On Tuesday 25th May Maria Kolokotoni looked at Retrofitting Residential Buildings to net Zero energy. Brunel Student Residences have been involved in this initiative.
When assessing net Zero energy you need to look at energy used and carbon released. Ref: EU commission ReCO2ST.eu Grants ReCO2st.eu
ReCO2ST there are some implanted videos to explain the technology.
Here is the Link to Festival of Research there are recordings of lectures and some still to be uploaded so worth keep visiting.
Wednesday 26th 2 good lecturers on the International Perspectives on the Global global challenge of plastics. Eventbrite summary
facts:
1950 World Plastic Free
2021 10.1 billion metric tons of primary fossil fuel plastics and secondary recycling. That is enough to cover Argentina ankle deep. Shell produce 1 million tons of polyethylene plastic.
I thought back to my first visit to India in 1991 and was fascinated by the use of natural resources such as banana leaves for wrapping lunch in. I see clearly in my memory of being on the early morning Brindivan express train from Madras (Chennai) to Bangalore. The train inspector sat next to me to eat the breakfast his wife had prepared wrapped in a banana leaf tied with coir string. After eating he threw the leaf out on to the track in the station where upon a wandering goat ate it. Rubbish sorted what rubbish gone! But on my return to live for periods of time in Bangalore in the city suburbs with the locals ...more and more plastic rubbish appeared in the streets and gutters.. unsightly mounds of caste away rubbish.
Some savvy catering businesses offer Tiffin delivery of food to offices. A tiffin is a stainless steel tiered tin with an handle. Layer for curry layer for chapatti layer for sweet desert. The tiffin is collected after use, sterilized for next day use.
The lecture on plastic waste highlights the shifting of waste mounds by ship to other lands for recycling.
Waste can be landfilled, incinerated or recycled.
Brunel Sustainable Plastics Research Group I am also going to add a link to one of our graduates work on Mycelium digestion pf plastics and using waste for building material Biohm
Rose Boswell then looked at the effects on oceans of plastics referring to world ocean day.
Facts:
Plastics 50yrs in ocean takes 1,000 years to mineralise.
She highlighted behaviour patterns of "developed" my " " contribution to plastic waste. That with growing middle classes more plastic use. It is both a technological issue and behavioural problem
But given my narration above on my experience in India .. is a shift from natural biodegrable resources to plastic pollution a " developed" attribute. My feeling is devolution.. Homo Sapiens becoming Homo Stupidus..so stupid to put our one planet home at risk of being unable to support life!
Rose pointed out about the growing use of water in plastics bottles in hot climatic countries..but when I thought on this there are seaweed biodegrable water capsules that can be used. Seaweed water capsules we must think on this and maybe farm grow seaweed rather than denude oceans. Everything we develop, all technologies must think about the effects on the ecosystem!
It was highlighted that not only individual behaviour needs to change but policy makers must see the crisis & need to urgently think about our planet.
Later that day we had a worrying lecture by John Englander author researcher of two books I am ordering to read more on
Moving to Higher Ground
High Tide on Main Street.
We have assumed land & sea fixed entities. But there are changes as sea levels rise and coastal erosion is occuring. He made a good point that humans & their behavour in the past did not have a dramatic effect on the planet. But now with increase in population and behaviour we are changing earths characteristics. We are on the cusp of a new era. Ice masses hold key to our future land masses. Sea level was assummed to be static but not. We have satellite information to verify. The last 30yrs seen a rise in levels
Communities, Economics, Engineering & politics need urgent review.
We have to realise that models are projections not predictions from variables. Models ref: Nature Magazine Models on sea level rise..
Rising seas pose Engineering challenges. We need R& D investment into Geoengineering to cool the planet.
At this point I wondered if tectonic plate shifts an issue. Some of earth heat is this from internal core temperatures from magma? I wondered if fracking an issue also underground atomic testing? John pointed out the fact that as ice melts, the weight on the poles is lifted..may lead to tectonic shift.
30 million years of ice caps are disappearing!
Every 100 year experience of flooding now occuring every 2 years.
More landslides and tsunami to be experienced.
Gee this really does make the British ISLES look very vulnerable.
