Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. Jeremijenko’s projects, which explore socio-technical change, have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including the MASSMoCA, the Whitney, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. A 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, she was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. Magazine. Jeremijenko is the director of the environmental health clinic at NYU, assistant professor in Art, and affiliated with the Computer Science Dept.
Natalie and her colleagues have created a health clinic – like those that humans and animals might employ when we are sick – for the environment.  With this view, they prescribe remedies for problems ailing our planet and our environments.  On the ailments of degraded water quality and overflowing  and polluted storm drainage, west nile virus, pedestrian sidewalk slipping hazards and excessive dog pee on sidewalks, they have prescribed NoParks.

No Park description from Natalie’s Environmental Health Clinic Website:

NoPark returns “no parking zones” (mostly associated fire hydrant placement) to low growth mosses and grasses. These micro engineered green spaces prevent storm water run off, use foliage to stabilize the soil, and to provide a durable low maintenance surface cover. These microparks continue to provide emergency parking space for fire trucks and exasperated Fresh-direct delivery persons (emergency vehicles can still drive over them as needed and they will re-generate). But the other 99.9% of the time they now do something more. For all the same rationales that apply to green roofs, greening the no-standing zones is a good thing. Practically, noPARKS capture more water than green roofs (not being limited to carrying capacity of the 2″, 4″or 6″of soil that roofs require). These no parking/standing zones are often situated where water collects, capturing the oily runoff from the road before it runs into the river. noPARKs recharge and replenish soil moisture on the block important to trees — even yards away — to help them dilute the gallons of uric acid poured on city trees plots each day by friendly neighborhood dogs. Less water puddling decreases pedestrian slipping hazards. Lastly, the noPark reduces the number of standing water pools that are left for days, which are the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. In this way, the noPark may reduce the need for widespread fumigation to combat West Nile virus in New York City.

In her TED presentation (which you can see here) — fast forward to about minute 7 to the the bit about NoParks  – Natalie describes how No parks could mathematically eliminate all runoff pollution.  (Aggregated, with 2-3 fire hydrants on every city block, if each were converted, the emergency parking system could infiltrate all the road borne pollutants for up to a 7 in rain event)

A team of chemical engineers at the University of Arkansas has developed a method for converting common algae into butanol, a renewable fuel that can be used in existing combustible engines. The green technology benefits from and adds greater value to a process being used now to clean and oxygenate U.S. waterways by removing excess nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer in runoff.

Algae growth is enhanced by delivering high concentrations of carbon dioxide through hollow fiber membranes that look like long strands of spaghetti. The algae are grown on trough screens.

The researchers harvest the algae every five to eight days by vacuuming or scraping it off the screens. After waiting for it to dry, they crush and grind the algae into a fine powder as the means to extract carbohydrates from the plant cells. Carbohydrates are made of sugars and starches. For this project, Hestekin’s team works with starches. They treat the carbohydrates with acid and then heat them to break apart the starches and convert them into simple, natural sugars. They then begin a unique, two-step fermentation process in which organisms turn the sugars into organic acids — butyric, lactic and acetic.

The second stage of the fermentation process focuses on butyric acid and its conversion into butanol. The researchers use a unique process called electrodeionization, a technique developed by one of Hestekin’s doctoral students. This technique involves the use of a special membrane that rapidly and efficiently separates the acids during the application of electrical charges. By quickly isolating butyric acid, the process increases productivity, which makes the conversion process easier and less expensive.

Butanol has several significant advantages over ethanol, the current primary additive in gasoline. Butanol releases more energy per unit mass and can be mixed in higher concentrations than ethanol. It is less corrosive than ethanol and can be shipped through existing pipelines. These attributes are in addition to the advantages gleaned from butanol’s source. Unlike corn, algae are not in demand by the food industry. Furthermore, it can be grown virtually anywhere and thus does not require large tracts of valuable farmland.

Source: Science Daily

Photo Jaime Brown

Dusting the soils along the equatorial portion of earth with the common, semiprecious gem olivine may sponge carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and slow the pace of climate change.

When water, CO2 and silica-containing rocks mix, the resulting chemical reactions produce minerals that contain carbon, known as carbonates.

When water drains to the sea, carbonates are carried along and buried in its depths, along with the carbon they carry. And since olivine, a silicate, is among the world’s most common minerals, some researchers have wondered whether it may be put to carbon-sucking use.

“We know this is already happening. The question is, how much can we dissolve without disturbing the natural environment?” said geochemist Jens Hartmann of Germany’s University of Hamburg, lead author of the study published Nov. 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hartmann’s team calculated how much carbon might be absorbed by olivine mined from equatorial deposits, ground to a fine powder and scattered across the Amazon and Congo river basins.

According to their estimates, olivine powdering could, if done every year over most of those regions, theoretically lower atmospheric CO2 levels by 80 to 150 parts per million by the century’s end.

Barring radical changes in fossil fuel consumption, global CO2 levels are expected to reach about 700 ppm by that time; about 350 ppm is considered safe, or at least non-catastrophic. Olivine alone wouldn’t keep CO2 under control, but Hartmann said it could be “one of dozens of geoengineering methods that can contribute to CO2 management.”

Actual logistics of a project this size would require cooperation from millions of individual farmers and landowners, ultimately covering only portions of equatorial soils. Additionally, small-scale tests need to be designed to give a better understanding of the dynamics and consequences.

via Wired

This is Future Flower, a regeneration project for the waterfront at Widnes near the River Mersey in England. The 14 meter-high metal blossom has giant petals of perforated galvanized steel-approx 4 ft long. The giant flower was commissioned as part of the wider Widnes Waterfront environmental uplift and public art program and designed by London architect Tonkin Liu. At night it is powered by LED lights and small wind turbines.

The project is funded by the North West Development Agency as part of a wider Waterfront Regeneration Programme to the clean up of the vacant, polluted riverfront land of Southern Widnes, Cheshire. The program encompasses the regeneration of about 200 acres of former industrial land on the banks of the River Mersey. It will create 1,100 jobs for the local economy with the development of a modern business park environment and associated leisure facilities.

The arrival of the flower signals the beginning of this transformation. It is intended to spur the repopulation of the waterfront by nature, and by people, drawing visitors from the neighbouring Catalyst Museum and Spike Island Visitor Centre eastward on to the trans Pennine Trail.
more here.

The project is funded by NOAA’s Marine Aquaculture Program, aimed at demonstrating the technology needed to raise fish in the vast portions of the U.S. that are too deep for conventional anchored fish cages. There are many locations both in U.S. waters and around the world where oceanic currents and gyres offer useful frameworks for such mobile operations. Though futuristic compared to today’s near-shore fish farming practices, the concept avoids the user conflicts and compromised water quality of coastal waters.

The concentrated nature of aquaculture often leads to higher than normal levels of fish waste in the water. Fish waste is organic and composed of nutrients necessary in all components of aquatic food webs. In some instances such as nearshore, high-intensity operations, increased waste can adversely affect the environment by decreasing dissolved oxygen levels in the water column. Not only is the quality of the water affected but that of the food as well. Many hatcheries can be found near urban areas and sometimes get exposed to stormwater and industrial runoffs.

Off-shore aquaculture, as envisioned by Goudey and others, would resolve these problems, as this approach would 1) take the operation away from the foul waters of the coasts and 2) utilize strong ocean currents to flush away fish wastes. Should the cages enter a less than pristine area, it would simply move again. And if the currents aren’t moving fast enough, the propellers would create the necessary turbulence.

The Glacier Circle Senior Community in Davis California began in 2002, With the help of co-housing designer Virginia Thigpen, eight households evolved. In Abingdon Virginia ElderSpirit Commmunity is a larger project that includes privately owned homes as well as affordable rental units. Others Elder Co-Housing communites are springing up across the country from Alaska to Florida.

You can obtain more information for yourself or a family member at:
Plan B Retirement
Aging in Community
Culture Change Now
CoHousing Association of US.
Aging Today

Federal agencies will work with western leaders to designate tracts of U.S. public lands in the West as prime zones for utility-scale solar energy development.

Under the zoning portion of the initiative, 24 tracts of Bureau of Land Management land located in six western states, known as Solar Energy Study Areas, would be evaluated for their environmental and resource suitability for commercial-scale solar energy production. Those areas selected would be available for projects capable of producing 10 or more megawatts of electricity. The Solar Energy Study Areas (maps) located in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah encompass about 670,000 acres.

The goal is to produce a total of 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity. The plan would streamline the entire development process; coordinate zoning and environmental studies, and; prioritize the processing of the projects. The new plan will tap resources made available in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Obama.

via RGB

The slider phone is made from bio-plastics which is produced from corn and is PVC-free. The phone features a 2MP camera, stereo Bluetooth and can support a speculated microSD card up to 32GB. The packaging of the device will be green as well, as it’s made from 70% recycled materials and printed with soy-based ink. The phone was launched by Sprint, who will offer it in “Earth Green” and “Ocean Blue” colors for $50 with a two-year contract.

Its great that Samsung has adopted bio plastics, but I would like to make a plea to all other designers out there to embrace this plant based alternative as well. Here is some history:

Face the facts: plastic is choking the planet. The molecular bonds that make the material extremely durable also make it ex-cruciatingly slow to degrade, so it hangs around for a long, long time. Americans currently recycle only 12 percent of plastic containers and packaging—most of it ends up in landfills or, worse, in the natural environment. There, it breaks down into smaller bits, picks up oily pollutants, and gets ingested by birds and fish. (The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a stew of plastic junk northeast of Hawaii that is estimated to be twice the size of Texas—is one of the more egregious examples of this phenomenon.)

Luckily, there is a viable alternative: plastics made from plants—bioplastics—have several key advantages over their synthetic cousins. They aren’t derived from petroleum, a dwindling, nonrenewable resource, they won’t stick around forever; and in the right conditions, they can degrade in a matter of months. And the carbon dioxide released when they do degrade is offset by the carbon sequestered by the next crop of plastic-making plants. The bad news: bioplastics currently make up just a tiny portion of global plastic production, and they face significant hurdles to more widespread adoption.

Bioplastics are not new. In the 1850s, a British chemist created plastics from cellulose, a derivative of wood pulp. Later, in the early 20th century, Henry Ford experimented with soy-based plastics in his automobiles, even going so far as to unveil a complete prototype plastic car in 1941. But by that time petroleum had emerged as a source for synthetic polymers, which possessed more favorable properties than plant-based versions. World War II cemented the dominance of synthetic plastics, and in the 70 years since we’ve not looked back.

Only in the last decade, in response to the rising cost and shrinking supply of oil, have bioplastics reemerged in consumer applications. In 2003, NatureWorks—a joint venture of Cargill, the largest agricultural business in the United States, and Dow Che ical, the country’s biggest chemical company—began producing Ingeo bioplastics, which can be extruded into containers for food packaging and into fibers for apparel, furnishings, and disposable products such as baby wipes. Ingeo is a PLA, or polylactic acid, derived from corn—the most common and fully developed of the current crop of bioplastics. But alternatives are also being made from castor beans, sugarcane, algae, and even chicken feathers. In theory, you could make plastic out of thin air by extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Cell-phone casings are one such example. Last year, the Japanese company NEC unveiled a phone with a corn-based-plastic body before Samsung. Other companies have added strengthening fibers to PLA—creating what’s called a biocomposite—but that tends to tarnish the material’s appearance and make it less desirable for industrial-design applications.

There are still some obstacles to sort out, even though bioplastics have a net-zero carbon footprint as a material, their production still creates CO². Plus, bioplastics pose a recycling problem. While they could be recycled in theory, the infrastructure to do so is not in place.

More here.