Climate Change And Cape Cod: Coastal Impacts And Adaptation Strategies
Hey! Wana check something out that is bound to be awesome? Read below.
December 4, 2007, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Cape & Islands Association of Realtors Conference Center, 22 Mid-Tech Drive, West Yarmouth
This workshop features expert speakers addressing the science of climate change; the current and anticipated impacts on shoreline erosion, coastal and floodplain structures, wetlands and other habitats, and water supplies; and adaptation strategies applicable to local communities. Information and resources to support adaptation planning will be provided. The workshop is aimed at municipal decision-makers, including staff and elected/appointed officials involved in town administration, planning, conservation, water resource management, public health, engineering, energy, etc. It was developed based in part on needs identified by municipal officials, staff, and volunteers from many of the towns on the Cape during a series of energy/climate meetings conducted through the Cape & Islands Renewable Energy Collaborative.
Free; includes lunch. Registration requested: Conference Program & Registration Form
Sponsored by Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Massachusetts CZM and DCR, WHOI Sea Grant
Registration: Laurie Tompkins, 508.457.0495 x 108, Laurie.Tompkins@state.ma.us
Information: Tonna-Marie Surgeon-Rogers, 508.457.0495 x 110, Tonna-Marie.Surgeon-Rogers@state.ma.us
Visit www.cigogreen.org for information on other upcoming energy-related events.
Climate Change And Cape Cod Coastal Impacts And Adaptation Strategies
| December 4, 2007 |
December 4, 2007, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Cape & Islands Association of Realtors Conference Center, 22 Mid-Tech Drive, West Yarmouth
This workshop features expert speakers addressing the science of climate change; the current and anticipated impacts on shoreline erosion, coastal and floodplain structures, wetlands and other habitats, and water supplies; and adaptation strategies applicable to local communities. Information and resources to support adaptation planning will be provided. The workshop is aimed at municipal decision-makers, including staff and elected/appointed officials involved in town administration, planning, conservation, water resource management, public health, engineering, energy, etc. It was developed based in part on needs identified by municipal officials, staff, and volunteers from many of the towns on the Cape during a series of energy/climate meetings conducted through the Cape & Islands Renewable Energy Collaborative.
Free; includes lunch. Registration requested: Conference Program & Registration Form
Sponsored by Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Massachusetts CZM and DCR, WHOI Sea Grant
Registration: Laurie Tompkins, 508.457.0495 x 108, Laurie.Tompkins@state.ma.us
Information: Tonna-Marie Surgeon-Rogers, 508.457.0495 x 110, Tonna-Marie.Surgeon-Rogers@state.ma.us
Visit www.cigogreen.org for information on other upcoming energy-related events.
Just For Fun Lewis Black On Global Warming
(Via)
Why Stopping Coal Power Is Important
In 2006, China burned more than twice as much coal as any other country, according to a Vital Signs Update released today by the Worldwatch Institute. China’s coal use amounted to 39 percent of the global total, followed by the United States with 18 percent. The European Union and India came in third and fourth place, accounting for 10 percent and 8 percent of total coal use, respectively.
Coal accounted for a quarter of the world’s primary energy supply in 2006 and supplied nearly a third (32 percent) of all fossil fuel-based energy. Due to its high carbon content, however, coal was responsible for approximately 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
The demand for coal is growing rapidly in China, which accounted for more than 70 percent of the global growth in coal use in 2006 and for more than 60 percent of the rise in coal use over the past decade. India, responsible for just over 10 percent of the growth in world coal use in the last 10 years, ranks a distant second.
Growing acknowledgment of the health, climate, and other environmental impacts of coal use has led to mounting political opposition to new coal-fired power plants in the United States and Europe. But the uncertainty about coal’s future in industrial countries is overshadowed by its dominance in the energy mix of large developing economies. In both China and India, coal maintains a preeminent role in plans to meet the projected rapid growth in energy demand.
A true reconciliation of coal with the climate risk it presents must soon confront coal-fired power not only in the United States and other industrialized countries, but also on its new home turf in rapidly industrializing developing countries.
IBM Wants To Make The World Better
IBM has been doing some interesting things as of late. Recently they started taking flawed computer chips and turning them into solar panels (isn’t that nice).
Through this new reclamation process IBM is now able to more efficiently remove the intellectual property from the wafer surface, making these wafers available either for reuse in internal manufacturing calibration as “monitor wafers” or for sale to the solar cell industry, which must meet a growing demand for the same silicon material to produce photovoltaic cells for solar panels. IBM intends to provide details of the new process to the broader semiconductor manufacturing industry. It is currently in use the Burlington, VT facility and in the process of being implemented at IBM’s East Fishkill, NY, semiconductor fabrication plant.
“One of the challenges facing the solar industry is a severe shortage of silicon, which threatens to stall its rapid growth,” said Charles Bai, chief financial officer of ReneSola, one of China’s fastest growing solar energy companies. “This is why we have turned to reclaimed silicon materials sourced primarily from the semiconductor industry to supply the raw material our company needs to manufacture solar panels.”
IBM and others in the industry use silicon wafers both as the starting material for manufacturing microelectronic products — from cell phones to computers to consumer electronics — and to monitor and control the myriad of steps in the manufacturing process. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, worldwide 250,000 wafers are started per day across the industry. IBM estimates that up to 3.3% of these started wafers are scrapped. In the course of the year, this amounts to approximately three million discarded wafers.
3 million wafers:
* Stretch for 375 miles if placed end-to-end
* Cover 22.5 acres of area
* Weigh 187.5 tons
* Generate 13.5 megawatts of solar energy
* Produce 57 million kilowatt hours in solar panels (12-hour day x 365 days)
* Power 6,000 houses (9,500 kWh per year per house)
Pretty interesting to think of trash not in terms of weight, or cost, but in terms of how much clean renewable energy it could make.
Now they have five innovations they claim will transform how people around the world will work and live in the next five years.
From helping to create a more green environment to improving cell phones, the IBM “Next 5 in 5″ list is based on market and societal trends as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s labs around the world. The five areas in which IBM expects to see technological improvements include: energy, cell phone functionality, traffic congestion, food intake and medical tools for doctors.
Interesting stuff. Click here (pdf) for more info about the 5 in 5 plan.
RSS XML Feed
