UK kicks off one of the world's largest wind farm

As UK leads one of the largest coordinated global event 10:10:10, the Global day of Doing, this news sounds great. UK embraces renewable energy to a whole new level.

Details, basically this wind farm is one of the world's largest offshore wind farm situated off the Thanet in Kent. The project was at a cost of £780m ,and is expected to generate enough electricity to power 240,000 homes.

Read more about it.

World Ocean Day Reminds Us To Protect Our Future

The month of June marks World Environment Day, World Ocean Day, and Global Wind
Day - three environmentally conscious days whose main purpose is to spread awareness of environmental issues taking place in today's world. The Gulf oil spill is a huge reminder that now is the time to invest, innovate, and utilize specific renewable energy technologies that can reduce our dependency on oil consumption and preserve our environment.

•Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition (OREC) is a national trade association that is "dedicated to promoting marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies from clean, renewable ocean resources." They incorporate over 40 members, some of which are literally "turning the tide" when it comes to renewable energy by using the known green technique of harnessing ocean waves and currents to produce energy.

• Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is doing this is via their PowerBuoy 40 that acts as a "wave energy converter" while submerged.

• The Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) is installing power systems all along the Gulf Stream's ocean currents (which has 21,000 times the energy of Niagara Falls). With the constant flow of the Gulf Stream, if ORPC harnesses just 1/1000 of the Gulf's renewable energy that would still be enough to power up to 7 million homes.

Wave power technology, while underused, has been a known technology, for years. However, a future green source with a lot of potential can be found in algae within the ocean. Using algae as a source of energy is a new ideology but many believe them to be "the ultimate in renewable energy". Half of algae's weight is based off of oil, which can be made into bio-fuel that could be used on anything from cars to airplanes. Considering that there over 65,000 known algae species this could potentially be a big time future energy source.

The future of green energy depends upon the ability to use it efficiently. This means that everything from cars to building structures would need to be much more efficient to require less consumption. Nissan set the benchmark in the auto industry by skipping the gasoline engine altogether and going straight to the fully electric LEAF. Companies like Globetrotters Engineering Corporation (a Chicago based architecture company founded by Niranjan Shah known for their custom LEED solutions), Wells Fargo (which built an office tower that is not only LEED approved but saves up to 5 million kWh a year), and Kubala-Washatko Architects & Boldt Construction (which actually built the first ever LEED-platinum certified, carbon neutral building) are setting the standard for LEED design.

Since the inception of LEED certification, it took several years for the first building to reach platinum certification. Now, it is something that architects strive for. For many projects government incentives are available for businesses that reach LEED certification. Niranjan Shah realized that the LEED benchmark is the future of architecture and that creating structures that benefit from renewable energy just makes common sense. He proves that success can coincide with environmental friendliness. Hopefully, in upcoming years we’ll see LEED platinum certification become the standard.

After the oil spill in the Gulf it's clear to see that now, more than ever, protecting our oceans stands for something much greater. By saving our oceans, we are making a commitment to the preservation of our natural resources, our wildlife, and our humanity. Through the promise and development of a sustainable, renewable energy future, we can follow a new path which will redefine the meaning of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Written by Marcus Reyes
Marcus Reyes studied public policy with a focus on energy research and environmental
sustainability. He is an advocate of clean energy technology and contributes written work to the blogosphere related to energy conservation and environmental preservation. PowerBuoy 40 – CNN Editorial Feb 26, 2010
Algae: “The ultimate in renewable energy” – CNN Tech Editorial Globetrotters Engineering Corporation Niranjan Shah – GEC CEO Niranjan Shah Twitter Feed
First LEED Platinum Certified Carbon Neutral Building Niranjan Shah – Live Journal

10 Biggest Health Dangers behind the US Oil Spill

Nursingschools.net was kind of enough to provide me the link to one of their posts on the dangers associated with the US Oil Spill. Their post talks about the present dangers and the future problems.

Such problems are

1) Sickness among the clean-up workers
2) Danger to marine life
3) Aggravation of existing illness
4) Pregnancy risks
5) Smoke fallout
6) Neurological disorder
7) Food contamination
8) Oxygen depletion
9) Dispersion of oil
10) Lung disease

Read the full article at their website.

100 years for the coral reefs to dissolve

I know most of you are thinking, "100 years, yeah right!" To tell you the truth, its all about the research. You cant blame the research cause it depends on a lot of factors.

Anyways, the rising acidic levels in the oceans and the warming of the ocean temperature, is causing most of the coral reefs to disappear. Now coral reefs houses and feeds millions of aquatic organisms and fishes. It will kill off millions of species causing a serious chain reaction breaking the eco-system.

Oceans are the greatest carbon sink but due to this it is causing them to become acidic.

Food security at high alert: Climate change

Now with Copenhagen over and emission targets set high, melting glaciers in the Himalayas have given people all over that region to worry. Now with every one degree rise in temperature farmers can expect a 10% decrease in wheat, rice and corn yields. An interview of Lester R. Brown, an environmentalist and President of Earth Policy Institure and DNA states why we have to worry.

Himalayan Glaciers: Running away

The Himalayan Glaciers, the largest water source compared to the polar ice caps, and the seven great Asian rivers, is melting fast. What makes it different from the polar ice caps, its a major source of drinking water within the regions surrounding the Himalayan. As a result, lack of fresh drinking water will pose a major health risk in the near future, and not only that, with the glaciers melting fast, raising sea levels will be some of the issues that will be faced in the near future.

As the water level declines (of course after decades), chances of drought happening is for sure, which will have a large affect to the agricultural sectors. Countries surrounding the Himalayan, China, India, Nepal as well as the people far away from this region depend on agricultural, so you get the picture as too why this is serious.

Over 100M in South- East Asia to be affected

A climate meet in Indonesia suggests that with climate change and global warming beyond the doorsteps, it will affect over 100 million people in South-East Asia. It will directly affect the coastal regions of SE Asia as they are more dependent on this regions, leading them to poverty and with the consequences of raising water levels they will become homeless. Read the full story here.

Our oceans are turning acidic

During the Nairobi talks, a climate expert indicated that the world's oceans are becoming acidic which pose a big threat to fishes and all marine life. Oceans have already absorbed a third of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.
This absorption has turned the oceans acidic. Those of who you have knowledge in Chemistry will know that carbon dioxide when dissolved in water produces a weak acid known as carbonic acid. But high concentrations of the gas could make it quite acidic. Eventually this will prevent vital sea life from growing properly.

Just imagine the consequences. Important marine cannot live long enough to reproduce, as a result there is a shift in ecosystems where fishes are depending on other marine life rather than the one they usually feast on. If fishes cannot adapt to the new situations they will die. This will result in the depletion of total number of fishes in the oceans will decrease because bigger fish depends on smaller fish and smaller fish cannot live long enough. Fishermen who depend on this livelihood will reach poverty if they cannot find any work. This will increase the crime rate in countries and people who eat fish for a living other than fishermen will have to pay quite a sum if they are to eat fish owing to lack of demand.

So basically a slight shift in ecosystem will be catastrophic.

Wildfish will only last 50 more years

After a major scientific study it has been found that there could be only 50 years left for sea fishes. Although there are many reasons behind it and all of you know that pollution is one but eventhough this is out of my topic other such reasons behind it is loss of habitation, fishing, poaching, lack of biodiversity. Remember fishing and poaching are two different things. The survey concluded that at this rate of decline all the delicious fish we eat will expire into the abyss and people who rely on fishes will have to find other species to eat.

Pollution has caused a problem and reduced biodiversity and because of the reduction of biodiversity there are less fish reproduction hence a decline in fish population. Areas of seas that were protected by law from poaching and fishing have survived and fish population increased comparatively.

To some protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does not make sense.

Lets hope for the best.

Meditterranean "worst enviornmental disaster

Israel causes ' worst enviornmental disaster' in the Mediterranean. The bombing of a power plant in Lebanon sent thousands of tons of fuels gushing in the sea. Up to now 10,000-15,000 tons of fuels have flown into the sea. This is one of the first ecological disaster in the open sea. The cleaning bill of this disaster will cost about 45-50 million dollars and would take until next summer. If the mess is not cleaned the spill will flow into Cyprus, Greece and also Israel.

Kuwait has sent 40 tons of material to absorb petroleum products. The explosion not also causing water pollution but it is also causing atmospheric pollution.

China to invest in $175bn in enviornment clean-up

China plans to invest 1.4 trillion yuan ($175 billion) in enviornment protection for the next 5 years.The money which is nearly equivalent to 1.5% of its GDP. Its prime targets are controlling water pollution, improving air quality in smogged areas of cities and putting a stop to soil erosion. It also aims to build sewerage facilities along 10 river valleys to dispose of polluted water released from populated areas; part of the fund is also going to be used toreduce sulfur dioxide and dust.

China's Yangtze is in peril

One of the biggest river in the world and the largest in China, the Yangtze river is in serious peril. The river was told is was too big for pollution to occur due to its sheer capacity of 900 billions of water. However the incident which took few months back ago have showed signs of pollution. It was said the river was too big to poison although that assumption was wrong. Hydrologists are saying that the water is cancerous and could cause a major imbalance in marine life and enviornment. The 3,964 mile long river supports some 400 million people which means one in every 15 people in the planet.

Some citizen

This guy is dumping oil into the sewerage system. Pathetic.