Watts in a name – Wattzon, another footprint calculator

Published on February 2, 2009 in Energy, Facts and Figures, Fuel, News, Reviews and Technology. 2 Comments

I plugged my self into an new online footprint calculator -yes another one, to check myself out. As always there are good and bad points to note. The site is Wattzon

Positives
1. It uses Watts to measure your footprint – which is a logical way to analyse what is predominantly an energy topic. Watts are of course the units associated with household electricity.
2. You can compare yourself to other people and the world
3. Wattzon calculates your portion of published government activity
4. This footprint takes account of the lifecycle energy of the stuff you own

Negatives
1. A Watt is a difficult unit for many people to get their heads around – but then aren’t they all. Maybe laps of the oval would be better (its always easy to make suggestions from the sidelines)
2. Comparisons can lack validity (see 3 & 4 below). My energy use might be like apples to someone else – especially Americans which is the only comparison I get.
3. Unfortunately the energy in stuff can be questionable as well – for instance my scooter is supposed to embody more energy than a motorcycle because Wattzon gives scooters a 15 year life cycle and motorcycles 40 years – my scooter is already 40 years old.
4. My consumption is greater because I have gone through the time consuming process of adding extra stuff not on the standard list.
5. If I compare myself to a wind turbine I get a huge picture likewise for solar voltaics – wow such a big impact, compared to 5 gallons of oil a day- so little consumption. You can’t compare my annual wind/solar use to my daily oil use.

Overall
Wattzon offers a new approach and a new unit of comparison, but like all generic footprint tools my specific life translates badly. There is no allowance for how I get my energy or my food.

I like the idea of footprinting tools but they all are hindered by the need to make the process quick for the internet generations/ rapid twitching, so sacrificing parts of the impact.

Anyway here is my footprint according to Wattzon.

So who wants to live forever?

Published on December 19, 2008 in Biology, Health, NSW, News and The Future. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Prof. David Handelsman, Director, ANZAC Research Institute
http://www.anzac.edu.au asks

What is the SECRET OF HEALTHY AGING IN MEN?

A research team at the Andrology Department of Concord Hospital’s ANZAC Research Institute is interested in this question and collaborates with the Prince Henrys Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne to evaluate the testosterone levels of healthy Australian men over 40 years of age.

Thanks to improved health Australia will see men over the age of 65 nearly triple from the present 1.4 million to an estimated 3.6 million in 2051. As a result a key National Research Priority is to promote healthy, enjoyable and productive independent living for older men for as long as possible.

One widely discussed possibility to improve the health of older men could be testosterone treatment. Testosterone is the major male sex hormone and it decreases gradually with age. Restoring levels to those of young men might reverse some physical ailments of older men. However, it is not yet clear if and when such treatment is needed or whether it is beneficial. That probably depends on how well maintained or low a man’s own blood testosterone levels are.

A crucial first step in deciding whether testosterone treatment for middle aged and older men might be useful is to establish reliable normal ranges for blood testosterone levels of healthy men as they get older. This would help work out which men might benefit from treatment and who do not need treatment. Though it is already known from other studies in Australia and overseas that testosterone levels do decline slowly with age, previous studies had methods that were not sufficiently reliable to provide a proper guide for such treatment for Australian men.

For this purpose the research team is evaluating the health of 200 men at 5 short visits over a period of three months. No drug treatments are administered, but extensive blood testing will be performed.
This study is supported by the MBF Foundation.

If you are interested in being a part of this study that may be changing the way aging is treated in the 21st century you can be a part of this study.

OR if you know a man over 40 who feels very well, he might be an ideal candidate for the “HEALTHY MAN STUDY”!

Interested men please call the Andrology department on: (02) 9767 7222 or e-mail to: healthyman@anzac.edu.au

Do you want an ugly robot?

Published on November 4, 2008 in Technology, The Future and Uncategorised. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The Powerhouse Museum's Isaac the dancing robot - certainly no John Travolta - but one of our most popular exhibit pieces.
by Penelope Clay, (c) Powerhouse Museum

An interesting article appeared on the ABC webpage on Robotics.

Among other subjects discussed it talks about how robots will be changing society by their active presence in our homes as companions and servants; and behind the scenes building and running our infrastructure. One issue discussed is form vs function; does it matter what robots look like? Should they be humanoid or can they merely be an arm on a stick?

The article labelled as Sci-fi is now reality. Robots are creeping into every aspect of our lives. But what will they look like?
http://abcmail.net.au/t/301303/681231/5786/0/

It mentions a number of interesting sites about robots including:-

CSIRO has many of the latest developments from Australian researchers. http://www.ict.csiro.au/page.php?cid=37
The Australian Network for Art and Technology brings together artists with emerging technologies. http://www.anat.org.au/
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics blog gets technical about the latest robot technologies.
http://smart-machines.blogspot.com/

Some other interesting references to Robots can be found in the Powerhouse Museum Star Wars Where Science Meets Imagination webpage on http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/starwars/
The Powerhouse Museum also has a wide range of robots fictional, practical and prototypical that can be found as part of the Cyberworlds exhibition. Including Isaac Above – though no John Travolta – -certainly a popular member of the museum. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/cyberworlds_AI.asp
Or our collection database http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/

The Unhumble T-shirt that costs the earth

Published on October 7, 2008 in Biology, Energy, For Beginners, History, News, Technology, The Future, Transport and Water. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

http://flickr.com/photos/85389265@N00/1517461714
img:http://flickr.com/photos/85389265@N00/1517461714
This is a great short movie detailing the hidden impacts of that T-shirt that looks so good on you. Watch it here. Kristian Labusga tells the tale of this style icon that walks with a heavy footprint. When we take into account all the activity that goes into producing a 250 gram shirt we can be wearing 4tonnes of resources on our backs. Literally carrying the world on your shoulders.

Wouldn’t it be good if everything we bought came with the stories of all the people and places it involved in its creation, all the many extras that made it happen. For your t-shirt that would be the cotton farmer, the truck driver the ship captain the weaver the dyer the sewer. It would mean the water, the pesticides, the chemical, bleaches, inks and packaging, the fuel oil. But all we care about is the designer and the design.

And that is just a T-shirt, what about a television, a car, a mobile phone, or in fact a phone call. When it only costs a few cents or dollars the impacts are easy to ignore, but they are just as real. What answer would you get if you asked your retailer to tell you where the cotton came from in that new shirt, the leather in your new shoes or the gold in your new phone. If we knew there were real people toiling to make our lives happen would we be more concious of the power of our money?

How aware are you of where the things you have come from, how they get here and what will happen to them when you are done?

5c refund at collection depots when sold in SA

Published on September 17, 2008 in Recycling. 2 Comments

I have just returned from a trip to South Australia and though I had a great time, I can’t stop thinking of the missed opportunity. I squandered the chance to fulfill that childhood dream which I think we all had the first time we read the back of a soft drink bottle …. to drive to SA with all my recycling to get that 5 cents back!

On closer inspection however, I found that SA is not the recycling utopia I thought it was. As I toured around SA I came to realise that it was easy to find a bin to recycle bottles, cans and cartons to which the five cent refund applies. Friendly signs welcomed these valuable treasures. But if you want to recycle a newspaper, carboard or glass jar … good luck!

South Australians do a great job of recycling beverage containers (80-90%) but what about everything else?

Economists will tell you that some incentive is needed when the value of your garbage is less than the cost of recycling it, a simple cost-benefit analysis suggests that recycling such material isn’t a good business idea. Environmentalists will tell you that we cannot continue to dump recyclable material into landfill. So for a solution that works, an incentive is needed. But the question is, who pays?

When local governments offer kerbside recycling, constituents pay through rates. The incentive….? Perhaps to ‘Do the Right Thing’.

Tax incentives can lead to manufacturers using recycled goods such as the case with sales tax exemption on recycled paper introduced by the federal government in the late 80’s. This created an increased demand for high quality recycled paper, allowing paper recyling to become more profitable.

Or the incentive can be aimed at the consumer in schemes such as the South Australia’s Container Deposit Legislation. Under this ‘Polluter Pay’ scheme a deposit is withheld from the consumer, which will be refunded if they recycle the container. After over 30 years at the current rate of 5 cents, the incentive was double just a few weeks ago to 10 cents. An comprehensice review of the scheme can be found here.

Would you like to a recycling refund introduced to NSW (or your home state)?

Who do you think should pay the recycling costs? Manufacturers, consumers, society as a whole?

Intelligent electricity grid research announced

Published on August 20, 2008 in Energy and The Future. 0 Comments


Source: Jefferson Davis.

A new research project designed to examine how our power grids work, and create innovative, local solutions was announced today. The launch of this project, the Intelligent Grid Cluster (iGrid) is truly exciting, as it represents a Federal Government commitment to critically evaluate current practice and support new thinking in the energy sector.

It seems that ‘local’ is the catch cry of the iGrid project, perhaps a statement of intent to move away from our current, centralised energy infrastructure distribution. This focus on clean, locally generated power may create a robust and efficient energy supply. Local energy production not only reduces transmission loss (a problem in a centralised system), but also encourages small scale, green power generation. Smart distribution controls mechanisms will be investigated, to monitor and manage energy use.

Encouragingly, the scope of the project is not limited to electrical generation, but extends to energy efficiency for households and commercial buildings in a more holistic sense. A sustainable new-housing development forms part of the program, with important aspects such as allotment, and passive housing design not being neglected. This pilot housing project aims to reduce energy use by two thirds.

The iGrid project will not only examine technical aspects, but also economic and social modelling, and institutional barriers to distributed generation. I hope that this may overcome the very real obstacles to such ideas on new housing, posed by various levels of government and private enterprise that I heard described by the notable Australian architect Derek Wrigley only a few years ago.

iGrid is funded through CSIRO as part of the ‘Energy Transformed’ National Research Flagship and has five Australian university partners. See the media release here or visit iGrid.

Red meat greenhouse

Published on August 11, 2008 in Climate, Facts and Figures and Health. 6 Comments

image source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikveland/2365516841/

For years we’ve heard talk about the impact of cloven hoofed livestock on soil erosion. Kangaroo meat was the solution for those of us unable to give up our addiction to red meat, however consumers have been slow to take up the offer. Market research reports that only one in twenty Australians eat kangaroo on a monthly basis, though more than half of us will at least give it a go once per year. See report here.

But now there’s a new reason to chew a roo. Yes, eating kangaroo meat instead of beef or lamb will reduce your greenhouse gas emissions… well, rather the animal’s emissions. Cattle and sheep are notoriously gaseous, producing methane in such quantities that they are responsible for 11 percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Comparatively, kangaroos produce much less methane than traditional livestock.

UNSW researcher Dr George Wilson has suggested that we could reduce Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 3 percent by choosing kangaroo meat over beef or lamb. Such an effect would require large scale change, reducing livestock numbers by one third. See UNSW report here

Half the battle seems to be convincing consumers to try kangaroo, and increasing confidence in how to prepare meals with roo meat. Given the current trend for the organic, free-range foods, personally I’m quite suprised that kangaroo meat hasn’t taken off. It doesn’t get much more free-range than roo.

Sydney commuter race

Published on August 1, 2008 in NSW, News and Transport. 4 Comments

Home bound - image source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/suburbanbloke/404514102/

Sydney’s public transport has been put to the test as six commuters raced into the city using different modes of transport. Train, bus, car, scooter, bike and foot competed for the perhaps unenviable prize, arriving at work on time.

The course started in Ryde on Sydney’s North shore, competitors arrived later in the heart of the city at Parliament House a distance of 15.5km according to the organisers of the race. The interesting bit, was how much later. The results;

  1. Scooter – 25 min
  2. Bicycle – 32 min
  3. Car – 37 min
  4. Bus – 1hr 12 min
  5. Train – 1 hr 14 min
  6. Foot – 1 hr 20 min

Embarrassingly, public transport only managed to beat a commuter who jogged into the city! The race was run by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, their story and photojournal of the race can be found here.

Thankfully the two, two-wheelers which came in at the top represent fuel efficient, and apparently time-efficient modes of transport.

Do you think this one of race gives an accurate depicition of the transport / congestion problems in the city?

Share your stories and transit times.

Carbon cost of gold… medals that is

Published on August 1, 2008 in Facts and Figures. 0 Comments

Beijing’s dream to host a ‘Green Olympics’ is proving to be just that, a dream. Further, the Games are attracting all kinds of attention from environmentalists and the international audience for all the wrong reasons.

The Olympic torch relay has come under fire for the emissions it has caused, the bulk of which are due to the private plane used to ferfy the flame safetly around the globe. The total emissions, a staggering 5000 tons of carbon dioxide. See the full story here

This got me thinking about the Australian Olympic team. We’re sending some 433 athletes to Beijing, and this must surely come at some carbon cost.

A quick and assumption-laden calculation estimates that our atmosphere must endure at least another 2500 tons of CO2 in order to transport the Aussie team to Beijing!

Australia invests a lot of money in it’s atheletes, and this has been talked about in terms of the cost of a gold medal. In the past, a gold medal has cost the Australian taxpayer roughly $40 million. With the AOC predicting that Australia will win some 20 gold medals in Beijing (though this remains to be seen) we can work out the cost in terms of the new carbon economy.

Each of Australia’s gold medals will come at a cost of 125 tons of CO2, in terms of their travel to the Games alone. I haven’t even considered the carbon emissions tied up in the rest of the athletes careers and daily life (which the dollar value probably does).

I suggest here a carbon emissions abatement scheme for the Australian Olympic team. As some of the finest, fittest athletes on the planet, surely our Olympians could set a fine example and walk to work!

Are virtual worlds contributing to real world problems?

Published on July 31, 2008 in Climate, Technology and The Future. 1 Comment
Amazon Meeting - Image Source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/labsji/521879757/

Amazon Meeting - image source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/labsji/521879757/

Avatars walking through the virtual world of Second Life are leaving very real footprints, in our world. What I’m talking about here are carbon footprints, a familiar topic for this blog. The issue of the environmental impact of avatars (virtual characters which represent users online) was first raised in blogs a few years back, where an argument over the details has raged ever since.

These avatars are not as innocuous as you may think. The catchy statement doing the rounds is that, the average Second Life avatar is responsible for roughly the same amount of carbon emissions as a resident of Brazil, amounting to over one ton of CO2 per year. This very real power use attributed to online characters is due to the banks of servers dedicated to ensuring their existence, though debate surrounds how true theses figures are.

Whether or not these calculations are accurate is not the real point. It is instead a reminder to those of us forgetting the huge power consumption caused by our internet usage, and the banks of servers dedicated to our online existence. This is likely to increase rapidly as web-based applications, services and data storage are becoming the norm, all of which rely upon remote servers.

Think about your Facebook and email accounts, chewing through powere regardless of whether you’re online or not. Some web hosting companies are now attempting to address the issue, offering green powered web hosting.

Avatars to the rescue!?

These virtual beings whose footprints ignited the debate, may now lend us a hand. It is reported that businesses are snapping up real estate in Second Life to act as private meeting spaces for their employees (see the story here). This equates to savings in aviation travel costs, and of course, this equates to real savings in carbon emissions.

Calculate your Carbon Footprint here

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