Early this summer on 27.05.2015, Esko Tusa was granted the Finnish Engineering Award for his persistent and far seeing work on NURES® (Nuclide Removal Solutions) [2]. Why was it worth the award and why only 35 years after the innovation? The answer is that the world has changed and become more environmentally conscious. The invention removes radioactive contaminants from water, at thousand times the efficiency of its most competitors. When it was developed during the 1980s, it was made with cost efficiency in mind for Loviisa Nuclear Plant. At the time, Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents had yet to happen. Today, deployed NURES® units are used to purify 1800 cubic meters of contaminated wastewater daily [7] at Fukushima and elsewhere, with approximately 60 users [1]. The system is based on ion-exchange and one kilogram of the ion exchange mass can process hundreds of tons of water, leaving only one kilogram of solid radioactive waste behind. The full system consists of three ion-exchange beds, separate ones for Cesium, Strontium and Cobolt and it can be combined with regular methods, such as active carbon filtering, mechanical filtering etc. Despite its initial narrow focus of handling contaminated water at Loviisa NPP more efficiently, the sustained development past the initial deployment has let the innovation evolve into something that can be used or modified to suit any task where decontaminating water is needed. For example, mobile units, see figure 1, were used to purify primary circuit waters of nuclear-powered ice breakers in Murmansk [8]. It is this long-term development that created a method of decontaminating water to potable levels in almost any circumstance that granted Tusa the Finnish Engineering Award for his lifework. It should be noted that other contaminated substances can also be purified in this matter, assuming they are water soluble. To not sound like a broken marketing record, it should be highlighted that Fukushima still sadly has an issue of stored radioactive water in the form of Tritium which is not covered by the ALS system in place [3]. NURES® and the picture provided are property of Fortum Corporation. Usage based on the terms presented on the legal notice for press releases and other documents for public use on Fortum Ltd website [6]. Sources accessed on 6th of October, 2015:
It is true that nowadays everybody wants to stay closer with their friends and relatives, wherever they are, but sometimes it is not possible, because of some reasons. One of them is that your smartphone is just “dead” and you start from that point looking for a place to charge your gadget, which sometimes, could be too difficult to do so. However, let’s forget about the negative sides and go directly to the solution. In that case, people all over the world are looking for portable device, which could fit into a backpack, and that particular device could charge your smartphone or laptop couple of times in any situation without a socket. Next fact is that it should be environmentally friendly and saves energy. Taking everything into consideration, portable solar recharger is one of the easiest solution nowadays. PICTURE 1. Portable solar rechargers (Smirniotis M.) As it has been tested, a basic solar charger could refill 13,000 mAh battery pack in about 8 hours, in addition it could directly charge smart phone and fill most of its 2,000 mAh battery in less than 90 minutes (Smirniotis M., 2015). Meanwhile, there are many different models of solar chargers right on the market. To choose the best one for yourself, take the following into consideration: power, portability and price. So, if you want a compact charger with a high power you need to pay a lot for it (Pierotti et al, 2015). It is true that there are different options to charge your phone. For instance, use the charger, which is consuming the electricity. From the environment point of view, it can be said that the solar chargers are environmentally friendly gadgets. The fact, that they are not consuming electric power, and use only energy taken from the sun, prove that case. It has been calculated, that the general 5 Watt/hour phone battery and a 2-Watt output solar charger you would needed 3 hours of direct sunlight to fully charge your battery. In addition, if you have 18 Watt solar charger, only 30 minutes is nedded. Even a solar phone charger could be done at home. Start by taking apart your solar lamp, the top usually snaps off, and then you have to unscrew the portion with the led and circuit board, unscrew the circuit board, and the light sensor, being careful not to damage any of the wires. Use the pliers to cut away excess plastic from around the battery casing, and to remove the on/off switch. You want it intact. After that, carefully remove the solar panel. Discard the led. Repeat with each solar light. Solder the battery compartments positive to negative, in a chain using some extra wire. Remove the part of your charger that plugs into your phone, soldering the wires to each end of your solar panel chain. Glue the panels around the record. Charge your phone using the sun (Goal Zero, 2013). All in all, solar power from a portable panel is still generally more expensive. However, if you do not have access to the grid and you need to power your device, a portable solar panel is often the only option. Finally, when you are generating your own power, you usually use way less. The usage of such charger is growing and in the nearest future, the prices will fall down and such devises will be easily accessible in the Third World countries. References Goal zero. 2013. GoalZero company http://www.goalzero.com/. Read Sept. 2015. Pierotti L and McNamara C. Jan. 2015. How to Choose the Best Solar Charger. OutdoorGearLab, Outdoor products. http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/. Read Oct. 2015. http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Solar-Charger-Reviews/Buying-Advice. Smirniotis M. July 2015. The Best Portable Solar Battery Charger. The Wirecutter, a list of the best gadgets. http://thewirecutter.com/. Read Oct. 2015. http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-portable-solar-battery-pack/. ”This is Finland, we don’t have sun here” Just a few years back this was a very common sentence from basic Finnish house owner when discussing about the possibility of solar panels or solar collectors. In 2005 the amount of Finnish households that had solar collectors was minimal, but in recent years the amount has increased drastically. The technology to collect energy from the sun in a small scale is one of those fields that has advanced and is still advancing fast in recent years. The trend in recent years has been that the price has been dropping by 20% every other year while the efficiency has been improving by 40% at the same time, this has changed the tone in many Finnish consumers. When in the past there were doubts about whether or not the expensive system will pay itself back in time. Nowadays, good estimates depending on the place you live and some external factors are that it takes roughly 5-7 years for it to pay itself back, which makes solar collectors a viable choice, since their estimated life span is around 15 years. Of course solar collectors by themselves are not sufficient to warm up a whole apartment or summer cottage but when used in combination with wood or electricity they can be very efficient. As the older population (40-60 years old) has become more familiar with the Internet the pros and cons of the solar technology have become more known. The industry still suffers a bit from old preconceptions coming from early 2000 when the technology was young and trying its wings on a small scale. The systems back then were not reliable or very effective so most people who invested ridiculous amounts of money ended up getting a bad deal and rumors started to spread. On the positive side nowadays since solar collectors are becoming increasingly popular those who try them and are pleased will then boast to their neighbors who in turn will start to develop interest in the subject. All in all there is a long way for the technology to become a dominant form of heating in Finland but the potential is there. After the prices drop a bit more and efficiencies get better this will be a viable option for even the most skeptic house owner. The biggest challenge in the recent years will be whether to invest now or wait a year or two and invest then. Good bad phosphorus Phosphorus is an essential structural component in almost every forms of life. In human body phosphorus is needed all the way from cell and bones formation to energy production (1). So how something so essential to us can also be dangerous? Well, in natural phosphorus cycle plant captures phosphorus as a nutrient from soil then insect or algae eats the plant. After this animal consumes insects and algae as nutrient and eventually animal dies and its body and phosphorus in the body decomposes back to soil. But modern agriculture is another story… Phosphorus in agriculture The problems with phosphorus appear when phosphorus is mined and used as a fertilizer in order to guarantee good crop which can feed our growing population. From soil phosphorus leaches to river and lake waters due to over use and rains. This leads to growth of algae population that used to be limited by lack of this nutrient. Even though algae is just as important in the food chain as phosphorus, when its population grows oxygen consumption in the water raises hand in hand with it. Lack of oxygen leads to fish mortality (2). The beautiful irony in the fact that we destroy our food resources, at the same time as we are trying to make it bigger has been troubling minds of scientist and engineers for a while. Luckily answer have been also found. Collecting phosphorus with Päästösieppari (Discharge catcher) Phosphorus has been collected from our waste water in treatment plants for tens of years already by making water dissolved phosphorus form precipitate in reaction with ferric sulphate. But collecting it from lakes with tolerable costs has been much trickier. 1.8.2012 Project RAKI was started in order to decrease amount of phosphorus in lake waters. Just like in water treatment plants, Päästösieppari (discharge catcher) is mainly based on sedimentation reaction between ferric sulphate and phosphorus. In All-season chemical feeding picture (below) you can see the whole process of eutrophicated water turning back into natural water and valuable phosphorus turning into sludge that we can re-use in farming again. And all this is powered by gravity (3). Results and future
The results from RAKI project have been successful. Reduction of dissolved phosphorus has been excellent medians from two lakes has been 94,8% and 85,2%. Nutrient rich sludge that comes as a ‘’side product’’ of cleaning the lake is not capable in competing with commercial fertilizers but when phosphorus mines of our planet start to dry out recycled phosphorus comes more and more valuable (4). References
So you have chosen Environmental Engineering as your bachelor's degree. You're excited and the courses are intriguing. You join projects here and there and you're active in every organizations you're in. But where will this lead to? What are the actual job prospects of an Environmental Engineering? Will you be able to single-handedly solve global warming? Will you revolutionize the renewable energy market? What can you do? This video below will give you a realistic glimpse of what environmental engineers do after they graduate. Enjoy :D So right about now you're pessimistic. And it's all within your right to be. It seems like environmental engineers are created so companies and corporations can comply to environmental requirements that applies to them. A lot of "paperworks" and auditing are ahead of you. But NOT IF you apply to the right jobs. Environmental Engineers can be such a rewarding experience when you involve yourself in fieldworks, sampling and project planning. You'll spend time in laboratories in the fields of air, water, soil, public health, sanitation and much more. Obviously the choice here, is yours. So what will you want to be? Comment below and let us know! Here's a bonus for you guys! Cleantech companies in Finland looking for Environmental Engineers! AD According to the UN projects our grandchildren will have 9.6 billion playmates to contend with in the year 2050 Quite a change when compared to the 2.5 billion our grandparents had to make do with in the 1950s. Humanity has grown in leaps and bounds over the last two centuries and nothing underlines it more clearly than looking at the population growth over the centuries. The great success of our species At the cusp of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, humanity's ability to multiply was at the end of its rope. After nearly six thousand years of written history, we had developed the skills, technology and social structure to sustain nearly 1 billion individuals! Most of the increase in population can be accredited to the slow accumulation of available workforce, better tools and more advanced farming methods. The more pronounced leaps, around 16th century for example, are thanks to the spread of new food sources to new areas, most notably the humble potato from South America to Europe and beyond. Bleak lives of the individual
The Reverend Thomas Malthus was one of the first to explain the fact that the farmers of the 18th century England and 400 BCE Athens had the same income; precisely because of humanity’s relentless drive to breed. Every productivity increasing invention, new arable locations or new food source was literally eaten away by the ever increasing population; the advances simply weren’t large enough to have time to translate into increased prosperity for the existing individuals. The great irony of Thomas Malthus’s life was to be that, while his theory explained the previous 58 centuries of human history, the following two seemed to prove him wrong. He didn’t see productivity outstripping population growth. The Great Escape As the last two hundred years have shown, the Malthusian Trap is avoidable. With the drastically increased production capacity brought on by the use of fossil fuels, we finally managed to escape the cycle. The Industrial Revolution generated a virtuous cycle in which investment in human capital, education and healthcare generated technological progress, which in turn increased the demand for human capital. In other words: the more people we have, the faster we come up with new technology, tap into new resources and improve our production efficiency. We seem to have managed to sneak around the Malthusian Trap and continue to distance ourselves from it; education, among other factors, has led to declining fertility rates and science seems impervious to the law of diminishing returns, unlike labor intensive farming for example. There’s always a ‘but’. For a while we seemed to forget one important fact: the resources of our planet are finite. The UN estimates that by the year 2025 there will be 1.8 billion people living in conditions of absolute water scarcity. That’s more than 2 out of every ten humans. Oil, natural gas, phosphorus, arable land and many rare earth minerals are at a premium already. While the last 100 years seem to prove that total resource exhaustion is unlikely, the undeniable fact remains that market prices of practically all natural resources are going up. Thankfully we still have options. First of all we can buy time by investing in resource efficiency and environmental technology; we can make what we have last longer and reduce the negative impacts of human activities on our environment. We can buy even more time by continuing and increasing our efforts to lower the fertility rates in the lesser developed parts of the world; Africa chief among them. All of the above would go a long way to postponing the disaster ahead but do nothing to solve it. We are already feeling the first teeth of the Malthusian Trap: the current economic hardships of the west are partly a result of world’s resources being spread more evenly around the globe. Already we have to fight harder for our market share, for our piece of the cake. The choice We have a choice to make: the choice between a slow slide back into the Malthusian Trap, or getting serious and starting to think of our future as a species and as individuals. If we content ourselves with attempting to perpetuate the status quo, we're unavoidably headed towards escalating conflicts over resources, war, famine and the welcoming arms of the Trap. On the other hand, if we face up to the fact that we're headed towards a disaster, we can do a lot of things to mitigate and delay that disaster. We can adopt green-tech solutions, many of which are presented in this very blog. We can ramp up our efforts to support education in Africa; if the current fertility rates persist there for the rest of the century, the UN estimates a population of 17 billion in Africa alone in 2100. These measures can unfortunately only delay the inevitable. The only choice which allows for continued growth and evasion of the Malthusian Trap is to look beyond Earth. The future of the human race is either to go into space or face a long and slow decline into a shadow of our former selves. Want to know more? Click YES, YES, YES and/or OH GOD(S) YES Mikko Hynninen Phytoplankton are microscopic algae found floating and drifting in the upper layer of the oceans. They perform a very essential task of preparing food for those organisms which don’t have the means to do it by themselves. Phytoplankton achieves this by following the process of photosynthesis, in which they utilize sunlight and carbon di oxide to create food for themselves and for other marine organisms as well. Ever wondered what the consequences will be if there was no phytoplankton left on earth? If phytoplankton concentration starts declining there won’t be enough food left for the marine ecosystem organisms such as zooplankton, fishes, whales and even seabirds, as a result there population will also shrink. This will also affect the fish farms all over the world which require phytoplankton in order to feed their fishes. One more reason why phytoplankton decline is an issue of global concern is that they influence the earth’s climate to a great extent. By consuming the carbon dioxide during photosynthesis they get rid of the excess CO 2 from the atmosphere, and thus help in controlling global warming. There are phytoplankton species which are know to influence cloud formation by creating cloud condensation nuclei where rain droplets may condensate. Some of them are known to reflect and some to absorb the solar radiations creating a balance in the earth’s overall temperature.
Something for which phytoplankton must be considered very important is that they produce a major part of the oxygen which we breath. Prochlorococcus, a phytoplankton, is estimated to provide oxygen for one amongst the five breaths we take. It is this fact which makes them so important for all the living creatures on earth. There has been a global decline in their concentration in the past century. The rate of decline being approximated to be 40% since 1950. This trend has been observed in 8 large oceanic regions, grater in polar and tropical regions. What is the cause of this decline? Raising sea surface temperature makes the oceans stratified or stable which means there will be less intermixing of the lower level oceanic water with the surface water. The lower waters contain nutrients which the phytoplankton needs to grow and the less frequently they mix with the surface water the less food phytoplankton will get, and as a result there concentration will decline. Global phytoplankton decline is a serious problem, their existence is not only important for ocean ecosystem, but also for earth’s climate, fish farms and most for everything which need oxygen to survive. Rishabh Sinha A question of economic against environmental sustainability Here are the facts. Palm oil is widely regarded as the most versatile oil, with its applications ranging from cooking oil, margarine, cosmetics, detergents, industrial lubricants and even biofuels for cars and power plants. Compared to other oil, palm oil is the highest-yielding vegetable crop, needing less than half the land required by other crops to produce the same amount of oil. This makes palm oil relatively cheap compared to other vegetable oils such as rapeseed and sunflower oil. In addition, palm oil is superior health-wise as it contains more vitamin A and vitamin E compared to any other edible oils and helps reduce the risk of a variety of diseases such as Alzheimer’s or cancer. Bearing all these environmental and economic benefits in mind, no wonder the demand for palm oil, and its level of production have increased significantly in the last few years. Indonesia tops the list by providing more than half (85%) of the world’s supply of palm oil As an edible vegetable oil, palm oil represents the largest share of worldwide edible oil production, at more than 30%, followed by soybean and rapeseed oil at 28% and 15% respectively. And among all other palm oil producers, including Nigeria and Malaysia, Indonesia tops the list by providing more than half of the world’s supply of palm oil. In fact, palm oil is a very crucial part of this G20 member, accounting for 11% of its export earnings of 5.7 billion USD. The industry has also helped Indonesia to relieve its unemployment problem by giving jobs to about 3.2 million people. Not just that, but the worldwide demand for this so called “sacred food” has increased so much that the growth of palm oil production in Indonesia alone averaged up to 8.1% per year from 1987 to 2007. This in turn will bring even more revenue and job employment for Indonesia. So as you can see, it is obvious how important Indonesia’s palm oil production is to the world and to Indonesia’s own economy. The deforestation of Indonesia’s valuable rainforests accounts for the loss of 8 million hectares of forest land in Borneo and Sumatra However it’s not all good news in the palm oil business. There have been a lot of critics and protests on how this particular industry impacts the environment, animals and ultimately the people of Indonesia. The most common criticisms are directed at the weak law enforcement in forestry management, which is causing the deforestation of Indonesia’s valuable rainforests, accounting for the loss of 8 million hectares of forest land in Borneo and Sumatra. This loss of biodiversity and ecosystems is so bad that a third of all mammal species in Indonesia are considered to be “critically endangered”. One species in particular, the orangutan, had become an icon of deforestation in Borneo and Sumatra. Around 2500 orangutans are killed each year and 90% of orangutans’ habitat has been destroyed in the last 20 years due to the development of the palm oil industry. This has alarmed the UN so much that it has started an “emergency conservation” programme in Indonesia’s rainforests. It seems very heartbreaking that such an important part of Indonesia’s economy is stabbing itself in the back by destroying its own very valuable resource. Efforts have been raised to create a sustainable way of developing palm oil production. The “Roundtable on sustainable palm oil” for example has committed to preserving 50% of all the rainforest in Indonesia and utilize the palm oil plantations as a carbon sink. Several NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth continually protest and raise awareness of the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests while promoting a sustainable way for palm oil production.
The numbers are there. Indonesia clearly needs all the economic drive the palm oil industry is providing for them. And the numbers are there again. Indonesia cannot afford not to act upon the rate at which their rainforests are being destroyed. And so the questions remain. For how long can Indonesia maintain their current practices? At what cost? Ultimately, to what extent can the importance of economic sustainability surpass the importance of environmental sustainability? Adhitya Prayoga Sources:
While (grocery) shopping, customers face several choices - of produce and products – which are more or less ethical. There's the regular product, the cheap product, the luxurious more expensive product, the ethical product (organic or Fair Trade, or both) and the product manufactured nearby. Which one to choose? Let's take ”Case Christmas”. Christmas time is a holiday season when consumerism is almost unavoidable. Everything is consumed – food, presents and gift cards, festive clothes and decorations, and of course gift wrappings. Christmas and the tradition of exchanging presents place a huge demand on Earth's vital, limited resources. Christmas also depicts our generation, as consumers. But, it does not have to be so. Christmas can be a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family and friends without all that consumerism. Or at least, the money could be used for a cause! Small choices in a better direction, every now and then, can make a difference on a larger scale; choices such as buying less or buying better (ethical, organic or sturdier). After the present, another choice concerns gift wrappings – one could try e.g. not to pack their gifts at all, avoid individual wrappings, prefer recycled gift paper or even utilize newspaper. To provide alternative Christmas choices and raise awareness among consumers, an event ”Vihreä Joulu”, ”Green Christmas” was organized on 13th of November in Tampere Hall by TAMK’s Proakatemia entrepreneurship students. The idea, or motto, behind the happening is ”You're going to buy anyway, so choose better” - this is a great idea! The event Vihreä joulu was supported by Ruohonjuuri, Cabassi (bag, in the picture), and Ekona. In the event there were approximately 15 stalls which were full of recycled products, organic products or “green” cosmetics. (e.g. no synthetic ingredients in the D-vitamin tablets). Some of the products were recycled for example from bicycles' inner tires or silver spoons (see the picture, Retonki, SusannaN Design). The jewelry made from the tires was mesmerizingly beautiful and the silver spoon jewelry was jaw-droppingly delicate and luxurious. “Green Christmas” is an excellent pioneer idea. One way to ”lighten the load” is truly opting for better products! Yet even better is to opt for services such as a massage gift card, a movie ticket, or donate something to charitable organizations. The best choice is not to buy anything, and just enjoy the company of family and friends during the holidays. Anyhow the goal is to buy less, or at least buy better – when possible. Whether “better” means domestic or Fair Trade products, is up to You! Krista Haapamäki Construction sites are a very common view everywhere. There is always a demand for building new or renovating old ones. The waste materials that are created in these processes should always be recycled, yet this is not always done. On every construction site there should be separate collection points at least for wood, metal, plastics, glass, and hazardous waste. Finnish construction sites are required to follow the Finnish legislation on waste management called “jätelaki”, which states that the number one priority is to try to prevent creating waste in the first place. However, this is not always possible. Jätelaki also states that the waste materials should preferably be reused as raw materials and not converted into energy. Converting into energy in this case means burning and thus creating massive carbon emissions in order to get electricity. This legislation is very open to interpretation, and in the absence of clear statements in the law, it is tempting for companies to deal with the construction waste as they desire, which, especially in the case of smaller companies, is often the cheapest way possible. The cheapest way usually not being the most environmentally friendly option. I have worked on several different construction sites and for several different companies in the past. My own experiences of this topic vary a lot between different construction companies. I personally feel that bigger companies are more likely to have their construction waste recycling well planned, while smaller ones either lack resources or interest. Bigger construction companies also have contracts with companies that rent waste collectors. They also have contracts with raw material buyers, which make it profitable for them to recycle their construction waste. The way I see it is that bigger companies are also more vulnerable to possible reputation loss that could be caused by handling their waste inappropriately. In general, construction waste is dealt with better on construction sites that build new than it is in most renovation cases. Also, bigger companies are usually the ones building new, while smaller ones are the ones that have plenty of small renovation sites. The biggest issue that I have faced while working on this field of business was when I worked in a company that used a lot of different dangerous chemicals. Even though the chemical containers were labeled with “dangerous to environment” sign, they were thrown away with the regular waste, meaning that they would end up on landfills causing a serious threat to the environment. All in all, there is a lot of room for improvement in the construction waste recycling business in Finland. The most important thing would be to create laws that would force even the smallest companies to start paying attention to this situation, followed with appropriate monitoring that could be funded by the government. Also, government could lend support money to smaller companies in order to get them started with recycling their construction waste. This loan could then be paid back when the companies start to make profit from selling waste materials to buyers. Oskari Mäkelä Sources: http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/9590/Tuohiaro.Rami.pdf?sequence=2 Nowadays becoming “green” has gained popularity among designers and builders, since the needs of the housing market are continuously changing. Sustainable design covers a building’s impacts holistically, from the planning process to the deconstruction at the end of the building’s useful life. It is necessary to consider all the impacts a construction may bring, since wrong planning might affect the tenant’s health as well as the surroundings: ecosystems, air quality, animals and plants among others. The aim of a sustainable construction project is to enhance the quality of life for the building occupants. People were not designed to live in an asphalt jungle, surrounded by traffic jams and having to breathe polluted air. It is necessary to implement projects, which allow public encounters with convenient access to public transportation, and natural spaces that promote walking instead of driving. Simply by incorporating natural features such as windows that permits natural light into the building or by adding some plants, the occupants’ experience can be transformed from just living in the building to enjoying their lives. And what else makes this kind of building so attractive? It’s energy use. High-efficiency buildings use natural means for power generation, for instance solar and wind power, and they include as well the use of some principles which tends towards minimum performance standards such as:
However, what is usually thought about green building is that by implementing this kind of practices, the cost of the project will increase and result in more work. This misconception is far from reality. In terms of the construction process, sustainable practices are not very different from traditional procedures, but they result in a different and a more efficient construction. Green projects are demonstrating that many of the fundamental principles of sustainable building can be applied without increasing the project price and they also allow savings in terms of operating costs. One model of a green building project is actually very near Tampere. The Vuores area is a typical ‘greenfield’ development in a woodland area to the south of the city of Tampere, which by 2020 will become an ECOCITY. This project is trying to incorporate all the fundamentals of green building construction with an optimum urban structure that takes into account the conservation of the natural environment, social issues, an efficient public transport system and of course, for the energy supply the use of renewable energies. Paola Israde Burrola References Image: Kubina, J. 2007. Technische Universität Darmstadt - Solar Decathlon 2007. Solar energy, Wikipedia.last modified on 10 november 2014. Accessed 10/11/2014. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Technische_Universit%C3%A4t_Darmstadt_-_Solar_Decathlon_2007.jpg Letcher, T. 2008. Future energy: Improvised, sustainable and clean options for our planet. China: Elsevier. Yudelson, J. 2009. Green building through integrated design. USA: Mc Graw hill. Bose, R. 2009. Energy efficient cities. USA: The World Bank. East Africa is rich in tropical forests, dense montane forest and includes the eastern portion of the Congo rainforest. These forests are rich in bio-diversity and they are the home of different indigoes tree species like Olea africana, Dombea goetzenii, Acacia, and Bamboo. They also provide habitat for large animals like Bango’, Yellow-backed Duiker, Golden cats, Giant forest hogs, Leopards, Hyenas, Buffalos, Colobus Monkeys and Elephants. The region is known for its great savannas too as shown in the picture below However nowadays the forest is decreasing year after year. According to research made by the open access journal PLOS, the East African forest shrank 9.8% between 2001 and 2009. East African countries’ forest is declining year after year due to increasing population. Kenya’s forest cover decreased by 8% between 1981 and 1988. According to PLOS journal, 14% of Kenyan forest will disappear in 20 years.
Causes for deforestation 1. Local Level Farmers are expanding their agricultural land and enlarging their cultivation area to get more revenue. Most East African local administrations have been involved in distributing land to local farmers without paying attention to environmental issues. 2. National level The forest departments of East African governments do not give training to their staff to recognize the role of local knowledge in forest preservation. Decision-makers are only giving land to local farmers in order to get political benefit and some protected areas are destroyed for the sake of economic gain. 3. Global level In the developed world, industries and consumers promote the export of food from East Africa mainly in raw form for processing. The business motivated models imposed by international institutions like the World Bank have encouraged serious exploitation of forest land. What could be done to prevent East African deforestation? The governments of East African countries must promote conservation of forest in a sustainable way. The citizens should be encouraged to plant at least five trees per year. Local people should participate in formulation of forest management policies. Harsh penalties should be applied to those who destroy the forest in an unsustainable way. However, there is still this problem of how to feed the population and maintain the forest at the same time. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. However nowadays the forest is decreasing year after year. According to research made by the open access journal PLOS, the East African forest shrank 9.8% between 2001 and 2009. East African countries’ forest is declining year after year due to increasing population. Kenya’s forest cover decreased by 8% between 1981 and 1988. According to PLOS journal, 14% of Kenyan forest will disappear in 20 years. Mohamed A. Jama Sources East African forest. 2012. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:450729/FULLTEXT01.pdf National science foundation. August,20011. http://www.nsf.gov) PLOS Journal. July 31, 2012. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0731-hance-east-africa-deforestation.html When we think about energy production, the cleanest and most environmentally friendly options are generally associated with those generating energy from wind and water: renewable sources (see previous post about hydropower!). However, despite the positive image, hydro plants and dams associated with them do cause a lot of negative impacts on river habitats. In this blog post I will concentrate on those poor fish populations which find a dam wall straight up their fish-faces; and one fresh, splendid innovation to help them break through. For river habitats, the problem with dams is that once it has been built, it effectively blocks fish species from migrating and getting back to their spawning grounds. It has been estimated that some 42,000 large dams, defined as more than 15m high, have existed globally since 1996, not to mention 800,00 smaller ones. Anadromous species – that is, those species that are born in freshwater migrate to the sea and return to their birthplace to spawn – have suffered serious losses in terms of declining populations and even local extinction. Up till now, several options have been developed in order to help our slippery friends to travel upriver: pool-type passes, fish lifts, nature-emulating passes and so on. Problems with the passes are plentiful; they need maintenance; it is difficult to emulate just the right hydraulic conditions, and provide stimuli to guide the fishes to find the pathways provided. A new player in the field, fish cannon, will operate by creating gentle suction in a flexible tube once the traveler has braved itself into entering the passage of its own accord (otherwise known as volitional entry). However, as delightfully absurd as this concept is, it might be worth a shot. The system is currently going through testing to ensure the well-being of cannoned fishes in the long term. Benefits of this type of a fish pass would be considerable according to the company behind it: lower maintenance and building costs, no dam wall height restrictions and volitional entry for fishes just to name few. Despite the rather good start in the innovation field, more options need to be developed and implemented. Relevant biological information on matters such as species travelling down the river for migration and spawning purposes need to be taken into account as well, not forgetting research on each species involved in the river ecosystems. Aside from mating and reproducing intentions these fishes don’t struggle upstream just for fun; as they end up as food for hungry bears and they also graciously donate nutrients for trees and other flora. To conclude: better a fish eaten upriver than ten sitting below dam.
Rena Rusuvuori SOURCES: http://www.esf.edu/efb/limburg/watershedecology/readings/freeman-dams.pdf http://www.internationalrivers.org/environmental-impacts-of-dams http://whooshh.com/economics4.html http://www.fao.org/3/a-y2785e/y2785e03.htm http://thefisheriesblog.com/2013/05/20/can-you-say-anadromous-catadromous-amphidromous-oceanodromous-or-potamodromous/ The dilemma
Hydropower is considered to be a green, environmentally friendly source of energy. After all, it is based on moving water, which earth has a vast supply of. Surely it is a better alternative to fossil fuels, which release major greenhouse gas emissions. Or is it? What is hydropower? The most common way of utilizing hydropower is through a power plant which is usually situated in a dam that has been built into a river. The plant normally has three parts: the plant where the electricity is generated, the dam which controls the flow of the water, and a reservoir where the water is stored. The water flows through turbines which spin a generator and transform the movement into electricity. Then it can be transported into homes and factories via electric lines. Hydropower can also be produced with the tidal movements of water, but tidal plants are still few and far between. This way of producing hydroelectricity is nonetheless being studied, and could possibly be a success in coastal areas. A cheap and clean choice Hydropower is a good source of electricity in the sense that once the plant has been built, there are very few costs. The river flow is basically free and infinite as long as rain falls and snow melts. Also, the reservoir enables the flow of water through the system to be controlled, so that the power plant can respond to demand more easily. From this point of view, it is better than other so called renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power. Hydropower is also clean in the sense that there are no such greenhouse emissions as when burning fossil fuels, nor radioactive waste like in nuclear plants. Destroying natural habitats Although hydropower may sound like a dream solution to the global warming problem, this is not quite true. It has been measured that large reservoirs in tropical areas cause greater carbon and methane emissions than burning coal or natural gas. This is due to the large amount of vegetation which decomposes in anaerobic conditions under the water. This may also happen in colder environments, where the excess nutrients in the water cause algal blooms. Another environmental detriment of reservoirs is that they harm wildlife by filling their habitat with water. Large reservoirs can even destroy forests and agricultural lands. In addition, dams prevent migrating fish like salmon from swimming upstream to spawn. So what to think? There are disadvantages in every form of energy production, so to avoid all the negative effects is nearly impossible. Still, the use of renewable energy sources has far fewer disadvantages than the use of non-renewable alternatives, such as fossil fuels. For example, hydro power doesn’t produce air pollutants, unlike coal and natural gas, which can cause health effects such as breathing problems, neurological damage and cancer. Coal burning emits also sulfur, which produces acid rain and leads to damages in the forests and aquatic ecosystems. Although, hydropower is already a better solution than non-renewable energy sources, there are still problems that need to be faced. To minimize the environmental effects of hydropower, the industry should favor narrow and deep riverbeds that can store more water with less damage to the surrounding environment. The reservoirs can also be used, for example, in agricultural irrigation, flood control and for recreational purposes in order to make the best out of the situation. In addition, to ensure that the nutrient levels stay optimal and that the anaerobic decomposition is avoided, the reservoir water needs to be aerated regularly. It is also important to assist the upstream migration of fish by providing fish ladders and cannons. To read more about this subject, check Rena’s upcoming blog post about fish cannons. The future of energy production lies in the development of the sustainable and renewable energy sources, so be conscious and keep on reading this blog to get more information about environmental issues! Ira Leiviskä LINKS http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/hydropower-profile/ http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-hydroelectric-power.html#.VDGTi_l_tqo The European Week for Waste Reduction is approaching! The program aims to raise awareness on waste reduction with the theme of three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle. TAMK is participating this year by arranging the annual Stuff Exchange Days on Monday and Tuesday, 24th and 25th of November, and providing info about food waste in the lunch area. We challenge you, fellow student, to take part in minimizing waste by reducing, reusing and recycling! This year we encourage everyone to think especially about the food waste. In developed countries, food waste is a huge problem: it requires lots of energy, land and water to produce the food on your plate, and if it ends up in the bin it has all been for nothing. In Europe we waste food to the extent that by reducing it only by 15 %, we could feed the amount of people in Europe all over again. That’s something to think about! Therefore, please be mindful of your portion sizes and you’ll do the environment a favour! Continuing an item’s life instead of throwing it in the bin is the ultimate eco-deed: compared to new stuff being produced, it takes much less energy to repair what’s broken and continuing to use it for the purpose it was designed for. Also giving your stuff away to have a chance to fill someone else’s needs after you no longer need them is a great chance to reduce waste. Dig through your closets and check if you have unwanted things clogging up your space, and bring it to the Stuff exchange days! The world’s resources are not infinite either, and also for that reason we should always rather recycle the raw material of an item at the end of its life, than throw it in the landfill. Have you for example known, that in addition to recycling the normal paper, cardboard, glass and metal, you can take your worn out clothes that’s not possible to be reused anymore, to the fabric recycling bin at any H&M and they will use it as material for new fabric? (Disclaimer: this is not an H&M ad; I just encourage you to take use of their recycling program! You should still consider whether buying things from them is smart. ☻) In Tampere there’s also a currently ongoing plastic recycling test period where you can drop off your plastic at the recycling bins around the city. Unfortunately there are only eight of those points in the city, the closest one to TAMK being located in Tammelantori. It’s interesting to see how much you can actually reduce your waste by recycling even the plastic! I challenge you to try and guarantee that you no longer need to take the trash out very often! Drop by on Stuff exchange days in Lämpiö near Teiskontie entrance, on Monday and Tuesday 24th to 25th of November, and learn about more ways to reduce, reuse and recycle! You can also find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1512146352367123/?fref=ts Laura Puurunen References: European Week for Waste Reduction. http://www.ewwr.eu/en |
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