Switch ON magazine 2 by Kresimir Hranjec

ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013.

RENEWABLE ENERGY DIFFERENT TYPES & SOURCES RESIDENTIAL RENEWABLE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SYSTEMS

FOOD MATTERS 15 HIGH RISK FOODS FOR BABIES 12 DANGEROUS&HIDDEN FOOD INGREDIENTS SOY DANGERS

FARMING INDIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S RICE REVOLUTION CAN URBAN FARMING GO CORPORATE? BHUTAN GO 100% ORGANIC

and much more...

ENERGY IS ALL AROUND US

Issue 2, April 2013.

RENEWABLE ENERGY DIFFERENT TYPES & SOURCES RESIDENTIAL RENEWABLE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SYSTEMS

8 10 42

FOOD MATTERS 15 HIGH RISK FOODS FOR BABIES 12 DANGEROUS&HIDDEN FOOD INGREDIENTS SOY DANGERS

58 62 96

FARMING

76 92

INDIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S RICE REVOLUTION CAN URBAN FARMING GO CORPORATE? BHUTAN GO 100% ORGANIC

THE FUTURE WAS UNCERTAIN UNTIL WE DECIDED TO UNITE.

UNITE FOR BETTER, HEALTHIER AND MORE NATURAL FUTURE FOR US AND OUR CHILDREN.

N AT UR A

ORGANI

FINALLY, OUR FUTURE LOOKS GREEN.

UNITE FOR A HEALTHY FUTURE

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Switch ON Magazine

Dear reader,

New issue of SwitchON - Organic News e-magazine is here. As you can see, we changed the whole concept around Organic News. Organic News website is where we publish our articles, forward major news from whole world and bring you interesting content divided in few categories. We invite you to join conversation about actual topics on our website, to rate articles and commentators, to join our growing community. We invite you to become our member and to collaborate with us. We are in process of making organic food industry database, so join us - it is good for all of us. We will make organic market world smaller so we all can connect more easily and help each other to grow business and to live in more natural and healthier way. We will persist to promote organic food production and more natural way of living until we all switch back to what should be normal. Here in SON magazine you can find bonus content, more topics than on our website, wider themes, we will present different companies, associations and projects from organic world. We invite young journalists, bloggers, activists to write for us. We will help you to present and to promote you to worldwide audience - your ideas, opinions and thoughts. Contact us via email. In this issue of Switch ON magazine we bring you interesting topic about renewable and alternative energy sources. As we run out of fossil fuels we must think over alternative energy sources and switch on to them. It is last call to do that. There are more energy sources to talk about. More about that in some of the next issuess of SON magazine. Further we write about food. Ingrediants, their influence on our bodies, particulary babies. And on the end, you can find interesting and new stuff about world farming and movements in farming. We support any effort in farming that strives back to roots. If you partecipate in any kind of community or social movement through farming together with others, share your experience with us. Once again, we are inviting you to join our Facebook and other social pages. Post comments and share with others. Talk about your experiences, know how, create interesting topics, and discuss them with others.

Let’s get connected. Let’s work together, let’s help each other, let’s get united.

Join Us on Facebook We started with Organic News Facebook page. Please, join our community on Facebook and fell free to post anything interesting or useful. Post, tell us your story, your difficulties or problems, as well as your successes. Help us and we will return the favour. Organic News facebook page

RENEWABLE ENERGY

and OTHER ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES There is one forecast of which you can already be sure: someday renewable energy will be the only way for people to satisfy their energy needs. Because of the physical, ecological and (therefore) social limits to nuclear and fossil energy use, ultimately nobody will be able to circumvent renewable energy as the solution, even if it turns out to be everybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last remaining choice. The question keeping everyone in suspense, however, is whether we shall succeed in making this radical change of energy platforms happen early enough to spare the world irreversible ecological mutilation and political and economic catastrophe. Hermann Scheer

COAL MINING UNDERLAND

ver the last 200 years, people have become more and more dependent on energy that they dig out of the ground. In the 1700’s, almost all our energy came from wind, water, firewood, or muscle power. The wind powered our windmills and sailing ships. Water powered our water wheels. Firewood did our cooking and heated our homes. Muscle power (human or animal) did just about everything else. All these energy sources came from the sun, since solar energy drove wind and rain, grew trees, and grew crops to nourish our animals and ourselves. All these energy sources were also renewable, since wind kept blowing, rivers kept flowing, and trees and crops kept growing. bout 1800, we began to get much of our energy from coal dug out of the ground. About 1900 we began to drill for oil and natural gas. By 1950 these “fossil fuels” had mainly displaced the older energy sources except for water power. Fossil fuels come from the decayed remains of prehistoric plants and animals, so their energy also comes, originally, from the sun. In some parts of the world new fossil fuels are being formed even today. But we are using fossil fuels at a far greater rate than they are being created, using up energy stored over hundreds of millions of years in a few hundred years. After 1950, we began to use atomic energy from uranium dug from the ground. Uranium is not a fossil fuel, and its energy does not originate from the sun. But uranium, like fossil fuels, is non-renewable: once it’s used up, it’s gone forever. ver the past 25 years, use of older renewable energy sources has increased and we have begun to use new renewable energy sources as well. We have realized that our fossil and atomic fuels will not last forever, and that their use contributes to environmental pollution. enewable energy – which basically comes from the sun in one way or another – provides opportunities for an unlimited, sustainable energy supply with low environmental impact. And renewable energy is not just something for the future, but something we can use in our homes today.

O R

What

Renewable

Energy Sources

rue renewable energy sources are energy supplies that are refilled by natural processes at least as fast as we use them. All renewable energy comes, ultimately, from the sun. We can use the sun directly (as in solar heating systems) or indirectly (as in hydroelectric power, wind power, and power from biomass fuels). Renewable energy supplies can become exhausted if we use them faster than they become replenished: most of England’s forests were cut down for fuel before the English started using coal. If used wisely, however, renewable energy supplies can last forever. 10

here are other alternatives to our typical energy sources that are not renewable. Although these are “alternative energy” rather than “renewable energy”, they use the energy we have more efficiently than older technologies. In doing this, they help us make our existing energy supplies last longer and give us more time before we run out of stored fossil and atomic fuels. The use of renewable and alternative energy sources can save us money, assure that our grandchildren and great grandchildren will have enough energy, and free us from the uncertainties of depending on energy supplies outside the United States.

Renewable Alternative Energy

There are several renewable energy sources that are in use today. Listed below are brief descriptions of these resources; later we will discuss how some of these can be used in residential applications.

ydropower represents one of the oldest and largest renewable power sources and accounts for close to 10% of our nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s electricity. Existing hydropower capacity is about 80,000 megawatts (MW â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one million watts or one thousand kilowatts). Hydropower plants convert the energy of flowing water into electricity. 12

This is primarily done by damming rivers to create large reservoirs and then releasing water through turbines to produce electricity. Hydropower results in no emissions into the atmosphere but the process of damming a river can create significant ecological problems for water quality and for fish and wildlife habitat.

HYDROPOWER • is the most significant renewable energy source. • is the force of energy of moving water. • is clean renewable energy source that doesn’t pollute environment. • uses the Earth’s water cycle to generate electricity because movement of water as it flows downstream creates kinetic energy that can be then converted into electricity. • doesn’t pollute the air but construction and work of the dams can affect natural water systems and also affect wildlife and fish population. • is air emissions are negligible because there are no fuels burned. • requires the use of dams which can alter river ecosystems. • use needs to be carefully balanced with preservation of ecosystems that are altered by changes of water flow. • can’t be used in all areas because it needs fast flowing water throughout whole year. • is very efficient energy source because some turbines can achieve efficiency of 95 % and more. • today provides about 20 % of the world’s electricity and is the main energy source for more than 30 countries.

Facts

• is advantage over other renewable energy sources is the fact that average rainfall is highly predictable and therefore output is reliable and river flow doesn’t fluctuate from minute to minute like is the case with wind energy. • is renewable energy source that doesn’t cause global warming because it doesn’t releases dangerous greenhouse gases. • produce no air pollutants that cause acid rain and smog. • can have negative ecological impacts, especially on fisheries and water ecosystems, this especially applies to large-scale hydropower. • is installations can act as the barrier to fish movements and can kill or damage fish population. • needs more researching in order to decrease its negative environmental impacts on river ecosystems. • is primary use is to produce electricity. • can also be used for water supply, flood control, irrigation and even recreation purposes. • can be used anywhere in the world where there’s falling water.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF HYDROPOWER

P R O’s RENEWABLE

Environmental Consequences

Hydroelectric energy is renewable. This means that we cannot use up. However, there’s only a limited number of suitable reservoirs where hydroelectric power plants can be built and even less places where such projects are profitable.

The environmental consequences of hydropower are related to interventions in nature due to damming of water, changed water flow and the construction of roads and power lines. Hydroelectric power plants may affect fish is a complex interaction between numerous physical and biological factors. More user interests related to exploitation of fish species, which helps that this is a field that many have strong opinions on. Draining would be completely devastating to the fish. Beyond this, the amount of water may have different effects on the fish in a river, depending on the type and stage of the life cycle. Not all unregulated river systems are optimal in terms of fish production, because of large fluctuations in flow.

GREEN Generating electricity with hydro energy is not polluting itself. The only pollution occurs during the construction of these massive power plants.

RELIABLE Hydroelectricity is very reliable energy. There are very little fluctuations in terms of the electric power that is being by the plants, unless a different output is desired. Countries that have large resources of hydropower use hydroelectricity as a base load energy source. As long as there is water in the magazines electricity can be generated.

FLEXIBLE As previously mentioned, adjusting water flow and output of electricity is easy. At times where power consumption is low, water flow is reduced and the magazine levels are being conserved for times when the power consumption is high.

C O N’ s

EXPENSIVE Building power plants in general is expensive. Hydroelectric power plants are not an exception to this. On the other hand, these plants do not require a lot of workers and maintenance costs are usually low.

DROUGHTS Electricity generation and energy prices are directly related to how much water is available. A drought could potentially affect this.

SAFE

LIMITED RESERVOIRS

Compared to among others fossil fuels and nuclear energy, hydroelectricity is much safer. There is no fuel involved (other than water that is).

We have already started using up suitable reservoirs for hydroelectric power plants. There are currently about 30 major power plants that are expected to generate more than 2.000 MW under construction. Only one of these projects was started in the last two years.

iomass is second to hydropower as a leader in renewable energy production. Biomass has an existing capacity of over 7,000 MW. Biomass as a fuel consists of organic matter such as industrial waste, agricultural waste, wood, and bark. Biomass can be burned directly in specially designed power plants, or used to replace up to 15% of coal as a fuel in ordinary power plants. Biomass burns cleaner than coal because it has less sulfur, which means less sulfur dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere. iomass can also be used indirectly, since it produces methane gas as it decays or through a modern process called gasification. Methane can produce power by burning in a boiler to create steam to drive steam turbines or through internal combustion in gas turbines and reciprocating engines. The largest use of biomass energy in Virginia is the forest products industry. Furniture plants, sawmills, and paper mills usually burn their wood waste to produce heat and electricity. Many homeowners use firewood or pellets for winter heat.

Did you know that the carbon dioxide that is released upon the burning of biomass is in turn captured when the biomass is grown? The beauty of biomass is in the net zero greenhouse gas.

Biomass Energy Facts A

nything that is living is biomass. This means that plants and animals, however, small or big, even if they had life for a second, constitute the biomass. Plants make their food by the process of photosynthesis. During this process they trap sun’s energy and convert it into chemical energy. This energy is obtained by animals when they eat various parts of plants. This energy can be obtained and used by human beings to meet their energy requirements. Though the search for renewable energy resources has picked momentum just a couple of decades ago, one of the interesting facts is that human beings have been using right since they learned to light fire. Wood is biomass. Burning wood to get warmth or to cook food is a way of using biomass energy. HERE ARE SOME USEFUL AND INTERESTING FACTS ON BIOMASS ENERGY : • Biomass includes varied organic matter like grass, leaves, wood, wood chips, rice husk, peanut shells, sugarcane fiber, sewage etc. • It is a renewable form of energy as plants can be grown in a short time. In fact it is considered one of the key renewable resources of the future. It already meets 14% of the world’s total energy requirements. • Scientists are trying to find more efficient ways of using biomass energy as it has greater benefits for the environment than fossil fuels. It will help the world cut down on waste production and emission of greenhouse gases. • Chemically, biomass is made of complex polymers of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. It also contains small amounts of nitrogen and inorganic materials. • Although fossil fuels also are formed from ancient biomass, they are not included in biomass as the carbon atoms that they are made of, have been out of the carbon cycle for long. • One of the direct and oldest ways of extracting biomass energy is by burning the sources to get heat. The other non combustible methods are through thermal, chemical and biochemical methods. • Like crude oil processing, research is going on to devise ways by which plant biomass can be fractionated in different parts that can then be separately used to produce fuels, chemicals and other products. • Biomass can be used to make energy-rich gas called biogas. Biogas is quite like natural gas that we use in the kitchen. • There is another form of fuel that biomass can be trans-

• •

•

formed into. Corn and wheat can be transformed into ethanol that is similar to gasoline. Other than this, biodiesel and methanol are other liquid forms of energy. The source of biomass energy is mainly found in rural areas. Its production is a labor intensive activity and hence, can be a good source of employment for rural population. One of the important sources of this energy are forests. However, transferring wood from forests to the area of biomass production is expensive. From the financial aspect this transfer is possible if only the biomass energy production plant is less than 50 miles away from the forest. Biomass energy can be used to produce electricity, heat and steam for the working of refinery. One of the biomass pros is that it is not considered to contribute to carbon dioxide content of the environment. It is so because biomass is formed from carbon dioxide that is absorbed by plants though the process of photosynthesis which is released back into the air once it is burnt. But then why are fossil fuels considered to add to carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere? It is because while fossil fuels are releasing carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere that was removed thousands of years ago, the removal and addition of carbon dioxide though biomass takes place within a shorter period of time. Due to this the carbon dioxide content of the environment is less disturbed when biomass is used than when burning fossil fuels. Biomass sources that are currently being used to produce power and heat in large-scale units is solid biomass, biogas, biofuel and biodiesel.

ther useful facts about biomass energy are that they provide option to put organic waste to good use. This aids in waste management of urban centers. Moreover, it is an inexhaustible source of energy as it is derived from living things. However, biomass energy facts like it being an expensive process and that burning of ethanol may increase levels of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere are certain drawbacks of this form of renewable energy that otherwise has immense potential. 18

Algae as Biomass T

he world of biomass is bursting with hope for algae, however, we must avoid the course of irrational exuberance that plagued past technologies. Many look to algae as the renewable resource to win the battle over global warming, and provide the U.S. with energy security. In reality, algae hold great promise as a resource that, if developed correctly, could become a sustainable biomass source for energy and fuels. We are still years away from developing meaningful quantities, and prudence must govern the safe development of natural algae strains that will have no adverse impacts on ecosystems. o one can deny the potential of algae. Unlike traditional oilseed crops, which produce 10 to 100 gallons of oil per acre, algae are mega oil producers capable of producing 1,000 to 5,000 gallons of oil per acre. Oil collected from algae looks very similar, chemically, to crop oils and can be converted to renewable fuel using existing technology. Algae also do not compete with food sources, can grow in nonpotable and saline water on otherwise nonproductive land, treat polluted waters and recycle carbon dioxide (CO2). So if algae are so phenomenal, why arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we using them to produce biofuels on a large-scale today? any challenges to large-scale algae-derived renewable fuel exist and span the entire process from algae strain selection, through harvesting, to fuel conversion.

lthough great strides have been made, algae production remains a challenge. Algae grow in shallow ponds or bioreactors where they use photosynthesis (sunlight, CO2 and other nutrients) to grow, reproduce and generate oil. Advancements are needed to optimise the supply of light, CO2, and nutrients to the algae. ecause of algaeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s small size, and tendency to plug/ foul filters, harvesting it from water is challenging. Once harvested, the algae undergo energy-intensive drying and oil extraction processes. Research is ongoing to find ways to more efficiently collect oil and algae solids from their waterborne state. conomics are also a major challenge facing algaeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future in the renewable fuels industry. Currently, the price of feedstock makes up the largest cost of production and can contribute 80 percent to 90 percent of the final fuel price. The hope is that algae will have the ability to produce oil at a price competitive with petroleum oil at $1 to $2 per gallon. To achieve this, technology advancements need to be demonstrated, but additional characteristics of algae will also need to be fully utilized. Treating impaired water and capturing CO2 will improve the economic viability of algal-based systems. Additionally, the identification and extraction of other valuable products within algae, such as nutrients or pharmaceuticals, will aid in the economic viability of algae.

B E

Krafla geothermal power plant in Iceland

eothermal electric capacity in the world is over 10,000 MW. Geothermal power plants use high temperatures deep underground to produce steam, which then powers turbines that produce electricity. Geothermal power plants can draw from underground reservoirs of hot water or can heat water by pumping it into hot, dry rock. igh underground high temperatures are accessed by drilling wells, sometimes more than a mile deep. In one sense, this geothermal energy is not renewable, since sometime in the future the core of the earth will cool. That time is so far off (hundreds of millions of years) that that we think of it as renewable. Most geothermal power plants are located in the western United

States, but some costal regions of Virginia (near Wallops Island) have geothermal power potential. Geothermal heat pumps use compressors to pump heat out of the earth (for winter heating) or into the earth (when running as air conditioners in summer). The energy they pump into and out of the earth is renewable, since it is replaced by the cycle of the seasons. The energy that runs the compressor can either be renewable or conventional. eothermal power is considered to be sustainable because the heat extraction is small compared with the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heat content. The emission intensity of existing geothermal electric plants is on average 122 kg of CO2 per megawatt-hour (MWÂˇh) of electricity, about oneeighth of a conventional coal-fired plant.

Geothermal Energy Facts • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Geothermal energy is energy generated by heat stored beneath the Earth’s surface. Geothermal energy is often referred to as geothermal power. Geothermal energy supplies less than 10 % of the world’s energy. Geothermal energy is clean and safe for the surrounding environment. Geothermal energy is sustainable because hot water can be re-injected into the ground. Geothermal energy is extremely price competitive in suitable areas. Geothermal energy suitable areas aren’t widely spread. Geothermal energy is main energy source in Iceland. Geothermal energy is very important energy source in volcanically active places such as new Zealand and Iceland. Geothermal energy can be found in the form of volcanoes, hot springs and geysers. Geothermal energy has three main uses: Heating, Electricity generation and Geothermal heat pumps. Geothermal energy is used since ancient times in form of hot water. Geothermal energy exploit uses three basic types of geothermal power plants: Dry steam, Flash steam and Binary power plant. Geothermal energy use has very low emissions of greenhouse gases to about three percent of the carbon dioxide emissions of a fossil power station. Geothermal energy is widely used in California with more than 30 geothermal power plants that are producing more than 90 % of the geothermal electricity in the USA. Geothermal energy’s amount of electricity is less than 1 percent of total electricity produced in the USA. Geothermal energy is also widely used in the state of Nevada. Geothermal energy got its name from Greek words: geo (earth) and therme (heat), and therefore geothermal energy is in fact Earth’s heat.. Geothermal energy has minimum negative environmental impact. Geothermal energy is giving 18 % of Iceland’s total electricity. Geothermal energy could produce 10 percent of US electricity by the year 2050. Geothermal energy could supply US with more than 30,000 MW of power by 2025. Geothermal energy doesn’t depend on the sun like other renewable energy resources. Geothermal energy widely exploited in Iceland, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Philippines and in USA mostly in California and Nevada. Geothermal energy is taken from Earth with the help of geothermal heat pumps. Geothermal energy can be easily found and exploited along the “Ring of Fire” region. Geothermal energy is extremely efficient (almost 100 %) energy source where only real source of losing energy is from turbine friction. Geothermal energy has only one real problem and that is lack of easily accessible sites. Geothermal energy’s advantage is also the fact that geothermal power plants run continuously day and night with an uptime typically exceeding 95%. Geothermal energy’s advantage is also the fact that geothermal power stations are relatively small, and have a lesser impact on the environment than for instance hydroelectric plants.

Why GO for

Energy? W

hen it comes down to renewable energy, most people think only of wind turbines, and solar panels, because most people think how solar and wind power are the two only renewable energy sources. But this is far from truth, there is also geothermal energy that can be quite useful energy source but many people know very little about this energy source. Maybe this has to do with the fact that oil companies want us to think of solar and wind power as the only renewable energy sources, because solar and wind power doesn’t directly affect oil and propane use. he golden “oil age” is far behind, going down to a strong political campaign that brought geothermal, a very important renewable energy source, well up front. The new administration gave its full blessing to geothermal energy in form of substantial tax credits enabling just about everyone to take advantage of geothermal energy. here are some already claiming how geothermal energy should be the first choice to reduce nation’s dependence on fossil fuel. But how can the average home save a significant amount of money every year by replacing fossil fuel with geothermal? Well you are probably already familiar with fluctuations in fuel prices that have potential to go out of control in the matter of days. The cost of heating homes is no longer negligible and has become an expensive proposition, despite today’s “seemingly low” fossil fuel prices. It is really only matter of time before fossil fuel prices will go up, reaching very high levels. Just to remind you in July 2008, the price of oil doubled in less than 30 days. Who can guarantee us that this scenario won’t happen once again? eothermal energy can provide not only 100 percent of home heating, but also air conditioning and hot water, and it require no additional use of oil,

T T

natural gas or any other fossil fuel. And the payback on geothermal is more than acceptable. If you consider the 30 percent federal tax credit, payback usually takes less than five years in new construction and somewhere around seven years for retrofits. This translates to gigantic 15 percent annual return on investment simply by installing a geothermal system, which is really a number from which many other energy sources are still far off. The logic in this whole story is quite simple, namely homeowners pay back the investment with the money they would have paid to oil or gas company. After payback, the savings continue with an average return of more than 65 percent – percentage that is likely to be even higher as fossil fuel prices are very likely to increase after recession is over. nd geothermal can be retrofitted into most existing structures. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, geothermal heat pumps are far more efficient and reliable than any fossil fuel furnace or boiler so it is really no surprise that hundreds of homes throughout the Catskills and Hudson Valley are now getting all their heating, cooling and hot water from geothermal energy. The other huge benefit is that geothermal energy can be easily adapted into most existing structures. ow to calculate cost of geothermal system needed for your household? Cost to professionally install a geothermal system is computed based on total heating load required by the specific needs of your home. Professional geothermal installers, even before sizing a system, will recommend ways to reduce energy use. For an average 3,000-square foot Colonial, that’s five years old, geothermal air heating and cooling with appropriate energy efficiency measures would cost under $38,000 and provide all heating, cooling and hot water needs. With tax credits, the out-of-pocket costs are about $26,000. This is really a bargain price when you look at the all advantages.

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olar energy comes directly from the power of the sun and is used to produce electricity, to produce heat, and for light. Solar represents a small share of the electric market in the United States – about ½ of one percent of electrical capacity. Solar’s contribution to heating and lighting is much larger. Solar-electric power can be produced either by power plants using the sun’s heat or by photovoltaic (PV) technology, which converts sunlight directly to electricity using solar cells. PV technology is more practical for residential use. Systems to use the heat of the sun directly can be either active or passive. In active systems, air or liquid circulate through solar collectors and bring heat to where it is used. In passive systems, buildings are built with windows and heat-absorbing surfaces set up to maximize solar heating in winter. Either technology is suitable for residential use. Systems to directly use the light of the sun are most common. The most usual device for using sunlight is the window, but skylights and skylight tubes are also used. 28

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) predicted a solar industrialization as far back as 1490.

About half of worldwide production of solar panels is consumed by Japan. Their purpose is mostly for grid connected residential applications.

Solar Energy Facts • Solar energy is the primary source of energy for all life forms. • Solar energy is clean. No fossil fuels are used to produce heat or electricity with solar energy. The only pollution produced is in the manufacturing, transporting and installing of solar panels. • The sun’s energy can be used in a variety of ways. Solar power can be used to cook food, heat and cool homes, warm water and light buildings. See solar energy facts for more ways to use the sun’s energy. • Solar thermal power creates electricity by heating water into steam. This heat can be used to warm the air in your home or the water for your morning shower. • California currently has the largest solar power plant in the world. Covering 1000 acres are nine solar thermal plants in the Mojave Desert. • For solar energy to generate electricity, it must be daylight. During night hours, stored solar energy or an alternative energy source must be used. • Photovoltaic Panels (solar panels) are mainly composed of silicon. • Although the initial investment of solar panels is high, energy from the sun is free. The payback period may take several years, but money will be saved in the long term. • Problems with solar energy may arise in certain locations. Regions that have an abundance of cloudy, overcast, or rainy days find it hard to benefit from solar power. For more information, see Solar Energy Pros and Cons. • Solar energy is measured in kilowatt-hours - 1 kilowatt = 1000 watts. • We can use solar power to keep our water heated, dry our clothing, heat a swimming pool, keep attic fans operating, energize small appliance and electrical devices, power lights inside and out, we can even use it to power automobiles and numerous other uses. • In 1990, the first solar powered aircraft flew across the United States only using solar energy. • Solar power systems can be expensive and this is a drawback from their use in more areas though the prices are gradually decreasing as the technology is improving rapidly. • You need a fairly big space to set up solar panels if you are hoping for the best efficiency ratings. • The solar panels efficiency has a lot to do where you are located geographically [Arizona as opposed to the Pacific Northwest or the Northeastern states]. • The good news is once the solar array is installed, your costs are negligible at best and they begin to quickly return your investment. The sunshine is free! • Thanks to net metering, if your solar power system generates more electric power than you are consuming, the utility grid company will pay you for your additional power. • The use of solar energy for your residence means you are independent from the burden of your municipal utility. You no longer are dependent on foreign sources of power or domestic for that matter. They can raise their rates all they like and you will not feel a thing. • When you install a solar power unit, it is not necessary to connect with the gas or power company grid. • Solar energy units do not produce at night or when it is overcast or pollution is thick, covering up the sun. • There are ways around that as well if you have a battery arrangement in place as a back up and power storage unit. This means when there is no sun available you can still use stored power for your home. • Solar power systems can be installed in very remote regions. • If the power goes out you will still have electricity and with power companies increasingly initiating “brown outs”, you will no longer be resetting clocks and restoring lost computer information. • Solar power units are scalable so when you need more electricity you simply add more solar panels to your existing array. • Solar panels do not make any noise when they do their job. • Solar powered autos are a long way off for consumer use and commercialization. Same for air travel. • Once you install your solar power system, it is pretty much build it and forget it since little maintenance is required – and they last a long time.

Scientists Develop a Whole New Way of Harvesting Energy from the Sun A new method of harvesting the Sun’s energy is emerging, thanks to scientists at UC Santa Barbara’s Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Materials. Though still in its infancy, the research promises to convert sunlight into energy using a process based on metals that are more robust than many of the semiconductors used in conventional methods.

T “I

he researchers’ findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology. t is the first radically new and potentially workable alternative to semiconductor-based solar conversion devices to be developed in the past 70 years or so,” said Martin Moskovits, professor of chemistry at UCSB. n conventional photoprocesses, a technology developed and used over the last century, sunlight hits the surface of semiconductor material, one side of which is electron-rich, while the other side is not. The photon, or light particle, excites the electrons, causing them to leave their postions, and create positively-charged “holes.” The result is a current of charged particles that can be captured and delivered for various uses, including powering lightbulbs, charging batteries, or facilitating chemical reactions. or example, the electrons might cause hydrogen ions in water to be converted into hydrogen, a fuel, while the holes produce oxygen,” said Moskovits. n the technology developed by Moskovits and his team, it is not semiconductor materials that provide the electrons and venue for the conversion of solar energy, but nanostructured metals -- a “forest” of gold nanorods, to be specific. or this experiment, gold nanorods were capped with a layer of crystalline titanium dioxide decorated with platinum nanoparticles, and set in water. A cobalt-based oxidation catalyst was deposited on the lower portion of the array. hen nanostructures, such as nanorods, of certain metals are exposed to visible light, the conduction electrons of the metal can be caused to oscillate collectively, absorbing a great deal of the light,” said Mosko-

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vits. “This excitation is called a surface plasmon.” s the “hot” electrons in these plasmonic waves are excited by light particles, some travel up the nanorod, through a filter layer of crystalline titanium dioxide, and are captured by platinum particles. This causes the reaction that splits hydrogen ions from the bond that forms water. Meanwhile, the holes left behind by the excited electrons head toward the cobalt-based catalyst on the lower part of the rod to form oxygen. ccording to the study, hydrogen production was clearly observable after about two hours. Additionally, the nanorods were not subject to the photocorrosion that often causes traditional semiconductor material to fail in minutes. he device operated with no hint of failure for many weeks,” Moskovits said. he plasmonic method of splitting water is currently less efficient and more costly than conventional photoprocesses, but if the last century of photovoltaic technology has shown anything, it is that continued research will improve on the cost and efficiency of this new method -- and likely in far less time than it took for the semiconductor-based technology, said Moskovits. espite the recentness of the discovery, we have already attained ‘respectable’ efficiencies. More importantly, we can imagine achievable strategies for improving the efficiencies radically,” he said.

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UAE opens world’s largest CSP solar power plant Oil-rich Abu Dhabi officially opened the world’s largest Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant, which cost $600 million to build and will provide electricity to 20,000 homes.

he 100-megawatt Shams 1 is “the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant in operation” said Sultan al-Jaber, the head of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar, which oversees the emirate’s plan to generate seven percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020. “Today, Shams 1 is the largest CSP plant in all terms,” said Santiago Seage, chief executive officer of Abengoa Solar, one of the partners in the project. SP uses a system of mirrors or lenses, whereas many other solar plants around the world use photovoltaic technology to harness solar power. Masdar now produces 10 percent of the world’s concentrated solar power, Seage said during the official inauguration. The company’s energy portfolio represents 68 percent of renewable energy produced in the Gulf region, where clean energy remains at an infancy stage. The solar park features long lines of parabolic mirrors spread over an area equiva-

lent to 285 football pitches in the desert of the Western Region, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi. The 192 rows of loops collect heat that drives turbines to generate power that would save 175,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, equivalent to taking 15,000 cars off the road. Automatic trucks are deployed to dust the mirrors in this desert location where sand poses a serious challenge to the efficiency of heat collectors. Masdar owns 60 percent of the project, while France’s Total and Spain’s Abengoa Solar own 20 percent each. bu Dhabi is the wealthiest of the seven sheikhdoms that make up the federation of the United Arab Emirates. It sits on proven oil reserves totalling 98.2 billion barrels—95 percent of the UAE’s reserves, which are the world’s seventh largest. It also has a large wealth of gas.

he UAE’s leaders were on site for the ceremonial opening, led by President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayad Al-Nahayan and his vice president, Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid AlMaktoum. “The UAE today is the first in the Middle East and OPEC (oil exporting organisation) to begin producing renewable energy, in addition to having hydrocarbon exports,” said Jaber. Total’s head of New Energies, Phillipe Boisseau, said the Shams venture is a natural outcome of the established relation with Abu Dhabi in the energy sector. “We share the vision of the need to diversify energy

sources,” he said. Abu Dhabi has vied over the past years to establish a name as a centre for renewable energy, starting with forming Masdar and then becoming the host of the newly-formed IRENA renewable energy organisation. his is an extraordinary moment for us,” said IRENA’s chief Adnan Amin following the inauguration. He said Shams 1 is the “first massive step” towards having the oil-rich Middle East becoming also a centre for renewable energy.

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Solar-Thermal plants work like this:

Solar collectors capture and concentrate sunlight to heat a synthetic oil called therminol, which then heats water to create steam. The steam is piped to an onsite turbine-generator to produce electricity, which is then transmitted over power lines. On cloudy days, the plant has a supplementary natural gas boiler. The plant can burn natural gas to heat the water, creating steam to generate electricity.

YOUR IGNORANCE IS THEIR POWER. WAKE UP.

ind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make electrical power, windmills for mechanical power, wind pumps for water pumping or drainage, or sails to propel ships. arge wind farms consist of hundreds of individual wind turbines which are connected to the electric power transmission network. Offshore wind farms can harness more frequent and powerful winds than are available to land-based installations and have less visual impact on the landscape but construction costs are considerably higher. Furthermore, offshore poses problems when considering accessibility for maintenance issues. Small onshore wind facilities are used to provide electricity to isolated locations and utility companies increasingly buy surplus electricity produced by small domestic wind turbines. ind power, as an alternative to fossil fuels, is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, produces no greenhouse gas emissions during operation and uses little land. The effects on the environment are generally less problematic than those from other power sources.

The earliest known windmills were in Persia (Iran) and looked like large paddle wheels.

Today the largest wind turbines in the world have blades longer than a football field.

or centuries, people have harnessed the wind’s energy for power, to sail ships (the ancient Egyptians) or to power windmills to grind grain (the Persians). The Dutch are famous for their windmills, which have formed the basis for the design of the modern wind turbines that we see today. Wind is caused by sunlight unevenly heating the surface of the Earth.

How does wind energy work?

uring the day, air over the land heats up more quickly than air over the water, making it expand and rise. As it does so, cooler, more dense air rushes in beneath it, creating an air current. Some giant wind currents are driven by hot air at the equator and cool air at the poles. Turbines harness this energy by working like an old-fashioned windmill with rotor blades that face into the wind. When the blades are spinning, they drive a shaft that is connected to an electrical generator by a gearbox. Most wind turbines produce electricity when the wind is blowing at 10-30mph. One 1.8mW wind turbine produces enough electricity for 1,000 households every year.

What are wind farms?

urbines tend to be built together, as “windfarms”, to produce more electricity in places that have strong, steady winds. Windfarms can be onshore - on ridgelines, at the tops of rounded hills, open plains and gaps in mountains; near shore - on land within 3km of a shoreline, or offshore - generally 10km or more from land. Onshore windfarm projects are finding it increasingly difficult to get planning approval because opposition to them is becoming more entrenched and better organised. Offshore farms cost more to build but produce more electricity because they usually stand in open, windier spots. However, current offshore farms can encroach on shipping lanes, affect seabird sanctuaries and disturb marine life, limiting the number of suitable sites. Wind energy is now available for both large and small-scale electricity generation, with huge technological advances over the past 20 years.

What are the benefits of wind energy?

ind is really a form of solar power, so it has similar benefits of being clean, abundant and free. Some estimates suggest there is enough wind to generate one-third of the world’s electricity. Small wind turbines can be used in remote places to power homes that are too far away from the national grid.

What are the arguments against?

he major problem with wind power is that it is intermittent, so it can only be used to generate electricity when the wind is blowing strongly enough. Good sites for wind turbines are often quite remote, either offshore or up on mountainsides, far from the cities where the energy is most needed. Another argument against large-scale windfarms is their impact on the natural landscape. Because they generally have to be positioned on hills to get the maximum benefits of the wind, some complain that they ruin the landscape. Onshore windfarm projects are finding it increasingly difficult to get planning approval in the UK because local residents are fighting against windfarms being positioned in their area. There are now 151 UK anti windfarm action groups in the UK which have been formed as a result of windfarm developments planned for local countryside areas. Another argument made against windfarms – particularly offshore ones- is the threat to birds. However, appropriately positioned windfarms do not pose a significant hazard for birds, says the RSPB. 37

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fuel cell is an alternative energy device, but it is not necessarily a renewable energy device. It is only renewable if the source of the fuel used is renewable. A fuel cell is an electrochemical device, like a battery in that it converts the energy from a chemical reaction directly into electricity and heat. But unlike a battery, which is limited to the stored chemicals within, a fuel cell has the capability of generating energy as long as fuel is supplied. urrently produced fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen without combustion to produce electricity. The oxygen comes from the air, while the hydrogen can either be produced from water (using electricity) or extracted from fossil fuels. New fuel cells are being developed that can use fossil fuels directly. Fuel cell technology has been around for over 150 years and it shows great promise in powering vehicles and in providing energy for residential applications.

...that Fuel Cells power Space Ships? That’s right, the 1968 launch of Apollo 8 was powered by hydrogen fuel cells, a technology that Francis Bacon adapted for NASA’s use. This efficient and “carbon neutral” power source has been continually used by the space industry ever since.

How Fuel Cells Work?

he fuel cell will compete with many other energyconversion devices, including the gas turbine in your city’s power plant, the gasoline engine in your car and the battery in your laptop. Combustion engines like the turbine and the gasoline engine burn fuels and use the pressure created by the expansion of the gases to do mechanical work. Batteries convert chemical energy back into electrical energy when needed. Fuel cells should do both tasks more efficiently. A fuel cell provides a DC (direct current) voltage that can be used to power motors, lights or any number of electrical appliances. here are several different types of fuel cells, each using a different chemistry. Fuel cells are usually classified by their operating temperature and the type of electrolyte they use. Some types of fuel cells work well for use in stationary power generation plants. Others may be useful for small portable applications or for powering cars.

The main types of fuel cells include: Polymer exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)

he Department of Energy (DOE) is focusing on the PEMFC as the most likely candidate for transportation applications. The PEMFC has a high power density and a relatively low operating temperature (ranging from 60 to 80 degrees Celsius, or 140 to 176 degrees Fahrenheit). The low operating temperature means that it doesn’t take very long for the fuel cell to warm up and begin generating electricity. We?ll take a closer look at the PEMFC in the next section.

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)

hese fuel cells are best suited for large-scale stationary power generators that could provide electricity for factories or towns. This type of fuel cell operates at very high temperatures (between 700 and 1,000 degrees Celsius). This high temperature makes reliability a problem, because parts of the fuel cell can break down after cycling on and off repeatedly. However, solid oxide fuel cells are very stable when in continuous use. In fact, the SOFC has demonstrated the longest operating life of any fuel cell under certain operating conditions. The high temperature also has an advantage: the steam produced by the fuel cell can be channeled into turbines to generate more electricity. This process is called co-generation of heat and power (CHP) and it improves the overall efficiency of the system.

Alkaline fuel cell (AFC)

his is one of the oldest designs for fuel cells; the United States space program has used them since the 1960s. The AFC is very susceptible to contamination, so it requires pure hydrogen and oxygen. It is also very expensive, so this type of fuel cell is unlikely to be commercialized.

Molten-carbonate fuel cell (MCFC)

ike the SOFC, these fuel cells are also best suited for large stationary power generators. They operate at 600 degrees Celsius, so they can generate steam that can be used to generate more power. They have a lower operating temperature than solid oxide fuel cells, which means they don’t need such exotic materials. This makes the design a little less expensive.

Phosphoric-acid fuel cell (PAFC)

he phosphoric-acid fuel cell has potential for use in small stationary power-generation systems. It operates at a higher temperature than polymer exchange membrane fuel cells, so it has a longer warm-up time. This makes it unsuitable for use in cars.

Direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC)

ethanol fuel cells are comparable to a PEMFC in regards to operating temperature, but are not as efficient. Also, the DMFC requires a relatively large amount of platinum to act as a catalyst, which makes these fuel cells expensive. 41

RESIDENTIAL Renewable AlternativE EnerGY Systems There are many opportunities to generate your own electricity and heat using renewable resources. But first you need to realize that you are making an investment, which can be substantial, and this requires the appropriate research, site considerations, need assessment, and cost effectiveness study. Generating your own electricity and heat may not always make you money or save you money but it can create independence from the utility grid and allow you to generate your own clean and green power. Keep in mind that reducing energy use through conservation and increased efficiency is almost always a cheaper alternative than installing a renewable energy system. Here are some specific residential renewable energy systems that use the renewable resources that we have discussed above. 42

Microhydropower Systems

f you have a stream or creek on your property then you might be able to generate electricity using hydropower. Microhydropower systems, if resources and conditions are appropriate, are capable of powering a normal size residence. These systems operate on the same principle as a large hydropower system – moving water turns a turbine, which then drives a generator to produce electricity. Microhydropower does not need to dam the water source to operate but without a dam the power will fluctuate with the normal rise and fall of the creek or stream. The key components of a successful microhydropower system are the head and flow of the available water resource. The head is the vertical distance that the water falls and flow is the volume of the water. Producing electricity is a combination of proper head and flow and using efficient and properly installed equipment. Utilizing the services of a trained professional to do a complete hydrological study is highly recommended but may be expensive. Costs will vary on microhydropower systems depending on size of generator, length of pipe needed, whether a dam is needed, and other variables.

Residential Biomass Applications

iomass is generally used in space heating and cooking as well as an alternative fuel source for vehicles. Wood products are renewable and can be an inexpensive fuel source for heating and cooking – particularly in areas where wood is plentiful. But the combustion by-products of burning wood still contain potentially harmful pollutants. In 1988 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed emission standards for new wood stoves and after July, 1992 all new wood stoves had to pass these EPA emission standards. This means that new wood stoves burn cleaner and more efficiently than pre1992 stoves. Pellet stoves use a variety of biomass ingredients – sawdust, bark, cornhusks, and cardboard – which are compressed together in the form of pellets. Pellet fuel burns much more efficiently than wood, can be fed automatically, and emits fewer pollutants. EPA rated wood and pellet stoves range from $800 to $2,500 dollars. Biomass sources are also used to produce alternative fuels that burn cleaner than gasoline and emit fewer harmful pollutants into the atmosphere.

Vampire Energy Even when household appliances are turned off, most are still using some electricity. Appliances are either in passive standby mode (the clock on microwave is still ticking) or active standby mode (the VCR is off, but programmed to record something.

These numbers are for average standby modes, showing how much electricity is sucked out annually, in kilowatt hours, and what it costs you assuming 11 cents per kilowatt hour. Red lines show passive standby mode; blue lines show active standby mode.

Geothermal Heat Pumps

geothermal heat pump or ground source heat pump (GSHP) is a central heating and/or cooling system that pumps heat to or from the ground. It uses the earth as a heat source (in the winter) or a heat sink (in the summer). This design takes advantage of the moderate temperatures in the ground to boost efficiency and reduce the operational costs of heating and cooling systems, and may be combined with solar heating to form a geosolar system with even greater efficiency. sing the heat from the earth is a very efficient and renewable method of heating and cooling your home. Geothermal heat pumps use the stable temperature of the ground around your home as a source of heat in the winter and cooling in the summer. These systems move heat between the home and ground instead of creating heat by burning fuel and consequently they operate very cleanly and are usually at least three times more efficient than other systems on the market â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including those that are energy efficient themselves. A complete geothermal system can also have the ability to provide hot water through a â&#x20AC;&#x153;desuperheaterâ&#x20AC;?. geothermal heat pump system including installation, duct system and hot water delivery can range in cost from $14,000 to $20,000 but will save significant money over the long term due to increased efficiency.

Solar Electric or Photovoltaic (PV) Systems

hotovoltaic (PV) systems differ from solar water heating systems in that they do not use the sun’s energy to produce heat but instead produce electricity directly from the interaction of sunlight and semiconductor materials. PV products are typically manufactured as individual solar panels that can be added to a structure or mounted on the ground. PV manufacturers, however, are starting to incorporate PV into building materials such as roofing shingles, metal roofing, and window glass. The cost of these products is partially offset by the cost of the building material they replace, and are architecturally very appealing. here are numerous PV technologies, but most can be grouped into one of two major categories: “crystalline silicon” and “thin film slicon.” Crystalline silicon solar cells are cut from crystals of silicon, and their size is limited by the size of crystals that can be produced. Individual cells are electricly connected together to form a PV module. One or more PV modules can be connected together on your roof to produce the desired amount of electricity. Thin film silicon cells differ in that thin layers of semiconductor materials are deposited directly onto a glass or thin metal substrate. The size of the silicon thin films can be much larger than that of silicon crystals, so individual cells can be made much larger and fewer are needed. Crystalline cells have more output for a given cell area, but thin films will cover a larger area for lower cost. here are three things to consider before purchasing and installing a PV system: amount of southern exposure, obstructions that might shade or inhibit sun from reaching the modules, and proper space and terrain for installation of the system, including the type of roof that you have.

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There are three ways that a PV system can be set up for residential use: â&#x20AC;˘ Grid-connected PV systems interface directly with your electric utility connection and allow for excess solar generation to be put back on the grid. When the PV system is not meeting the consumption demand then the consumer will receive electricity from the grid. In Virginia net metering allows customers to receive credit for excess electricity generated from their PV systems, but the total amount of PV power connected to the grid is limited by law. â&#x20AC;˘ Grid-connected systems with battery storage work like ordinary grid-connected systems, but the battery storage allows you back up capability in case of a power outage. â&#x20AC;˘ Independent or off-the-grid systems operate independently. They are stand-alone systems appropriate in situations where there is no electric service to begin with. Independent systems require battery storage to provide power at night and in cloudy weather.

etermining the size of your system is an important consideration because this will determine your capacity as well as your initial cost. Working with a professional PV installer is a good first step in determining your electrical output needs and cost options. There are loan programs available that might help to offset the initial costs for a PV system; they will be discussed later. PV systems are expensive, but a PV system is quiet, is non-polluting, and requires no fuel. ince solar energy is a growing technology, the price of equipment and installation will decrease over time. The price of fossil fuels and electricity, by contrast, will probably continue to increase. Solar technology that is installed at the time of home construction can be more cost effective if integrated in such a way as to offset the cost of traditional building materials. Solar costs can be rolled into an energy efficient mortgage package.

Wind Energy Systems A small residential wind energy system can provide significant electrical power if certain conditions exist: • • • •

Do you have enough wind where you live? Is the annual average mile-per-hour wind speed sufficient? Do zoning or land use requirements disallow tall towers in your neighborhood? Is there enough space for installation and operation? Is it economically feasible?

ind energy is clean, non-polluting, and capable of providing enough electricity to power your home. The size of your system depends on how you plan to use the power that is generated. Small wind turbines can range in size from 20 watts to 100 kilowatts (kW) with a 20-500 watt system being used to charge batteries and a 5 to 15 kW system being used to power a home using 700 to 800 kWh per month. Residential wind systems consist of a rotor or blades, a generator mounted on a frame, a tower, the necessary wiring and the “balance of system” components: controllers, inverters, and possibly batteries. Through the spinning blades, the rotor traps the kinetic energy of the wind and converts it into rotary motion to drive the generator, which produces electricity. The diameter of the rotor and the maximum wind speed determine the amount of power that can be produced. Higher towers give more power both by allowing larger rotors and by reaching heights where wind speeds are greater. A 60 to 120 foot tower (5 to 10 stories) is common for small wind energy systems. Wind energy systems can be stand-alone or connected to the electric utility grid allowing the consumer to take advantage of net metering in the same manner as solar systems (discussed above). A rule of thumb for estimating cost is $3,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt. A typical 10kW system costs about $47,000 installed and produces 900 kWh at an annual average wind speed of 12 mph, which is fairly common when using a 120 foot tower. As is the case with most renewable energy systems and energy efficient products, the initial cost is high but the savings realized over the long term may be significant. 51

Residential Fuel Cells

esidential fuel cells represent a clean, efficient, nonpolluting source of electrical power. Fuel cells are a renewable energy technology only if their fuel comes from renewable sources, but even if they use fossilbased fuels they use them cleanly and very efficiently. In a typical fuel cell hydrogen molecules are broken down into negativelycharged electrons and positively-charged hydrogen ions at the anode. The electrons flow through the load (delivering power), while the hydrogen ions flow through the electrolyte. At the anode the hydrogen ions and electrons combine with oxygen molecules to form water. Since a single fuel cell has an output of only about one volt, many are combined to form a residential power package.

The benefits of residential fuel cells are numerous: • Fuel cells are very efficient because they convert chemical energy directly into electrical energy without combustion. • They can operate independent of the utility grid or in conjunction with the grid. • Unlike other renewable systems, fuel cells can provide power on demand. Independent systems thus do not require battery storage. • Fuel cell emissions are clean: if they are using hydrogen fuel their combustion product is simply water vapor. Fuel cells that require a reformer to convert fuels to hydrogen emit both water vapor and carbon dioxide. • Fuel cells are completely compatible with other renewable systems like PV and wind and make very successful hybrid systems. • Fuel cells are fuel flexible and can use just about any fossil fuel: propane, natural gas, methanol, ethanol, oil, or gasoline. They can also use renewably-generated hydrogen. • Fuel cells run continuously and are easily maintained although maintenance can vary depending on the technology of the fuel cell. Some disadvantages to fuel cells are: • Residential fuel cell technology is very new and still being tested • The cost of a residential fuel cell is still high - $6,000 to $10,000 for a 5kW system that could power a standard size home.

residential fuel cell system consists of a fuel processor that converts fuel into hydrogen, a fuel cell stack that converts the hydrogen into direct current electricity, batteries for storing power, and an inverter to produce alternating current.

Energy Tips and Recommendations

1. Consider the use of renewable energy systems that produce clean and non-polluting energy. The ini-

tial cost or investment may be high but over the long term the savings can be significant. You will also be making an important commitment to saving our natural resources and preserving the environment.

2. If you have a stream on your property, you may be able to develop a small microhydropower system

that can produce enough electricity to power your home.

3. Space heating is a low-cost way in which to incorporate biomass into a residential renewable application.

4. Geothermal heat pumps, which use the heat of the earth, to provide heating and cooling for the home

are three times more efficient than conventional energy efficient furnaces.

5. Solar electric systems (PV systems) use the power of the sun to produce electricity. Solar panels

mounted on your roof or near your home can provide clean, non-polluting, and renewable energy to power your home.

6. Small residential wind energy systems provide a clean, non-polluting source of electricity. You must

have a sufficient average annual wind speed and enough installation space for wind energy to be effective.

7. Consider using hybrid power systems, which combine different renewable energy sources to produce

electricity.

8. Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen without combustion to produce electricity. They are efficient,

and when fueled with pure hydrogen their only emission product is water vapor. They represent an exciting new technology that is still a few years away but may represent the residential power source of the future.

9. Take advantage of existing programs to help offset the cost of renewable energy systems and to receive

services and expertise.

10. Keep in mind that reducing energy use through conservation and increased efficiency is almost al-

ways a cheaper alternative than installing a renewable energy system.

HIGH RISK FOODS To Avoid Feeding Young Kids

The World Health Organization recommends that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first year of life, which means that they shouldn’t eat or drink anything except breast milk for a full year, says Maureen Denard of FindaNanny.net. While these guidelines are recommended to parents around the globe, they’re not always adhered to. Pediatricians may recommend an amended diet in some cases, as breastfeeding may not be an ideal fit with the lifestyle of a growing family, and there can be extenuating circumstances that exclude some families from this recommendation. It’s never a good idea to feed a baby solid food if she’s too young to support the weight of her head without assistance, but these are 15 of the foods that won’t be suitable even for toddlers. According to FindaNanny.net, 58

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Raw Sprouts – The manner in which sprouts are grown can

leave them susceptible to contamination in a variety of ways, making them a risky choice for young children.

Hot Dogs – Hot dogs may be one of the quintessential kids’

foods, but they’re also one of the most dangerous. The very structure of a hot dog makes it a choking hazard, especially for young children whose chewing and swallowing reflexes are still developing. Before serving hot dogs, they should be sliced lengthwise and then chopped.

Honey – Reaching for an all-natural sweetener is admirable, but

honey can cause botulism in children younger than one year of age. It’s best to avoid giving a child honey until he’s well into his second year in the interest of playing it safe.

Peanuts – Choking hazards aside, peanut allergies are among

the most common and the most deadly food sensitivities. Introducing such a high-risk food to young children, especially those with a family history of peanut allergies, could trigger a dangerous allergic reaction that leads to anaphylactic shock.

Tree Nuts – Tree nuts are another common allergen that double

as a choking hazard. Until kids’ sensitivity to foods has been established in a controlled environment and he’s old enough to manage round, crunchy foods, tree nuts shouldn’t be on the menu.

Whole Grapes – It’s perfectly acceptable to feed young chil-

dren grapes. In fact, these naturally sweet snacks are far preferable to candies and processed sweets. The round shape and smooth skin do make them dangerous choking hazards, though, which is why you should always cut them into smaller, more manageable pieces before feeding them to little ones.

Shellfish – On the list of common allergens, shellfish ranks

fairly high. It’s also one that has the potential to be deadly in cases of exposure when there’s an allergy.

Certain Types of Fish – Fish is rich in a variety of nutri-

ents and compounds that are beneficial to human health, but some varieties are known to harbor high levels of mercury. The contaminant can build up in the bodies of frequent pescetarians, which can be particularly problematic for kids. Be sure that you research the safety of a particular variety of fish in terms of mercury risk before feeding it to your growing toddler.

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 60

Cow’s Milk – It’s natural to assume that cow’s milk is a rea-

sonable substitute for formula or breast milk in a pinch, but that’s just not the case. The stomachs of babies under one year of age simply aren’t ready to process cow’s milk.

Soy Milk – Soy milk can cause gastrointestinal problems for

small children, and doesn’t contain enough calories or nutrients to sustain a growing baby. Soy is also one of the more common allergies, so it’s wise to skip the soy milk altogether until your child is a bit older.

Eggs – Limiting kids’ exposure to common allergens when

they’re small can prevent scary or even dangerous reactions, and eggs are among the food items that commonly cause sensitivity issues.

Chewing Gum – Chewing gum is sweet and fun for lit-

tle ones, but the motion of chewing and swallowing saliva can confuse growing digestive systems that equate the chewing action with eating. Gum can also pose a choking hazard for little ones.

Marshmallows – The soft, sticky consistency of a marsh-

mallow makes it a very risky food for small children because it can so easily become a choking hazard. This is especially true of the larger varieties, which can completely block a child’s airway.

Gummy Candies – Processed sugars and artificial addi-

tives aside, gummy candies become a chewy, gelatinous mess in kids’ mouths, which can become a potential choking hazard.

Nut Butters – Even if you eliminate the potential allergen

risk of peanut and other nut butters, the consistency is still difficult for developing jaws and throats to manage. Nut butters are a leading cause of choking among small children, so it’s wise to hold off on this kid classic until your little one is a bit older, or to spread it thinly on crackers or bread if serving to older toddlers.

Imagine giving THIS to your baby?

4KIDS 500 WILL

DIE TODAY FROM WATER RELATED DISEASES

HELP.

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Dangerous

Hidden

Food Ingredients In Seemingly

Healthy Foods Would you eat your favorite breakfast cereal if you knew that it contained Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT), a product also used in jet fuel and embalming fluid? Can you imagine grilling your low fat veggie burger if you found out that its main ingredient is Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)? Watch out, because foods that are considered “healthy” and labeled as “natural” contain many harmful chemicals used as food preservatives and flavor enhancers – and these chemicals are often disguised under unrecognizable names. In next article, we’ll expose the hidden dangerous food additives that are lurking in so-called “healthy” foods, how you can easily spot them and the simple and delicious alternatives that won’t sabotage your bone and overall health. 62

Unhealthy processed foods greatly outnumber unadulterated healthy foods

n the last 100 years the food industry has advanced by leaps and bounds. Today, more than three quarters of supermarket shelves are stocked with packaged and processed foods. These boxed, canned, and frozen concoctions in most cases only require boiling or microwaving to become edible. In total, there are more than 3,000 food chemicals purposely added to our food supply, yet avoiding them is a lot easier and more economical than you might think. ou probably already know this, but the rule of thumb is that the best foods to conquer osteoporosis and to stay healthy are unprocessed natural foods. That’s because man-made chemicals acidify your body pH which in turn accelerates bone loss.

Back to basics is best for your bone health

W A

e can all agree that scientific progress is a good thing, especially when it comes to innovations that make our life easier and more enjoyable. But advances in the food industry are hindering our efforts to stay healthy because thousands of chemicals have entered the food supply. t the beginning of the food processing revolution, which began soon after World War II, manufacturers did not bother to hide the newly added synthetically made food additives. After all, the perception was that as women joined the workforce, their available time for cooking would be greatly diminished, and that most everyone would quickly adopt the newly invented convenience foods. So like a tsunami thunderously ravaging the shoreline, the convenience food industry has flooded grocery stores with their processed products. As a result, foods have become so industrially processed that in some cases they could be easily labeled as “edible food-like substances” – a synthetic manmade product – rather than actual nourishing food. dding insult to injury, many staple foods such as potatoes and corn – often used as basic ingredients in a host of products – have their genetic makeup purposely tampered with and may be dangerous to your health.

Convenience foods hurt more than help

mple research on the evolutionary process of humans and their nutritional requirements point to the clear fact that while our nutrition has radically changed since Paleolithic times, our biology really hasn’t. But along came agriculture and later on the Industrial Revolution and with it, man-made chemicals made their way into our dining rooms. ortunately, as is the case with most deceptions, educated consumers are now seeking alternatives to these chemical laden products in turn forcing food producers to get creative… That is why more often than not, food chemicals are renamed with less “synthetic names” than their older original ones. want you to be aware of this very important health issue, so we’ll explore together the 12 most dangerous commonly used food additives that can sabotage both your bone health and your general health. One important comment here: remember that ingredients on product packaging are listed according to quantity; the ingredient making up the largest quantity is listed first, and so on.

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Let’s analyse a “healthy” breakfast cereal

ntioxidants protect cells from oxidative damage and some of them are proven potent bone protectors as well. So isn’t it a great idea to have your morning breakfast cereal with healthy antioxidants? Not so fast… Let’s take a look at the ingredients of Kellogg’s® Smart Start® Strong Heart Antioxidants: Rice, whole grain wheat, sugar, oat clusters, sugar, toasted oats [rolled oats, sugar, canola oil with tbhq and citric acid to preserve freshness, molasses, honey, bht for freshness, soy lecithin], wheat flakes, crisp rice [rice, sugar, malt, salt], corn syrup, polydextrose, honey, cinnamon, BHT [preservative], artificial vanilla flavor, high fructose corn syrup, salt, honey, malt flavoring, alpha tocopherol acetate [vitamin E], niacinamide, zinc oxide, reduced iron, sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C), calcium pantothenate, Yellow #5, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), BHT (preservative), vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, beta carotene (a source of vitamin A), vitamin B12 and vitamin D.

Worst offenders: BHT (Butylated Hydroxytoluene): this common additive used to prevent oxidation in a wide variety of foods and cosmetics is listed by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) in 2005 as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” on the basis of experimental findings in animals. It is also used in jet fuels, rubber petroleum products, transformer oil and embalming fluid. As if this were not enough, the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) warns that BHT should not be allowed to enter the environment, can cause liver damage, and is harmful to aquatic organisms. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS): Loaded with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules, studies have shown that the reactive carbonyl molecules can cause tissue damage that may lead to obesity, diabetes, and also heart disease. So much for this “Strong Heart Antioxidants” cereal recipe! HFCS is made from genetically modified corn and processed with genetically modified enzymes. To make matters worse, studies have recently revealed that nearly half of tested samples of HFCS contained mercury. Yellow #5: Almost all colorants approved for use in food are derived from coal tar and may contain up tp 10ppm of lead and arsenic. Also, and not surprisingly, most coal tar colors could potentially cause cancer.

Healthy replacements

love starting my day with an antioxidant-rich breakfast complete with natural granola and fresh fruits sprinkled with slivered almonds, flax, and pumpkin seeds for extra crunch. Try it with your favourite milk substitute, and if you have a sweet tooth, use a little honey. I’m quite sure you’ll love it too. There are also many tasty varieties of boxed cereals that truly contain all-natural ingredients – just read the label and avoid synthetic ingredients including the ones listed above.

Almond Raisin Granola 3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats 1 cup slivered almonds 1 cup golden raisins 3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut 1/3 cup sesame seeds 1/4 cup vegetable oil 6 Tablespoons pure maple syrup 6 Tablespoons (packed) brown sugar 2 tablespoons HOT water 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 3/4 teaspoon salt vegetable or canola cooking spray Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Coat a large, rimmed baking sheet lightly with with cooking spray. In a large bowl, toss oats with the almonds, coconut and sesame seeds. In a small bowl, stir the the syrup, brown sugar, oil, cinnamon and salt together with the water until well blended. Pour wet mixture over oat mixture and stir to combine. Spread combined mixture evenly over the prepared baking sheet. Stirring occasionally, bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until evenly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Mix in the raisins. Great with milk for morning cereal. Stores well for two weeks in an airtight container. It takes less than 90 minutes to make the whole thing and then you have fresh homemade cereal for the week.

Are you ready for lunch?

ou know that you can never go wrong with a salad to start your lunch with, so you pick your favourite

bone-healthy alkalizing vegetables and all you have to do is pour some delicious dressing. Add a few crispy nuts and seeds and voila! You’ve got yourself a healthy lunch. But your choice of salad dressing can ruin your intentions… Let’s take a look at one of the most popular salad dressings, Kraft’s Creamy Italian dressing: Water, soybean oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, contains less than 2% of garlic*, xanthan gum, citric acid, propylene glycol alginate, onions*, polysorbate 60, spice, red bell peppers*, garlic, phosphoric acid, parsley*, vitamin E, natural flavor. *dried

Worst offenders: Soybean oil: More than half of all soybeans crops grown in the US are genetically-modified (GMO) representing a meteoric rise since 1996, when only 7% were GMO soybeans. Genetically modified crops not only pose environmental dangers. There is a growing concern (and mounting scientific evidence) that genetic engineering of food plant seeds may have an unexpected and negative impact on human health. Propylene glycol alginate (E405): this food thickener, stabilizer, and emulsifier is derived from alginic acid esterified and combined with propylene glycol. Bear in mind that even though propylene glycol is used as a food additive, it has many industrial uses including automotive antifreezes and airport runway de-icers. Polysorbate 60: short for polyoxyethylene-(20)- sorbitan monostearate this emulsifier is widely used in the food industry. Made of made of corn, palm oil and petroleum, this gooey mix can’t spoil, so it often replaces dairy products in baked goods and other liquid products.

Healthy replacements While some commercially made salad dressings really may have natural ingredients (make sure you read the labels), try to stick to basics and use olive oil with lemon juice as often as possible. Olive oil, is in fact a fruit juice and contains long chain unsaturated fatty acids that alkalize your body’s pH. You can also make your own salad dressing at home using wholesome natural ingredients.

An afternoon snack to energize your day

couple of hours after lunch, you might crave a little pick-me-up snack. A few pretzels might just hit the spot, right? But not so fast… Take a look at the list of ingredients in a bag of fat free Rold Gold® Pretzels, the number one brand in the US:

Worst offenders: Enriched flour: these pretzels are made with enriched flour. But don’t let the attractive description mislead you: like most highly processed foods, enriched flour is devoid of nutrients and more often than not it is also bleached. Since the wheat germ and bran are removed from this type of flour, the body treats it as a refined starch. But it doesn’t end here. The “enrichment” itself is made using toxic ingredients. For example, iron is added back into enriched flour. Unfortunately, food makers use a metallic form of iron that your body can barely absorb and should not be ingested.

Watch the shocking video below:

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V265pGgsBnM

Healthy Replacements It has fortunately become quite easy to replace enriched flour with healthy alternatives, especially with whole wheat flour. But don’t forget that there are other options that can add variety to your meals such as rye, quinoa, millet, and brown rice flour and sprouted grain products. I like to snack on alkalizing fruits, whether dried or fresh, and sometimes add a few nuts such as almonds or walnuts and some sesame seeds that are naturally high in calcium. Dried fruits mixed with nuts are easy to carry around so you can have a bone-healthy snack anytime of the day. 70

It’s time for dinner now

s the day is winding down, you are looking forward to a nutritious and substantial dinner. You might choose what you think is a healthier lower fat alternative to beef, such as the Morningstar Farms® Grillers® Vegan Veggie Burgers. Take a look at the ingredients: Water, textured soy protein concentrate, corn oil, contains two percent or less of autolyzed yeast extract, vegetable gum, natural flavors from vegetable sources, maltodextrin, soy fiber, salt, carrageenan, potato starch, onion powder, caramel color, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, konjac flour, sunflower oil, sesame seed oil, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), concentrated onion juice, ascorbic acid, vinegar powder, citric acid, aspartic acid, modified corn starch, malic acid, succinic acid, tartaric acid, lactic acid, wheat flour, soy lecithin.

Worst Offenders: Textured soy protein concentrate, carrageenan, maltodextrin, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, modified cornstarch: All of these are basically different names to hide ingredients that either contain Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) or form MSG during processing. It is very important for your bone health and your overall health that you avoid these acidifying chemicals that can cause a variety of undesirable side effects, besides accelerate your bone loss. MSG and its related products have been linked skin rashes, nausea, migraine headaches, heart irregularities, and even seizures.

Healthy Replacements: If you are following the Save Our Bones Program you know that you have a very wide choice of foods to create delicious and bone-smart meals. The Program reveals an easy to follow pH balanced nutrition plan among many other things, and the best part is that you are in complete control of the huge number of combinations possible from the alkalizing and acidifying lists. While beef is acidifying, you can build your dinner around a beef hamburger instead of the chemical meat replacement example above. I recommend you combine it with bone-healthy alkalizing vegetables and other alkalizing foods to balance your dinner. If you opt not have meat, the good news is that many grocery stores carry all natural vegetable imitation meat patties – just make sure they don’t contain the aforementioned ingredients. 72

DO THE GREEN THING

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Your health is in your hands

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s you can see, it is easy to make the healthy food choices that will bring back or retain your bone density and your general health. I hope that after you read this article you will pay even more attention to the ingredient labels in the foods you buy. This may sound daunting, but it’s really a lot easier than it sounds. imply try to eat foods in the most unadulterated “original” format as often as possible. And here’s a shortcut, any food packaging that has a long list of ingredients with names that sound like they’re from a distant planet is not the kind of food you want to eat. For strong and healthy bones, eat foods with a short and easy to recognize list of ingredients.

GREAT SUCCESS OF ORGANIC FARMING

India's rice revolution In a village in India’s poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages?

umant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked. his was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India’s poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world’s population of seven billion, big news. t beat not just the 19.4 tonnes achieved by the “father of rice”, the Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, but the World Bank-funded scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and anything achieved by the biggest European

and American seed and GM companies. And it was not just Sumant Kumar. Krishna, Nitish, Sanjay and Bijay, his friends and rivals in Darveshpura, all recorded over 17 tonnes, and many others in the villages around claimed to have more than doubled their usual yields. he villagers, at the mercy of erratic weather and used to going without food in bad years, celebrated. But the Bihar state agricultural universities didn’t believe them at first, while India’s leading rice scientists muttered about freak results. The Nalanda farmers were accused of cheating. Only when the state’s head of agriculture, a rice farmer himself, came to the village with his own men and personally verified Sumant’s crop, was the record confirmed. he rhythm of Nalanda village life was shattered. Here bullocks still pull ploughs as they have always done, their dung is still dried on the walls of houses and used to cook food. Electricity has still not reached most people. Sumant became a local hero, mentioned in the Indian parliament and asked to attend conferences. The state’s chief minister came to Darveshpura to congratulate him, and the village was rewarded with electric power, a bank and a new concrete bridge.

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hat might have been the end of the story had Sumant’s friend Nitish not smashed the world record for growing potatoes six months later. Shortly after Ravindra Kumar, a small farmer from a nearby Bihari village, broke the Indian record for growing wheat. Darveshpura became known as India’s “miracle village”, Nalanda became famous and teams of scientists, development groups, farmers, civil servants and politicians all descended to discover its secret. hen I meet the young farmers, all in their early 30s, they still seem slightly dazed by their fame. They’ve become unlikely heroes in a state where nearly half the families live below the Indian poverty line and 93% of the 100 million population depend on growing rice and potatoes. Nitish Kumar speaks quietly of his success and says he is determined to improve on the record. “In previous years, farming has not been very profitable,” he says. “Now I realise that it can be. My whole life has changed. I can send my children to school and spend more on health. My income has increased a lot.” hat happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the “super yields” is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world’s 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them. nstead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. The premise that “less is more” was taught by Rajiv Kumar, a young Bihar state government extension worker who had been trained in turn by Anil Verma of a small Indian NGO called Pran (Preservation and Proliferation of Rural Resources and Nature), which has introduced the SRI method to hundreds of villages in the past three years.

hile the “green revolution” that averted Indian famine in the 1970s relied on improved crop varieties, expensive pesticides and chemical fertilisers, SRI appears to offer a long-term, sustainable future for 78

no extra cost. With more than one in seven of the global population going hungry and demand for rice expected to outstrip supply within 20 years, it appears to offer real hope. Even a 30% increase in the yields of the world’s small farmers would go a long way to alleviating poverty. armers use less seeds, less water and less chemicals but they get more without having to invest more. This is revolutionary,” said Dr Surendra Chaurassa from Bihar’s agriculture ministry. “I did not believe it to start with, but now I think it can potentially change the way everyone farms. I would want every state to promote it. If we get 30-40% increase in yields, that is more than enough to recommend it.” he results in Bihar have exceeded Chaurassa’s hopes. Sudama Mahto, an agriculture officer in Nalanda, says a small investment in training a few hundred people to teach SRI methods has resulted in a 45% increase in the region’s yields. Veerapandi Arumugam, the former agriculture minister of Tamil Nadu state, hailed the system as “revolutionising” farming.

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RI’s origins go back to the 1980s in Madagascar where Henri de Laulanie, a French Jesuit priest and agronomist, observed how villagers grew rice in the

uplands. He developed the method but it was an American, professor Norman Uphoff, director of the International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development at Cornell University, who was largely responsible for spreading the word about De Laulanie’s work. iven $15m by an anonymous billionaire to research sustainable development, Uphoff went to Madagascar in 1983 and saw the success of SRI for himself: farmers whose previous yields averaged two tonnes per hectare were harvesting eight tonnes. In 1997 he started to actively promote SRI in Asia, where more than 600 million people are malnourished. t is a set of ideas, the absolute opposite to the first green revolution [of the 60s] which said that you had to change the genes and the soil nutrients to improve yields. That came at a tremendous ecological cost,” says Uphoff. “Agriculture in the 21st century must be practised differently. Land and water resources are becoming scarcer, of poorer quality, or less reliable. Climatic conditions are in many places more adverse. SRI offers millions of disadvantaged households far better opportunities. Nobody is benefiting from this except the farmers; there are no patents, royalties or licensing fees.” or 40 years now, says Uphoff, science has been obsessed with improving seeds and using artificial fertilisers: “It’s been genes, genes, genes. There has never been talk of managing crops. Corporations say ‘we will breed you a better plant’ and breeders work hard to get 5-10% increase in yields. We have tried to make agriculture an industrial enterprise and have forgotten its biological roots.” ot everyone agrees. Some scientists complain there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI and that it is impossible to get such returns. “SRI is a set of management practices and nothing else, many of which have been known for a long time and are best recommended practice,” says Achim Dobermann, deputy director for research at the International Rice Research Institute. “Scientifically speaking I don’t believe there is any miracle. When people independently have evaluated SRI principles then the result has usually been quite different from what has been reported on farm evaluations conducted by NGOs and others who are promoting it. Most scientists have had difficulty replicating the observations.” ominic Glover, a British researcher working with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has spent years analysing the introduction of GM crops in developing countries. He is now following how SRI is being adopted in India and believes there has been a “turf war”.

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here are experts in their fields defending their knowledge,” he says. “But in many areas, growers have tried SRI methods and abandoned them. People are unwilling to investigate this. SRI is good for small farmers who rely on their own families for labour, but not necessarily for larger operations. Rather than any magical theory, it is good husbandry, skill and attention which results in the super yields. Clearly in certain circumstances, it is an efficient resource for farmers. But it is labour intensive and nobody has come up with the technology to transplant single seedlings yet.” ut some larger farmers in Bihar say it is not labour intensive and can actually reduce time spent in fields. “When a farmer does SRI the first time, yes it is more labour intensive,” says Santosh Kumar, who grows 15 hectares of rice and vegetables in Nalanda. “Then it gets easier and new innovations are taking place now.” n its early days, SRI was dismissed or vilified by donors and scientists but in the past few years it has gained credibility. Uphoff estimates there are now 4-5 million farmers using SRI worldwide, with governments in China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam promoting it. umant, Nitish and as many as 100,000 other SRI farmers in Bihar are now preparing their next rice crop. It’s back-breaking work transplanting the young rice shoots from the nursery beds to the paddy fields but buoyed by recognition and results, their confidence and optimism in the future is sky high. ast month Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz visited Nalanda district and recognised the potential of this kind of organic farming, telling the villagers they were “better than scientists”. “It was amazing to see their success in organic farming,” said Stiglitz, who called for more research. “Agriculture scientists from across the world should visit and learn and be inspired by them.” ihar, from being India’s poorest state, is now at the centre of what is being called a “new green grassroots revolution” with farming villages, research groups and NGOs all beginning to experiment with different crops using SRI. The state will invest $50m in SRI next year but western governments and foundations are holding back, preferring to invest in hi-tech research. The agronomist Anil Verma does not understand why: “The farmers know SRI works, but help is needed to train them. We know it works differently in different soils but the principles are solid,” he says. “The biggest problem we have is that people want to do it but we do not have enough trainers.” f any scientist or a company came up with a technology that almost guaranteed a 50% increase in yields at no extra cost they would get a Nobel prize. But when young Biharian farmers do that they get nothing. I only want to see the poor farmers have enough to eat.”

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NEW CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED

Stop GM Crops in Europe Environment and agriculture organisations have launched a new campaign today to prevent the further spread of genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe. Brussels, March 18, 2013

he European Commission is currently considering reviving talks to approve 25 new GM-crops for cultivation in Europe – including crops resistant to the pesticide RoundUp and insecticide-producing varieties of GM maize, soybean and sugarbeet. [2] The groups claim that such a move would drastically change farming in Europe, leading to a big increase in pesticide use, contamination of conventional and organic crops and a further industrialisation of the countryside. [3] ute Schimpf, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said: “This campaign aims to stop further genetically modified crops from being licenced in the European Union. Experience shows that this way of farming leads to an increase in pesticides and the further industrialisation of the countryside. If this happens any more in Europe then our landscapes will be poorer, our nature damaged and our food contaminated.” he campaign launches with a new film documenting GM-crop cultivation and extensive pesticide use in Latin America, and the negative environmental and human health issues experienced by local communities. ina Holland, campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory said: “Currently, the EU imports soy from large-scale monoculture plantations in South

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America, causing not only deforestation and displacement of people, but also a public health disaster among rural communities living nearby. In those areas, citizens have taken legal action and have brought soy farmers and agribusiness companies to court.” he introduction of patented GM-crops has increased the corporate control of the food chain. Moreover, contamination of other fields is unavoidable. In the USA Monsanto has so far sued 410 farmers and 56 farm companies for patent infringements; a situation that could be repeated in Europe if GM-crop cultivation is expanded. [4] he campaign also claims that the push for GM crops draws attention away from sustainable alternatives, while failing to find real solutions to alleviate hunger or poverty. ute Schimpf continued: “GM crops are unnecessary, risky and profit large multinational companies at the expense of small scale and sustainable farming. The public clearly demands greener farming that doesn’t include genetically modified crops or foods. It’s time to plough all our resources into making farming really sustainable and to stop pandering to the biotech industry and their empty promises of reducing hunger or feeding the world.”

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Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar.

nlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods. Planetsave reports:

lmost 1000 acres of maize found to have been ground with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary, deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added. nlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seek traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said. During the invesigation, controllers have found Pioneer Monsanto products among the seeds planted. he free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will not investigate how

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the seeds arrived in Hungary, but they will check where the goods can be found, Bognar said. Regional public radio reported that the two biggest international seed producing companies are affected in the matter and GMO seeds could have been sown on up to the thousands of hectares in the country. Most of the local farmers have complained since they just discovered they were using GMO seeds. With season already under way, it is too late to sow new seeds, so this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s harvest has been lost. nd to make things even worse for the farmers, the company that distributed the seeds in Baranya county is under liquidation. Therefore, if any compensation is paid by the international seed producers, the money will be paid primarily to that companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creditors, rather than the farmers.

Bhutan To Be First Country to Go 100% Organic If there was ever a nation that could see the purpose behind organic, sustainable farming, it would be a nation that is composed mostly of farmers. Such a place does exist, and it soon may be the first nation to go 100% organic, paving the way for others to do the same on a global scale.

he Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is known for a high level of citizen happiness, but it is doing something even more noteworthy in the near future. With Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley making a major announcement regarding the organic farming project at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development which took place last month, the move has made national headlines. It’s called the National Organic Policy, and it is fueled by the simple concept that working ‘in harmony with nature’ will yield the most powerful results — all without sacrificing human health or the environment.

hat this comes down to is no GMO, no pesticides, no herbicides, no fluoride-based spray products, no Monsanto intrusion at all, and a whole lot of high quality food available for the 700,000 citizens of Bhutan. Food that, at one time, was simply called ‘food’. In the statement to other policy makers, Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley explained the move: “By working in harmony with nature, they can help sustain the flow of nature’s bounties.” hutan’s land currently supplys most corn, rice, fruits, and some vegetables, and it is perfectly positioned to begin developing 100% organic farming. In addition to containing a population that is mostly farmers, it also has extremely rich lands that are truly beyond what many consider organic.

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ome lands in Bhutan have not even been touched with harsh chemicals of any kind, and traditional techniques are utilized to produce high yields without Monsanto dipping into the pockets of family farmers. This is in sharp contrast to India’s farming community, which has been shafted by Monsanto and subsequently nicknamed the ‘suicide belt‘ due to the rampant suicides that can be blamed in part by Monsanto-induced financial ruin.

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ustralian adviser to Bhutan, Andre Leu, explains: “I don’t think it’s going to be that difficult given that the majority of the agricultural land is already organic by default.” he shift is certainly inspiring, but it also reminds us about the true lunacy of designating foods as ‘organic’ and ‘traditional’ in modern society. These Bhutan farmers are not growing magic beans or enchanted corn, they are growing real food. Actual food as it was grown for thousands of years. It’s only now, with the advent of ways in which we can toxify our crops, do we value organic as if it were some privilege or act of class. When it comes down to it, we just want real food. 86

ISSUE 4

Activism Forces Whole Foods to Adopt Mandatory GMO Labeling

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hanks to the same tireless activism that has led to national and international regulation of GMOs, the health food industry giant that is Whole Foods has announced that it will be rolling out mandatory GMO labels to indicate whether or not a product contains GMOs by 2018. t’s a move that, despite a larger time window than most consumers want, signifies a massive shift towards a GMO-free food chain. Just the announcement will send many producers of ‘health’ products who currently use GMOs scrambling to find new ingredient sources in order to still stay competitive in the market. After all, it is the worst nightmare for a company to have a large “Contains GMO Ingredients” label amid rows and rows of ‘GMO-Free” products. It would be marketing suicide. e can also examine how this single declaration by Whole Foods will ultimately span across numerous other outlets, namely competing natural foods markets. And these other markets could actually accelerate the labeling process in a competitive move as well. It could also influence the political sector as awareness is raised over the very existence let alone the dangers of GMOs and legislation is demanded. But let’s not forget how this major victory came to be.

Your Activism Works

f you’re reading this article, chances are you have participated in the resistance against Monsanto and the contamination of our food supply. It is due to individuals like you that have made this victory possible, and it is among the many victories we have seen over the past few years. Ever since we declared Monsanto the ‘Worst Company of 2011‘ only to find a massive viral success from like-minded readers, activists, and even website owners themselves, I knew that it was possible for this resistance movement to conquer the lies and endless money pools of the opposition. ranted we aren’t fully there yet, as GMOs and other problematic substances (don’t forget aspartame is made from GM bacteria waste as reported in 1999 by The Independent) are still in the food supply, however we are truly getting there. We saw Prop 37, the California initiative to label GMOs, ignite with burning fire and ultimately fall due to Monsanto-backed deception tactics and questionable polling, but the spirit that drove Prop 37 is still alive and well. In fact, the motivation behind Prop 37 is now stronger than ever after the legislation actually brought the issue of GMOs even further to the mainstream. n the past we have seen Peru enact bans on Monsanto’s GMO, Poland launch bans against GMO maize and potatoes, and even cities within the US banning GMOs. Now, through voicing your desires to corporations through finances, we are seeing this happen on a business level as well.

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Can Urban Farming Go Corporate? Farms have sprouted in cities across the country over the past several years as activists and idealists pour their sweat into gritty soil. Now Paul Lightfoot wants to take urban agriculture beyond the dirt-under-your-nails labor of love. He wants to take it corporate.

n June, Lightfoot’s company, BrightFarms, announced a deal with The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., or A&P, to provide New York City-grown vegetables to the local chain’s supermarkets year-round. The goods will grow in what the company says will be the country’s largest rooftop greenhouse farm, a high-tech hydroponic operation that will boost yields, allowing the company to face-off with organic vegetables trucked from California, cutting thousands of miles from the supply chain while aiming to provide a fresher product at a competitive price.

ith similar deals announced for St. Paul, Minn. and Oklahoma, BrightFarms is looking to tap into the local-food zeitgeist nationwide and cre92

ate a more efficient produce mass-market. With some notable exceptions, urban farms have largely been non-profit, community-based endeavors, aiming to provide healthier food as a public good. The few for-profit operations have been mostly small and local. Lightfoot has grander ambitions.

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itself.”

We’re not trying to change the fringes of the supply chain,” he said. “We want to change the supply chain

he idea to grow more food within city limits has spread in recent years along with increased awareness about the quality of our food and where it comes from. Advocates say urban farms can also provide

important green-space and, when built on roofs, help reduce energy use and storm-water runoff. In dense cities like New York, with high real estate prices, rooftops represent enticing, unused space. Several cities, including New York and Seattle have revised zoning and building codes to help encourage the practice. n New York, two startups have already begun growing vegetables from the city’s large commercial rooftops. One company, Gotham Greens, operates a greenhouse similar to the type BrightFarms is planning. The company grows herbs and leafy greens year round, selling to restaurants and grocery stores, including Whole Foods. Brooklyn Grange, which started operating in 2010, runs a more low-tech, open-aired operation. Both companies report modest profits and are expanding to additional, larger roofs.

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New York is really at the forefront of this,” said Kubi Ackerman, of the Urban Design Lab at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Ackerman released a report last year demonstrating the potential for urban farms to improve access to vegetables in poor neighborhoods in New York. The report identifies more than 2,700 acres of rooftop space across the city that is suitable for agri-

cultural use, arguing that urban and rooftop farms could improve the local environment and benefit public health while providing jobs. f that sounds too good to be true, it may be. The biggest challenge for urban farms, and particularly rooftop farms, Ackerman and others say, is money. couple of years ago, enthusiastic news articles greeted announcements of rooftop greenhouses in San Francisco and Brockton, a Boston suburb, both planned by a company called Sky Vegetables. Today, the company has shelved the San Francisco project and has yet to break ground on the Brockton greenhouse, all for lack of funds.

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Green people don’t write checks so fast in this economy,” said Bob Fireman, CEO of Sky Vegetables. He said he supports BrightFarms’ project, but noted that two years ago, his company was in a similar position. Sky Vegetables is currently building a smaller greenhouse project in the Bronx, which Fireman said will open in Fall 2012. By then, he hopes to have begun building the Brockton greenhouse, which, unlike BrightFarms’ project, is fully approved.

here’s little data on the scale of urban farming, but Ackerman’s report found 15-30 farms in New York, depending on what you count as a farm. Notable non-profit farms have opened in Milwaukee and Oakland, among other cities, but it remains a niche market. A&P said the BrightFarms project will provide enough vegetables to feed 5,000 people, but it only pays to grow high value, highly perishable crops like tomatoes and baby greens.

“

said.

I don’t think by any means that these are going to be offsetting big chunks of our food supply,” Ackerman

stream.

“

iraj Puri, CEO of Gotham Greens, also cautioned whether rooftop farming can go main-

I’m not going to sit here and tell you this is the agriculture of the future,” he said. Urban farming, and rooftop farms in particular, he said, can play a role in creating a more sustainable food system. But Puri is skeptical of claims that it can change the system on its own. “I think everyone’s just drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit,” he said. t’s also unclear whether urban farming can thrive without public money. Brooklyn Grange’s new project, in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard, benefited from nearly $600,000 in city grants aimed at reducing storm-water runoff, which can overwhelm the city’s wastewater system during heavy rains, sending untreated sewage into waterways. The planned BrightFarms greenhouse, also in Brooklyn, is part of a larger renovation of a vacant ware-

house that has benefited from $37 million in tax exemptions, though Lightfoot said his company has not directly received any public money. he company’s model is “somewhat unique,” Lightfoot said, allowing it to grow bigger and faster than its peers. BrightFarms secures long-term deals with customers like A&P, which he said provides better access to capital markets. The company raised $4.5 million in equity last year, he said, and is aiming for another $6 million this year. nother question is whether a greenhouse farm provides all of the environmental benefits that urban agriculture advocates hope for. Unless a rooftop greenhouse can tap into waste heat from the building below, heating the facility through New York winters can use as much energy or more than shipping food from California or Arizona, Ackerman said. Lightfoot said the project will still provide environmental benefits, such as collecting storm-water and improving land-use. He hopes to access waste heat from the building, but said it’s too soon to say whether that will happen. till, whatever the limitations, urban agriculture advocates say a project of BrightFarms’ scale would only help the movement’s profile and everything it stands for. And, Lightfoot said, turning a profit is the only way to do that.

T A

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I am a capitalist,” he said. “If you really want to change a market you have to have a lot of capital to invest in making these changes happen. And if you want to raise a lot of capital you have to be able to provide returns on the capital.”

Soy Dangers Summarized

oy has been a subject of debate for many years in the health world. For vegans and vegetarians, it is an alternative protein to meat that is believed to be of high quality. However, it’s fair to say this belief is not widespread across the medical and health industry. While many are quick to turn a blind eye to concerns, with so much noise being made about soy’s downsides, one has to choose to pay attention if they care about their health, don’t they? It’s an important subject to explore in that if one chooses a vegan or vegetarian diet, it does not mean they are going to be eating healthy. Many processed vegan or vegetarian foods have the same adverse effects as eating animal products.

ne misconception that slips its way past most of us is the belief that soy was consumed for many years by Asian cultures and that they are among the most healthy, so if we consume soy now, we should all be fine. While this is true, there is a glaring difference between how ancient Asia prepared soy and how we do today. That key difference: fermenting the soy. 96

n-fermented soybeans, what we mainly eat today, contain large quantities of natural toxins or “anti-nutrients”. Some of the most important to avoid are potent enzyme inhibitors that block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. These inhibitors are tightly folded proteins that do not deactivate during the cooking process. Without being deactivated,

they have the ability to produce serious gastric distress, reduce protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. Several tests were done on animals that showed diets high in trypsin inhibitors cause enlargement and pathological conditions of the pancreas, including cancer. he un-fermented consumption of soy creates an environment in the body that is unable to properly digest and break the protein in soy. This means the soy can become toxic within the body and create a series of adverse challenges. The Asian cultures consuming soy in the past knew that soy needed to first be fermented and so they did not consume it unless it was.

ere is a list of 10 dangers that come with consuming un-fermented soy. I think it’s important that we at least limit our intake of soy until we can truly determine for ourselves whether or not it’s something we want to consume. While this is only my opinion, my research and personal experience in being vegan/vegetarian has led me to feel that not only is soy not ideal for consumption when un-fermented, but my body has felt much better without having it in my diet. I can’t tell you what choices to make, but being more open minded to both sides of the soy argument might lead you to some different choices.

1. High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

2. Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. In test animals soy containing trypsin inhibitors caused stunted growth.

3. Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women.

4. Soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may

cause thyroid cancer.

5. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease. 6. Vitamin B12 analogs in soy are not absorbed and actually increase the body’s requirement for B12. Soy foods increase the body’s requirement for vitamin D.

7. Fragile proteins are denatured during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein.

8. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcino-

genic nitrosamines.

9. Free glutamic acid or MSG, a potent neurotoxin, is formed during soy food processing and additional amounts are added to many soy foods.

10. Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum which is toxic to the nervous system and the kidneys.

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