How To Live Without Air Conditioning: Syrian Beehive Houses

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 08. 6.09

Houses in North America all look alike; you can find the same gablegablegable or faux chateau style from Calgary to Tuscon. But before thermostats, people designed to suit the climate, and did a damn fine job of it. Justin at Materialicious points us to a wonderful site , eartharchitecture.org, where I learned about Syrian beehive houses.

Designed for the desert climate, the beehive homes keep the heat out in a few ways. Their thick mud brick walls trap in the cool and keep the sun out as well (beehive homes have very few, if any, windows). The high domes of the beehive houses also collect the hot air, moving it away from the residents sleeping at the bottom of the house.

Inside, its high dome serves to collect the hotter air, and outside to shed rainfall instantly, before the brick can absorb it and crumble. Its thick roof-cum-wall is an excellent low-velocity heat-exchanger, and keeps interior temperatures between 85° and 75° F. while outside noon-to-midnight extremes range from 140° to 60°.

Clearly, we have to start building these in Phoenix. Saudi Aramco World provides more detail:

Restricted choice of building methods and materials left the north Syrians few alternatives, mostly painful. Their houses had to resist the mechanical stresses of wind pressure and the minor shocks of the frequent earthquakes which afflict the region. Door and window openings had to be few and small to minimize the sun’s glare and the entry of hot air during the day as well as cold air at night. And they had to have a high-heat-capacity roof to absorb the sun’s rays during the day, and slowly reradiate it toward the interior during the cool night; the roof, furthermore, should have a continuous surface to provide a maximum of shade with a minimum of area exposed to the sun, and it should slope steeply to shed the occasional but torrential rains. All this—and it had to built of the only abundant material locally available: adobe brick.

The beehive house was the answer, and one that a computer could scarcely improve upon. Its conical shape presents almost no structural difficulties, requires no high-tensile-strength reinforcements, and can be built quickly by unskilled labor. Inside, its high dome serves to collect the hotter air, and outside to shed rainfall instantly, before the brick can absorb it and crumble. Its thick roof-cum-wall is an excellent low-velocity heat-exchanger, and keeps interior temperatures between 85° and 75° F. while outside noon-to-midnight extremes range from 140° to 60°. Nothing cheaper—nor more rugged, more efficient, and easily serviced—can, be built at the same site from local materials. The beehive house, moreover, attains that ideal that architects eternally seek but so seldom find: it combines functionalism with simplicity, elegance and beauty.

How To Live Without Air Conditioning: Syrian Beehive Houses : TreeHugger

DIY Energy-efficient Air Conditioner Made From Salvaged Materials

Eco Factor: Car air conditioner made from recycled materials.

While Toyota’s Prius will sport on-board solar panels that will take care of the car’s air conditioning and ventilation needs, Instructables user CameronSS has tried to find a way everybody can flaunt a green AC in their vehicles. CameronSS has made an air conditioner that works on a 12V DC supply from materials that might be present in your garage.

DNA Of Ancient Lost Barley Could Help Modern Crops Cope With Water Stress

ScienceDaily (July 24, 2009) — Researchers at the University of Warwick have recovered significant DNA information from a lost form of ancient barley that triumphed for over 3000 years seeing off: 5 changes in civilisation, water shortages and a much more popular form of barley that produces more grains. This discovery offers a real insight into the couture of ancient farming and could assist the development of new varieties of crops to face today’s climate change challenges.

The researchers, led by Dr Robin Allaby from the University of Warwick’s plant research arm Warwick HRI, examined Archaeobotanical remains of ancient barley at Qasr Ibrim in Egypt’s Upper Nile. This is a site that was occupied for over 3000 years by 5 successive cultures: Napatan, Roman, Meoitic, Christian and Islamic.

The first surprise for the researchers was that throughout that period every culture seemed to be growing a two rowed form of barley. While natural wild barley tends to be two rowed most farmers prefer to grow a much higher yield 6 row version which produces up to 3 times as many grains. That 6 row version has grown for over 8000 years and that was certainly grown in the lower Nile over the same period as Qasr Ibrim was occupied. It was thought that despite the fact that the rest of Egypt used 6 row barley that the farmers of Qasr Ibrim were perhaps deliberately choosing to import 2 rowed barley but the researchers could not understand why that would be so.

The plant scientists were pleased to find that the very dry conditions at Qasr Ibrim meant that they were able to extract a great deal of DNA information from barley samples from the site that dated back 2900 years. This was far better than would normally be expected from barley samples of that age. This led to the researchers to a second and much bigger surprise. They found that the DNA evidence showed that the two rowed barley at the site wasn’t the normal wild two eared barley but a mutation of the more normally cultivated six rowed barley that had changed into a two ear form that had continued to be cultivated for around three millennia.

Dr Robin Allaby said: “The consistency of the two-row phenotype throughout all the strata spanning three millennia indicates that the reason for the reappearance of the two row form is more likely to be genetic, not environmental. Consequently, the two-row condition has probably resulted from a gain of a function mutation at another point in the plants DNA that has also reasserted the two-row condition from a six-row ancestor”

“There may have been a natural selection pressure that strongly favoured the two-row condition. One such possible cause we are currently investigating is water stress. Qasr Ibrim is located in the upper Nile which is very arid relative to the lower Nile where six-row remains are found, and studies have shown that two-row can survive water stress better than six-row”

He concluded that: “This finding has two important implications. Such strong selection pressure is likely to have affected many genes in terms of adaptation. Archaeogenetic study of the DNA of such previously lost ancient crops could confirm the nature of the selection pressure and be very valuable in the development of new varieties of crops to help with today’s climate change challenges. Secondly this crop’s rediscovery adds to our respect for the methods and thinking of ancient farmers. These ancient cultures utilized crops best suited to their environmental situation for centuries, rather than the much more popular six rowed barley they used a successful low grain number yield crop which could cope far better with water stress.”

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Journal reference:

1. Dr Robin Allaby, Sarah A. Palmer, Jonathan D. Moore, Alan J. Clapham and Pamela Rose. Archaeogenetic Evidence of Ancient Nubian Barley Evolution from Six to Two-Row Indicates Local Adaptation. PLoS One, (in press)

DNA Of Ancient Lost Barley Could Help Modern Crops Cope With Water Stress

From Skins of Onions, Farmers Develop Promising Biogas

22 Jul 2009:

A large onion processor in California is taking 300,000 pounds of onion waste a day — skins, tails, and tops — and converting much of it into a biogas that he uses to power his operation. Steven Gill, a partner in Gills Onions — which dices, slices, and purees onion for wholesale and retail customers — has worked with Southern California Gas Company to create an energy recovery system that produces 600 kilowatts per day, which meets up to 40 percent of the electricity needs of his processing plant. The onion waste is shredded and pressed to squeeze out the juice, which is then diverted to an anaerobic digester. Workers add microbes that convert the juice into methane gas, which helps power Gill’s facility. Gill used to spread the onion waste on fields but soon ran out of room. Southern California Gas provided $2.7 million in incentives for the $9.5 million energy recovery system. Gill estimates that converting the onion waste to biogas will save him $700,000 a year in electricity costs and $400,000 in waste disposal costs, meaning the plant will pay for itself in about six years. Nearby carrot and wine producers are interested in installing similar systems.

Yale Environment 360: From Skins of Onions, Farmers Develop Promising Biogas

Eco Tech: Hydrogen Fuel From Urine To Power Cars Tomorrow

Eco Factor: Urine broken down into hydrogen using electrolysis.

With the dearth of low-emission fuels and the high cost of renewable energy generating system such as photovoltaic cells have tempted automobile manufacturers to look towards sources which are present in abundance. Being the most abundant in the universe, hydrogen has always fantasized car manufacturers as a green fuel which doesn’t bring any performance issues along as well. However, conventional process used to generate hydrogen from water and finally transporting it, aren’t as ecofriendly as the fuel itself is.

Climate friendly car windows? Calif. to require

Carmakers, cell phone firms complained about sun-reflecting glass

The Associated Press

updated 10:04 a.m. ET, Fri., June 26, 2009

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SACRAMENTO – California air regulators voted unanimously Thursday for a mandate requiring auto manufacturers to include sun-reflecting glass on all vehicles sold within the state by 2014.

The move by the California Air Resources Board was intended to keep cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles cooler during hot weather, reducing the use of air conditioning.

That was expected to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The end result of it is the customer gets a car that’s more comfortable to ride in, air conditioners don’t have to work as hard, and the atmosphere will be happier because we won’t be emitting as much carbon dioxide,” said board chairwoman Mary Nichols.

The auto industry complained about the expense but won an extra year to comply with the first phase of the regulation. Automakers also will be allowed to find other ways to cool down cars to avoid a tougher window standard to be phased in after 2014.

The board gave automakers more time to meet the standards after representatives for Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC, Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. lined up to ask the board to extend the deadline.

“We don’t have a lot of spare resources right now,” said Steven Douglas, senior director of environmental affairs for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

California has been a leader for decades in setting auto standards. Its mandates have often brought changes throughout the industry as automakers move to capture the state’s huge market.

California was the first state to require the use of catalytic converters in 1975 as a way to reduce smog. A 2002 state law intended to force cleaner auto emissions was the reason the Obama administration implemented greater fuel-efficiency standards earlier this year.

Beginning with the 2012 model year, a quarter of passenger vehicles sold in California must have specially coated windshields that block 50 percent of the sun’s heat from a parked car. All vehicles must have those windshields within two more years.

In 2016, windshields must block 60 percent of the sun’s heat unless car makers can demonstrate other ways to keep cars cool.

The regulation is projected to prevent 700,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere in 2020, the equivalent of taking 140,000 vehicles off the road for a year. There were nearly 22 million passenger vehicles registered last year in California.

The new windows would cool a sedan’s interior by an estimated 14 degrees Fahrenheit or 12 degrees for a pickup or SUV.

Cell phone industry cites blocked signals
The board dismissed concerns from trade groups representing domestic and foreign car companies that sun-reflecting glass would interfere with cell phones signals, GPS navigation, electronic passes for toll roads and tire pressure monitoring systems.

The regulation allows glass manufacturers to leave a small area of the windshield free of the metallic coating to boost wireless signals. However, representatives for navigation and cell phone companies questioned whether it would be effective.

Susan Lipper, senior manager of regulatory affairs at T-Mobile USA, said drivers and passengers might be prevented from making emergency calls from their cars.

“If you need to make a 911 call and material in the windshield blocks it, that’s an issue,” Lipper said.

Drivers who replace windows in older cars also would have to meet the new standards.

The window mandate is among dozens of strategies pursued by the board in its effort to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, the goal set by the state’s 2006 global warming law.

‘Cool paint’ proposal dropped
A proposal to require so-called “cool paints” was removed from the regulation after the auto industry complained it might have to stop selling black cars in California.

The technology used by glass manufacturers to make more reflective car windows has been around for nearly 20 years, said Mukesh Rustagi, director of strategic product management at Pittsburgh Glass Works, the largest automotive glass supplier in North America..

Climate friendly car windows? Calif. to require – Climate Change

calvin klein usb sunglasses

Want to look chic while keeping your personal data safe and sound? These new sunglasses from Calvin Klein have a USB drive hidden in the arm, letting you store info and protect your eyes from UV rays at the same time.

These new shades from the house of Calvin Klein sport a 4GB USB flash drive, neatly concealed inside the right arm. Unfortunately, this design means you can’t wear the sunglasses while accessing your data, but how often do you really need to do that. And I’ve got to ask, why couldn’t they double the storage by putting another drive on the left side too?

Calvin Klein’s USB sunglasses should hit stores this October for $199 (USD).

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calvin klein usb sunglasses: data for your eyes only on [technabob]

Best Buy to Sell Green Vehicles – WSJ.com

Best Buy Co., best known as a vendor of giant televisions, is veering in a new direction: selling green vehicles.

America’s largest consumer-electronics retailer by sales has quietly begun offering electric-powered scooters, bicycles and Segway Inc. transporters in 19 locations in California, Oregon and Washington.

It is throttling up the venture this summer with the introduction of the Brammo Enertia, a futuristic electric motorcycle that can travel 45 miles at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and plugs into a standard wall outlet. Best Buy wouldn’t disclose when it will begin

Best Buy to Sell Green Vehicles – WSJ.com

From the Sewage Plant, The Promise of Biofuel

Researchers throughout the world are working to produce biofuel from algae. But a few are trying a decidedly novel approach: Using an abundant and freely available source — human waste — to make the fuel of the future while also treating sewage.

by greg breining

In his quest for a fuel of the future, Roger Ruan has found a valuable resource in something nobody else wants — the wastewater from Minneapolis’ largest sewage treatment plant.

The University of Minnesota professor is tapping into this rather unlikely source to grow single-celled algae and produce a diesel-like biofuel. He is one of many researchers around the world working to make biofuel from algae at a price that is competitive with gasoline and diesel fuel. But Ruan’s project — along with several other sewage-to-fuel experiments — has a distinct advantage over competing algae-to-fuel efforts: His nutrient-rich feedstock is free and available at a nearly constant rate all year long.

And perhaps most importantly, Ruan’s algae can not only be used to produce fuel, but can also clean up the wastewater, potentially saving millions of dollars.

“That’s what we’re after,” says Jason Willet, finance director for Metropolitan Council Environmental Services, which operates the wastewater plant and has helped fund Ruan’s research.

A single acre of algae, even in an inefficient open pond, can produce 5,000 gallons of biodiesel per year, says Ruan—100 times as much as soybeans.

Paul Chen/University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota researchers hope their research yields a demonstration algae-to-fuel plant within a year.

And unlike many other algal biofuel experiments, Ruan’s work does not rely on food-based crops, such as sugar cane, as a feedstock to produce the algae.

“This (sewage-based biofuel) potentially is a very, very good energy crop,” says Ruan, a professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering. “Potentially its yield can be much, much higher than starch from corn or oil from soybeans. The main reason is that it can grow at a much, much faster rate.”

Growing fuel-producing algae in waste is not Ruan’s idea alone. The concept drew international attention in 2006 when a startup in New Zealand called Aquaflow successfully harvested biofuel from open-air ponds at wastewater treatment plants. The company expects to be able to produce the biofuel on a large scale, and recently attracted the attention of major players in the airline industry by announcing it had distilled a special blend that meets the technical specifications for jet fuel.

Aquaflow’s advances, combined with the Pentagon’s interest in biofuels as an alternative to conventional jetfuels, has sparked a flurry of academic and industrial research in the United States. A team at the University of Virginia has been working to maximize the efficiency of the algae-growing process, and the chemistry department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., has built a small-scale bioreactor at a local wastewater treatment plant that may eventually be able to produce $600,000 worth of fuel per year.

Even NASA has thrown its hat in the ring, with researchers working on the development of floating greenhouses for algae cultivation. The bags are

The university was looking for a way to produce a renewable fuel that wouldn’t compete with food crops.

stocked with human waste and sown with species of freshwater algae, and then deployed into the ocean. The semi-porous plastic membrane allows the exchange of CO2 and oxygen to continue uninhibited, but prevents the salty seawater from disturbing the fecund growing conditions inside. Soaking up the sun and feasting on the nutrients in the sewage, the algae produce fat-laden cells that can be harvested and refined into fuels.

U.S. entrepreneurs have also entered the market. In June, Indianapolis-based Algaewheel contracted with the city of Reynolds, Ind., to construct a module at a wastewater treatment facility that uses a wheel-like rotating contraption to filter incoming sewage through a series of algae cultures. The fuel generated from the process will be used to power the facility.

In Minneapolis, Ruan and the Metro Council are conducting research with the intention of designing a demonstration algae-to-fuel plant within about a year.

The Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant sits beside the Mississippi River, just downstream from St. Paul. The 10th-largest plant of its kind in the country, it treats sewage from three-fourths of the Twin Cities metro area — more than 200 million gallons a day. Some of its low brick buildings, adorned by graceful Art Deco lettering, date to the plant’s origin in 1938. From a rooftop, the 170-acre grounds is a warren of basins, tanks, stacks, and pipes.

Incoming sewage is screened for trash and chunks, then runs into settling ponds to remove solids. In aeration ponds, carefully managed populations of microbes break down organics. After more settling to remove dead microbes, wastewater is sterilized with liquid chlorine before being discharged into the river. The effluent is often cleaner and clearer than the river itself. Amazingly, there is barely a whiff of odor.

As clean as the effluent is, Minnesota is considering new standards that will most likely require further reduction of phosphorous and nitrogen. Excess phosphorus is a real concern in the Land of 10,000 Lakes because it causes unsightly algae blooms and fish kills. Nitrogen sluicing off farmland throughout the Midwest is blamed for the hypoxic dead zone at the Mississippi River’s mouth. But meeting the new standards through conventional treatment could easily cost “hundreds of million of dollars” a year, says Willet. “We need to find some options.”

So the University of Minnesota and the Met Council began research in 2007. Through its Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, the university was looking for a way to produce a renewable fuel that wouldn’t compete with food crops or tie up agricultural land. The Met Council wanted cleaner wastewater.

Early on, Ruan decided against growing algae on the raw wastewater streaming into the plant: The task of managing more than 200 million gallons a day seemed daunting. Instead, research focused on the “centrate,” the millions of gallons squeezed from settling-pond solids by powerful centrifuges. The foul juice is so high in nitrogen and phosphorus that it kills most organisms.

Ruan’s initial task was to screen thousands of species of algae to find one, or several, that would flourish in the harsh conditions of the centrate. He

The algae yielded 30 percent of their mass as oil and grew so fast they could be harvested daily.

dispatched his assistants to scoop green, soupy water from ponds and rivers. Most perished in the concentrated nutrients, but Ruan eventually found several species — greenish, spherical, single-celled plankton only 5 microns across — that survived. By acclimating these survivors, Ruan was able to produce strains that thrived in the wastewater, while reducing the levels of phosphorus by 50 to 80 percent. They yielded 30 percent of their mass as oil and grew so fast they could be harvested daily.

So far Ruan and the Met Council have shunned genetically engineered algae, though they almost certainly could boost growth and oil content. “We are not interested because eventually on a massive operation like this, some of it is going to get loose in the river,” says Willet. “And I have enough regulations.”

Ruan also decided against open ponds to grow his algae. Ponds are inefficient, because algae blooms block light. Commercial-scale ponds would also require large acreage, and conditions are tough to control, especially in winter. “If you’re talking about an open pond system, it’s almost impossible in a northern climate,” says Ruan. Finally, “if the algae is dilute, it’s very, very expensive to harvest it.”

Instead, Ruan began building dozens of different “photo-bioreactors”— various configurations of tubes or plates that allow good exposure to natural and artificial light, as well as easy access for harvesting and cleaning. The current generation of reactors is operating in a shed in the plant’s “solids building,” not only to contain the stench of the centrate, but also to keep the equipment secret until the university secures patents.

Like soybeans, algae oil can be used to make biodiesel. Or it can be “cracked” through heat and catalysts (as in an oil refinery) to produce “green diesel,” identical to petroleum-derived diesel. Either biodiesel or green diesel could power the Metro Council’s public bus fleet, which already uses biodiesel in blends of up to 20 percent. “We are a guaranteed market,” says Willet. Remnant algae mash — the nitrogen-rich pulp — can be sold as fertilizer, animal feed, or raw material for ethanol.

But there’s one big problem, Ruan says, and it’s common to any attempt to convert algae to fuel. “We have done a lot of work to get the oil out, but we know it is expensive,” says Ruan, who is lead scientist on several other promising algae biofuel projects that do not use wastewater as a feedstock.

Two methods are in common use: Drying and crushing the algae, or removing oil with a solvent. Both, says Ruan, are expensive. Researchers are exploring various ways to break down algae cell walls — through osmotic shock or ultrasound, for example — to make oil recovery easier.

It pays to keep trying, because with available processes, Ruan says, algae-diesel might cost $20 a gallon. But, says Willet, “that doesn’t take into account the avoided costs that I will realize.”

During the next year, Ruan and the Met Council hope to develop a design for a demonstration-scale plant to utilize perhaps 20,000 gallons of centrate a day. That amount is only 2 percent of the centrate the Metro plant generates, and would produce only about 160 kilograms of dry algae and 8 gallons of oil a day. But, says Ruan, an algae plant of that size could eventually be scaled up to treat the entire stream of centrate and produce near 400 gallons of oil a day. Or it could be used as is to treat the wastewater of a city of 50,000 people.

And that is the key — wastewater treatment with the added benefit of renewable fuel. Or renewable fuel with the benefit of cleaner water. Either way, says Ruan, “we feel that this is probably a perfect combination.”

Yale Environment 360: From the Sewage Plant,
The Promise of Biofuel

Don’t Use a Sponge

Submitted by Jack Reichert
Instead of using synthetic sponges for your shower and dishes use a luffa! Sponges tend to collect bacteria and for heath reasons should be thrown out 1-2 times a week. But if they are not biodegradable, that is a LOT of waste filling up landfills. Additionally, the “antibactirial” sponges have a chemical called Triclosan which is officially a pesticide. Do you really want to be using that on your dishes? The best part about Luffas, are that they can be grown in your own backyard!

Don’t Use a Sponge | Green Prophet