Via Straits Times:

The Housing & Development Board (HDB) on Thursday announced that 45 blocks in Punggol will be fitted with solar panels in Singapore’s first solar leasing project, marking a milestone in the country’s fledgling solar industry.

Local solar manufacturer Sunseap Enterprises bagged the tender to design, finance and install the 2 MWp (mega-watt peak) solar system in Punggol Eco-Town.

HDB will foot 30 per cent of the start up costs at $3.28 million. The company will pay the rest of the cost, but will recover this over the next 20 years by selling the solar power generated from the solar panels to Pasir-Ris Punggol Town Council at a preferential rate not higher than the current electricity tariff.

HDB’s chief executive Cheong Koon Hean said yesterday that Punggol, as Singapore’s first eco-town, ‘is the ideal location for us to expand our solar PV (photovoltaic) installations through solar leasing’.

The National Climate Change Secretariat in Singapore has launched a portal to gather public feedback on climate change. According to the website:

The NCCS-2012 will build upon our approach to environmental issues as outlined in previous publications such as the Singapore Green Plan (2006) , the National Climate Change Strategy (2008), the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint (2009) and National Communications on Climate Change (2010).

These policies relating to climate change will have an impact on many of us. The Government is therefore embarking on a series of public consultations to seek feedback and ideas on climate change-related issues. We aim to reach out to different segments of the population through an online consultation exercise, focus group sessions and community forums.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean kicked off the process, and “feedback from the exercise will go towards developing the national climate change strategy 2012″, which “will be an important foundation to the long term strategy and actions needed to tackle climate change beyond 2020″. (He has some quotable quotes on CNA, which you might want to check out)

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Check out the website, and have your views heard

“One Block Off the Grid took a stab at answering the question: “How big a backyard to you need to live off the land?” It turns out, plants like corn, wheat, fruits, grains, and vegetables take a lot of space. Also, to offset the electricity required to power the average home in the U.S. which consumes about 11,040 kWh per year, one needs about 375 square feet of solar PV, or 25 average efficiency solar panels getting about seven hours of sun.”

Putting it into the local perspective, it’s impossible. Find me an average household with about 2 acres of space. Also, 25 average efficiency solar panels is likely above the average pay grade for Singaporeans, what with the car and 2nd house installments, how can we?

Food for thought on this slow Tuesday. Have a great week my friends.

RICOH claims that they don’t wish to simply meet environmental regulations but go beyond them, to the extent that they won’t light the billboard up if there isn’t enough energy generated from the sun or wind throughout the day.

This is cool.

Watch video here:

Good Information for anyone who’s considering switching to energy efficient lighting.

From GOOD:

Click on the picture for a blown up version.

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Now the stuff written in this email is not entirely true, or can be a potential source of misinformation (as such emails tend to be). I’m going to attempt to demystify things, so let’s get cracking!

Let me start saying that there are very small amount of mercury in older bulbs that are FLUORESCENT and this mercury, is sealed in the glass tubing. Mercury is essential for the fluorescent bulb to provide light, and it is still in use in lighting products, because it’s an efficient way to do it. Over the years, however, bulb manufacturers have been steadily decreasing the mercury contained in CFL bulbs.

So how much Mercury is contained in fluorescent bulbs? An average of 4 milligrams (mg), according to the US Environment Protection Agency. Is this 4 mg’s harmful? Here’s Treehugger’s little analysis:

“A CFL containing 5 mg of mercury breaks in your child’s bedroom that has a volume of about 25 m3 (which corresponds to a medium sized bedroom). The entire 5 mg of mercury vaporizes immediately (an unlikely occurrence), resulting in an airborne mercury concentration in this room of 0.2 mg/m3. This concentration will decrease with time, as air in the room leaves and is replaced by air from outside or from a different room. As a result, concentrations of mercury in the room will likely approach zero after about an hour or so.

Under these relatively conservative assumptions, this level and duration of mercury exposure is not likely to be dangerous, as it is lower than the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard of 0.05 mg/m3 of metallic mercury vaporaveraged over eight hours. [To equate these values, we could estimate the average indoor airborne mercury concentration for 8 hours, beginning post-spill at an estimated starting value of 0.2 mg/m3 and decreasing from there. If one assumes the the air exchanges completely in one hour (a fairly standard assumption), then the 8-hour average concentration would be 0.025 mg/m3.]“.

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Now of course, I’m not saying that one should not be cautious when a bulb (that contains mercury) breaks, do get everyone out of the room, air the room, and wait for a few minutes before attempting to clean up. Handle these bulbs with care, like you would with anything that’s toxic.

But, I’ll also need to point out, that this isn’t any different from eating processed foods, using batteries, thermostats and all other electronic, cleaning and beauty products that contain toxic chemicals (that’s most of them, by the way). In fact, you’re probably already enjoying some mercury with the seafood that you’re eating! (Please Read “Are Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs Dangerous” from Scientific America). At the end of the day, there are lot’s of other things that you interact with on a daily basis that are not good for you (please see The Story of Cosmetics).

And this brings me to my bigger problem with the email: It is not “Energy Saving Bulbs” that contain mercury, but any lamp that is Fluorescent.

“Energy Saving Bulbs” are, in this email, referring to CFL’s or Compact Fluorescent Lamps which are a class of fluorescent lighting. Now Fluorescent lighting has been around for literally, decades. CFL’s are the newer class of (energy efficient) lighting that replaced the old fluorescent tube technology (they made it smaller, hence the word, compact).

Although, old fluorescent tubes, are still very common in a lot of buildings and some homes, the point I’m trying to make is that mercury (or any other toxic chemicals) in our products are not a recent phenomenon. Please point this out to anyone who tells you that “Energy Saving Bulbs cause serious danger“, because that’s not entirely true (as you will see below).

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OK. So perhaps you’re the sort that doesn’t want to take a risk, or would like to be able to drop a light bulb without worrying about it, here are some alternatives:

• Incandescent, which are the ancient, energy inefficient lighting that are being phased out at IKEA (please also read Energy Star’s comparison between Incandescent lighting and CFL’s, and how CFL’s actually help reduce the macro amount of Mercury pollution in the air and oceans). This is the bad, and expensive alternative.
• Energy Efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LED) which were considered a very expensive lighting choice once upon a time, due to high retail prices. In 2011, we’re starting to see them become competitive with CFL’s, over their long lifecycle. And they can look pretty nice as shown below.
• VU1’s Electron Stimulated Luminescence™ Bulb, a new technology, uses accelerated electrons to stimulate phosphor to create light, making the surface of the bulb “glow”. Energy efficient, relatively cheap and mercury free, what a win! check them out.

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I think I’ve sorted through these issues with enough detail, but if you have any questions, concerns, or would like some help with energy saving lighting (or anything else), please contact us!

Here’s a damn good idea: Replace Asphalt (which is made from fossil fuels) with Solar Panels, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, get lots of energy at the same time – WIN.

AND beyond that, move us towards “intelligent roads”, create the infrastructure needed for electric vehicles, fully digitalise traffic management, revolutionise transport etc.

The possibilities are endless!

Here’s an issue: A lot of people eat chicken, but no one eats feathers. There are about 3 billion pounds (or 1.36 billion kg) of annual feather waste in the US, don’t serve much of a purpose, and hence becomes someone’s (or everyone’s) liability.

Here’s a smart idea: Turn those feathers into biodegradable plastic (about that…), reduce reliance on oil, reduce carbon footprint, winning!

Unless this is an April Fool’s joke, this might just become a considerably strange reality. Professor Yiqi Yang from the University of Nebraska reckons that it can be done (from Science Daily):

Using this technique, we believe we’re the first to demonstrate that we can make chicken-feather-based thermoplastics stable in water while still maintaining strong mechanical properties.

That sounds useful, to say the least.

Read the rest of the Science Daily article.

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I’d never thought I’d see the day when I had a semi-legitimate reason to post up a big picture of a chicken, which is pleasant.

I hope people don’t end up thinking that it’d be “more ok” to eat more chicken though..