Water has many potential uses for generating energy. The most common water based power generators are hydroelectric dams, also called “large hydro”. There are also “small” and “micro” hydro plants in use in remote locations where water is plentiful. Hydroelectric power accounts for around 3% of the world’s energy. An example is the Hoover Dam pictured above (from Wikipedia).

Hydroelectric power makes use of the potential energy stored in dammed water using it to drive a turbine and generator. The amount of energy extracted depends on the volume of water in the reservoir and the height difference between the source and the outflow (see picture on left). Hydroelectric is renewable since rainfall adds water up-river which ends up in the reservoir until it is released to generate electricity. Aside from building the dam and plant, the energy production is clean and low-cost. However, these dams can cause other environmental damage by changing the natural waterways. Some side effects include accelerated erosion, reduction of fish spawning, and water quality changes (e. g. depleted oxygen and elevated temperature). Hydroelectric dams provide fairly clean, low-cost and predictable energy, but they do have adverse effects and viable water sources are limited.

A burgeoning area of water power generation involves waves and tides. Wave power makes use of the kinetic energy in the rise and fall of waves in the ocean. A European manufacturer (as described on ZDnet), Pelamis Wave Power, makes the Wave Energy Converter (WEC). The Pelamis WEC (pictured on right) makes use of several cylindrical sections linked with hinged joints. The wave-induced motion of the joints is resisted by hydraulic rams which pump high-pressure fluid through motors which drive electric generators. California’s PG&E is investing in the United State’s first “wave park” off the coast of Eureka, CA. This installation will make use of Finavera Renewables‘ AquaBuOY (pictured on left) to generate 2 MegaWatts of electricity. For more information on the AquaBuOY technology, check out their video or read about this deal on GreenWombat.

Tidal power makes use of the rising and falling of the water level due to tides. One way to do this is to capture water at high tide in a basin, then discharge it near low tide through a turbine. This method, also known as a barrage, has been used for a thousand years in the form of tide mills for grinding grain. Another alternative, called tidal stream power, utilizes turbines installed underwater in tidal channels. PG&E, the City of San Francisco, and Golden Gate Energy are conducting a study to assess the possibility of harnessing the tides in San Francisco Bay (from Green Car Congress) using a device like the Lunar Energy RTT Turbine (pictured right).

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) exploits the temperature difference between the warm surface and colder deep waters. The process uses something called a heat engine. A heat engine uses a device placed between a hot reservoir and a cold one. The engine extracts some of the heat in the form of work. A common example is a steam turbine where fuel is burned to create steam, which turns a turbine, and then condenses back to water to be recycles. The OTEC concept is the same, but the fuels is the sun warming the surface water, a low boiling-point fluid like ammonia is used as the steam, then deep sea-water is used to cool the ammonia back to liquid (see diagram on left). Unfortunately, the OTEC engines are not very efficient and the ocean locations with large thermal differences are limited.

The final water power technology is called osmotic (or Blue) energy. It uses the difference in salt concentration between seawater and river water to generate energy. The technology relies on osmosis through methods such as Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) and Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO). Osmotic energy technologies are still in early stages of development, primarily in Norway.

There are quite a few water power options. It seems like hydroelectric dams are fairly saturated and cause their own environmental problems. Wave and tidal power look pretty interesting. They should be more predictable than options like winds and solar. I wonder what sort of impact these technologies will have on marine life and shipping. Osmotic power also has potential, but it has a ways to go before it is economically viable. It certainly seems as if energy from the big blue can be green.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a web site called The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. The site contains a 20-minute animated video describing the “consumer economy” and it’s effects on society and the planet. The bulk of the video is pencil-looking animation mixed with live shots of the host, Annie Leonard. Annie has spent more than 20 years investigating factories and dumps around the world. She has a lot of experience in international sustainability and environmental health issues. The video is both entertaining and troubling at the same time.

The Story of Stuff describes the product life cycle as: extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. As part of my experience as a contestant in the California Clean Tech Open, tried to better understand the environmental impacts of the product cycle. The main problem with the existing paradigm is that the process is linear and open-loop. Basically, we’re taking all the useful stuff from the planet and replacing it with harmful stuff. The goal of sustainability is to close the loop on the system through reuse and recycling as well as reducing the harmful side-effects along the way (like pollution and deforestation). As someone trying to start up a sustainable cleantech company, I am very concerned with ideas such as Design for Environment (DfE), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and Cradle to Cradle (C2C).

Another major problem with the current paradigm is the sheer amount we consume. We in the US are especially driven to have all the latest and greatest stuff. We’re “good consumers.” We’ll even buy new stuff to replace perfectly good, though slightly out-dated, stuff. This is causing us to use up our resources even faster while creating more and more waste. Moderation and conservation are principles each of us needs to apply to our lives. “Good consumers” may be good for the economy, but we’re bad for the planet.

The video barely touches on the alternative, but the website provides some ides on how to make a difference in the section called Another Way and there’s a blog on The Story of Stuff for updated information. It’s a big problem and there’s no simple solution, but there are many ways we can get involved and make a difference. It’s about time we start. We only have one world to live in; we need to treat it with respect.

These days my work commute consists of riding a train and a walk to/from the office. I found I didn’t have a very good solution for carrying my laptop and other supplies on my commute. I have a soft-sided briefcase with a slot for my laptop and all the other gear I need, but the shoulder strap is not very comfortable for walking any sort of distance. I have a hiking type backpack, which I was using, but it’s just one big compartment and has no padding. So I started looking for a new backpack that would handle my laptop better and have various compartments for other gear. I was also looking for something more environmentally friendly, then I ran across the Osprey ReSource Series packs.

The ReSource Series of packs and courier bags are some of the greenest packs on the market. They are made from 70% recycled materials by total content:

• 100% recycled PET fabric
• 100% Recycled mesh pockets
• 60% recycled content spacer mesh
• 55% recycled stretch woven pockets
• 100% recycled binding tape
• 100% recycled webbing
• Recycled buckles – reground from buckle scrap
• 100% recycled fabric zipper pulls
• (Non recycled foams, threads, zippers, piping and hypalon)

The ReSource Series bags are part of Osprey’s “Active Everyday” collection. The series includes 4 packs: Revo (22 Liters), Cypher (26 L), React (28 L) and Circuit (32 L). There are also two courier bags: Astro (18 L) and Elroy (25 L).

I ended up buying a green Circuit backpack from Amazon for about $99. The pack has a large main compartment with a padded section for up to a 17″ laptop. This compartment has a few inside pockets and has tons of room for my power, various gadgets and a jacket. There’s a second zipper at the back providing easier access to the laptop. An outer pocket has a couple slots for pens with another zippered inside pocket. There’s a small top pocket for sungrasses, keys, etc. There are two zippered side pockets which can also hold 1 Liter bottles and a stretch woven front pocket which clips at the top. There’s even a mesh pocket on the shoulder strap for cell phones, but there’s not enough room for my Treo.

The recycled material feels a little different from the standard nylon ripstop I’m used to from backpacking packs. It’s softer to the touch, but still feels quite strong. The shoulder and back padding are comfortable, but the waist belt, as on most packs of this type, if fairly useless. The bag weighs just over 1 kg. It comes in four different colors: Redwood (red), Panda (Black), Glacier (blue) and Rainforest (green).

I’m quite happy with the pack so far. My only real complaints are the lack of compression straps and that the laptop padding is not as thick as some regular laptop packs. However, the level of recycled material utilized combined with good comfort and utility make this one of the best purchases I’ve made lately. If you’re in the market for a new pack or courier bag, make sure you check out the Osprey ReSource Series. Hopefully this will be a new trend in the backpack industry.

I purchased more CFL bulbs. This time I got a 6-pack of Feit Electric 15W R30 Reflector bulbs (model CE15R30/6) to replace more of the 65W in my kitchen and a couple other locations. I’m pretty happy with these bulbs. They come on much brighter than the DuraBright I tried before, and these bulbs also claim to contain less mercury, lead and other hazardous materials compared to other CFLs. They exceed the European Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) standards fro mercury levels. Even the box is recyclable.

A few months ago I finally got around to trying out some compact fluorescent lights. The delay was due in part to the lighting situation in my house. I don’t have many of the 40-100W traditional (A-shape) bulbs. The main lighting I use are the reflector (flood) lights in the recessed cannisters in the kitchen and a 3-way bulb in the bedroom. I finally got around to trying our replacements for both, picking them up at Orchard Hardware Supply.

In the bedroom I had a 3-way (50-75-100 Watt) incandescent bulb which I replaced with a DuraBright Compact Fluorescent Springlamp 3-way (14-19-32 Watt) which is supposed to be equivalent to a 40-75-150 Watt incandescent. It is ENERGY STAR certified. I’m quite happy with this change. The new CFL comes on pretty fast, and overall has brighter, whiter light. The only problem is that I can not reattach the lamp shade since the CFL is much bigger. For some reason, the included harp extender did not work. I don’t really care though since I didn’t use the lamp shade before either. This way I can use the lowest setting and still have enough light for most of my needs.

In the kitchen I have 65 Watt R30 recessed flood lamps. For these I picked up a 14 Watt Medium DuraBright Flood Lamp, which is their R30 equivalent. I only got one and tested it in the single cannister over the sink. I was very disappointed when I turned it on. The light was so dim, I could not understand how they could claim it is equivalent to my old 65W bulb. I tried turning it on and off, then put back the old bulb to make sure it was as bright as I thought. I then tried the CFL in one of the 5 cannisters over the center of the kitchen. Still no luck. While I was distracted elsewhere, the light eventually warmed up, and was now as bright as any of the incandescents. I thought they didn’t need this much time to warm up any more. I would say it takes a good 2 minutes to achieve full brightness, and is totally unusable for the first minute or more. I put it back over the sink, but I have not replaced the other bulbs yet. After further investigation it seems this is a common issue with CFLs designed for recessed cannisters. Apparently to handle the higher heat produced in the enclosed cannister, a slower phosphor element is used. I guess this is something I can live with, so I should change out the rest of the bulbs sometime.

I need to look around at the rest of the lights in my house just to make sure I’m using the most efficient lighting I can. Maybe the LED based bulbs will really hit the mass market soon. I’ll be keeping track on the one billion bulbs website. I’ve sponsored a group there, so you can see what I’ve done or join my group by going here, or look for the one billion bulbs banner on the right hand bar.

I was playing around with a website called EnergyRace. If you join and go through their questionnaire, they give you a rough estimate of your carbon footprint. Later, you can indicate any changes you have made to you car, home, etc. and they show you ho much you have reduced your footprint. They even give you a little badge you can put on your website with your latest results:

It looks like I still have some improvements to make.

There’s a similar site encouraging and tracking the use of Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFL) called One Billion Bulbs. They provide ratings of various CFLs, and if you create an account, they will show you how much money and carbon you are saving as you switch to CFLs.

I went to the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex in Boca Raton, FL. It’s located in Red Reef Park on the barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. The main purpose of the complex is to protect a stand of forest known as the tropical hammock. The small park includes coastal dunes, sable palm hammock and mangrove wetlands. There are also a lot of the park’s name sake, the Gumbo Limbo tree (picture left).

There’s a nice boardwalk through the hammock and along the Intracoastal. There are a lot of different trees in the hammock, though some of it was damaged by Hurricane Wilma in October 2005. The damage has allowed some different plant species to emerge. For example there are a lot of papaya trees growing which haven’t been seen in the area for some 60 years. A 40′ tower provides a nice view from above the canopy. There’s supposed to be a family of gray foxes living under the boardwalk, but I didn’t see them.

There’s a research center at the complex including 4 outdoor aquariums. One of the aquariums contained small nurse and lemon sharks. They are being used for perception research by the Florida Atlantic University. Another tank contains various reef fish and crustaceans. The final two tanks contain fish and turtles. One tank has a Kemp’s Ridleys Turtle and the other contains 3 Loggerhead Turtles (left). There are also some tortoise there. The staff leads turtle walks during the nesting season to see egg laying and later hatching. Unfortunately I was there a couple weeks before the first walks start. There are apparently some Leatherback Turtles laying eggs along the SE Florida coast, but they are very protected and the nests are not publicized.

It’s a nice complex preserving a small glimpse of the natural Florida coast. There are more pictures in the Gumbo Limbo section of my Gallery.

It’s Earth Day here in the US.
I hadn’t realized it was coming up until a couple days ago, so by the time I started looking for some place to volunteer my time, it was too late. So for my little part I decided not to drive today. Mary and I walked to lunch and we plan to walk to my friends house for dinner tonight. We also did some much needed yard work including mowing the lawn, trimming the hedge and whacking some weeds, all with electric or manual tools. I was planing to go to Home Depot to get a free CFL light bulb (they are giving away 1 million on Earth Day), but I have not gotten around to it so far.

On Friday I went to the San Jose Library to see a presentation on raptor conservation. It was given by Glenn Stewart of the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group (SCPBRG). The main attraction was Curtis (picture on right), a 6 year old male Peregrine falcon Glenn raised by hand. Curtis was raised specifically for educational purposed like this presentation. He lives in an indoor/outdoor bird facility at Glenn’s house and is taken out to fly regularly. I have more pictures of Curtis on my Gallery Peregrine falcon page.

Peregrine falcon’s had dwindled down to only 2 know mating pairs in California in th 1970’s, primarily due to DDT. With the banning of DDT and reintroduction programs of groups like the SCPBRG there are estimated to be around 200 nesting pairs in California today. In fact, there’s even a pair nesting on San Jose City Hall.

The San Jose falcons are named Clara and Jose. There have been falcons living in San Jose for a few years now, but this is the first know nesting pair. When it became obvious that they were planning to nest, SCPBRG installed a nesting box and web camera on the City Hall, a fairly lofty location which should be good for Peregrine nests. It worked! The pair moved into the nest and produced three eggs in late March. Progress can be monitored on SCPBRG’s San Jose Falcon Camera site. The Peregrines in San Jose also prompted the formation of the San Jose Peregrine Falcon Association, a non-profit group dedicated to witnessing, educating and sharing their falcon experiences with others. I, for one, an looking forward to seeing those eggs hatch!

Lately I’ve become more and more interested in the environment and green living. I have been interested in nature for many years (at least since I moved to Northern California in the early 1990’s). I am also very interested in wildlife (as demonstrated by my wildlife photo gallery). As such, I guess I consider myself green at heart, but it’s not always easy to live green. I often have trouble reconciling my greenness with my desire to live well. On the one hand I would donate to charities such as the World Wildlife Fund, National Wildlife Federation and National Parks and Conservation Association, but on the other hand I would drive an SUV (Ford Explorer), use halogen lights and leave the faucet running when I brush my teeth.

I have already been trying to live my life a bit greener over the past couple years. I try to be diligent about recycling. I’m more mindful about the amount of water I use. I drink tap water instead of bottled. I even traded in my Explorer for a Ford Escape Hybrid (pictured on right, more pictures here). I know it’s not the most efficient hybrid but it’s a start! Of course there’s still a lot more I can do, and I’m spending more time thinking about what those things might be. I guess that’s why I’ve started this blog: to help myself think about how I can increase my greenness. And who knows, maybe I’ll spark an interest in someone else (as if anyone reads my blogs).

Earth Day is only a couple days away. I guess I haven’t really thought much about it before. Maybe this year I’ll do something different. I’m not sure what that will be, but here’s a site from WWF with some ideas:
One big change I have been toying with is the possibility of changing my career to something in the “Green Technology” field. I’ve started to look into various Silicon Valley greentech companies to see if any have opening that I might fit. I think I’ve even sent my resume to one company called Bloom Energy. I say “I think” because their website is pretty blank, but I submitted my resume for a job posting on the site of one of their investors which I hope is for Bloom Energy. The only reason I ever heard of the company was from the April 16, 2007 issue of Newsweek. In it, the CEO of Bloom Energy, K. R. Sridhar, said the following with regards to the climate crisis:

“I’m not against conservation, but the idea that we can conserve our way out of this problem will not hold. If we want to tell the generation that comes after us that they’ll be better off than we are, they will need to consume more energy and not less. And the country that figures out how to make that happen will be the leading economic power in the 21st century.” [more]

I believe in this. We need to find better ways to do things, not just do less. This realization helped fuel my current interest in a career change. Unfortunately I have not heard anything back from Bloom Energy so far and as it turns out my experience in consumer electronics and EDA don’t help a whole lot in most greentech fields like solar energy, biomass and fuel cells. I’ll keep looking and I do have some ideas of my own.

By the way, while I was looking for a new career, I may have found my next car, the Tesla Roadster:
This car is totally cool and totally electric! Click on the banner below for more info:
Now if only I can find a green tech job that pays me enough to afford it…