Climate change poses serious problems for plant development
The effects of Climate Change have been widely discussed and debated, but an effect of Climate Change that is not often shared with the general population is the effect that altered climate patterns have on the growth and development of plants. Plants are primary producers, meaning they get their energy from the sun, not by consuming other organisms. This places them at the bottom of the food chain. All other organisms higher up on the food chain are affected by the well-being of the primary producers. Therefore, any alteration in the seasonal flowering of plants can shift the dynamics of an entire food web, causing damage to species populations and increasing the risk of possible extinction. (more…)
Honda has recently teamed with Japan Metals & Company in an effort to introduce the first, viable way to extract 17 rare earth elements from Nickel-Hydride batteries (check out the recycling life cycle graphic above); this is the largest recycling of essential elements on a mass-produced scale. Additional research has begun in order to extract even more types of minerals in the future. (more…)
The recent winner of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Bright tomorrow lighting prize” has a rating of 30,000 hours and when used at 4 hours a day, will last for 20 years.
According to Philips North American Executive Ed Crawford, “the new bulb is 83% more energy efficient than the standard 60-Watt incandescent” while also adding that if every light bulb in a household were replaced with this 10 Watt LED the “nation would save about 35 terawatt-hours of electricity or $3.9 billion in one year;” this is the equivalent of removing 4 million cars off of the road and reducing 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
Some more facts about the light bulb include: it provides 940 lumens of light (incandescent around 800), contains no mercury, it’s made in the USA, has a 3 year limited warranty, and emits virtually no UV/IR light in the beam. It is a dark shade of yellow when not in use, and turns to bright white light when turned on.
The price currently is around $50; this is a little high, although each light bulb is estimated to save $165 in electricity bills over its lifetime. Nevertheless, Philips is in the process of planning discounts to bring the bulb’s price down to around $25. This extended energy saving goes in-hand with the changing consumer outlook that Crawford mentions in relation to product longevity — before consumers invested in products that would only last “6 months to a year” but now consumers want products to last “for decades”. To learn more, visit the Philips’ website.
source: vanguardngr.com
A recent Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report has found that by 2030, commuters will be saving $68 billion from Obama’s mpg standard effective by 2025 (which will be finalized in August). The best part is that savings can start immediately.
The new 2012 fleets already give “twice the fuel efficient car options than just three years ago,” according to senior analyst Luke Tonachel of NRDC. There are currently 57 fuel efficient showroom models that are available today (up from 27 in 2009) just to meet and exceed the current mpg standard of 35.5
With the new standard implemented it could potentially save drivers up to $4400 over the vehicle’s lifetime (taking in to account the cost of the fuel saving technologies). Alan Baum, a contributor to the report detailed that upgrading current vehicles does not necessarily mean compromise anymore either, “from pickups to SUVs to minivans to cars, automakers are squeezing more out of vehicles with conventional gasoline engines than ever before.”
What’s also interesting about the report is that it quantified proposed savings by state listing the top 20 (top 5 listed here, for the rest, take a look at the report) that will see the biggest breaks in their wallets:
- Texas $7.750 Billion
- California $7.270 Billion
- Florida $6.683 Billion
- New York $2.959 Billion
- North Carolina $2.797 Billion
This gives hope for a transportation medium (that is, internal combustion engines) that there are better times ahead for everyone, and even within the industry everyone believes that the internal combustion engine is far from dead.
via: prnewswire.com
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