Category: Education & Research

Higher education, research and technical development are quite essential not only for developed countries but also for the developing countries. These are basic instruments for raising the standard of life as expressed in terms of Gross Domestic Product GDP (PPP) per capita, the level unemployment and environmental quality. However, GDP (PPP) per capita doesn’t serve as a perfect indicator of the quality of life. Generation of knowledge, development of affordable and reliable products and services are driven by society and market needs, also the existing and emerging pressures on finding prompt solutions for the ever increasing environmental and climatic threats. These sectors – higher education – research – technical developments – are very resource demanding especially for the developing countries and hereby require high level of management in terms of policy-making, coordination, qualified human resources and solid infrastructures. The role of international organizations and donation institutes is vital for capacity building, financial and technical support including transfer-of-knowledge, training, instrumentation, education and research infrastructures.

Berlin/IPCC – Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Still Accelerating

Berlin, 13 April – A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change “IPCC” indicates that global emissions of greenhouse gases have accelerated despite reduction efforts. The report, also, shows that many pathways to substantial emission reductions are available. As, many other atmospheric pollutants and toxic compounds are expected, also, to be associated with the emissions of greenhouse gases, then enhanced degradation in world aquatic and ecosystems will be taking place in parallel. In addition, the sites where these emissions are taking place there would be additional local and regional problems as well to the workers, in particular “high occupational levels of pollution” and the public health of individuals “air quality” in general.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1404/S00127/many-pathways-to-substantial-emissions-reductions-available.htm

Comment

South Africa’s Sustainability Challenge: Food; Energy and Water

By 2030 South Africa will have 60 million people, i.e. more than double of today’s population, to feed. Today’s water and energy resources are already used up for living and providing food. The only solution is SUSTAINABLE planning and recognizing the way these three resources, i.e. food, energy and water, are INTER-CONNECTED.  We need sustainability as much as sustainability needs us.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MGNxRZD4Uxs

Comment

Middle East – Railways for 250 Billion US Dollars

Follow the mega constructions in the Middle East region for the transformation to more a sustainable future where railways provide the most environment friendly and sustainable large-scale and long-term transportation system. Mr. Loay Ghazaleh, Advisor at the Undersecretary Offices, The Ministry of Works, Bahrain, describes in a comprehensive, pedagogic and innovative slideshow the ME “Middle East” Railway Development and PPP “Public Private Partnership” Financing Framework over the next ten years. A major shift in the transport sector of the Middle East with enormous investments that can bring about huge feedback advantages regarding mobility of goods and citizens.  

ABSTRACT. The Middle East has allocated nearly $250bn to various railway projects over the next 10 years with ambitious plan to build around 67,000km of railway tracks throughout the region. The region has the opportunity to build the world’s most advanced passenger and freight transport systems. The presentation touches on all aspects of railway development and strategies in the region including different Public private Partnership (PPP) models and financing / funding advice to better develop rail projects as a sustainable means of transport.

http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/loayghz/me-railway-development-ppp-financing-framework

2 Comments

Canada Oil Sands – How Sustainable is Sustainable?

 

Increasing energy demands and pressures on Conventional Light Oil “CLO” of the Eastern Hemisphere (85% of the global inventory) have shifted the focus to Unconventional Heavy Oil “UHO” and Conventional Tar Sands “CTS” deposits around the world. The major part of “UHO” is in the Western Hemisphere (69% of the inventory), mainly the USA, while the majot part of “CTS” is being found in Canada. We have to keep in mind that the world inventories of UHO” and “CTS” may, indeed, exceed the global inventories of “CLO”.

Unconventional oil sources and oil sands are created in the same way as conventional oil—that is, through the combination of organic material, heat, and pressure. The main difference between the two is their ability to move underground. Conventional oil migrates upward due to its buoyancy. This oil moves through pathways in the underground rock in its fluid state and becomes trapped between impermeable layers of rock. Unconventional oil and oil (tar) sands, meanwhile, is formed in sealed spaces of rock, or being mixed with sand, and is not able to move up; it therefore remains in the source rock/sand, trapped in pores or unconnected pores. Unconventional oil and oil or tar sands are therefore produced and extracted using techniques other than conventional method used in Conventional Oil industries. Governments across the globe are investing in unconventional oil sources due to the increasing scarcity of conventional oil resources. 

Due to the different nature of accumulation and existence in underground formations and difficulties associated with production/extraction of unconventional oil and oil sands there are multiple of additional environmental threats and climatic impacts. Production and extraction of unconventional oil and oil sands consume much more water, have enhanced negative impacts on the environment in terms of produced waste, contamination and pollution especially what regards degradation of aquatic life, eco-systems and bio-diversity. Moreover, carbon dioxide emissions from the production and extraction of unconventional oil and oil sands are relatively higher, up to 20%. Indeed, the climatic and environmental (http://blogs.worldwatch.org/revolt/unconventional-oil-implications-for-the-environment-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2/) impacts of unconventional oil and oil sands are not fully understood and consequence assessment analyses are fragmentary, incomplete and far from being representative especially what regards the large-scale and long-term impacts and threats.

http://www.greenparty.ca/sites/greenparty.ca/files/attachments/a_comprehensive_guide_to_the_alberta_oil_sands_-_may_2011_-_last_revised_march_2012.pdf

Comment

Uganda – Green Politics for Sustainable Socio-Economic Developments

Bringing about sustainable socio-economic developments in any society is an enormous task and requires mobilization of a wide-range of stakeholders in all sectors and on all levels.  Politics in this context is of central importance for turning sustainability to reality especially in developing countries.

Uganda recognized the importance of green politics in 2006 where Pilot International (http://www.pilot-int.org/index.html) was founded, by ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA (Full BIO: http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=38, the President General, Ecological Party and Uganda’s Green Party. The mission is to promote global sustainable development for the benefit of humanity and the planet, advocate peace, security, unity, preservation of the environment and ecosystem for socio-economic development. The Green ideology of Pilot International rests on solidarity that can be expressed in three parts: Solidarity with all the people of the world; Solidarity with animals, nature and the ecological system; Solidarity with future generations. For more information on this Political Platform, please, visit: 

http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=16

ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA is currently a Guest Blogger at “sustain-earth”

 

 

2 Comments

Ethiopia – Innovation in Coupling Education to Society and Population Needs

Poverty is a social longstanding problem and throughout the human history there have been enormous efforts for raising the public awareness about the huge threats and negative impacts of poverty on the socio-economic developments. There are well-documents correlations between poverty and high crime rates, corruption, illiteracy, sanitation, diseases, many other social fragmentation, cultural and degradation problems. Poverty is the biggest single obstacle not only for achieving sustainable socio-economic development but also for bringing about political stability, safety and security in any society. It is a “socio-economic debt” and without appropriate instruments to cure such “socio-economic debt” a pileup of negative impacts and threats will be the ultimate fate of any society with a final result of total socio-economic collapse. The pathway to  poverty is much simpler than erasing it and once deep rooted it isn’t simple to revert the situation. Religions have recognized poverty as a huge social defect. However, with the increasing importance of politics, cultural diversity, social welfare systems, individualism and competitions in a labor free and globalized market new instruments are needed, if not imperative, to erase or at least to reduce poverty.

If we don’t fight poverty will be forced to fight poor people, which is already happening. It is an enormous task for the developing countries, especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia, to build up modern societies with acceptable, affordable and accessible water, energy and food resources in the shadow of an increasingly global complexity in trade and economy. Engagement of all stakeholder and population through NGOs is of increasing importance as political and governmental systems alone are proved to be insufficient especially for effective and rapid transformation to more welfare based societies. One of such NGOs “Stand for Vulnerable Organization ( SVO)” was established in Ethiopia already in 2005 by Misganaw Eticha, currently a Guest Blogger at “sustain-earth”.

For more information about Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO), please visit: http://www.sva.org.et/about-us/historical-background/

Comment

Historical Development of Stand for Vulnerable Organization on Child Development Services

The Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) was founded by Misganaw Eticha Dubie and his wife Tadelu Debissa Eticha with other three co-founders: Berhanu Kenea Yifru, Fayera Abdissa Kitla and Daniel Fantaye Bekana.

Misganaw Eticha Dubie (the founder) was a second year university student in 1992. On April 3, 1992, he went outside of the university campus to look for a shoeshine after he had his lunch. While a Shoe shiner was polishing his shoes, the founder looked at the nearby mother who was sitting on the roadside with her three children, two daughters and a son. Her tears were flowing down while the son was eating bread but the two daughters were crying for. The founder asked the mother “why are you weeping and your children are crying?” The mother immediately responded, “They are hungry”. He was stricken by her words of hunger and gave her the bread that he took for a Shoe Shiner from his lunch plate. This bread was to be given to the Shoe Shiner instead of the payment of some coins. Because of the sensitivity of the founder towards the incident, humanitarian service concept conceived on that day in his mind. He recalled the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 25: 35-45, which directs His disciples to reach for the poor and geared his mind to start thinking on how to give birth of the conception. His heart never got a rest from that day onwards to seek ways and strategies of realizing desired wholistic development for children and empowering their guardians particularly their mothers who mostly suffer with their children.

The founder understood that children and mothers are the most affected vulnerable sections of a society from external shocks. The situation has persuaded him to concentrate on prioritizing children and their mothers/ women’s’ involvement in any process of development undertakings. He started reading and learning operational experiences of other previously established humanitarian organizations on their organizational administration, effectiveness, efficiency, partnership, leadership and other related issues to have an organization with a strong ground in bringing the desired goal in Ethiopia. This enabled him to learn the strengths and weaknesses of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and started to design how to share his vision and recruit people who shared the vision and willing to shoulder the burden and serve their communities with a genuine good will. The dream to have strong kind of NGO in Ethiopia challenged the founder and pushed him to take time to work on effective founding strategies of the Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO).

During his efforts to share his vision, he faced many challenges from different people. Many people and organizations were suspicious about a motive of NGO establishment since they see some NGOs misuse organizational resources. This has made the beginning difficult to convince and get committed collaborators to found the SVO. Since it was difficult to believe the idea that was not concrete and on the ground, people were with full of questions and reluctant to work with the founder except a few people. However, the pain of Ethiopian people never gave him rest to evacuate from the vision but continued his way with perseverance, which finally brought forth the birth of the Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) after 12 years of its conception.

Finally, by organizing five co-founders including his wife, who was committed for the founding of the organization at all required costs and shared his burden, he led the meeting on the birth of SVO on October 15, 2005. The intention is to have a strong organization that was not simply adding the number of NGOs but to bring an NGO that is able to influence the development of the country in a meaningful way. With this notion and experience of its first conception of incidence in mind, SVO set priority to address the needs of children and their guardians, particularly women, in its development works to revenge poverty that has been the enemy of generations. It is all about empowering the Ethiopian communities so that they are able to fight poverty particularly the state of being devoid of basic needs.

Fulfilling all the legal requirements, SVO was officially registered on July 26, 2006 at the national level by its previous name, the Stand for the Vulnerables Association (SVA). Under the new Proclamation of 621/2001, the Stand for Vulnerable Organization was re-registered on October 16, 2009 by Charities and Societies Agency with a slight change to its name as the Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO).

After its legal registration, the first General Assembly Meeting was held on August 26, 2006 at the Marxist (Dibab Square) in front of Addis Ababa University (Main Campus) and its first official executive board members and executive director were appointed by the General Assembly. The meeting was held at the Square because of the organization was a new beginner without office. The rain that was falling on the attendants of the meeting was unforgettable in the history of SVO since it indicates the level of commitment of the General Assembly members who were recruited and committed to contribute to the development of our country.

The Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) then after was shifted from the vision of single person to the vision of many people who were organized into legal body of General Assembly members to aggressively fight the poverty in the country. The General Assembly members of SVO consists of trained development experts with rich experiences in child and women development, natural resource management, livelihood improvement, health development, consultancy work, education, leadership and management working with different non-governmental and government organizations. It is with this strong background that the General Assembly members were well equipped with expertise and experience of project planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Above all, they are people with deep love for their country and committed heart to serve their people at any cost. This commitment of the founders and General Assembly members helped SVO to move forward to the position of bringing inexorable impact in the development direction of our country.

Misganaw Eticha
Executive Director
Stand for Vulnerable Organization ( SVO)

· © 2014 Stand for Vulnerable Organization (SVO) (http://www.sva.org.et/about-us/historical-background/)

Author name: Misganaw Eticha
Speciality and expertise: Sociology (BA); Development Studies
Sector/Affiliation: Child and Youth Development
Adress: Addis Ababa – Ethiopia
E-mail: misganaweticha.svo@gmail.com
Mobile: +251911516426
Type of contribution: Child Development

1 Comment

Transformation to Clean Energy – The Canadian Challenges

The world is currently facing growing pressures for transformation to clean energy in order to mitigate the environmental and climatic impacts of traditional energy sources. For Canada transformation to clean energy is still a big challenge, however it represents a unique opportunity for traditional energy producers and clean energy producers to team-up. These players have to come-up with a coherent task with the government to assure further development of traditional sources of energy in environmentally responsible manner while at the same time start grow more quickly to clean electricity sector. Resolving these issues will make it possible to meet the challenges for the transition to clean energy.

Similar challenges for countries with high carbon dioxide emission per capita, also, exist around the world but not all the countries have the same possibilities and resources for full and quick transformation to clean energy because of necessary huge capital investments, access to the required high-tech infra-structure/expertise and above all the political will. However, countries with low carbon dioxide emissions per capita, e.g. in Africa and South America, have to implement policies and encourage promotion of clean energy production while building up their technology, industry and production sectors.

http://www.pembina.org/pub/2406

Comment

Lessons to be learned – The Sustainability Program of North Ireland

While there are no “standard maps” for achieving successful sustainable socio-economic developments everywhere in the world, yet we can learn from exiting strategies and solutions. Naturally, nations around the world have own conditions, structures, needs and may exist in different stages of development with complex internal and external political, economical and trade relations. Assessing the existing models and strategies helps formulating short and long-term roadmaps that are appropriate and suitable to the socio-economic needs and conditions. Successful socio-economic developments can’t be based on random actions and have to follow robust strategies emanating from effective, collective and coherent interactions between all sectors and on all levels. In this context, cloudy and conflicting interesting “within and between” nations can be major obstacles for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments.

An example on how to build national roadmaps for bring about successful socio-economic developments even under economic constrains is given here.

http://www.sustainableni.org/index.php

Comment

“Sustain-earth” at Ångström’s Laboratory, Uppsala University

The news letter “Det händer på Ångström” at Ångström’s Laboratory, Uppsala University, has announced an open-call for contributions to “sustain-earth”. Translation from Swedish to English is given below.

Farid El-Daoushy, professor em vid fysik och astronomi, Ångströmlaboratoriet, hälsar alla välkomna att besöka, dela och bidra i “sustain-earth”, en blogg för marknadsföring av utbildning och forskning, popularisering av vetenskap och teknik, stödjande av ”Open Access” med fokus på hållbar utveckling.

Inbyggda funktioner finns för koppling av utbildning och forskning till samhället och marknaden på nationell och internationell nivå samt skapande av karriärutvecklingsplaner. http://sustain-earth.com verkar för ökad hållbarhet inom alla sektorer och på olika nivåer där Sverige är ledande.

In English.

Farid El-Daoushy, professor em at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ångström’s Laboratory (Uppsala University) welcomes all to visit, share and contribute in “sustain-earth”, a bolg for marketing education and research, popularization of knowledge and technology, and for supporting “Open Access” with focus on sustainable development.

Embedded functions are available for coupling education and research to the society and the market on national and international levels as well as for creation of Career-Development-Plans. http://sustain-earth.com strives towards enhanced sustainability in all sectors and on all levels where Sweden is a leading nation.

Det händer på Ångström, April 2014

Comment

GREEN POLITICS ANSWER TO GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES

The green ideology is a philosophy practiced and advocated for by a coalition of political leaders and activists, whose goal is to advocate for peace, security, unity, preservation of the environment and ecosystem for socio-economic development, all over the world. These political leaders and activists are called “The Greens”. The Green ideology rests on solidarity that can be expressed in three parts: Solidarity with all the people of the world; Solidarity with animals, nature and the ecological system; Solidarity with future generations. For more information on this Political Platform, please, visit: 

http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=16.

The fact that the green ideology puts environmental responsibility at the same level like other development sectors, means that it provides the necessary political will to curb environmental degradation, which is more often lacking with conventional governments.  

ABOUT the author: ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA, is the President General, Ecological Party of Uganda, which is Uganda’s Green Party. She is a Green MP Candidate for Kawempe North Constituency 2016 in Kampala Uganda. Full BIO: http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=38 
Comment

Mechanized Agriculture in Sudan – Collapse of Sustainable Land-Water Management.

UNEP along FAO, ICRAF and a number of Sudanese NGOs and institutes describe how and why the agricultural sectors in Sudan were gradually degraded and moved rapidly towards more or less total collapse because of environment over-taxation. Since the introduction of mechanization of rain-fed agriculture by the British in 1944 several negative impacts, due to lack of control and planning, were piled up during the last half of the 20th century. This has caused large-scale destruction of environment and triggered severe negative impacts in other sectors as well. The traditional and mechanized agriculture account for 55 and 45 percent respectively of the rain-fed cultivated area. The importance of the irrigated sub-sector is reflected in the fact that while it makes up only 7 percent of the cultivated area, it accounts for more than half of the crop yields. However, irrigated land has own problems. Rapid, uncontrolled privatization, random investment and failure to couple education and research to market and society needs are major causes.

Management of land-water resources in Africa is IMPERATIVE. However, past experiences show not only major failure but the great threats of the blind and random implementation of imported technologies, e.g. Sudan where its cultivable land is about 42 percent with frequent claims that it is the potential ‘breadbasket’ of Africa and Middle East. Agriculture, the largest economic sector in Sudan, became the heart of some of the country’s most serious environmental problems: wide-range of land degradation, riverbank erosion, invasive species, pesticide mismanagement, water pollution and canal sedimentation. Also rangeland’s vulnerability to overgrazing is high and its overlap with cultivation is a major source of potential conflict. The significance of these threats cannot be underestimated: not only are 15 percent of the population partly or wholly dependent on imported food aid, but the population is growing, per hectare crop yields are declining and the enhanced competition over scarce agricultural resources.

The agricultural sector in Sudan is the main source of sustained growth and backbone of Sudan’s economy. Unfortunately, the sector’s economic stake is declining more and more with the emergence of the oil industry. Sudan continues to depend heavily on agriculture, whose share fluctuates around 40 percent of the GDP. The crop and livestock sub-sectors together contribute 80 to 90 percent of non-oil export earnings. With these trends the country will face more unemployment and famine as fifty-eight percent of the active workforce is employed in agriculture and 83 percent of the population depends on farming for its livelihood.

Global warming adds new threats as the agricultural sector in Sudan is highly vulnerable to shortages in rainfall and there has been substantial decline in precipitation and climate change models predict that this trend will continue. Without major action to stop the wave of de-gradation and restore land productivity, the natural resource base will continue to shrink, even as demand grows. Resolving this issue is thus central to achieving lasting peace and food security.

Click to access 08_agriculture.pdf

Comment

Amazing High Tech Farm – A Complete Meal Using A Mobile!

Eric Maundu, owner and founder of “Kijani Grows” (“Kijani” is Swahili for green), isn’t a farmer, he’s an engineer with a computer science degree from USA. Maundu himself ran from agriculture in his native Kenya- where he saw it as a struggle for land, water and resources. In the USA he felt the negative impacts of urbanization, industrial waste and traffic pollution on contamination of soils and degradation in land-water resources. In industrial/urban areas and cities, freeways, roads, light rail and parking lots so there’s not much arable land and the soil is contaminated. With these threats in mind he realized he could farm without soil, with little water via aquaponics and with possibilities to use “self-cleaning” and recycling as well as that he could apply his robotics background to farming. An amazing combination of: physics; chemistry; biology; ecology; and computer science in one system.

No soil, instead Maundu is growing plants using fish and circulating water. It’s called aquaponics- a gardening system that combines hydroponics (water-based planting) and aquaculture (fish farming). It’s been hailed as the future of farming: it uses less water (up to 90% less than traditional gardening), doesn’t attract soil-based bugs and produces two types of produce (both plants and fish)., i.e. a full meal!

Maundu- by being trained in industrial robotics- has taken the agricultural craft one step further and made his “aquaponics” smart. Using sensors (to detect water level, pH and temperature), microprocessors, relay cards, clouds and social media networks. Maundu has programmed his gardens to tweet when there’s a problem, e.g. not enough water or when there’s news, e.g. an over-abundance of food to share. With these smart solutions the same information can be shared with farmers in Iceland and China.” Maundu believes that by putting gardens online, especially in places where solar-powered gardens are totally off the grid), is the only way to make sure that farming remains viable to the next generation of urban youth.

1 Comment

Do-It-Yourself: How Does Methane Biodigester Work?

There are many technical approaches and levels of complexity for turning leftover food and manure till biogas. Understanding the underlying science and concepts in a simple way can help to gradually construct and develop own solutions to achieve affordable, efficient and friendly fuctional facilities.

You have input material, i.e. initial reactants that are processed under reduced “anaerobic” conditions, i.e. air free from oxygen through using sealed containers, at a suitable temperature, and more or less neutral conditions. The temperature range can vary around 40 degrees celsius, and to be controlled using heat from the sun along with suitable insolation if necessary, i.e. depending on region and season. The initial reactants have to be crushed to facilitate the bacterial reaction where we have two types of bacteria, e.g. those creating acidity and those producing methane. There are high-energy organic matter, i.e. those with high sugar and high carbohydrate content, and low-energy organic matter such as grass and manure (more or less consumed organic matter). High-energy food promote production of acidity, i.e. “acid” type of bacteria while the other methane-producing bacteria are much more accessible in animal manure. The liquid leftover “effluent” from the whole process may be used fertilizer, however it can be beneficial to do some analysis to see the quality in relation to the composition of the reactants. In this context, adjustment of the control parameters, i.e. temperature, duration and acidity as well as the composition of reactants can be part of development and optimization of the production facilities.

Comment

Sustainability Needs You As Much As You Need It.

The needs, drivers and tools to make life accessible, affordable and sustainable on earth are explained and described at “Sustain-Earth”. Take a cop of coffee or tea and explore what “Sustain-Earth” is ABOUT.

ABOUT Sustain-Earth.com

1 Comment

Would Algae solve our Food, health and Energy Needs?

Our understanding of algae, their unique and rich diversity, is shifting more and more towards finding industrial applications for production of useful products, in particular, food (human food, fish food and animal food), energy and farmaceutical products. There are known methods and tools to extract oil and other valuable products from algae, also to change the genetic content and chemical composition of many algae.

Many and many organizations give lots of money for research for commercialization of algae. Research takes is typical path fuelled by society needs, human hopes for prosperity and fears from environmental threats. In this amazing journey of what we are right now and where we are heading to, there are several important facts to be known, e.g. benefits and threats. There are, also, key interests in understanding the potential of artificial photosynthesis as a new path, not yet fully understood, for production of energy.

Algae are “biochemical reactors” that can recycle carbon to produce organic compounds in different forms, which indeed is the origin of all the gas and oil reservoirs around the world. Multi-hundred-million dollar industries have invested in many products, e.g. sushi wrap, oils, dental impression, ice cream thickener, cosmetics, medical products, plastics… etc. They still invest more and more money for production of energy-rich food, biofuel from algae and use of wastewater to grow algae as well as for the extraction of other useful products like coloring agents and anti-oxidant, agro-culture business for production of food in the fish and shellfish industries.

Basic research is needed, and even imperative, to solve central bottleneck in algae processing technology ranging from cultivation, harvesting, extraction of desired products, processing and refining. Micro-algae are known to grow very fast and there is commercial potential in industrial microbiology where molecular biology in combination with aquaculture and marine farming can yield hybrid and novel technologies. Unlike industrial small-scale microbial technologies, e.g. cheese, beer, alcohol that are based on “closed systems” trying to cultivate algae on large-scale, i.e. in open systems, is a great challenge. Algae are now looked upon as the most sustainable known potential source of biofuel. The challenges are transferring the many different types of small-scale bioreactors to open systems for growing algae at large scale. Up-scaling of algae-based technology leads to emergent issues that are not fully controlled, e.g. competitor algae, predators and diseases (bacteria and viruses). Up-scaling to large-scale open systems, therefore, requires solving a wide-range of difficulties and threats including those arising from varying weather conditions, e.g temperature, and much work is still needed.

2 Comments

Oldest Single CELL “3.5 Billion Years” – Most Important With Much Secrets and Hopes

Earth – the blue planet: lots of water-lots of algae-lots of oxygen. The most important and oldest single cell plants on earth “The Algae” and the very reason of our existence. These single cells carry lots of secrets and many of them are still unknown to us though they played important roles in the evolution and development of life on earth. They have micro- and nano- devices with complex molecular structures and diversity of biochemical metabolic reactions, e.g. photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, production of amino acids and lipids. Algae with thousands and thousands of species can be very small or very large in size with different colors and can be useful or harmful. Algae remains, diatoms, can be preserved in sediments for millions of years. The most important is that algae are the origin of gas and oil and recently that  algae can be used for production and a source of biofuel!

Comment

DIY – Biogas from leftover food and animal manure.

Waste from animals and household can have negative and harmful impacts on the environment, i.e. land-water resources, as well as on health because of degradation of sanitation and living conditions. However, when sorted and treated can be useful sources conservation of natural resources, for improves economy, for producing energy, (biogas or electricity, and fertilizers e.g. different forms of organic fertilizers). It is simply because leftover food and animal manure are organic matter rich in carbon which is a basic element for production of biogas. Breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, i.e. anaerobic digestion with anaerobic bacteria, can produce biogas. Biogas can, also, be produced by fermentation of biodegradable materials such as manure, sewage, municipal and green waste, plants and crops.

Note: In order to get the best possible out-put from DIY “DO-It-Yourself” you are strongly encouraged to address questions, give comments and contribute in discussions. This will in addition to bringing more clarity, will also contribute in making modifications and further adjustment or even developments for better adaptation to local conditions, e.g. climate, mixture of waste, availability of construction material, running conditions and maintenance aspects.

Comment

Feedback Impacts of Land-Water Qualities on Agricultural Technologies.

Agricultural production is very much dependent on land-water resources and in recent decades there have been trends towards new agricultural solutions either to substitute the increasing degradation in land-water qualities or to find new agricultural alternatives more suitable for arid and semi-arid climate.

Degradation in water quality resulting from waste, pollutions and sanitation on the one hand, and reduced land quality due to decreasing soil fertility, man-made technological interferences “dams”, soil erosion and climate change on the other, triggered new shifts in agricultural technologies. Traditional agricultural techniques are becoming more and more dependent on artificial fertilization either to compensate for decreasing soil fertility and/or to increase soil productivity.

Chemical pesticides are still in use, inefficient irrigation routines and further pressures on water resources have, also, caused gradual degradation in land-water resources in particular the large-scale and long-term negative impacts on water resources.

These trends have forced shifts towards new agricultural technologies that either rely on less land and indoor green-house solutions and/or what is known as “complete liquid fertilizers” as well as clean sterilized organic-fertilization. These solutions, foliar spray, fertigation programs, hydroponic solutions, aireal/soil application of “liquid complete” and/or “sterilized clean organic” ferilizers” have new advantages. However they either shifted focus to alternative solutions that may require additional costs, i.e. making food production less economic, or made farming and agriculture that can not afford the new technologies to continue their “business-as-usual” traditions.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/A-COMPLETE-LIQUID-FERTILIZER/2283468

Comment

Bonobo Apes – Kindness and Empathy in the Animal Kingdom.

This natural documentary gives some clues about the very origins of human behavior. Bonobos do resemble chimpanzees but they are completely different species diverged from each other around two million years ago. Where chimpanzees fight and murder bonobos are peacemakers and unlike chimps it is not the bonobos males but the females who have the power. So, bonobos social life tells us a different story about kindness and empathy and that these characters do not belong to people alone. The bonobos are deeply intelligent apes, relaxed, highly social and develop life-long friendships. These and many other reasons explain why they are so peaceful and from where we get our gentler side of our behavior. Knowledge that is largely unknown to the rest of the world.

Two groups of researchers set up study camps in Lomako and Wamba in the rain forest of the Congo to do forest observation and document the social behavior of bonobos, our nearest relatives. The work of these researchers was interrupted during a decade of political instabilities and civil strive in the Congo with major threats for the life of bonobos as they were hunted for meat of a starved population. After the end of these instabilities the researchers started to return to see if there were still hopes and chances to complete their research and to get more answers from the bonobos.

Comment