Humankind has not learned about balance. Everything is done to excess. It is guided by greed, steered by fear. It will eventually destroy itself in this way. We should appreciate the beauty of simplicity because that is where happiness and sustainability is rooted.
Lighting is a major source of electricity consumption as about 19% of global electricity generation is taken for lighting [[i]], which is more than that produced by hydro or nuclear stations, and about the same amount produced from natural gas. The carbon dioxide produced by generating the electricity for lighting use equals to 70% of global emissions from passenger vehicles, and three times more than emissions from aviation. Lighting has a substantial impact on the environment: the commercial sector counts more than 25% of energy consumption in EU for the lighting sector [[ii]]. In this blog, the lighting in an open plan office will be briefly discussed. The place I work, Sustainable Research Building, is an open plan office with over 80% glazing area, where 42 PhD students share. The office lighting is evenly divided into four lighting zones, each zone including 6 lamp fittings, two zones are responsible for 12 desks each and the other two are for 9 desks each. I have observed a few disadvantages of this lighting design. Firstly, all the lightings are manually controlled, which means, for each zone, all the lightings need to be on if the light is needed, even there is only one person in this zone; Secondly, in some case during the day time with sufficient daylight coming through the window, some students like to pull down the curtain and switch on the lights; Thirdly, the lightings are often left on when there is no one in the office; A massive electricity waste can be seen in this situation. In order to use lighting in an energy saving ay, I would recommend the following alternative measures: 1. Adopt local lighting for each desk instead of zone design. In this way, each user can decide the use of the lighting in his/her own area rather than cross-control; 2. For the current zone lighting, a lighting control can be used to replace the manual control. The use of the lightings can be controlled by the daylight sensor with the combination of motion sensor, which makes sure the lights are only on when it is needed; 3. Improve the lighting users' awareness of the importance of using lighting in a saving way; An investigation is being carried out to understand the use of the lighting on 2nd floor by me and I will show the result when it is finished. [[i]] Wen YJ, Agogino AM. Personalized dynamic design of networked lighting for energy-efficiency in open-plan offices. Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1919-1924. [[ii]]UNEP Report on Building and Climate Change – 2007 In the kitchen, washing up is the process of cleaning up the mess after we dine. Usually, this is not the part favoured by many people. However, we still need to do it to get prepared for the next meal. Having stayed in the UK for almost three years, I have had quite a few housemates, and I have observed their washing habits in kitchen. For most of them, a bottle of washing liquid doesn't last for longer than 3 months. In some case, a 550ml bottle of washing liquid can be consumed in about just one month, feels like drinking rather than using. The level change is visible after each use. I have estimated that a bottle of 300ml washing liquid can last for 6 months for me without compromise to the cleanness. The reasons I can achieve much less usage of washing liquid compared to others include: 1.Before you wash the dishes or any cookers, make sure all the remaining things are scrubbed off to the bin first and gently flush the grease from the surface of the cooker. This makes sure the minimum need of a minimum volume of washing liquid because more grease needs more liquid to react. 2. My technique of using washing liquid: First wet the sponge, squeeze the water out and pour a few drops or a 2cm line of washing liquid onto the sponge, then produce a lot of bubbles by squeezing and releasing for a few times. A lot of bubbles helps washing by spreading around evenly and thoroughly. If bubbles run out, repeat the aforementioned procedure. 3. During washing, avoid using a lot of water, because the water takes the bubbles away very quickly. Instead, gently moisturize the cookers or dishes, and then rub the bubbled sponge on them. Keep the sponge aside when the cookers are rubbed around thoroughly, and rinse them under tap. Then continue with the rest until they are finished. 4. For meat eaters, preparing two sponges is advised for washing the greasy cookers or dishes and the other for cookers or dishes which are not greasy. This helps maintain a longer life span of the sponges. I believe that many people are not bothered because it is such a trivial thing. But usually this is the beginning of a great achievement. Let's achieve the most using the least! Pasta is one of the major staple food in our daily lives especially in western culture. I have been noticing the way of cooking pasta, either from friends or on TV cooking program. Usually, they boil the pasta in water first, then drain the water and go to the final flavoring stage. Actually, this conventional pasta cooking style is quite wasteful in terms of energy and water, also takes longer time. Usually the boiling pan is filled 1/2-2/3 full with water, and then boil the water before put pasta in. It consumes more energy (either gas or electricity) to bring it to boil because there is a lot of water inside. After the pasta is well boiled, because there is too much water remained. Pasta is almost dry food. Therefore, it doesnt need much water and most of the remaining water has to be drained. All the energy and water has to be damped away. Every time I do this, I feel very guilty because I have been wasting energy and water resource by damping it away to the drainage. So I asked myself, why not use less water, the exact volume for boiling pasta with a little amount left for later use. I tried today and it was very successful. I use a little amount of water (2cm depth), which is enough to immerse 2/3 of pasta. And boil the pasta. The only thing you need to do is to stir the pasta 1 or 2 times when it is being boiled to make sure all is well boiled. The rest is the same. Let's analyse what has been achieved by this different cooking way. 1.50% or less water usage; 2.Approximately 30% energy saving; Come on, let's live sustainably! Since the rapid development and growth of the world economy, the globalisation has come along as the major product which brings the whole world closely together. Is it good or bad? Many people might have been pondering the health of our world. Is it healthy or not? Is it sustainable or not? Look at the way our world has been developed, it is undeniable that our world has been improved in many ways, but there are so many problems that are arising year after year. They are almost pushing us to the edge to think what is wrong with it? We have transformed from an era when we were chasing after prey with spears in hand to this modern time where people swipe their fingers on a glass screen ordering food from supermarket, which will be delivered on door by transportation in a package. We have experienced tremendous changes which have been emerging as results of the increasing expansion of our needs and desires. It is growing exponentially as time goes by. Endeavours have been made and are still going to be made to satisfy the expanding needs produced in the long developing process. The price is the consumption of large amount of resources. The amount keeps climbing uphill. Many people are enjoying the pleasure of their satisfied desires and keep digging for more "innovative" needs without realizing the impact caused by what they do. Some people are struggling on the basic living edge. Some people are worrying about the possibility of achieving the need at higher level while working very hard. Is there something wrong with the world? I have kept this draft for a long time because I haven't come up with a satisfying way to put what I think in words properly. Today I attended a sustainability debate which was one of the events of May Fest held by the University of Nottingham. Taking this opportunity, I want to squeeze more out and put it down before my brain is occupied by other things that I need to do. Professor Terry Payne, one of the speakers in the panel, commented on the economic growth. He said, our economic should stay stable rather keep growing. I couldn't agree more with what he said. That was my original intention of writing this blog. Later on, in the discussions, I found some people didn't agree with it. But however, they all firmly agreed on the necessity of reducing consumption. After pondering for a while, I asked myself, why they didn't agree with stable economic when they think it is necessary to reduce consumption. The economic growth does not come out from nowhere, but relies on the consumption of the finite resources. Giving a simple example, the increasing consumption of electricity leads to the use of more raw materials to satisfy the needs. That is when the so-called economic growth occurs. The scarcity issue arrives when the amount of available resources can't meet the expanded need. This issue becomes more obvious when it comes to a large scale. Based on the combination of my personal understanding and the inspirations from many intelligent and experienced people, either scientist, governors, engineers, business men and people from all different areas, in formal or informal occasions, I have come to the following conclusions on Go Sustainable: 1. Population control; Population is the very fundamental aspect that we must concentrate on in order to reduce the consumption of our finite resources. It is the base and also the end user of the resources. The consumption increases because of the population growth, the increase of personal needs as we move forward and the combination of them which accelerates the increase in a tremendous way. 2. Efficiency: energy efficiency and material use efficiency need to be enhanced by maximally using what we have ; 3. The necessity of resource use in many areas ( the beauty of simplicity must be appreciated ): we need to consider whether the consumption of resources in many areas is necessary or not before we march forward in a large scale. 4. Strengthening the people's awareness of sustainability and educating the people the importance and the ways of living in a sustainable way; Yesterday, I attended a whole day conference in Jubilee campus, University of Nottingham. It was about vertical farming in urban space. Scientists, researchers and industries from bioscience, agriculture, built environment and economics are brought together to debate and justify the economic viability of this new topic, vertical farming. It was a very interesting day. Not too many details about the conference are given here. Instead I want to briefly state my opinion on this new area. Energy consumption led by the vertical farming because of the need of lighting systems and the food quality due to the artificial processes are the two major aspects that I am most concerned about. The demand for energy and resources is rapidly increasing second by second. This is caused by two major factors. Our need for energy and resource is increasing all the time, namely we become greedier and lazier. Our fabulous imagination excites our brain activities tremendously and makes us squeeze our brains extremely to create different ideas to make our life more comfortable, more joyful and more colourful etc., you name it. I am not denying them all considering the great improvements for the world that have been achieved. But I have to say there are too many "new ideas" that are eating our world away. The other factor is the population. It is increasing all the time, 9 billions in 2050 according to the current trend. Provided the resources consumption per person stays constant, the overall resource consumption is bound to increase because of the increase of the world population. Vertical farming in massive production, a good idea indeed, hasn't shown a clearly beneficial direction for the whole human world because the those two issues: energy consumption+food quality are not identified with suitable solutions. However, I think it is good to do it in a small scale, like family scale to verify the economic and health viability before heading to the large scale. Energy consumption by lighting system takes up between 20-60% of overall energy consumption in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. It is a very important area to look into in order to reduce the carbon emission. The induction lamp and LED lamp are the generation of the lighting technologies which deliver high efficiency (95%-98% for Induction, over 80% for LED) and long lifespan (100,000 hours for induction, 80,000 hours for LED) . The colour temperature is close to daylight.
Both LED and induction lamps offer a reduction in CO2 emission from power generation. The exact amount depends on the mix of fossil fuels used for power generation in the area where the fixtures are operating , and the total amount of energy saved. Induction lighting offers more significant energy savings than LEDs thus offering greater CO2 reductions. In the US, one kilowatt-hour of electricity will cause 1.34 pounds (610 g) of CO2 emission.[118] Assuming the average light bulb is on for 10 hours a day, one 40-watt incandescent bulb will cause 196 pounds (89 kg) of CO2 emission per year. The 6-watt LED equivalent will only cause 30 pounds (14 kg) of CO2 over the same time span. A building’s carbon footprint from lighting can be reduced by 85% by exchanging all incandescent bulbs for new LEDs. In an increasing number of jurisdictions, organizations which reduce power consumption and the related CO2 emission are eligible for “Carbon Credits”. It can be used to offset other sectors within the organization that are not as efficient, or can be traded or sold.There is little available information about the recycling of LEDs. Since the LED contain plastic and metals, theoretically the metal components could be recovered and recycled. In the case of induction lamps, the solid mercury amalgam can be recovered and recycled. Once the inductors are removed, the lamp body can be recycled as it is made of glass; while the inductors themselves can be recycled into their metal components. I bought a bag of mint from Sainsbury's, there were about 6 branches of mint cut from the stem, so they don't have root. I bought mint for making vegetable soup. Adding some mint inside makes it very refreshing. The package says the mint can only be kept for about four days. But I can't finish them all in four days, I make soup only every few days. I was wondering whether there is a way to keep them longer for later use. I inserted two branches into soil in a basin and watered them. At first, it was totally dried out, leaving me with no hope for their survival. But it squeezed out a glimpse of hope after I persistently water them for about two weeks . In comparison, I put another two branches into a ceramic vase bottle (nothing to do with the bottle material, it just functions as a container) with water inside, just after two or three days. You can see the difference, they shine like star, the water has been transported to most part of the body, especially at the top part. Gradually, the dried leaves at the bottom part started to change from dried yellow to thriving green. Keeping them in a container filled with water is the currently the best and easiest way of keeping this packed mint bought from supermarket. Now they have been kept for over two weeks. I can use them any time I want without wasting them by damping them into the bin when they are found dried out in the fridge. However, whether it is suitable to keep it like this for a long time is unsure considering the possible loss of important nutrition. Hence, I don't recommend this method to be taken as a way of growing it. An interesting method of improving the energy efficiency--Electronic fluid treatment technology3/28/2012 On the Ecobuild, London 2012, buried in the numerous stands, I was attracted by a Tibet bowl. After a careful observing, I found out the Tibet bowl was an interesting demonstration of the product--Electronic fluid treatment technology. It use frequency generated by a device called Scalewatcher ENGiMA unit to energize the fluid to remove and prevent limescale formed in fluid machines. It avoids the use of chemical treatment which is harmful to the system and the environment. The application of this device can be done by simply wrapping the cable around the outside of the pipe to form a coil. To see the power of applying low frequencies to water, more information can be found on here. Today, I was told by my supervisor that my application for registering writing up was not approved. It means I need to pay the last £3500, which is too much for me to pay at the moment. I felt quite disappointed when I was told of this as I thought I have met the requirement. Now I am a bit confused about the framework. However, suddenly I feel very motivated and uplifted despite the solving method is still unknown. I look forward to climbing up to the top of the mountain and see farther away
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AuthorKen Zheng Archives
September 2012
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