Category Archives: Clean Energy

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #4

Posted on by
3

Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Clean Energy Services to Achieve Millennium Development Health Goals

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from basic forms of injustice and inequality in our world: extreme poverty, illiteracy and ill health. This pledge became the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) to be achieved by 2015. Health is at the heart of the MDG’s with three goals related directly to health: reduce child mortality, improve material health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases). Health is also linked with the achievement of all the other goals, especially eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal education, and gender equality.

A key ingredient of achieving these health goals will have to be reliable access to clean energy. This has two dimensions: First, displacing the use and consequences of unhealthy fuels like kerosene and fuel wood that I have written about in my earlier blog pieces in this series. Second, reliable clean energy supply is vital for health care providers to help them focus on their job of improving health of the poor. It is this second dimension that I want to speak to you about now. For without energy, how can hospitals and clinics ensure refrigeration of critical vaccines and sterilization of equipment? How can important medical procedures like delivery of babies be carried out in the dark? How can simple medical records be digitized for faster and more efficient service? How can public health messages to prevent deadly diseases be spread on radio and television?

Solar Sister Zuura is also pursuing a Bachelor of Nursing. Hear Zuura talk about providing clean energy for better healthcare services in her village on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Good news is that we have a growing number of innovative organizations and individuals around the world, who are working hard to raise awareness on this important connection between health and energy. For example, Solar Sister Zuura in Uganda is also pursuing a Bachelors of Nursing degree. Zuura talks about the need of light for night and evening shifts in health clinics while putting up IV fluids and emergency blood transfusions. She is proud to be a Solar Sister Entrepreneur because not only can she earn a living now, but help her bring light which can save many lives in her community.

Another inspiring story is that of Solar Sister’s friend Dr. Laura Stachel, Co-Founder & Executive Director at WE CARE Solar. In 2008, Dr.Stachel went to Northern Nigeria to study ways to lower maternal mortality in state hospitals. She witnessed deplorable conditions in state facilities including sporadic electricity that impaired maternity and surgical care. Without a reliable source of electricity, nighttime deliveries were attended in near darkness, cesarean sections were cancelled or conducted by flashlight, and critically ill patients waited hours or days for life-saving procedures. The outcomes were often tragic. Moved by this critical need, she wrote to her husband Hal Aronson, a solar energy educator back in Berkeley, California. Together, Laura and Hal co-founded WE CARE Solar to improve maternal health outcomes in regions without reliable electricity which designs portable, cost-effective solar suitcases that power critical lighting, mobile communication devices and medical devices in low resource areas without reliable electricity.

WE CARE Solar's robust, plug-and-play Solar Suitcases facilitate timely, safe, appropriate emergency obstetric care and improve outcomes for mothers and newborns (Photo credit: WE CARE Solar, 2011)

If we can support many more women like Solar Sister Zuura and Dr. Laura Stachel around the world, no more lives would be lost for the lack of light. The UN has announced 2012 as the International Sustainable Energy for All Year. As part of the initiative, the United Nations Foundation has launched a new global Energy Access Practitioner Network to mobilize execution. You can also make a difference by understanding and increasing awareness on this important issue of energy and health.

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

The Impact of Coal Power on Health

Posted on by
Reply

For many countries, both developing and developed, coal powers our lives. China is the largest consumer of coal in the world, and one of the largest users of coal-derived electricity. Coal has been the traditional form of energy for generations, and the health impacts of its operations (both in the extraction and production processes) have been known for many years. For a long time, it was seen as the only real option to meet the demands of an energy-using world population. And for now, this may be true- however; the recent turn towards alternative, sustainable fuels has provided an interesting alternative to coal. This could have positive effects on both the environment and our health.

In 2011, the American Lung Association released a new report on the health hazards of coal-fired power plants: “Toxic Air: The Case For Cleaning Up Coal-Fired Power Plants.”  According to the report, in the U.S. alone, “Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.”

That question of balance is brought up in another 2011 paper, which explores countries outside of the U.S.: “Public Health Impact of Coal and Electricity Consumption: Risk-Benefit Balance Varies by Country.” The abstract states:

Access to electricity contributes to good health by powering infrastructure for clean drinking water and sanitation and by reducing the need for indoor burning of coal, wood, and other solid fuels. But these benefits can be offset by health threats posed by the emission from fossil fuel-based electricity production-direct public health effects attributable to particular matter, sulfur and nitrous oxides, [etc.]…are estimated to account for more than 70% of the…costs not factored into the price paid for electricity.

All those statistics and harmful substances sound awful- so what can we do? All over the world, people are making innovative leaps in “clean energy: – from solar power, to hydro power, to wind! While the progress may seem small and slow, if enough people see the need for change, coal could become the non-dominant source of electricity in the not-too-distant future! Check out the incredible Danish island of Samsø, for example: a mecca for climate protection experts where residents generate more energy than they consume using wind turbines, solar panels, straw combustion and heat exchangers that extract heat from cow’s milk.

Infographic explaining the environmental initiatives of Samsø. (Source: http://bit.ly/6PEpNp)

Infographic explaining the environmental initiatives of Samsø. (Source: http://bit.ly/6PEpNp)

Are there alternative energy programs where you live?

Guest Blog: U.S. Ambassador Oreck

Posted on by
4
Ambassador Bruce J. Oreck

Ambassador Bruce J. Oreck

Ambassador Oreck of U.S. Embassy Helsinki (Finland) is the Chair of the League of Green Embassies. He has had a lifelong passion for nature and the wilderness. An avid hiker from his youth, Mr. Oreck has camped all over America, throughout Europe and much of East Africa. In 2003, Ambassador and Mrs. Oreck founded the Zero Carbon Initiative which is committed to implementing both experimental and off-the-shelf technologies in the built environment, not just to reduce but to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

OUR NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH ENERGY

Last year the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, in conjunction with Youth for Understanding (YFU) and the Center for International Mobility (CIMO), sent 15 Finnish students for a six week home-stay in my home State of Colorado. These Young Ambassadors undertook an amazing journey and have become part of a new generation of global citizens ready to influence how the world will reinvent its relationship with energy to frame the economic vitality of the 21st Century.

We wanted to provide an opportunity to showcase for these students all the things that are happening in the United States in the field of energy innovation, taking them beyond the country to country dialogue that dominates the headlines. In Colorado the students were able to see actions being undertaken everyday at the State and local level. And they were able to interact with people who were taking matters into their own hands and implementing individual change.

These actions do not undermine the government conversation, which is a vital component of global change and in which the U.S. Government is wholly engaged. Rather, these actions signify that in the United States we are not waiting for the conclusion of a lengthy and difficult process to take action. We are not waiting for the future to come to us, but are shaping the future into what we want it to be.

Often the best course a government can take is to stand aside and let innovators and entrepreneurs lead the way: to simply put the best minds on a problem and then give them the room to find a solution.

But most importantly, individuals do not have to wait to take action. Every person can make a difference just by being responsible for their own energy consumption. People often ask, “How can I afford to take the necessary steps to conserve energy?” But the real question should be “how can I NOT afford to take those steps.”

To implement effective change, each individual must re-evaluate and reinvent their relationship with energy. By taking very simple steps, every home and every business can increase their energy efficiency and simultaneously reduce their energy costs. Savings in energy translates directly to financial savings, and who does not want save money in these difficult financial times.

All of this represents an immense challenge, but it also represents the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st Century. How we choose to reinvent our relationship with energy will become the fundamental building block of the economy and frame the economic vitality of our age.

The U.S. Government is playing its part. Just this month President Obama announced a $4 billion investment to upgrade the energy efficiency of U.S. Government buildings. Several of the companies that have been enlisted to assist in that monumental effort are the very partners we have been working with through the League of Green Embassies to significantly overhaul our embassy in Helsinki and to improve U.S. Government missions throughout Europe and around the world. In keeping with the President’s National Export Initiative, the goal of the League is to turn each embassy into a platform of energy innovation, encouraging companies to create and showcase for a global market the latest technologies that reduce energy waste and lower costs.

But what it is really about is facing the responsibility of leaving a better world for young people like those who recently visited Colorado. We owe it to them to show that we care about the world we are leaving them and we should seek to inspire them to take action now. It is their future and they should work to shape it into what they want it to be, not just what others make it for them. We at Embassy Helsinki, and everyone involved in the League of Green Embassies, believe in the global partnerships we are forging to address these challenges and seize these opportunities. And these young Ambassadors embody our greatest hope for the future.

Green Cars

Posted on by
3
Students work with an actual General Motors production vehicle, adding technologies to reduce emissions and improve fuel economy. (EcoCar)

Students work with an actual General Motors production vehicle, adding technologies to reduce emissions and improve fuel economy. (EcoCar)

In November, the finalists for the 2012 Green Car of the Year award in the United States were announced. The actual winner was revealed a couple of weeks later at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show. The finalists included a variety of different styles operating on different clean energies, from the Ford Focus Electric to the diesel-powered Volkswagen TDI to the Honda Civic Natural Gas. The eventual winner? The Honda Civic Natural Gas, “the cleanest-running internal combustion vehicle certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with a 48 MPGe highway fuel economy rating.”

There is some contention over the Honda taking home first prize because of serious concerns about the most popular extraction method for natural gas, hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). The process involves injecting a slurry of water and chemicals into rock to create cracks that will allow the natural gas to flow out; the issues come from the chemical-laden water seeping into water systems and contaminating people’s land and drinking water. There is the other issue of comparing “fuel efficiency” in America versus other places like Europe, where many cars get significantly higher mileage than even the most advanced “green” models in the U.S.

Regardless, taking steps towards making cleaner running vehicles more popular in the U.S. is an exciting and worthy endeavor. As more people request vehicles that do less damage to the environment, car manufacturers are keeping up with demand and creating cars that run better, are more green, while still offering the amenities many people look for in their cars.

For more information on innovations in green cars, check out GreenCar.com.  It has an entire section on green technology and alternative fuels, to help answer any questions you have about the differences between electric, diesel, natural gas, etc.

What type of car and clean energy operating system do you think is the future?