A Dream for a Better World

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In a bold departure from Bush-era energy policy, the Obama administration suspended a coal company’s permit to dump debris from its proposed mountaintop mining operation into a West Virginia valley and stream.  In addition, the administration promised to carefully review upward of 200 such permits awaiting approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  Mountaintop-removal coal mining is the greatest environmental tragedy ever to befall our nation. This radical form of strip mining has already flattened the tops of 500 mountains, buried 2,000 miles of streams, devastated the country’s oldest and most diverse temperate forests, and blighted landscapes famous for their history and beauty. Using giant earthmovers and millions of tons of explosives, coal moguls have eviscerated communities, destroyed homes, and uprooted and sickened families with coal and rock dust, and with blasting, flooding and poisoned water, all while providing far fewer jobs than does traditional underground mining.

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.  Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them. The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company’s senior executives and 6,400 employees across the corporation.  A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. Of all the financial institutions that have been propped up by taxpayer dollars, none has received more money than A.I.G.

One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study. Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades.  The increase in the number of people in some form of correctional control occurred as crime rates declined by about 25% in the past two decades. As states face huge budget shortfalls, prisons, which hold 1.5 million adults, are driving the spending increases. One in 11 African-Americans, or 9.2 percent, are under correctional control, compared with one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent) and one in 45 whites (2.2 percent).

Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners. They must let shareholders vote on executive pay packages. They must slash dividends, cancel employee training and morale-building exercises, and withdraw job offers to foreign citizens. As public outrage swells over the rapidly growing cost of bailing out financial institutions, the Obama administration and lawmakers are attaching more and more strings to rescue funds. The conditions are necessary to prevent Wall Street executives from paying lavish bouses and buying corporate jets.  Some bankers say the conditions have become so onerous that they want to return the bailout money.  They say they plan to return the money as quickly as possible or as soon as regulators set up a process to accept the refunds.

Scientists have discovered a 650 million year old, 1 km wide reef, sitting in Australia’s outback. Fossils of ancient sponges or other early primitive animals may be awaiting discovery there.  Scientists say that the reef is of “internationally significant” because it dates from a 5-10 million year period between two major ice ages.  They continue that it provides a significant step forward in showing the extent of climate change in Earth’s past and the evolution of ancient reef complexes.  It also contains fossils which may be of the earliest known primitive animals.  There is a good chance that the new fossils and organisms found in the reef will provide significant insight into the evolution of early multi-cellular life.

The latest bright idea in energy efficient lighting for homes and offices uses big science in nano-small packages to dim the future Edison’s light bulb.

In the August issue of Nature Photonics, available online, scientists at the University of Michigan and Princeton University announce a discovery that pushes more appealing white light from organic light-emitting devices.

More white light is the holy grail of the next generation of lighting. The innovation in the paper “Enhanced Light Out-Coupling of Organic Light-Emitting Devices Using Embedded Low-Index Grids” describes a way to deliver significantly more bright light from a watt than incandescent bulbs.

“Our demonstration here shows that OLEDs are a very exciting technology for use in interior illumination,” said Stephen Forrest, U-M professor of electrical engineering and physics and vice president for research. “We hope that white emitting OLEDs will play a major role in the world of energy conservation.”

Forrest and co-author Yuri Sun, visiting U-M from Princeton University, have wrestled with a classic problem in the new generation of lighting called white organic light-emitting devices, or WOLED: Freeing the light generated, but mostly trapped, inside the device.

A lighting primer: Incandescent light bulbs give off light as a by-product of heat, The light is appealing, but inefficient, putting out 15 lumens of light for every watt or electricity.

The best fluorescent tube lights put out some 90 lumens of light per watt, but the light can be harsh, the fixtures are expensive, and the tubes lose their efficiency with age. And they rely on many environmentally unfriendly substances such as mercury.

WOLEDs show promise of providing a light that’s much easier to manipulate, while being long lasting and able to provide in different shapes, from panels to bulbs and more. WOLEDs generate white light by using electricity to send an electron into nanometer thick layers of organic materials that serve as semiconductors. These carbon-based materials are dyes, the ones used in photographic prints and car paint, so they are very inexpensive, and can be put on plastic sheets or metal foils, further reducing costs.

The excited electron in these layers casts bright white light. The bad news, Forrest said, has been that some 60 percent of it is trapped inside the layers, much the way light under water reflects back into the pool, making the water surface seem like a mirror when viewed from underneath.

The Nature Photonics paper describes a tandem system of organic grids and micro lenses that guide the light out of the thin layers and into the air. The grids refract the trapped light, bouncing it into a layer of dome-shaped lenses that then pull the light out.

This process—all of which is packed into a lighting sandwich roughly the thickness of a sheet of paper—was shown to emit approximately 70 lumens from a single watt of power.

More light out means getting more bang for the electricity buck, a crucial question since 22 percent of the U.S. electricity consumption is lighting.

“If you can change the light efficiency by just a few percentage points, there’s a few less coal plants you’ll need,” Forrest said.

Reducing the amount of coal-generated electricity and finding more efficient ways to power appliances and lighting is one of the focuses of U-M’s Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, and the WOLED work is one example of how science can open new doors in conservation, said Gary Was, institute director.

“That energy efficient lighting can be made from the same materials as car paint and that they can be made in such thin, formable sheets boggles the mind,” Was said. “This is one of many exciting creations that research is giving us in the pursuit of energy efficiency. This is also the kind of innovation that is required in the drive for energy sustainability.

Forrest said WOLED work isn’t done yet. The fun part, he said, is that WOLEDs can be framed in different forms.

“Plugging into a wall at low voltage, putting it on a flexible metal foil, or on plastic that won’t break when you drop it,” Forrest said. “This is what makes it so fun because it’s such a unique lighting source.”

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through a subcontract from the University of Southern California and by Universal Display Corp.

Forrest is part of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, which develops, coordinates and promotes multidisciplinary energy research and education at U-M. He also is on the scientific advisory board of Universal Display Corp.

The next challenge, he said, is to reduce the cost, which currently is too high to be commercially competitive.

“You have to be able to do this dirt cheap, Forrest said. “People don’t spend much for their light bulbs.”

Visit http://www.theenergyefficientlightingcompany.com.au for more information on energy efficient lighting and commercial lighting products.

In the time that records have been kept of bird populations, 20 percent of all species have gone extinct. More are likely to follow. In March the release of a large-scale, 24-year survey gave one of the clearest pictures yet of the decline of Australian and Asian shorebird. The results of the survey are dire.  The researchers’ counts showed a steady decline, beginning in the mid-1980s. By 2006 the number of migratory shorebirds had dropped by 73 percent and the number of Australia’s resident shorebirds had fallen by 81 percent.  The survey revealed that inland wetlands were more important to both resident and migratory birds than had been realized, and that wetland loss from damming and the diversion of river water for irrigation was at least in part responsible for the shorebird decline in Australia.

Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry’s genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists.  Critics of biotech crops have long complained that the crops have not been studied thoroughly enough and could have unintended health and environmental consequences.The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes.

The environmental damage caused to developing nations by the world’s richest countries amounts to more than the entire third world debt of $1.8 trillion, according to the first systematic global analysis of the ecological damage imposed by rich countries. There are huge disparities in the ecological footprint inflicted by rich and poor countries on the rest of the world because of differences in consumption.  The researchers examined so-called “environmental externalities” or costs that are not included in the prices paid for goods but which cover ecological damage linked to their consumption. They focused on six areas: greenhouse gas emissions, ozone layer depletion, agriculture, deforestation, overfishing and converting mangrove swamps into shrimp farms. The team confined its calculations to areas in which the costs of environmental damage are well understood.

The next time you make some microwave popcorn or cook a frozen pizza, consider this:  The packaging of many of these products contains a chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency considers potentially carcinogenic and wants businesses to voluntarily stop using by 2015.  Studies show that this chemical – perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA –is present in 98% of Americans’ blood and 100% of newborns.  It doesn’t break down and thus accumulates in the system over time. PFOA is used to make Teflon pans, Gore-Tex clothing and to prevent food from sticking to paper packaging. The industry says that while the EPA’s carcinogen concerns are based on animal tests, there’s no evidence that PFOA is harmful to humans. Public-health advocates counter that the industry is being disingenuous and that there’s never been a chemical found that affects animals but has no effect on humans.

An effort to bring endangered Mallorcan toads back from the brink of extinction has blighted them with an infectious fungus that is wiping them out.  A recent paper in Current Biology details how the captive breeding and subsequent reintroduction of the Mallorcan Midwife Toad – on the red-list of endangered species – has infected populations in the wild with Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a fungus that has been threatening amphibians worldwide for the past ten years.  The fungus hasn’t been as devastating to the midwife toad as to other amphibian species.  A valuable lesson is that breeding programs must be monitored to make sure they don’t become hot beds of infections for the very species they are intended to save.

The Navy’s sea mammal program started in the late 1950s.  Now, about 75 dolphins and 25 sea lions are housed at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego Harbor as part of a Navy program to teach them to detect terrorists and mines underwater. The base briefly opened its doors to the media for the first time since the start of the war in Iraq. The display came a few weeks after the Navy announced plans to send up to 30 dolphins and sea lions to patrol the waters of Washington state’s Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, which is home to nuclear submarines, ships and laboratories. Both species can find mines and spot swimmers in murky waters. Working in unison, the dolphins can drop a flashing light near a mine or a swimmer. The sea lions carry in their mouths a cable and a handcuff-like device that clamps onto a terrorist’s leg and then sailors can then use the cable to reel in the terrorist.

The Navy is refusing to detail its sonar use for a federal court in a case involving potential harm to whales, saying the information could jeopardize national security. The Natural Resources Defense Council is suing the Navy to ensure sailors use sonar in a way that doesn’t harm whales and other marine mammals. Critics say active sonar, which sailors use by pumping sound through water and listening for objects the sound bounces off of, can strand and even kill marine mammals. A U.S. Congressional Research Service report last year found Navy sonar exercises had been responsible for at least six mass deaths and unusual behavior among whales.  Many of the beached or dead animals had damaged hearing organs.

The American Human Development Index has issued a report measuring well-being in America.  A 30-year gap now exists in the average life expectancy between Mississippi, in the Deep South, and Connecticut, in prosperous New England. Huge disparities have also opened up in income, health and education depending on where people live in the US, according to a report published yesterday. The US finds itself ranked 42^nd in global life expectancy and 34^th in survival of infants to age.  Suicide and murder are among the top15 causes of death and although the US is home to just 5% of the global population, it accounts for 24% of the world’s prisoners.  The report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities.