Every day Americans go to more than a million pounds of aluminum. But for much of this megamaterial it more beats/appears (&) for sum around.
“It’s o recyclable! About 2/3 of aluminum that’s ever been made is still in existence”.
Well, it may take a lot of power to make aluminum. Once aluminum oxide is stripped of its oxygen atoms metallic aluminium is incredibly stable. That means it can be melted down and reused again and again forever. (Aluminum’ s like a phoenix (?), nothing goes away. Everything recycles)
Recycled cans wind up in a place like this : Ann Hazert Bush recycling court in Hayworth, California. (..)
Every loose scrap of paper, piece of steel or plastic, anything that’s not aluminum needs to be removed. (…we shift this to the mills…)
After inspection the loose cans fall out into the crusher where a massive hydraulic press crunches them into bail stamped perfectly square. Then they’re shifted off to the smelter
They gonna be melted down and made into new aluminum can sheets. And here’s astaggering fact to ponder with friends over beer. In less than 3 months an aluminum can circulates once through its lifecycle. That can can be all the way through that closed loop system and back in your refrigerator, 16 or 19 days later filled with a new beverage. Although using much less energy, in Australia smelters alone consume 10% of the nation’s total power. So while recycling you cut the demand for electricity and that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling aluminum can saves about 95% of the energy required to make a can out of virgin materials.
15. Cell-phone recycling At this moment in the United States 205 million people use a cellphone. Since people upgrade or replace their phones there are also 650 million retired phones. Ever wondered what happens to retired cellphones and charges ? When people throw them in a trash they eventually end up in a local municipal landfill. Cell phones and chargers contain toxic material such as lead, mercury and cadmium, which can end up in public drinking water and food sources. Howstuffwork recently visited Collective Good - mobile phone recycling center to find out how old cell phones can be used to make new ones. Cell phones have valuable materials inside such as gold, silver and platinum. The most valuable material is gold, which is used in the phone circuit boards. Chargers contain copper, which is less valuable but is still reusable. By today’s method of strip mining, collecting one clean ounce of gold generates 79 tons of toxic waste, the equivalent of 35 cars stacked on top of each other. But if you recycle one phone, you can reclaim all the metals you need for the manufacture of a new one. Another way to recycle cell phones is by taking the working parts of otherwise broken phones and combining those parts together with the usable parts from other phones to create one complete working phone. These rebuilt phones can then be sent back into circulation without ever needing newly manufactured parts.
16. Future of sustainable cities
1. For the first time in history the global population is more urban than rural.
2. But the term urban can mean different things to different people.
3. Municipalities of all sizes are and always have been dynamic centers of activity.
4. Cities offer jobs and prosperity, important social interaction and rich opportunities
for cultural expression, learning and education.
5. Change is seldom more apparent than in this ever evolving urban context but in an age
of pervasive global warming population growth and increasing resource constraints must
innovate more pro-actively than ever before.
6. Not only must energy production shift to low-carbon alternatives, we must also mitigate
systemic inefficiencies in the current urban infrastructure.
7. Urban designing communication technology can help us achieve these efficiency gains
and reduce our environmental footprint.
8. Cities are the largest contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
9. By measuring and tracking our energy consumption we can inform and influence consumer behaviour.
10. Next generation information technology can help us better manage vital water resources
by identifying losses and improving the quality of supply.
11. Embedded networks of tags and sensors can ensure that waste flow are optimized
and that material cycles are closed where possible.
12. Real-time data analysis can harness the effectiveness of our public transport systems,
improve traffic flows and reduce pollution.
13. Smart buildings save energy by self regulating indoor temperature and light.
14. They can increase productivity making better use of space by being responsive to the needs of each occupant.
15. A connected information-rich urban environment and businesses and it can benefit the city's
primary stakeholder, the citizen.
16. Equipped with accurate data-related intermobility/informability into our energy and material
consumption we can lighten our environmental impact as individuals in the home, in the workplace
and in our public spaces.
17. Information and communication technology can peel back the layers of the city we seldom see:
the bones, guts and nerve endings of a complex organism.
The docks and conduits under our feet, the pipes and cables behind our walls and the industrial
facility and plants beyond the city limits.
18. A network of sensors and receptors can ultimately permeate every layer of an increasingly
connected built-in environment making the invisible - visible.
19. Such heightened connectivity would enable new modes of communication and collaboration
revolutionizing the way we interact with each other and with the urban environment around us.
20. Advanced information and communication technology would also help us monitor our progress
as we move into a post-carbon era.
21. All three sectors have a key role to play helping deliver this transition: government,
business community and civil society.
22. And working together we can create a more connected and sustainable urban future.
17. Rapid Transit Systems Part 1. As populations increase and development occurs it is becoming more and more challenging for governments to ensure the movement of people and goods. The needs and considerations of global citizens are changing and governments are seeking to implement more sustainable transportation solutions and address problems of congestion, air pollution and oil dependence. In cities around the world urbanization and population transfer more gridlock* than ever. In cities where car culture has taken root are finding it more costly to accommodate more vehicles hitting the road every day. Traffic crawls and opportunity is lost. “The highways in the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area is very congested, and the city center. It’s very hard to find a parking place in the Tel-Aviv center, so people look for alternatives”. The current bus system is an option but people generally prefer to sit in traffic in their own cars as opposed to the bus. Some planners are advocating a solution to this problem. “First is to give priority to the buses. Which means to take lanes that now belong to everybody and to bring it only to the buses”. “Traffic jams influence everybody including the buses. So most priorities gonna be given to public transport. You never know when you’re getting on the bus, you never know when you’re getting off the bus, so you cannot really plan your trip knowing that you won’t be late to wherever you’re going.. If you dedicate lanes to public transport you give them priority at certain junctions. You can actually control the time it takes from point A to B.” Dedicated lanes for public transportation takes sitting in traffic out of the equation. Passengers board and disembark the buses at stations separated from the roadway. In the meantime people are still primarily using their cars in Tel-Aviv and many other cities around the world. One of the major consequences of congestion are the resulting health impacts of tail-pipe emissions. “At least a thousand cases of death annually in the Tel-Aviv region alone that are due to air pollution”. Another serious problem that results from cars on the road is climate change impacts of CO2 emissions from the production, transportation and consumption of oil. “ Transportation sector is just increasing tremendously and is certainly to stop” Part 2. One solution from the emissions problem from transportation is being advanced in Masdar city, Abu Dabi. Masdar is a carbon-neutral car-free city where vehicles are prohibited from entering and circulating. To take their place planners are designing an innovative Personal Rapid Transit system. The idea is that you have automated cars so the public transportation with the character of the personal car that will take people from A to B with minimal walking distances from their houses or their offices to the station. As the city expands the PRT system and the technology associated with it really evolve and become even that much more reliable and sustainable and possibly expand, well, to other parts, other range as Masdar city. Masdar city is currently under construction and it’s laid for completion by 2020 In its first phase the PRT system will consist of 13 podcars (**). When finished there will be an estimated 3,000 automated pods to accommodate nearly 90,000 commuters. “(........) In future the intention will be that… it would be able to change you destination if you so desired on route”. Masdar’s being built with efficiency and sustainability in mind. To achieve the city’s carbon-neutral goal the PRT system is being powered by electricity from renewable solar technologies. Those lithium-ion batteries at the back of the vehicle…The battery allows us about 60 kilometers of range (?) including air-conditioning use which is equal to approximately 5 hours of driving and recharging is about 9 hours to 2 hours While the PRT system is ideal for use within cities and towns governments and companies are seeking other electric-powered alternatives to the conventional gasoline-fuelled vehicle. Transport and the need for fuels for transportation will grow. It’s a very mobile world. We know that fuels ,carbon fuels, are finite. This is not an issue to think about. In terms of ten years or twenty years (you think 30-40-50-60 years ahead). And at one point it makes full sense to electrify. Whether it will be faster or slower - that you can debate. But it makes full sense to use renewable sources. To capture solar, wind – whatever energy is around there and put them in a smart grip and make sure that … and fuel cars and make sure that people do not pollute. The introduction of electric vehicles is already being championed by many governments and companies around the world. Through the development of the battery-charging technologies and infrastructures needed to support the mass roll-out of EVs (***) You put it in the car and you receive an SMS to your mobile : “The car charging finished”. EVs rely on infrastructure that’s in virtually every home and every business in the developed world and even many, many homes and businesses in the developing world. So you can plug in a car with a minor modification all around the world. Alarming transportation-related problems such as congestion, air pollution and oil dependence are driving development of innovative technologies supported and implemented by governments and companies around the world. The way people move is undergoing a transition from a 20th century over-reliance on the gasoline-powered vehicles to a range of 21st century sustainable transportation solutions. __________ *The term gridlock is defined as "A state of severe road congestion arising when continuous queues of vehicles block an entire network of intersecting streets, bringing traffic in all directions to a complete standstill; a traffic jam of this kind." The term originates from a situation possible in a grid plan where intersections are blocked, preventing vehicles from either moving forwards through the intersection or backing up to an upstream intersection. The term gridlock is also widely used to describe high traffic congestion with minimal flow (a “traffic jam"), whether or not a blocked grid system is involved. By extension, the term has been applied to situations in other fields where flow is stalled by excess demand, or in which competing interests prevent progress. ** Pod Car networks will operate much like traditional rail and streetcar networks, on raised platforms above busy roads and highways (or underground) as a part of Personal rapid transit (PRT), a new public transportation system designed for swift travel in congested areas. Pod Cars will be convenient, affordable to operate and beneficial to the environment as they are powered by electricity. *** Electric vehicles
18. Hydroelectric power
One hundred and seventy thousand cubic metres of water will pass here every minute at almost sixty kilometers per hour. That’s enough water to fill about a hundred thousand Olympic swimming pools every day. Standing here field …. for what hydroelectric stations had been designed to do for over a hundred years...In essence they're factories that convert the energy of falling water into the flow of electrons. is commonly called electricity. Electricity that powers the.. Most hydroelectric stations use...of water diverted around...river such as a waterfall or rapids, or a pinion (?)... across the river to raise the water level and provide the ...needed to create the driving force. Water at the higer level is collected into four.. It flows through the plant intake into the pipe called...which carries it down to a turbine waterwheel at the lower.. level. The water pressure increases as it flows down the...It is this pressure in flow .. that drives the turbine that is connected to the generator. Inside the generator ...is spun by the turbine Large electromagnets are attached... connected a flow of electrons is created the stator. This produces electricity that can be stepped up in voltage. Through the station transformer transmission lines. The falling water having served this purpose accesses the generating station the main stream of the river to continue the cycle of clean renewable energy for Ontario.
19. How a geothermal plant works.
Welcome to one of CalEnergy's geothermal power plants.
Unlike other power plants that rely on coal or other fossil fuels to create electricity for homes and businesses, geothermal plants use superheated fluids from the earth's geothermal resources to generate electricity.
The natural heat of the earth creates geothermal resources.
This heat comes from molten rock called magma, located at the earth's core deep below the geothermal resource.
Over thousands of years, rainwater seeps through cracks in the earth's surface and collects in underground reservoirs.
The magma heats the water until it becomes a superheated fluid.
To reach the superheated fluid wells are drilled 5,000 to 10, 000 feet below the surface of the earth.
These wells ,called production wells, bring the superheated fluid to the earth's surface where it can be used to generate electricity for homes and businesses.
This geothermal power plant uses crystallizer-reactor clarifier technology, a process that turns the geothermal superheated fluid into steam while removing solids from it.
The steam is used to drive a turbine and generate electricity.
All remaining geothermal fluids are injected back into the reservoir for reuse.
Under its own pressure, superheated fluid from the geothermal resource flows naturally to the surface through production wells.
As the liquid flows toward the surface, the pressure decreases, causing a small portion of the fluid still within the well to separate or “flash” into steam.
At the surface, the superheated fluid and steam mixture flows through surface pipelines and into a wellhead separator.
Inside the separator, the pressure of the superheated fluid is reduced.
This causes a large amount of the superheated fluid rapidly vaporize and flash into high-pressure steam.
The geothermal fluid that is not flashed into steam in the wellhead separator flows to a second vessel, called a standard-pressure crystallizer where an additional amount of standard pressure steam is produced.
The flash process continues in the low pressure crystallizer.
The remaining fluid is again flashed, this time at a lower pressure, to produce low-pressure steam.
All of the low-pressure, standard-pressure, and high-pressure steam is delivered to a turbine.
The fluid that is not flashed into steam flows into the reactor clarifier system and is then returned to the geothermal reservoir through injection wells.
Turbines are the primary pieces of equipment used to transform geothermal energy into mechanical energy.
Pressurized steam created from the geothermal superheated fluid flows through pipelines to large steam turbines.
The force and energy in the steam is used to spin the turbine blades.
The turbines turn a shaft directly connected to an electrical generator.
And electrical charge is created when magnets rotate within the generator.
Large copper bars carry the electrical charge to a step-up transformer outside the plant.
Within the transformer the voltage is increased before the power is sent to the power lines that carry it to homes and businesses.
Geothermal energy is a sustainable resource because with proper management, a geothermal resource can remain a renewable source of energy.
Water trapped deep within the earth will naturally replace the superheated fluid that is drawn from the geothermal resource through surface wells.
However,it is possible to deplete the geothermal resource by removing fluid faster than it can be naturally replaced.
To help prevent this, the steam used in the geothermal power plant passes through a condenser that turns it back into fluid.
At this stage, it's possible to recover minerals from the geothermal fluid before it's injected back into the earth.
This condensed fluid along with the fluid that did not flash into steam, is injected back into the underground reservoir.
Magma naturally reheats the fluid so it can be used again.
20. Toronto Transportation Programs Implementing sustainable transportation programs Hi! I’m Jake Michaels and I’m here today to talk to you about how to bring sustainable transportation programs into your community … Did you know that over 50 % of our personal carbon emissions come from driving ? Yeah. Now because throughout of such a city commuters we can’t just stop driving altogether, that would be impossible but there are a number of things we can do to drive more efficiently and work with your community to reduce emissions in you neighbourhood. Make your neighbourhood pedestrian and cyclist friendly. The first thing you can do is actually quite simple: drive less. It takes you car up to 5 kilometers to warm up when reaching optimal operating temperature. That means that your short driving distances are actually the most hazardous with the environment. One thing you should do is planning your trips wisely and combine trips together. You can also request more bike parking for the cyclists in your neighbourhood. All you have to do is go online and fill a simple application on the city attorney (?) website. Your neighbours will thank you for it. If you’re already a cyclist and want to work with other cyclists in your neighbourhood to make it a more bike-friendly community you can start what’s called a bicycle user group or a BUG. The city of Toronto has developed a BUG network to BUGs to make it easier for you to do so in your neighbourhood. If you prefer walking to biking you can start a walking group in your neighbouhood. Toronto public health and its partners can help you start whenever you want. Green communities Canada has created an active and “safe routes to school program” featuring.an online hub of resources, tools and information on how to make your neighbourhood more walkable for the kids in your community. Carpool We’ve all heard about carpooling your kids to school but what about carpooling to work or any other route you may regularly travel ? Sharing a ride with just 1 other person can reduce your personal emissions by 50% on that one trip. The easiest thing you can to find someone to commute with is register with Smart Community Carpools Zone. This is a free ride-matching service offered by the city and is available in 7 different languages. It’s simple to sign up. Just log on, create a profile , enter you home and destination address , search for matching commuters , send them an invitation and arrange a date. You can also get your company or the company you work for to sign up. Therefore you’ll be automatically matched with people doing the same daily commute as you. Car sharing Car sharing is a great alternative to owning a car. Car sharing programs provide you with access to vehicle without all the hussle of ownership. The best way to start is to request the car chef for your neighbourhood or find out if one already exists. There are two major companies in Toronto providing the service : Auto share and Zipcar. Both services work in the same way: you just sign up for the program, reserve a car online or by phone, choose your location and go to pick up your car. When you’ve done just bring it back to the same spot. Organize an idle free zone When we do need to use our cars let’s try to reduce pollution as much as possible. Did you know that just 10 seconds of idling time uses more fuel than restarting ? It’s really important to educate your neighbours about this fact. One of the best things you can do in your neighbourhood is to have areas marked off as “idle-free zones” by campaigning with people in your community. Once you’ve planned the place (?) city of Toronto will approve your request and have a sign put up in the area School zones are particularly omportant in such campaigns. Most school buses run on diesel and diesel fuels contain 40 toxic chemicals including 15 car signages Book a tire clinic in your neighbourhood Two thirds of all vehicles in Canada have at least 1 improperly inflated tire. There are a number of benefits to have in properly inflated and maintained tires. These include: reduced fuel consumption, cost savings on fuel, extended tire life, better vehicle handling and of course a significant reduction in emission. You can schedule a tire pressure clinic in your community to educate yourself and your neighbours on this topic. “Be tire smart” is an online hub credit by the Federal Government. To help educate people on how to take care of the tires to learn more about how you can reduce emissions while driving you can also book an ecodriver presentation workshop in your neighbourhood. An expert will come and talk to your group and demonstrate ways to make your driving habits more eco-positive.
