very footpaths we walk (or jog) on may soon become part of the national grid, as brilliant minds have designed “Powerleap” (as seen on the Sundance Channel) - floor tiles that emit an electrical response to impact.  If jogging isn’t exciting enough for you, jump up and down!  Dance!  Do long jump!  You’ll be doing your bit for the planet.  These inventions are all so simple one might wonder why they weren’t created sooner, but a perfect storm of climate anxiety and new technology has allowed them to come to market now.  So the next time you’re feeling a little pudgy, hook yourself up, feel the burn and see the light!