New models of automatic dishwashers can actually save water over hand-washing. According to the University of Bonn in Germany, an efficient dishwasher uses one-half the energy, one-sixth of the water, and far less soap than doing it the old fashioned way. Of course, you save the most by running the dishwasher when it’s full and skipping the (usually unnecessary) pre-rinse.
Article courtesy of The Green Life
Follow the Money
When you want to spot emerging trends, always follow the money. Today, many of the world’s leading investors and most successful companies are making big bets on water. Do a little research, and it’s easy to see why. There simply isn’t enough freshwater to go around, and the situation is expected to get worse before it gets better.
According to Bloomberg News, the worldwide scarcity of usable water worldwide already has made water more valuable than oil. The Bloomberg World Water Index, which tracks 11 utilities, has returned 35 percent to investors every year since 2003, compared with 29 percent for oil and gas stocks and 10 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.
"There is only one direction for water prices at the moment, and that's up," said Hans Peter Portner, who manages a $2.9 billion US Water Fund at Pictet Asset Management in Geneva, according to a report by Bloomberg News. The value of the fund increased 26 percent in 2005, and Portner expects water to provide 8 percent annual returns through 2020.
Freshwater Becoming More Scarce
The United Nations estimates that by 2050 more than two billion people in 48 countries will lack sufficient water. Approximately 97 percent to 98 percent of the water on planet Earth is saltwater (the estimates vary slightly depending on the source). Much of the remaining freshwater is frozen in glaciers or the polar ice caps. Lakes, rivers and groundwater account for about 1 percent of the world’s potentially usable freshwater.
If global warming continues to melt glaciers in the polar regions, as expected, the supply of freshwater may actually decrease. First, freshwater from the melting glaciers will mingle with saltwater in the oceans and become too salty to drink. Second, the increased ocean volume will cause sea levels to rise, contaminating freshwater sources along coastal regions with seawater.
Complicating matters even further is that 95 percent of the world’s cities continue to dump raw sewage into rivers and other freshwater supplies, making them unsafe for human consumption.
The Need for Freshwater is Increasing Rapidly
Yet, while freshwater supplies are at best static, and at worst decreasing, the world’s population is growing rapidly. The United Nations estimates that the world population—approximately 6.5 billion in 2006—will grow to 9.4 billion by 2050.
The cost of water is usually set by government agencies and local regulators. Water isn't traded on commodity exchanges, but many utilities stocks are publicly traded. Meanwhile, investments in companies that provide desalinization, and other processes and technologies that may increase the world’s supply of freshwater, are growing rapidly.
Companies Investing in Water
General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt said the scarcity of clean water around the world will more than double GE’s revenue from water purification and treatment by 2010—to a total of $5 billion.
GE’s strategy is for its water division to invest in desalinization and purification in countries that have a shortage of freshwater. Saudi Arabia is expected to invest more than $80 billion in desalinization plants and sewer facilities by 2025 to meet the needs of its growing population. And while China is home to 20 percent of the world’s people, only 7 percent of the planet’s freshwater supply is located there.
"This will be a big and growing market for a long time," Immelt said at the GE annual meeting in Philadelphia in April 2006
By Larry West, About.com Guide
Popularity of Bottled Water is Rising
Bottled water has become the drink of choice for many people around the world, and sales have skyrocketed over the past few years. In 2007, for example, more than 200 billion liters of bottled water were sold worldwide. Americans alone purchased more than 33 billion liters for an annual average of 110 liters (nearly 30 gallons) per person—a 70 percent increase since 2001.
Bottled water has become so popular that it now outsells both milk and beer in the United States. Carbonated soft drinks are the only bottled beverage that U.S. consumers buy in greater quantities than bottled water, and per-capita sales of bottled water are rising while per-capita sales of milk and soft drinks are going down. The irony here, of course, is that a lot of bottled water is little more than tap water, which costs very little and is much better regulated and more rigorously tested than bottled water.
Adding Up the Energy Costs of Bottled Water
For the energy analysis, environmental scientists Peter Gleick and Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute assessed the energy used during each stage of bottled water production. They added up the energy it takes to make a plastic bottle; process the water; label, fill and seal the bottle; transport bottled water for sale; and cool the bottled water before it ends up in your gym bag or your car’s cup holder.
Writing in the February 19, 2009 issue of Environmental Research Letters [pdf], Gleick and Cooley report that manufacturing and transportation are the most energy-intensive processes involved in putting a bottle of water in your refrigerator.
The two scientists estimate that just producing the plastic bottles for bottled-water consumption worldwide uses 50 million barrels of oil annually—enough to supply total U.S. oil demand for 2.5 days.
Transportation energy consumption is harder to figure, because some water is bottled locally and travels short distances to reach consumers while other brands of bottled water are imported from distant nations, which increases the amount of energy needed to transport them. According to the report, imported bottled water uses about two-and-a-half to four times more energy than bottled water produced locally.
Overall, the two scientists estimate that meeting U.S. demand for bottled-water—assuming the 2007 consumption rate of 33 billion liters—requires energy equivalent to between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil. The energy required to satisfy the global thirst for bottled water is about three times that amount.
Think Before You Drink
If you imagine that every bottle of water you drink is about three-quarters water and one-quarter oil, you’ll have a pretty accurate picture of how much energy it takes to put that bottle of water in your hand.
By Larry West, About.com Guide
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Deepwater Wind expects to start construction in 2010 of a wind farm off the shore of Rhode Island that could cost more than $1.5 billion, state Gov. Donald Carcieri said in a release on Thursday.
The project would generate about 1.3 million megawatt-hours a year or about 15 percent of the state's electricity use.
Deepwater would build the wind farm in two phases.
First, it would install turbines capable of generating about 20 megawatts in state waters beginning in late 2010 with operation expected in late June 2012.
In phase two, Deepwater would install turbines in federal waters capable of producing 1.3 million megawatt-hours a year within three years of approval of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service.
The exact location of the wind project will be determined by the state's Special Area Management Plan permitting process led by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council in partnership with the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. That process will take about two years, according to the governor's release.
In 2006, Gov. Carcieri said he wanted to boost the use of renewable sources of energy to 20 percent with wind energy making up about 15 percent.
Rhode Island selected Deepwater in 2008 after reviewing seven bids on its request for proposals to build an offshore wind farm.
To help seal the deal, Deepwater pledged to establish a regional development office in Rhode Island and build a manufacturing facility in Quonset that would create up to 800 jobs with annual wages of $60 million. The Quonset facility will manufacture the support structures upon which the turbine and its tower are based.
Rhode Island hopes Deepwater's presence will be a catalyst to attract additional jobs in the renewable energy sector.
Deepwater was established to develop utility-scale offshore wind projects in the northeast United States. It is developing projects in other states including a 350 MW offshore wind farm in New Jersey.
The major investors in Deepwater are Newton, Massachusetts-based First Wind, a developer of onshore wind projects in the United States, and New York-based capital investment firm D.E. Shaw & Co.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by David Gregorio)
Article courtesy of Reuters.com
The state of Massachusetts is still struggling with its wind energy plans and approval siting process, while a $300-million wind project in North Dakota has been completed that is capable of generating 149 megawatts (MW) of power.
Massachusetts officials unveiled an updated plan for wind energy projects and other uses of state ocean waters, which includes additional regulatory standards for environmental protection, reports Cape Cod Times. While the Ocean Management Plan retains many components from an earlier draft, some changes were made to the five-year plan after concerns were raised over the potential impacts to areas such as Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod, reports the newspaper.
The plan covers waters from about 1,500 feet offshore out to three miles, and allows for commercial wind energy projects of up to 150 wind turbines in two areas southwest of Martha’s Vineyards, reports Cape Code Times.
The Cape Cod Ocean Sanctuary off the coast of the Cape Cod National Seashore is protected from most activities, according to the plan, reports Cape Cod Times. However, in the waters around the Cape 24 turbines are now allowed if adjacent communities and the Cape Cod Commission agree to the size and location of the turbines, and an additional 17 turbines are possible off the Vineyard and 11 turbines around Nantucket, according to the article.
The new plan does not impact the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm in federal waters. The U.S. Interior Department hopes to reach an agreement by March 1 over the long-delayed Cape Wind power project, which would boost the Obama Administration’s plan to increase renewable energy in the U.S., reports Reuters.
The proposed $1 billion wind farm, which would consist of 130 towers, has been delayed since 2001 over a number of issues including a lawsuit filed by native American Indian tribes who want to block the project, reports Reuters.
The new plan also includes a commitment from the Massachusetts Ocean Partnership for a $2.5 million research project for coastal waters, according to the Cape Cod Times.
An editorial in The Boston Globe suggests that the Massachusetts legislature should streamline the siting of wind farms to reduce the amount of appeals, as it has done for fossil-fuel plants that generate 100 megawatts (MW) of power or more.
According to the editorial, the approval process for wind development has significantly delayed projects even some that have received clearance from their host communities.
The proposed Wind Energy Siting Reform Act could change that by establishing statewide standards for appropriate locations for wind facilities, taking into account all existing regulatory concerns, according to The Boston Globe editorial. The law would also allow permitting boards to consolidate local permits and applications into a single process without weakening existing regulations, according to the article.
Meanwhile a $300-million wind project in North Dakota has been completed, reports ABC News. The wind farm, developed by Iberdrola Renewables, consists of 71 turbines and can generate up to 149 MW of electricity, according to the article.
So far, Missouri River Energy Services of Sioux Falls, S.D., which supplies power in four states, will buy 40 MW of power from the project, reports ABC News.
Despite the completion of the project, a recent study indicates the lack of extra-high-voltage transmission lines through the upper Midwest states, including North and South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, is a significant barrier to harnessing wind as a viable energy source.
This article courtesy of Environmental Leader
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