The Cold Trap

Kris Potts seems like an average college student, but his dorm room is far from ordinary. Upon entering, sights of welding torches, cut up refrigerators, and various other contraptions ensnare the curious mind and leave you searching for the method behind the madness. Kris, an Oxy freshman, has created an invention that may someday put a serious dent in the problem of global climate change. His new Cold Trap, is a slight modification on the classic dorm room mini-fridge which will save energy without changing students’ lifestyles. Instead of the door opening like normal, the door of the Cold Trap opens down, like a dishwasher with two pieces of cloth attached to each side of the door, which fold out as you open it.

When you open up a normal mini-fridge, since cool air sinks, the air in the fridge flows out into your room and some of the warmer air in your room flows into the fridge. When you then close the door, the cooling unit has to work more to get the temperature back down to the desired level. If you use a Cold Trap then the dishwasher-like door and side clothes keep the cool air from flowing out of the unit. Kris and his project partner Grey Kammerer have tested a mini-fridge by opening it every 5 minutes for 15 seconds and after one hour of testing, the same fridge with his modifications used 0.095 fewer KWH. This number is not all that staggering, but when extrapolated to a whole year, each dorm room mini-fridge will save about 34.6 KWH, approximately $5 at current energy prices. This is not a big number, but we are not yet talking about big refrigerators or large quantities of refrigerators. If he were to modify every mini-fridge on campus, in roughly 600 rooms, and each saved $5, the school could save $3,000 a year at current prices. There is potential for a significant impact on energy efficiency when this same concept is applied to large home refrigerators, fast food freezers, and coffee shop refrigerators (which are opened every time someone gets milk or ice in a drink).

The great thing about Kris’ idea is that you don’t need to buy a new refrigerator, because he can modify practically any make of mini-fridge out there. He charges $5 for modifications to a dorm room fridge, and you can choose any color fabric for the sides. He soon plans on talking to local restaurateurs about allowing him to make some modifications on their freezers and fridges. He also hopes to have invented a browsing friendly refrigerator with a clear plexiglass front to allow you to see inside without having to open up the unit. A long journey to energy efficiency begins with a single step in the right direction.

Bike-day= car-free day?

Something cool I found when doing some research on transportation in Los Angeles. The idea is that individuals are the ones to take the initiative on getting things done with the city. The guy the article talks about is named Vinay Jayaswal, from India. He talks about thinking globally and acting individually. His main concerns, namely in India, are the environment, sanitation, and health within individual communities. This got me thinking about the bike share program (and biking in general as an alternative to driving) and how this directly addresses two of these issues, if not all three. It clearly helps the environment by redicung emissions and thus reducing pollution. And it also helps the health by giving those who do ride some excercise, which is still an issue for our over-eating, under-exercising American population.

The article continues to talk about certain efforts of cities to reduce car use. New York, where I am from, shut down Times Square, arguably the most busy area of America, during most hours of the day and making it a pedestrian zone only. Granted this makes it difficult to get around the city in a car at times, but it is pretty cool to be able to walk around manhattan in the streets with no worries of being run over by cabbies. Second, the most congested city in the world (according to the post) is Mumbai in India, and they have a "Car-Free Day" on February 21st. I say, if mumbai can do that, I think Eagle Rock could pull something off along those lines. Maybe once the bike-share program launches, we dedicate one day to those who work/study locally to walk or bike to work or school, rather than driving locally throughout Eagle Rock. Clearly some people have to drive to get places, but Eagle Rock is pretty managable on a bike or on foot; I did it all of last year.

Here is the link to the article: http://la.streetsblog.org/2010/02/09/individuals-can-make-a-difference-a-view-from-india/.

Just some food for thought.

Bottled Water

Between 07/01/2008 and 06/30/2009 Occidental's campus dining and hospitality services bought over 200,000 bottles of water.

Found this ridiculous video off a website that sparkletts linked me to.

In support of bottled water. Sparkletts wants you to sign an "IMPORTANT PETITION" in support of bottled water on this website.

Sparkletts:

"Most of our big water bottles are recycled at the end of their life cycle. The recycled plastic is used to make carpet, toys, tool handles, bird feeders and other items. You typically will not find large bottled water containers in landfills, because these bottles are returnable, reusable, refillable and recyclable."

Places like this are where your recycled bottles end up

From SustainLane.com:

Recycling is a business like any other. Curbside recyclers must find markets for the materials they collect. The biggest market for plastics is China, so most of our plastic is shipped overseas. Unfortunately, China doesn’t necessarily have the same standards of worker and community safety as we do, and towns like Lian Jiao have become toxic waste dumps for our plastic “recycling.” [CLICK THIS LINK] Sky News recently released a video showing the heartbreaking condition of this town that has become the waste bin of the western world. But with the recent downturn in the economy, the Chinese market has dried up, and as the New York Times reported in December 2008, much of our recycling is actually ending up in the landfill.

So what about the plastic that is recycled? Actually, plastic recycling is better referred to as “downcycling.” Plastic containers, for example, are not recycled into new containers but into other products like lumber or outdoor furniture. Even the plastic yogurt containers recycled by responsible companies likeRecycline into toothbrushes and cutting boards are actually downcycled, since the manufacturers of the yogurt containers continue to extract virgin materials for their disposable products.

What’s the solution? Reducing our consumption of disposable plastic! Switching to reusable bags, bottles and containers are first steps to solving the plastic problem. Find more solutions and plastic alternatives atwww.fakeplasticfish.com.

Bike-Related Opportunities in LA

As our final project, the Alternative Transportation group finalized a proposal for a bike sharing program at Oxy as well as a proposal for funding from the Renewable Energy and Sustainability Fund. However, because we weren’t able to actually start up a bike sharing program during our semester in the class, we decided to also make a website that would not only track our progress on the program, but also be a resource for people who already have bikes on campus. The page includes bike safety tips, bike maintenance, a map of safe streets to bike on, and fun bike routes.

If anyone is interested, I did some research about up-coming bike-related opportunities in Los Angeles.

*Pasadena Vintage Lightweight Ride: happens every 1st Sunday of the month. It’s a slow-paced 25 mile ride around Pasadena, San Marino, Temple City, Arcadia, Sierra Madre, Altadena. The ride will end at the Rose Bowl with a picnic and bike talk.
-meet at Rose Bowl in Pasadena at 10:30, ends at 2:30
-contact Chuck at chuckschmidt@earthlink.net for more information

*Bike Oven Community Bike Repair: Tuesdays, from 7 – 10 pm, come into Bike Oven to get assistance repairing your bike to just to hang out with fellow bikers.
-3706 N. Figueroa St.

*Cruz With Us: the last Saturday of every month. It’s a cruiser bicycle group that rides around to local bars, clubs, beaches, parks, picnics, Old Town Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Sunset Blvd.
-meet at the corner of N. Hollywood Park (5211 Tujunga Ave & Magnolia Blvd) at 9 pm
-contact RoadTocketz@yahoo.com for more information

*In addition, there is a great link on the C.I.C.L.E. website to maps of bike routes in the LA area, as well as nearby scenic/recreational routes.
http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=698

Happy biking!

Consumer culture: peer-pressure buy?

I read an article the other day which took a look at the sorry state our planet's oceans were in. Fish and sea creatures from all levels of the food chain (first affecting planktons, then working up to sea mammals--whales and the like) were becoming less able to find food, procreate, and in every other way, function naturally, due to rising levels of carbon-dioxide (pollution too, but this wasn't specifically addressed). 

Top scientists from across the globe have been wracking their brains to come up with efficient, creative, and sustainable solutions to this. One of the many proposed was to diffuse the carbon-dioxide effects by dumping tons of limestone into specific points of the oceans, a measure that has been proven to work in localized examples, but would cost upwards of $45 billion. Annually. 

Another proposed solution, while not nearly as glamorous (nor expensive...) was the oldie but goodie: cut down on carbon dioxide emissions.

I think that this is a good philosophy to carry past the end of the class, and especially into many people's holiday season. While looking for mutually inclusive solutions that allow us to go throughout our day in such relatively comfortable lifestyles without giving up any of our habits is a positive approach, it is also one that takes the longest time, effort, and $.

Cutting back and cutting down on harmful/un-neccesary practices is fast, cheap, and relatively simple. Most people know all the usual techniques, unplugging laptops and other electronic devices when not in use, changing to fluorescent or LED bulbs, keeping tires full, not wasting water...etc., etc. 

It's pretty great that this knowledge is out there, and beginning to become a part of the main culture.

I can't help but believe that people WANT to live sustainably (as long as it doesn't hugely inconvenience them), but one the REAL hurdles standing in the way is....

Etiquette.

Yep. We are ingrained at a young age that certain expressions, or symbols of intent, like cards, presents, paper invitations be present in order to assure an event's propriety. It is almost an unwritten rule that for something to be taken seriously, it must require more resources. Formal essays, business letters, proposals, etc. are almost always single-sided sheets of heavy paper. 

None of this makes any practical sense--double sided essays, proposals, or letters are just as readable as their single-sided counter-parts.

In terms of gifts, cards, etc.--there's nothing inherently wrong with those, but the fact that a number of us are brought up to believe these are our right, is what's the killer.

It is that belief, as well as several other "well, that's just the way things are Done", which peer-pressure many into buying meaningless trinkets and scraps of paper in order to fulfill as social requirement, rather than out of sentiment. 

These social requirements build up--the backbone behind many of today's very successful holiday enterprises--cards, toys, clothes, and on and on.

But most of this is, most likely, very old news. As is what can be done to combat.

Bite the bullet. Be rude.

Use paper with only used sides. Give gifts of effort, thought, if you give at all. If you can only think of a generic, awkward gift to give, maybe don't give one. If that's pushing it too far, try to buy (or better, make) less resource-hogging items, or some that support another cause--it's not hard to think of something.

So this year, maybe mull these thoughts over along with all your other earth-saving plans.

Feed-in Tariffs

Germany produces half of the world’s solar power. That’s kind of funny seeing how cloudy it is there. This has been made possible because the German government restructured their Feed-in Law in 2000. A feed-in law or feed in tariff is a system where common citizens produce electricity with their own solar panels and sell it to the utilities. With the restructured law, people are guaranteed that their solar energy will be purchased by the utility companies for 20 years at a fixed price based on the production cost of solar at the time of installation. The price paid back to independent producers is set to reduce each year according to the expected cost reductions of solar panels. For instance theoretically if I put some solar panels on my roof in Germany in 2007, I would be guaranteed 53 cents for every kw I produced for 20 years. People can in fact turn a profit by taking out loans to buy arrays for their homes as an investment. One reporter that writes for Reuters made a blog entry detailing his extensive exploitation of this feed-in tariff system in Germany.
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2009/11/27/catching-rays-cutting-emissions/

This program has made electricity more expensive for German consumers; an increase of approximately 4 Euros a month. However, as more electricity is produced by solar panels, less needs to be produced by more traditional methods such as burning natural gas, this in turn decreases the demand, and therefore price of electricity. As the amount of relatively cheaper wind powered generators increases and the price of solar panels continues to decrease, the average price of electricity will continue to fall.

California signed into law a feed-in tariff program early in 2008 and amended it in Oct. 2009. Small energy producers- people with solar panels on their roofs- can enter into 5, 10, or 15 year contracts with the utility company to sell electricity to the grid. So hurry up, buy some panels, and sign up before the 750 megawatt combined statewide cumulative capacity fills up!

Future of the Oxy Bike Program?

As of now, the Bike Sharing Proposal on Occidental's campus is pretty much finalized and ready to be submitted for approval. As the semester comes to an end, the alternative transportation group has gone as far as it was able with the time allowed. As a member of the alternative transportation group and being part of the creation of this proposal from the beginning, I believe I can represent my group with feelings of concern for the future of our hard work and efforts. Since none of us will be apart of the class next semester, not to mention a handful of us being abroad or distracted by a new class load, I know we will not be working as closely with this project as we have for the past few months. So the question is, how do we keep the momentum going with this project and who do we pass it on to?

We can probably guess that there will be another alternative transportation group in this class next semester. Will they be interested in continuing on with our proposal? Will they be required to? If so, will they be able to work off from our proposal without any of our research knowledge/knowledge we have required from meetings we attended? How will a completely new group's take on our proposal effect the bike sharing program at Occidental? The key to the success of the program actually happening is how we pass on our project to the new group taking on the responsibility.

I'm sure we will all be more than happy to pass on our information to be contacts for the new group should they have any questions, but if they need further assistance if we are too busy or abroad for example, I think it would be a good idea to have an original person involved with the program who will would be willing to attend their meetings upon their request/be a supervisor. Professor Vallianatos could probably answer and guide most of the group but for some reason if there is some confusion within the proposal, one of us would need to explain.

Another idea is that should they need to meet with anyone else again (e.g. library staff) one of us could go with them for the first meeting to introduce everyone and guide the meeting. We could pass on contacts with people at the Bike Oven etc. since most of their efforts in the program will be to get the bikes in proper condition to be used. Since it is not listed, we should also put together a suggestions list for next steps such as advertisement, passing on our website to them and urging them to meet with tech to make it a possible link to the library, making the safety video we sadly never got to make, finding a student worker, list of contacts we have created during the semester etc. Here are just a few ideas to ensure the successful future of the bike sharing program at Oxy and I'm sure I'm missing A LOT so please leave feedback and suggestions!!