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A 25million US$ challenge for imechanica: VIRGIN EARTH CHALLENGE

Submitted by Mike Ciavarella on
research
virgin
Sir Richard Branson

 

Sir Richard Branson has recently announced

VIRGIN EARTH CHALLENGE 

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.
 

I know it is NOT our main expertise, but should imechanica altogether run for the challenge?

Let's await some early ideas even naif ones do not be afraid!

The judges are quite interesting people... 

Once
you know Richard you understand why his company is called Virgin (and
recognised as such throughout the world in numerous sectors). He is a
pioneer of many famous world-wide business ventures - including Virgin
Music Group and Virgin Atlantic (with a multitude of first-time
achievements to boot); he is also the founder of a company that has
been the saviour of Britain's two most run-down rail-franchises as well
as putting its considerable financial and personnel weight behind
several worldwide charities facing some of the toughest challenges ever
today. This incredibly revolutionary approach to life has also led to
his involvement in many epic and famous world record-breaking sea, air
and land ventures. In 2004 his dream of opening the world's first ever
commercial Space Tourism business was realised with the launch of
Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson is a committed crusader and ambassador
of crucial and urgent social as well as environmental issues - a
fantastic proof of this was him being awarded a knighthood in the
Queen's Millennium New Year's honours list for "Services to
Entrepreneurship".

 

Is
known throughout the world as the Former Vice President of the USA. He
is also (amongst others) Co-Founder of Generation Investment Management
- a company committed to the new approach to Sustainable Investing. He
is also an active and respected member of the Board of Directors for
both Apple and Google. He is the author of "An Inconvenient Truth" - a
best selling book and documentary about the history of the world.
During the past 30 years he has been the leading advocate for
confronting the threat of global warming.

 

An
independent scientist for more than forty years as well as an Honorary
Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. He was elected
to the Royal Society in 1974 and was made a Companion of Honour by
Queen Elizabeth II in 2003. In addition, he has received ten
international awards for his work as an environmentalist; these
included the Blue Planet Prize, Volvo Prize and Wollaston Medal from
the Geological Society in London.

James Lovelock’s most notable
scientific work is the Gaia theory, now generally accepted under the
name Earth System Science, and the discovery in l972 of the CFCs in the
atmosphere and their subsequent global monitoring. He is the inventor
of the electron capture detector (ECD), which first alerted us to the
ubiquitous distribution of pesticides and PCBs. He has throughout his
career as an environmental scientist supported nuclear energy as a
preferred supplier of electricity. He is the author of five books and
over 200 scientific papers.

 

Is
an internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer, conservationist and
author lauded by David Attenborough and Redmond O'Hanlon respectively
as one of the world's greatest explorers and having "... discovered
more new species than Charles Darwin." He is also Recipient of
Centenary of Federation medal for his service to science and in 2002
became the first environmentalist to deliver the Australia Day address
to the nation. His voice is familiar world-wide through radio and is
also well-known to Documentary Channel viewers as writer/presenter on
numerous ground-breaking series of the past 10 years. Tim was recently
honoured as Australian Humanist of the Year as well as Australian of
the Year.

 

 

Professor
in Columbia University Earth Institute and also Heads the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies in NYC. In addition, Dr Hansen's research
has contributed to incredible identification of the properties of
clouds of Venus as sulfuric acid. He has worked on understanding the
human impact on global climate for nearly 40 years and is universally
famous for bringing world-wide awareness of the global warming issue in
1980's.

 

Sir
Crispin Tickell is the Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at
the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at Oxford
University. He is associated with other British universities as well as
universities in the United States. His main interests are in the field
of the environment and international affairs.

His interests as well
as his unparalleled achievements in business, charities, climate and
the Earth say all there is to say about this man and his imperative
role in our ecological Earth group challenge.

 

 

You know that more will come, Sir Branson announced that ALL the profits of his transport companies for the next 10
years will go into ecology and biofuels research:  CONGRATULATION Sir
Branson you never end to surprise me...

We are talking of estimated 3 Billion US $ dollars ... not peanuts.

 

Mike Ciavarella

Are biofuels a core climate solution?

Category:

Posted on: July 16, 2008 4:23 PM, by Joe Romm

In
order to know whether biofuels could be a major climate solution, the
scale of low-carbon energy deployment needed to avert climate
catastrophe must be understood.

According to the Latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, if
carbon emissions average 11 billion tons a year (GtC/yr) this century,
then carbon cycle feedbacks will probably take us to atmospheric
concentrations of 1000 ppm of carbon dioxide and some 5.5°C warming from preindustrial levels. And I think we can probably all agree that is the end of life on this planet as we know it
with the loss of the inland glaciers that provide water to a billion
people, widespread desertification for up to one third of the planet,
loss of most species on land and sea, and ultimately an ice free planet
with sea levels up to 250 feet higher.

Unfortunately, unless we sharply reverse national and global energy
policy, we'll be over 11 GtC/yr in 2020. So what would it take to then
freeze at 11 GtC/yr for most of the rest of the century? It would
require 11 of Princeton's "stabilization wedges"
-- strategies and/or technologies that over a period of a few decades
each reduce global carbon emissions by one billion metric tons per year
from projected levels. Click to enlarge the figure.

SEE THE ORIGINAL BLOG FOR MORE DETAILS AT THE LINKS:

Are biofuels a core climate solution?

original August 2004 Science article on the wedges:

 

http://www.epa.gov/chp/documents/biomass_chp_catalog_part5.pdf

Sat, 07/19/2008 - 21:26 Permalink
Mike Ciavarella

Imechanica friends, we should ALL move to energy research -- here is a 45bn euro plan (I repeat, 45 billions euro) presented today at ESOF in Barcellona!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/22/solarpower.windpower 

Vast farms of solar panels in the Sahara desert could provide clean electricity for the whole of Europe, according to EU scientists working on a plan to pool the region's renewable energy.

Green sources such as wind energy in the UK and Denmark and geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy.

The idea is gaining growing political support in Europe with both Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy recently giving backing to the north African solar plan.

DG-JRC's Institute for Energy

The idea of developing solar farms in the Mediterranean region and north Africa was given a boost recently by French president Nicholas Sarkozy earlier this month when he highlighted solar farms in north Africa as a key part of the work of his newly-formed Mediterranean Union.

Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK's chief scientist, welcomed the proposals. "Assuming it's cost-effective, a large scale renewable energy grid is just the kind of innovation we need if we're going to beat climate change. Europe needs to become a zero-carbon society as soon as possible, and that will only happen with bold new ideas like this one. Tinkering with 20th-century technologies like coal and nuclear simply isn't going to get us there."

The JRC at ESOF 2008

 

Starting Friday, July 18 in Barcelona, the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2008 features a strong presence by the JRC, with five scientific sessions by JRC scientists as well as a number of high profile science-related communication activities.

 

  • JRC staff from Institute for Health and Consumer Protection will explain recent advances made in the scientific and technological field of nanotechnology, focusing on the implications for human health in terms of potential benefits as well as associated risks.
  • JRC-Institute for Energy staff will explain the significant potential of renewable energies in the Mediterranean countries to help address today's energy and environment-related challenges.
  • Scientists from the JRC Institute for Transuranium Elements will explain their evolving role in the international effort to combat proliferation and illicit nuclear trafficking.
  • JRC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies staff will moderate a symposium on the technological and socioeconomic perspectives of animal cloning as well as presenting the ERAWATCH network's contribution to the realisation of the European Research Area (ERA).
  • Lastly but not least, JRC Director General, Dr Roland Schenkel will give a joint presentation with the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Dr Alan Leshner, on the subject of European and American views and uses of science.

Dott. Giovanni De Santi, director of the JRC, also speaks in Barcelona.

The JRC plan includes fuel cells and hydrogen, clean coal, second-generation biofuels, nuclear fusion, wind, nuclear fission and smart grids. De Santi said it was designed to help Europe to meet its commitments to reduce overall energy consumption by 20% by 2020 while reducing CO2 emissions by 20% in the same time and increasing to 20% the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources.

High-voltage transmission lines

High-voltage direct current - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

First developed in the 1930s, High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission lines are seen as the most efficient way to move electricity over long without incurring the losses experienced in normal AC power lines. HVDC cables can carry more power for the same thickness of cable compared with AC lines but are only suited to long-distance transmission because they require expensive devices called static inverters to convert the electricity, usually generated as AC, into DC. Modern HVDC cables can keep energy losses down to around 3% per 1,000km.

Another advantage of HVDC is that it can be used as a link to transfer electricity between different countries that might use AC systems at differing frequencies. Alternatively, the HVDC cables could be used to synchronise the AC currents produced by renewable energy sources such as wind turbine farms.

Wed, 07/23/2008 - 17:23 Permalink
Mike Ciavarella

Carbon-free electricity in the U.S. in ten years – Al Gore’s Kennedyian challenge requires a different perspective on economics.

da Leonardo ENERGY - The Global Community for Sustainable Energy Professionals di Hans Nilsson

Al Gore has challenged his fellow Americans,
or rather their future leaders (see footnote), to take on the task of
producing 100% of their electricity from renewable and truly clean,
carbon-free sources within 10 years. The challenge is deliberately
formatted similarly to the one John Kennedy made to put a man on the
moon within a decade, but it is also a very political text in the sense
that Mr. Gore provides a backdrop describing the failure of the
American economy as it looks today.

Tomas Friedman spells out this failure even more clearly in his column in The NY Times, quoting a Texan proverb that he claims is summing up the energy policy of the Bush era: “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”

Wed, 07/23/2008 - 17:51 Permalink
Mike Ciavarella



http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207403402

Researchers claim photovoltaic cell advance

Amir Ben-Artzi

EE Times Europe

(04/30/2008 7:59 AM EDT)



NETANYA, Israel — Scientists at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel claim

they have found a way to construct efficient photovoltaic cells costing at

least a hundred times less than conventional silicon based devices, and with

similar or better energy conversion efficiency.

The reactive element in the researchers' patent pending device is

genetically engineered proteins using photosynthesis for production of

electrical energy.

The scientists applied genetic engineering and nanotechnology for the

construction of a hybrid nano -- bio, solid state device. According to the

researchers, although using photosynthesis for photovoltaic application is

not new, their specific technique is the first to enable the production of

useful photosynthesis-based photovoltaic cells.

The Israeli team is set to challenge others who are using photosynthesis for

photovoltaic cells, including universities such as Cambridge in the U.K.,

and Stanford, M.I.T, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and the

Universities of Tennessee and Arizona in the U.S, and several others.

The researchers suggest existing silicon based photovoltaic cells offer low

average energy conversion efficiency of 12-14 percent, while their system is

capable of efficiencies of about 25 percent. They based their photovoltaic

device on genetically engineered dry proteins photosystem I (PS I),

encapsulated in solid state substrate bottom metal and a top transparent

electrode.

They also claim that PS I generates a stable charge separation in 200 ns

across 6 nm of protein to generate an electric potential of 1 V with quantum

efficiency of 1 and absorbed energy conversion efficiency of 47 percent. A

further advantage of PS I is said to be its transparency to infrared

radiation, which eliminates the need for expensive cooling equipment.

The researchers include Prof. Chanoch Carmeli, Dr. Shachar Richter, Dr. Itai

Carmeli and Prof. Yossi Rosenwaks. Ramot, Tel Aviv University s technology

transfer company, is set to help commercialize the invention.

Larry Loev, director of business development for high technologies at Ramot

told EETimes the low cost of the proposed device is based on the low cost of

PS I in comparison to silicon. While one square meter of PS I should cost

around $1, a similar area made of silicon should cost around $200.

"We connected our device to electrodes and we saw how it converts light to

electricity," said Loev.

EETimes Europe has learned that Ramot will probably use the industrial

facilities of solar energy specialist Millennium Electric T.O.U Ltd.

(Ra anana, Israel) for making prototype devices, including engineering of

the prototype up scaling, automation of production and the integration of

the university's photovoltaic cell with other components in the final

device. Ramot aims to develop a cost effective device of 10mm X 10mm in size

within three years.

Asked about the competition, Loev claimed: "Certainly many researchers are

looking into how to use photosynthesis to create photovoltaic cells.

However, a deeper look at what has been published shows major differences

between what our group has achieved and the rest. First, ours is the only

group to utilize an organic material in a dry and stable environment.

"Other groups have only done this under aqueous conditions which are much

less robust. Second, we are able to directly metallize the protein and make

good electronic coupling to the electrodes. Other groups have utilized

intermediate polymers for this purpose, which is a very complicated

procedure. Third, we have demonstrated multilayer capability, which is

crucial to getting good efficiency."

Sat, 08/02/2008 - 11:14 Permalink