Things really have improved. Perfect? Not by a long-shot.
Could you imagine the largest manufacturer in the world, even a decade ago, investing capital and recurrent resources in this level of innovation to recycle the products they produce?
The cynical amongst us [I count myself as one] have always looked closely [and with scepticism ] at the “triple-bottom-line” commitments of manufacturers.
There is, however, a new breed of steel-bending industrialists [who also works in silicon] and they genuinely view the entire product cycle as their responsibility. Yes, labour laws and working conditions are not to be ignored…
[Source: #clickclean GreenPeace Report ]As recently as 2012, according to Greenpeace, Apple used 55% coal at the time to power many operations. By 2014, Greenpeace was praising the company as the most aggressive and innovative in Silicon Valley. In its most recent report, Apple scored 100% on Greenpeace’s green index.
Apple’s own report shows:
The wars of the twenty-first century
I recall the words of the head of the United Nations Environment Program [UNEP], Dr. Noel J. Brown, when a guest of ours in Broadford, in the early 1990’s, speaking to a group of students and community leaders. He said:
…the wars of the twenty-first century may well be fought over access to and the cost of water
Perhaps prescient.
The importance of renewable energy sources and the central role of “full-cycle” product management was clear to him twenty-five years ago. It only appears now, even with the level of controversy and debate over global warming and long-term energy solutions still raging, that a new breed of industrialist is taking matters in to their own hands and “walking the talk”.
“LIAM” is simply another example of the paradigm shift occurring in plain sight.
Mapdwell’s web-based Solar System platform helps users design at-home solar energy systems: it visualizes the costs and benefits of installing a solar roof by layering information about tax credits and carbon emissions savings onto a topographical map of local roofs, and helps determine the most efficient spots for panels.
The move from generation at the source of supply to generation at the source of demand is fundamentally restructuring the generation and distribution markets for electricity in ways we still do not comprehend [well at least I don’t]. The opportunities for alternative energy sources is as profound.
One of the major drivers? Knowing what your neighbour is doing!
Alex Laskey, President of Opower, leads and develops their partnerships with utilities and governments, including the company’s international expansion on three continents.
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Opower [which is also the backend for Energy Australia] combines a cloud-based platform, big data, and behavioral science to help utilities around the world reduce energy consumption and improve their relationship with their customers.
The basic premise suggests this helps consumers lower their energy use and costs, and significantly reduces carbon emissions.
Not a plant to be seen, the desert ground is too dry.
But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity. The system is based completely on renewable energy and is therefore autonomous.
Cracks permeate the dried-out desert ground, the landscape bears testimony to the lack of water.
But even here, where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air.
In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent – in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water.
[Note: I was in Israel in the early 90’s and while on a tour a similar [yet simpler] type of device was described to us as “harvesting the morning air” -BC]
But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity. The system is based completely on renewable energy and is therefore autonomous.