lewism » Environment

Going, going, gone.

lewism — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:31:48 +0000

In the last ten years nearly 200,000 Britons have emigrated away from the UK (including me!). I guess most of them have gone to the English speaking new world somewhere , but where should they have gone? Of course the answer is Iceland which is currently first in the UN index of human development making them the happiest people on earth. Finland is 11th just ahead of the USA at 12 and the UK at 16. But why Iceland, personally the weather would put me off, but quoting this guardian article there are some pretty strong reasons for making the case for Iceland;

It is the country with the sixth highest GDP per ca pita in the world; where people buy the most books; where life expectancy for men is the highest in the world, and not far behind for women; it’s the only country in Nato with no armed forces (they were banned 700 years ago); the highest ratio of mobile telephones to population; the fastest-expanding banking system in the world; rocketing export business; crystal-pure air; hot water delivered to all Icelandic households straight from the earth’s volcanic bowels; and so on and so forth.

So there you go plenty of reasons to move if you need them!

Nuage Vert

lewism — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:58:50 +0000

Nuage Vert the industrial size art installation and visualisation over the centre of Helsinki over the Ruohlahti power station came to the end in February. The concept was simple, to project a light onto the smoke stack of this coal fired power station, the greater the wattage consumed the smaller the visual image. The artwork not only was a visual success but some data from Helsinki Energy shows it was effective in reducing consumption so well done to them.

Helsingin Energian tutkija Jussi Palola kertoo:

Kuormitus väheni 2 MVA 29.2.2008 kello 19-20, normaaliksi vertailuarvoksi sain tuolle ajanjaksolle (perjantai-ilta 19-20) 1,2 MVA, joten Vihreä Pilven vaikutus voisi olla täten 800 kVA.

Load reduced from 2 MVA 29.2.2008 Between 19-20, to (friday evening 19-20) 1.2 MVA, and so Green effect of Cloud could be hereby 800 kVA.

Check out more videos at the blog, and photos on flickr tagged vihreäpilvi and nuagevert. It also bears out this article in the economist which explains that car manufacturers estimate an overall energy saving of about 10% if petrol consumption rates are shown on the dashboards of their cars. Again we come to the inevitable conclusion that all homes should show their owners exactly what energy they are consuming and how fast they are consuming it.

Arctic Seed Vault

lewism — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:42:23 +0000

On the Island of Spitzbergen in Svalbards, a remote archipelago 1000km from the NW coast of Norway a doomsday vault is being built. With over 3 million seeds the world seed bank projects aim is to protect the bio-diversity of the planet against natural or manmade disaster. It is managed by the Global Crop Development Trust.

The location was carefully chosen to guard against all eventualities. Built into the rock of a mountain 120m above sea level so it will not be underwater even if the polar ice sheet melts completely. The permafrost of the island should mean the seeds will survive frozen even without electricity, it is remote and guarded by well trained polar bears. The vault itself is 120m long and 4.5m round, with 1m thick concrete walls.

This reminds me a little of a science fiction story I read when I was younger. An alien race recieved a signal from outer space, which turned out to be a blueprint (dna etc) for an organism. It turned out to be human beings. Quite similar to the film Contact but the implications going much further. How soon before we are archiving the entire planets biosystem not just as a collection of frozen originals but as blueprints and plans to be beamed across the solarsystem. The ultimate Doomsday book if you like.

(All images from Statsbygg)

Helsinki is moving

lewism — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:06:01 +0000

Helsinki is moving to the South of Poland by 2071 #
At least if the predictions made by the International Centre for Research on the Environment and Development come true. Something we may have to start to take into account with building design. The triple glazed, highly insulated buildings of Helsinki with large unopenable windows may not be so appropriate in the future.

Bio-fuel in Finland

lewism — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 23:40:00 +0000

Bio-fuel should be being utilised more. Long term fuel prices will only go up, and environmentally it is carbon neutral unlike fossil fuel. But what does the Finnish Government do about enabling this? The answer is less than nothing. Because of the potential loss of taxes a new bio-diesel plant being built in Porvoo may not even be able to sell its products in Finland! Why can’t the government be more pro-active in this? What about mixing tax breaks for bio-fuel with tax increases for heavily polluting vehicle classes, or converting public transport (its publically subsudised here I believe). But while everyone acknowledges a problem noone seems to be driving any solutions, its not that hard the answers are already here.

UPDATE

another article about Finlands target for biofuel