Author Archives: Osman Mubarak

Soylent.. The food of the future?

Soylent was something I heard of in a class of mine last semester and I thought it would be interesting to share it with the class. Soylent is a meal replacement that aims to provide its users with the adequate nutrition to avoid eating food altogether. This means no more meat or dairy, or even vegetables.

 

Soylent doesn’t spoil and all the miraculous mixture needs is water. Although the liquid isn’t the tastiest thing in the world, and it is unlikely people will trade in their steaks and fries for a shake (obviously not). There are other potential benefits to Soylent in which it may help people in less economically developed countries who are suffering from malnutrition.

 

According to Edesia, 20 million children in the world are severely malnourished while another 35 million are moderately malnourished. This again is only in regards to children; there are still millions of adults who lack the proper nutrition to survive.

 

The Soylent website claims that people will be able to live off less than $10 a day for food and less than $4 per meal.

 

CEO Rob Reinhart wants the mixture to become more synthetic in the future so it will not be affected by fluctuating crop seasons.

 

Although solving World Hunger is a few years out according to Reinhart, he claims one hurdle he must overcome is that just because people are poor, doesn’t mean they aren’t picky eaters. The formula will need to be tampered with to make sure that even though its nutritious, people will look forward to consuming it.

 

It seems like the future is rapidly approaching, with these odd inventions and people trying to revolutionize the way in which we live. However I would like to ask you, would you trade in your hamburger for a shake of tasteless goop to aid in saving the world?

 

https://faq.soylent.me/hc/en-us

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_(drink)

 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/13/health/soylent-hunger/

Telecommuting, Is it the future for our workforce?

Telecommuting for companies is one way to reduce carbon emissions. This means people would not need to commute to work but could access the company network from home or a designated office. This not only reduce carbon footprint from land vehicles but also air transportation.

 

It is currently estimated that 50% of the US workforce currently hold telecommute-compatible jobs. If these people worked from home half the time, it would reduce greenhouse gasses by 54 million metric tons annually. This is equivalent to taking 10million cars of the road, and reducing oil consumption by 640 million barrels!

 

The US uses approximately 19 million barrels of oil a day, if people telecommuted the number would reduce by 1.75 millions barrels a day, which equates to almost 10%

 

19,000,000 – 1,750,000 = ans/19 million which equals 9.07%

 

Think about it this way, there would be reduced office space and fewer offices with electrical bills. Travel is cut down, and there is also less use of paper because of the use of digital files.

 

There is also an increase in productivity, British telecom and Dow chemical among many others state that teleworkers are 35-40% more productive. Businesses lose over $600 billion a year due to work place distractions.

 

For company Sun Micro systems they have reported that 24,000 of their telecommuting employees reduced their carbon footprint by 32,000 metric tons (combined) because of driving less to and from work.

 

Office equipment energy consumption is also twice as much as that of the home usage.

 

In addition with the lack of cars on the road, there are less traffic jams. It is estimated that traffic jams cost the US economy $78 billion a year in productivity and that 3 billions gallons of gas, which accounts for 26millions unnecessary tons of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere!

 

With a staggering 50% of our workforce able to work from home, is it necessary to keep running these large office spaces? Is it more important to mingle with your co-workers than to look after our environment for future generations?

 

What do you think?

 

http://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/resources/costs-benefits

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245296

What is the Cap Trade? Why is it beneficial?

The Cap Trade

 The Cap trade is essentially setting a limit to emissions to lower the amount of pollutants in the atmosphere.

It means that companies that emit less carbon emissions will pay less to the government and will provide the incentive to pollute less.

Because CO2 goes straight into the atmosphere it doesn’t just affect cities or local regions, it affects the world.

The Cap is the limit to the amount of pollution a company can release (measured in billions of CO2 per year)

The Trade refers to how companies will be able to reduce their pollution to match other permits, and they can turn reduced costs into revenue.

 

Case Study: China & USA

 

China is the worlds biggest greenhouse gas emitter, however their government have decided to use two ways to reduce their emissions over the next 5 years. They plan to use an intensive cap and an absolute cap.

They have reached a deal with the United States to cut their emissions by 2030 and to increase the use of non-fossil fuels by 20% by 2030.

The two countries make up 45% of the worlds global carbon emissions, a remarkable figure. The US plans to reduce their carbon emissions by 2.3-2.8% by 2025. A lofty goal, but one widely praised by the rest of the world.

Benefits of the Cap Trade policy

The main reason behind the cap trade is its efficiency. Companies who can reduce emissions at low cost will do so, and sell the remaining emissions credits to companies who are unable to do so.

The government will issue credits, which companies may trade to one another to work within their carbon emission capacity. The general thought is that by allowing this trade the overall emissions will drop, however will not greatly impact companies revenue.

Companies can also purchase more ‘credits’ for the ‘right to pollute’. The revenue from these trades will go to the government who will plan on using the money for alternative energy resources.

The cap trade is the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions, although not without its drawbacks, we need to start taking action to reduce our global impact.

 

http://www.edf.org/climate/how-cap-and-trade-works

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/16/2730271/carbon-regulations-economy/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/china-us-agree-to-limit-greenhouse-gases/2014/11/11/9c768504-69e6-11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story.html

Solar Power? The perfect alternative energy?

 

Alternative energy source “Solar Power”

 

Although we may use fossil fuels daily, they are detrimental to our environment and to our atmosphere. It has become a necessity to develop alternative sources of energy to power our high consumption and to reduce the negative impact on our planet.

 

It is estimated by 2050 that one third of the worlds energy will come from solar, wind or other renewable resources.

 

Solar power is essentially the best option, it is estimated that a 1.5kw PV system will keep more than 110,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the next 25 years. It is estimated this sort of device will eliminate the need to burn 60,000 lbs. of coal.

 

Solar power will also reach 362,000 installations and will cost more than $1 billion dollars to install. This means that it will cost around $0.49 per watt, however Chinese manufacturers estimate they can drop the price to around $0.36 per watt by 2017.

 

Solar power is starting to reach the mainstream, and it is predicted that by 2013 the U.S will install a system every 4 minutes. This is wonderful news for our environment.

 

As we can see here the global solar capacity has grown from 2.2GW in 2002 to 100 GW in 2012.

global-solar-PV-capacity-growth

This is a remarkable growth and shows the world moving toward a more environmentally friendly society.

 

In addition to providing energy at a less negatively impacting way. Solar power is also adding jobs to the economy. There are now an estimated 1.36 million jobs in the Global Solar Power Industry.

 

As we learned previously in class, Texas has the highest solar capacity potential in the nation. “The sunshine hitting Texas in one month contains more energy than all the oil and gas ever pumped out of the state”.

 

As we can see, Solar Power is where our future lies, the Sun has the most energy in our solar system and if we can tap this resource to benefit ourselves and future generations, I believe no matter the cost, we should make the effort.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-most-important-solar-statistics-of-2013

http://www.altenergy.org/