There is clean and then there is clean. In the world, as a rule of thumb, the North is clean and the South is dirty. Indeed only two of the top-25 cleanest cities in the world are below the Equator--Auckland, New Zealand, and Wellington, New Zealand.

The cleanest cities are largely located in countries noted for their democracy and their industrialization. The only Asian cities represented are in Japan. There are no top-25 clean cities in South or Central America, Africa and Australia. The U.S. has five of the top 25; Canada, a strong five, with the top spot its city of Calgary; Europe has 11 of the top 25; and Japan has three.

The 25 cleanest cities are located in 13 countries. It may not be accidental that these countries are among the highest in purchasing power parity according to the World Development Indicator database of the World Bank.

Twelve are in the top 20, and only New Zealand lags in wealth, at No. 37 on the list of world's wealthiest. So clean may also mean well-off.

The World's Cleanest Cities

To be clean a city has to face and solve many problems that otherwise lead to unsanitary conditions and poor health as well as possible economic stagnation. Producing energy for industry, homes and transportation has to be planned and executed reasonably, and this means some form of regulation and control.

To be clean means organizing what is done with waste. Landfills are being closed or filled up. Recycling is the only long-range answer, but this takes civic discipline, a system and preferably a system that turns a profit. Green only works well when it results in greenbacks.

In addition a city has to look closely at its transportation infrastructure (roads, rail, air, subways) and their impact upon being clean or going dirty or staying dirty. The logistics infrastructure is also critical in terms of efficiency that can translate into money and fuel savings that in turn affect cleanliness (air quality, water quality and ground quality).

Taken all together as with clean energy generation, waste control, recycling and various levels of infrastructure reorganization, the challenge is formidable. Some will recommend taking on one challenge at a time, and this may be what President Bush has in mind with ethanol.

Bush's advocacy of ethanol is a step towards cleaner fuel and in turn cleaner cities. The idea is also controversial as the resources available for ethanol are directly related to the food supply chain. There can be great friction over sharing such resources. Some are advocating inputs beyond corn grain.

"One of the most abundant potential resources we have is the nonfood parts of the corn plant, including the stalks, leaves and husks,” says Dr. Michael Pacheco, director of the National Bioenergy Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The figures for the cleanest cities are derived from studies by the Mercer Human Resources Consulting that cull from 300 cities, identifying overall quality of living as well as special reports on regions. It is interesting to note that size does not appear to be a factor either in terms of size of population or physical size of the city. The most common trait in common to each is a focus on high tech, education and headquartering of national and international companies along with an extensive public transit system.

The World's Cleanest Cities - The List

http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/16/worlds-cleanest-cities-biz-logistics-cx_rm_0416cleanest_slide_24.html?thisSpeed=15000

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It kind of sucks to be the Montreal Protocol. Not only do you lack the name recognition of your compatriot from Kyoto, you also go widely unrecognized for the work you've done to fight global warming.

The phaseout of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons under the Montreal treaty -- negotiated in 1987 to protect the ozone layer -- has dramatically slowed the rate of climate change, as CFCs are also potent greenhouse gases. (Shocking statistic alert: common chemical CFC-12 is 11,000 times as heat-trapping as carbon dioxide. Eleven. Thousand. Times.)

Research published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences simulated how the planet would have warmed if not for the humble Montreal Protocol -- which contributed to a 60 percent drop in global CFC emissions from 1989 to 1995 -- and "clearly shows that things are possible in a global treaty," says lead author Guus Velders. "We gained about 10 years for climate change."

Excellent! We'll pencil in "apocalypse" for 2017.

http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2007/03/07/2/ 

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The amount of water in the world is limited. The human race, and the other species which share the planet, cannot expect an infinite supply. Water covers about two-thirds of the Earth's surface, admittedly. But most is too salty for use. Population is rising, but water supplies are not Only 2.5% of the world's water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers. Of what is left, about 20% is in remote areas, and much of the rest arrives at the wrong time and place, as monsoons and floods. Humans have available less than 0.08% of all the Earth's water. Yet over the next two decades our use is estimated to increase by about 40%. Water shortages set to grow In 1999 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that 200 scientists in 50 countries had identified water shortage as one of the two most worrying problems for the new millennium (the other was global warming). We use about 70% of the water we have in agriculture. But the World Water Council believes that by 2020 we shall need 17% more water than is available if we are to feed the world. GETTING WORSE Growing populations Inefficient irrigation Pollution So if we go on as we are, millions more will go to bed hungry and thirsty each night than do so already. Today, one person in five across the world has no access to safe drinking water, and one in two lacks safe sanitation. Today, and every day, more than 30,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthdays, killed either by hunger or by easily-preventable diseases. And adequate safe water is key to good health and a proper diet. In China, for example, it takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce one tonne of wheat. Inefficiency behind water crisis There are several reasons for the water crisis. One is the simple rise in population, and the desire for better living standards. In China it takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce one tonne of wheat Another is the inefficiency of the way we use much of our water. Irrigation allows wastage on a prodigal scale, with the water trickling away or simply evaporating before it can do any good. And pollution is making more of the water that is available to us unfit for use. The Aral Sea in central Asia is one of the starkest examples of what pollution can do, to the land as well as the water. Increasingly, governments are seeking to solve their water problems by turning away from reliance on rainfall and surface water, and using subterranean supplies of groundwater instead. But that is like making constant withdrawals from a bank account without ever paying anything into it. Looking for solutions And using up irreplaceable groundwater does not simply mean the depletion of a once-and-for-all resource. Rivers, wetlands and lakes that depend on it can dry out. Saline seawater can flow in to replace the fresh water that has been pumped out. Pumping groundwater is like making constant withdrawals from a bank account without ever paying anything into it And the emptied underground aquifers can be compressed, causing surface subsidence - a problem familiar in Bangkok, Mexico City and Venice. There are some ways to begin to tackle the problem. Irrigation systems which drip water directly onto plants are one, precision sprinklers another. There will be scope to plant less water-intensive crops, and perhaps desalination may play a part - though it is energy-hungry and leaves quantities of brine for disposal. Climate change will probably bring more rain to some regions and less to others, and its overall impact remains uncertain. But if we are to get through the water crisis, we should heed the UNEP report's reminder that we have only one interdependent planet to share. It said: "The environment remains largely outside the mainstream of everyday human consciousness, and is still considered an add-on to the fabric of life."

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Australia's decade-long drought has forced brewers to slash the amount of water they use in making beer, in some cases by almost half, as pressure grows on industry to cut wastage.

The northern state of Queensland this week introduced the strictest water restrictions yet in some drought-stricken areas, requiring businesses to use 25 per cent less water over the next 12 months.
"We believe we are the most water efficient major brewery in the world, by a considerable margin," said the general manager of Foster's Yatala plant Noel Jago.

While drinking water is used for beer and wherever water touches the beer, recycled water is now used for external keg washing, vacuum pumps, cooling towers and boilers, and other processes, he said.

At its other main plant in Abbotsford, in inner Melbourne, which also produces 430 million litres a year, Foster's uses about 3.5 litres of water for each litre of beer, and has introduced similar recycling measures.

Other drinks makers have joined the water-saving drive. Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd has put rainwater tanks in two new plants and says it uses less water to make Coke in Australia than any other maker of Coke in the world – about 1.5 litres compared with an average 2.6 litres.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4273058a12.html

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MIDWAY ATOLL -- The albatross chick jumped to its feet, eyes alert and focused. At 5 months, it stood 18 inches tall and was fully feathered except for the fuzz that fringed its head.

All attitude, the chick straightened up and clacked its beak at a visitor, then rocked back and dangled webbed feet in the air to cool them in the afternoon breeze.

The next afternoon, the chick ignored passersby. The bird was flopped on its belly, its legs splayed awkwardly. Its wings drooped in the hot sun. A few hours later, the chick was dead.

John Klavitter, a wildlife biologist, turned the bird over and cut it open with a knife. Probing its innards with a gloved hand, he pulled out a yellowish sac — its stomach.

Out tumbled a collection of red, blue and orange bottle caps, a black spray nozzle, part of a green comb, a white golf tee and a clump of tiny dark squid beaks ensnared in a tangle of fishing line.

"This is pretty typical," said Klavitter, who is stationed at the atoll for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We often find cigarette lighters, bucket handles, toothbrushes, syringes, toy soldiers — anything made out of plastic."

It's all part of a tide of plastic debris that has spread throughout the world's oceans, posing a lethal hazard to wildlife, even here, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest city.

Midway, an atoll halfway between North America and Japan, has no industrial centers, no fast-food joints with overflowing trash cans, and only a few dozen people.

Its isolation would seem to make it an ideal rookery for seabirds, especially Laysan albatross, which lay their eggs and hatch their young here each winter. For their first six months of life, the chicks depend entirely on their parents for nourishment. The adults forage at sea and bring back high-calorie takeout: a slurry of partly digested squid and flying-fish eggs.

As they scour the ocean surface for this sustenance, albatross encounter vast expanses of floating junk. They pick up all manner of plastic debris, mistaking it for food.

As a result, the regurgitated payload flowing down their chicks' gullets now includes Lego blocks, clothespins, fishing lures and other pieces of plastic that can perforate the stomach or block the gizzard or esophagus. The sheer volume of plastic inside a chick can leave little room for food and liquid.

Of the 500,000 albatross chicks born here each year, about 200,000 die, mostly from dehydration or starvation. A two-year study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that chicks that died from those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs as those that died for other reasons.

The atoll is littered with decomposing remains, grisly wreaths of feathers and bone surrounding colorful piles of bottle caps, plastic dinosaurs, checkers, highlighter pens, perfume bottles, fishing line and small Styrofoam balls. Klavitter has calculated that albatross feed their chicks about 5 tons of plastic a year at Midway.

Albatross fly hundreds of miles in their search for food for their young. Their flight paths from Midway often take them over what is perhaps the world's largest dump: a slowly rotating mass of trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas.

This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents called the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Located halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, the garbage patch is an area of slack winds and sluggish currents where flotsam collects from around the Pacific, much like foam piling up in the calm center of a hot tub.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been studying the clockwise swirl of plastic debris so long, he talks about it as if he were tracking a beast.

"It moves around like a big animal without a leash," said Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer in Seattle and leading expert on currents and marine debris. "When it gets close to an island, the garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic."

Some oceanic trash washes ashore at Midway — laundry baskets, television tubes, beach sandals, soccer balls and other discards.

Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic — supple, durable materials such as polyethylene and polypropylene, Styrofoam, nylon and saran.

For the first time, the carbon dioxide emissions of the world's 50,000 power plants, the most concentrated source of greenhouse gases, have been compiled into a massive new database called CARMA - Carbon Monitoring for Action.

Power sector emissions account for 25 percent of the global total of carbon dioxide, 40 percent of carbon emissions in the United States, and are a primary cause of global warming.
But until now people concerned about climate change lacked information about the emissions of particular power plants and the identities of the companies that own them.
The online database was compiled by the Center for Global Development, CGD, an independent policy and research organization that focuses on how the actions of the rich world shape the lives of poor people in developing countries.

The Scherer power plant in Georgia emits the most CO2 of any U.S. power plant. (Photo courtesy Georgia Power)

It shows where the CO2 emitters are and how much of the greenhouse gas they are emitting. It also shows which companies own these power plants. The CARMA data is displayed online at:www.CARMA.org.

A research team led by David Wheeler, a senior fellow at CGD, constructed the enormous database to help speed the shift to less carbon intensive power generation.
"CARMA makes information about power-related CO2 emissions transparent to people throughout the world," says Dr. Wheeler, an expert in the use of public information disclosure to reduce pollution.
"Information leads to action," he says. "We know that this works for other forms of pollution and we believe it can work for greenhouse gas emissions, too."

"We expect that institutional and private investors, insurers, lenders, environmental and consumer groups and individual activists will use the CARMA data to encourage power companies to burn less coal and oil and to shift to renewable power sources, such as wind and solar," Dr. Wheeler says.
Earlier research by Wheeler and his co-authors showed that highly-polluting plants in China and Indonesia responded to pressure from neighboring communities and lenders by reducing pollution after public disclosure of their emissions.

The U.S. Dirty Dozen
Globally, power generation emits nearly 10 billion tons of CO2 per year. The United States, with over 8,000 power plants out of the more than 50,000 worldwide, accounts for about 25 percent of that total or 2.8 billion tons.

CARMA data shows that the biggest CO2 emitter in the United States is Southern Co. with annual emissions of 172 million tons, followed by American Electric Power Company Inc., Duke Energy Corp., and AES Corp.

Annually, the 12 biggest CO2 polluting power plants in the United States are all coal-fired power plants.

1. The Scherer plant in Juliet, Georgia — 25.3 million tons
2. The Miller plant in Quinton, Alabama — 20.6 million tons
3. The Bowen plant in Cartersville, Georgia — 20.5 million tons
4. The Gibson plant in Owensville, Indiana — 20.4 million tons
5. The W.A. Parish plant in Thompsons, Texas — 20 million tons
6. The Navajo plant in Page, Arizona — 19.9 million tons
7. The Martin Lake plant in Tatum, Texas — 19.8 million tons
8. The Cumberland plant in Cumberland City, Tennessee — 19.6 million tons
9. The Gavin plant in Cheshire, Ohio — 18.7 million tons
10. The Sherburne County plant in Becker, Minnesota — 17.9 million tons
11. The Bruce Mansfield plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania — 17.4 million tons
12. The Rockport plant in Rockport, Indiana — 16.6 million tons

Low carbon electricity comes mostly from nuclear and hydro plants, which do not emit carbon dioxide, but do pose other potential environmental problems.

The largest U.S. power plant to win a green rating for nearly zero CO2 emissions is the Palo Verde nuclear plant near Phoenix, Arizona. It produces about 26 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year.

According to CARMA data, the Ohio River Valley, the southeastern states, and Texas are the dirtiest regions in terms of CO2 emissions. The least dirty CO2 region is the West Coast, where much of the electric power is generated by nuclear and hydroelectric plants.

The Martin Lake power plant is seventh on the list of top U.S. emitters. (Photo courtesy TXU)

The state with the greatest CO2 emissions from electricity generation is Texas (290 million tons), followed by Florida (157 million tons), Indiana (137 million tons), Pennsylvania (136 million tons), Ohio (133 million tons), Illinois (113 million tons), Kentucky (98 million tons), Georgia (92 million tons), Michigan (91 million tons) and Alabama (91 million tons).
The District of Columbia has the lowest power-related emissions (113,000 tons), followed by Vermont (437,000 tons), Idaho (1 million tons), Rhode Island (2.6 million tons); South Dakota (4.7 million tons); and Alaska (6 million tons).
At the county level, Walker County in Alabama, where power plants produce over 28 million tons of CO2 each year, heads the list of CO2 emitters.

Grundy County in Illinois, with two large nuclear plants, and Taylor County in Texas, which relies almost exclusively on renewable resources, have nearly zero CO2 emissions.

Residents of Austin, Texas, including faculty and students of the University of Texas at Austin, have the highest-emitting power facility of any university town in the country, emitting some 400,000 tons a year, a larger amount than the District of Columbia.

For the United States, CARMA makes emissions data available by Congressional district, county and metro area, making it possible for the first time to compare total power-related emissions by locality.
Rankings of the 4,000 electric power companies in the world show which are the biggest carbon polluters globally and nationally.

Company level data include emissions and power generation for 2000 and 2007, as well as estimates of future emissions and power generation from planned expansions. Data will be updated regularly as facility ownership changes and new plants come online.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2007/2007-11-15-02.asp

Technology Corner

The hydrogen ions pass through the membrane (the center part of a PEM fuel cell) and, again with the help of a platinum catalyst, combine with oxygen and electrons on the cathode side producing water. The electrons, which cannot pass through the membrane, flow from the anode to the cathode through an external circuit containing an electric load which consumes the power generated by the cell. The overall electrochemical process of a fuel cell is called "reverse hydrolysis," or the opposite of hydrolyzing water to form hydrogen and oxygen.

A reversible fuel cell can accomplish "hydrolysis" through the supply of electricity to the cell and a supply of water to the cathode (see Electrolyzer Cell Mode figure below). Only certain fuel cell types are reversible, that is, can also accomplish the electrochemistry associated with both the production of electricity from fuel and oxidant and the production of fuel and oxidant from water when supplied with electricity.

The Reversible fuel cell concept is one that incorporates a reversible fuel cell that can accomplish both hydrolysis and reverse hydrolysis in the same cell. This allows one to consider the completely renewable production of electricity by using a renewable energy supply (e.g., solar, wind) to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water which can subsequently be used to produce electricity through the same fuel cell from the fuel and oxidant produced previously.
All text and diagrams courtesy of Ecosoul.

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