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AEVIA Reveals the Source

It’s a shame to let runoff go to waste when it can be used indoors and/or for irrigation. The benefits of rainwater harvesting can include the relief of strain on other water supplies, the ability to build or farm in areas with no other water supply, cleaner water, increased independence and water security, lower water supply costs, reduced flood flows, reduced topsoil loss, improved plant growth and a greater understanding of natural cycles.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

A cistern is a receptacle built to catch and store rainwater. They range in capacity from a few litres to thousands of cubic metres (effectively covered reservoirs).

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

Greywater is household wastewater from kitchen sinks and bathroom tubs – anything except for raw sewage. In many countries in the Middle East and North African region, untreated greywater is used for irrigation purposes due to the environmentally and politically determined water scarcity of the region, and is stored in privately constructed holding tanks. Along with risks to human health in the holding and reuse of this water for irrigation, the hiring of private parties to regularly empty these tanks is a cost burden on households, as public infrastructure is not always available, especially in rural areas. The safe treatment of this water can provide an alternative. But how can this water be treated in a cost effective and simple way for individual households to own and utilize? These short films document the catalyst, innovation, implementation and outcome of one effort in the West bank and now adopted for use in Jordan and Lebanon.

See Greywater Reuse in the Middle East – Part 1

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

Lehigh University wants to take esoteric ideas on environmentalism down from the ivy towers and put them into practice with the construction of a $55 million environment and science building.

With a roof covered by plants for insulation, the 130,000-square-foot building would cut into the sloped campus and rise to five stories at its highest point and use the eco-friendly innovations to reduce fuel and water use, according to plans filed last month.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a green roof is made of vegetation and soil planted over a waterproof surface. Drainage and irrigation systems also can be layered on the roof. Environmentalists tout the roofs as able to regulate interior temperature and protect the underlying roof from the damaging effects of sunlight and extreme temperature changes.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

The sun has produced energy for billions of years. Solar energy is the solar radiation that reaches the earth. This energy can be converted directly or indirectly into other forms of energy, such as heat and electricity. It is used for heating water for domestic use, space heating of buildings, drying agricultural products, and generating electrical energy.

Solar energy supplies electricity to several hundred thousand people around the world, provides employment for over ten thousand and generates business worth more than one billion dollars. In the future, the pace of change and progress could be even more rapid as the solar industry unlocks its hidden promise.

The benefits of solar power are compelling: environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, diversity of fuel supply and rapid deployment, as well as the global potential for technology transfer and innovation.

The underlying advantage of solar energy is that the fuel is free, abundant and inexhaustible. The total amount of energy irradiated from the sun to the earth’s surface is enough to provide more than 10,000 times the annual global energy consumption. Yet these benefits remain largely untapped; most energy decisions today overlook solar power as a modular technology that can be rapidly deployed to generate electricity close to the point of consumption. Phasing in solar photovoltaics therefore requires a shift from centralized to decentralized power production, offering far greater control to individual consumers.

AEVIA Reveals the Source

In manufacturing terms, exponential population growth means more factories taking up more land, using more raw materials, and allowing more emissions and waste into the environment. Demand for products and services will grow, but the availability of supplies isn’t guaranteed. Competition for Earth’s finite resources will heat up and it’s easy, yet unsettling, to imagine the socio-economic and political consequences.

A variable-speed drive saves energy that the La Union sugar mill in Guatemala is able to sell for additional revenue of $158,480 per harvest season. Source: Rockwell
A variable-speed drive saves energy that the La Union sugar mill in Guatemala is able to sell for additional revenue of $158,480 per harvest season. Source: Rockwell

“To achieve and maintain world-class sustainable manufacturing, you need continuous improvement – not just of your capital assets but the utilization and return on your raw materials, utilities and human resource assets as well,” says John Blanchard, principal analyst for CPG industries at ARC Advisory Group. “Manufacturing companies should recognize that it will become increasingly difficult for manufacturing operations to drive new growth and margin without considering manufacturing ‘sustainability’ in their business decisions.”

The benefits are practical as well as financial. Blanchard explains, “Maximizing the utilization of assets always brings a return on investment. If you can bring a packaging line from 50% efficiency to 80% efficiency without buying new equipment or using more energy, then you have reduced the cost per unit of product and demonstrated one of many approaches toward achieving world-class sustainable manufacturing.”

AEVIA Reveals the Source

Andrew Bishop of Noggins Corner Farm has turned a quarter-of-an-acre of his cherry crop into an experiment under sheltering tunnels. The 14-foot tunnels arc over the cherry trees, protecting them from birds and rain. Since installing the tunnels, Bishop says these problems are close to non-existent. His trees get water from a small irrigation system, but also from rainwater running through the sloped orchard.

Bishop is helping Josh Oulton recreate his success on a larger, two-acre scale. Oulton’s trees are not yet in production, but the rows of saplings have been planted with their tunneled destiny in mind, growing more ergonomically within the space constraints of the tunnels.

Oulton and Bishop are hoping, in a few years’ time, these trees will see the same – or better – return. The plastic covering the metal structures of the tunnels will go on a bit before they bloom on their first producing season, and stay until after the harvest. The tunnels have to be tough enough to withstand winds, rain – and sometimes even snow, but flexible enough to allow for venting when the trees get too hot.

This new method of cherry production is an example of the diversification farmers must incorporate to stay alive. Bringing in large, flavorful cherries by way of innovative growing techniques is another way small farm markets can offer their customers more choice when they choose to buy local, which seems to be the trend with conscientious shoppers.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

The seven projects to receive funding from the Carbon Trust are:

* Aluminium smelting technology with the potential to reduce energy consumption by up to 20% – Coventry University
* Technology to explode paint into moulds, eliminating the need for paint shops in the manufacture of plastic components – Warwick Manufacturing Group
* Energy efficient kilns, which could reduce the energy used in the manufacture of ceramics – Horizon Ceramics
* Natural ventilation systems for large buildings with the potential of halving the energy used by conventional mechanically ventilated buildings – e-stack Ltd.
* Testing of new fully automated biomass combined heat and power unit – Biomass CHP Ltd.
* Steam trap performance sensors with the potential for reducing carbon emissions by more than 750,000 tonnes over ten years – Spirax Sarco Ltd.
* New generation of ultra bright LEDs with improved life expectancy and massive carbon savings over traditional lighting – GlowLed Ltd.
AEVIA Reveals the Source

New phosphors can lead to improved color rendering and significant energy savings in high-efficiency, led-activated lamps and displays according to a project report by the U.S. Department of Energy. The report is available as a PDF through the “Reveals the Source” link below.

AEVIA Reveals the Source