Have you ever noticed that the news we really need to hear is not there, and the news we don't need to hear is everywhere?
So much of what fills the news - whether it is in the newspapers, on TV, radio, or the internet, - is not essential for us to know. How many times have you been on a holiday out of reach of the media, and returned to find that you hadn't missed anything of importance from the media? Yet how many times do you hear of something from an unusual source and wished you had heard it a long time ago - a vital piece of news - something to change your life or how you live it.
Information that will support us to change our lives to ensure we live sustainable and information to help us to support others to change, is often not available to us through the general media or if it is, it is only mentioned in an extremely brief article in a difficult to notice place.
This website will bring you some of the less known news in an attempt to support sustainable living.
Saturday 11 October 2005
Innovation to reduce diesel engine emissions
The Cost of Stationary Consumption
Innovation to reduce diesel engine emissions (May 2005)
Global Fuel Solutions, a Brisbane, Australia-based company believes it has developed a method to reduce toxic emissions from diesel engines, and at the same time improve engine performance. The technology is simple – injection of ethanol into diesel-powered engines. This reduces the amount of fuel consumed by approximately 15 percent
Up till now ethanol-blended petrol has been available at retail outlets but this new technology applies to diesel as well
The technology is appropriate not only for on- and off-road vehicles, but also for agriculture and mining vehicles and machinery.
Stationery Consumption
China is the biggest stationery manufacturing base and export country in the world. There are over 8,000 stationery manufacturers in China, most of which are exporters. The Yangtze River delta zone and Pearl River area are the main stationery bases.
The stationery manufacturing capacity in China makes up 40 percent of that of the world. China exports stationery to Europe, US, Canada South East Asia and the Middle East.
More importantly China is expected to be the biggest stationery consuming country within five years. The stationery market in China has reached more than US$18.4 billion annually, and is growing at a rate of 15 percent every year. World Band estimated that the average stationery consumption per person in China is only half that of the world average. Office employees and students (240 million) are the main consuming groups currently, while personal and family consumption just beginning to grow.
The direct sale of China-made pens was worth more than US$1.08 billion worldwide in 2003.
BIC's sales figures give an indication of our consumption and waste proportions. Every day, on five continents, BIC sells:
- Over 15 million ballpoint pens
- 20 million stationery products
- 4 million lighters
- 8 million shavers
Bic produce 13 billion units for the Australasian market in 2004. The disposable pen is one of six major stationary lines produced by Bic. (http://www.superbrands-brands.com/volII/brand_bic.htm)
Assuming pens are one of six units, this makes a total of 2.16 billion units per annum on the Australian market.
With an average population of 23 million Australians, this means 9.39 million disposable pens per Australian per annum.
Where do all those pens go? Ground fill!
The average Australian life span is 76 years. This means that each Australian is expected to consume 713.64 million disposable pens in a lifetime.
Each pen costs between .29 and .87 cents to purchase. Pens are manufactured from petroleum products by heating and moulding plastics and injecting inks into thin barrels.
Bic's management report of the Board of Directors for 2003 (USA) state that 13% of its production hazardous waste treatment went ground fill, and 29% on non-hazardous production waste went to ground fill.
During use, each pen lasts between 6 months and one year, after which it becomes additional landfill with an estimated 200 – 400 year breakdown cycle.
Interestingly, no local companies provide recycling receptacles for used plastic (stationary) products.
Bic is only one major player on the disposable pen market in Australia. There are also Pilot, Mitsubishi, Straedtler, Parker and made-to-order (Lifeline, Company Logo type, event type etc) entering the Australian market and others.
A Parker fountain pen with a lifetime (50yrs) guarantee and refillable cartridge cost $24.00. Replacement ink cost $7.65 per 57 ml's (bottle). Each bottle produces about 31 refills.
Expected refill rate 1 time per fortnight. Cost of ink PA = $6.41. Pens per lifetime (at 1.75) cost $36.00. Ink per lifetime cost $487.00, plus pen = $523.00 expenditure.
Glass bottle in which ink is packaged can be recycled. Ink required in production uses less energy – different type of ink. Pen is produced once. Saving to environment by recycling glass equates to a higher calculation in saved energy, less landfill, recycling of glass, fewer transportation (land, air and shipping) and associated global warming costs.
New low-voltage light bulb
The Japanese company Nichia used gallium nitride to make the first LED in the 1990s. Other scientists are now using gallium nitride to develop tiny LEDs that emit a soft white light, which could eventually be five times more efficient than normal light bulbs.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge, UK, consider the low-voltage, longer-lasting and more efficient light bulb to promise to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 15 percent. LEDs are currently used in digital clocks, bicycle lights, mobile phones and traffic lights. Unlike normal light bulbs, that burn out quickly after approximately 1000 hours, an LED light lasts 100 times longer and fails gradually, rather than suddenly.
LEDs have already replaced standard lights in a number of applications eg Singapore, Denver, Colorado and other cities have replaced old traffic lights with LEDs. This has resulted in considerable financial and energy savings. But the real savings could come when homes and offices are converted to LEDs.
LEDs won't solve climate change but they could be part of an overall plan to lower emissions of greenhouse gases.
Green Car Air Conditioning
Research in 1999 indicated that 51 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is released annually worldwide as a result of burning petrol to drive vehicle air conditioners. In 2002, over 32 billion litres of fuel was used in the US for vehicle air conditioners.
Research at the University of Adelaide is seeking to develop a replacement for the standard car air-conditioning unit that relies on petrol and refrigerants. Refrigerants are greenhouse gases that are 1300 times more damaging than carbon dioxide, and using petrol to run air conditioners uses petrol that could be used to run the car, thus using more petrol. These are two good reasons to seek alternatives. Sound waves produced from car exhaust gases could be used to run car air conditioners.
The new system uses 'thermoacoustic' devices that turn heat into sound, and sound into cool air. This is achieved with a sealed steel and aluminium tube, approximately 50 millimetres in diameter and one metre long. Inside the tube are two components. Firstly, a thermoacoustic heat engine that converts heat from the car exhaust, with temperatures up to 1000 degrees C, into sound waves. The sound waves bounce off the end of the tube and are amplified to around 180 decibels. Also in the tube is a thermoacoustic heat pump that uses the energy in the sound waves to cool air inside the car.
Although the current research results in a unit that is only 20 percent efficient it is recovering heat energy that would otherwise be wasted and is saving fossil fuels.
Thermoacoustic refrigeration is not new. It is currently used to cool biological samples on space shuttle and electronic equipment on US warships.
The research on the heat pump, which is partially funded by the Mazda Foundation, is currently being reviewed for publication.