Metal minerals scarcity: A call for managed austerity and the elements of hope
Posted by Andre Diederen in Unsustainable 2 Comments»
If we keep following the ruling paradigm of sustained global economic growth, we will soon run out of cheap and plentiful metal minerals of most types. Their extraction rates will no longer follow demand. The looming metal minerals crisis is being caused primarily by the unfolding energy crisis. Conventional mitigation strategies including recycling and substitution are necessary but insufficient without a different way of managing our world’s resources.
I could see that my electricity bill was increasing year after year, mostly because my modern day appliances can’t be turned off anymore. I noticed that I had many appliances in the house which are on standby day in and day out. This not only harms the environment, but also my bank account as I am using electricity for nothing. Unable to solve this problem (as this is how appliances are designed and I can’t change this), I started to look into renewable energy to compensate for my unneeded losses and to take some pain from my bank account.
As I own several hundreds of megabytes of digital photographs, documents, spreadsheets and letters, the urge to use a good backup solution raised over time. I do not want to wait and see on one day a fatal harddrive crash…
In search of a solution (besides backup procedures to CD-ROM/DVD (optical media, which last for 3-5 years before degradation kicks in), I used an external USB harddisk drive. Really easy and simple to use. But a crime when you make manual backups. With the Apple Mac Mini and OS/X 10.5 Leopard, Time Machine will take care and backup the necessary files.
The Apple Mac Mini is a small and efficient computer for domestic use. By default, there are nowadays (August 2009) 3 different configurations available: all 3 based on Intel Pentium Core2Duo processors, but all vary in the range of harddisk capacity and memory capacity.
Energy Saving, More Than a Hobby
Posted by Martin Kleinman in Energy saving, Solar energy 5 Comments»
Since January 2008, we are busy in our household trying to reduce our energy consumption. We succeeded in this task quite well. We reduced our gas consumption with 30% and our electricity consumption by a staggering 90%. Are you curious how we did this?
Many books about renewable energy have already been written. But what books can be advised? Here is an overview of books which are recommended by visitors of the OliNo.org website.
On April 29’th 2009, finally my solar panels are installed! 14 panels of 210 Wp (Watt Peak) each (Suntech STP210-18/Ub). In total 2940 Wp (Watt Peak). Not a small one. Especially if I tell you that my last year’s usage in electricity has been around 1600 kWh. That’s why I bought it also for the future. If I had an addition to the family, and an electric car! My choices: Hybrid plug-in, or pure electrical, depending on what models will be available. But I will write an article about that some other time. Now more about this installation…
Existing home in the Netherlands, converted to zero energy
Posted by Zwerius Kriegsman in Energy saving, Solar energy 19 Comments»
As far as I know, this is the first existing home in the Netherlands, which is converted to a “zero energy” home. The electricity generated by solar panels and the heating is done by a heat pump, total net costs of subsidies: € 15,000.
The Th!nk City is a 100% electric car designed from the start to be fully electric. The car has a range of 113 miles and a top speed of 65 mph. Pre-launch activities of the Th!nk city have started since 2009 in selected European markets like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and now recently Spain. Th!nk is investigating opportunities to establish a dedicated US manufacturing plant for assembly of the new TH!NK City.
Desertec can provide whole Europe with Solar Energy
Posted by Jeroen van Agt in Solar energy 3 Comments»
Our sun, a nuclear fusion source which is already working reliably for more than 5 billion years, produces an extreme amount of energy. Within 6 hours, deserts on Earth receive more solar energy than we use in a whole year globally. Therefore it is strange that we are not already using this free energy source to it’s full potential. It looks like this is going to change now. A group of twenty big German corporations has plans to deliver solar power from Africa to German households in Europe within 10 years. The plan consists of investing 400 billion euros to build gigantic large Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants in North-Africa. With this investment, 15% of the total European electricity can be generated by solar power day and night. It is one of the biggest private green initiatives.
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