My blog’s ultimate purpose is building a merge between technology and sustainability. I wish I could neither just write about these two topics in different posts, nor simply delve into the technologies eco-friendly products are produced with.

I’d rather love finding out ways in which consumer oriented technology can help developing a cleaner world, by making what the Internet can do best: eliminate barriers.

Here you go with A Real Tree. Just a few taps on your iPhone screen, and for $0.99 a real tree will be planted on your behalf in a developing country facing deforestation. Then the application will give you a real-time (estimated) glimpse on how your tree is doing. Check it out!

Do you recall the Oscar winning “Erin Brockovich”, starring an outstanding Julia Roberts? Most probably yes. But less people would supposedly remember the name of the big corporation Erin fights and defeats: Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).

The movie is indeed based on a true story: Erin Brockovic, a formerly unemployed single mother of three children working in a law firm, found out evidence that PG&E had been dumping (over a few years) 370 million gallons of cancer-causing chemicals into a series of ponds located in Hinkley, CA. The civil class-action managed by Erin brought to the largest settlement of its kind in the history of the United States: PG&E was requested to compensate the plaintiffs for $333 million! Further details about the trial are available here.

What I want to point out here is that perhaps something has changed, or at least history has been a good teacher… since today the same PG&E is one of the champions in the US race towards clean energy production.

Based on an agreement signed one year ago with two subsidiaries of OptiSolar and SunPower, PG&E will soon manage one of the world’s largest photovoltaic farm, for a total of 800 Mw. The farm will be located in San Luis Obispo County, about 100 miles north of Santa Barbara, CA.

What does 800 Mw practically mean? Well, that number is just a nominal figure, which should approximately indicate the solar panels “peak power” (the production achieved in ideal conditions). The efficiency of a solar installation is often indicated by measuring its total daily production in terms of equivalent peak hours. PG&E forecasts a production of 1.65 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually, which would be a daily average of 4520 megawatt-hours… like if the plant worked for about 5 hours and half per day at its peak power. Definitely not bad! About 240,000 residential homes can be completely served with this amount of energy, without any emission into the atmosphere.

Nobody’s so naive to believe PG&E has not considered its return on such an investment. But this is probably the best news at all! Making photovoltaic energy remunerative even before it reaches the grid parity, through proper incentives, is essential if we want to start right now building a cleaner future for our planet.

Yes, this title rather recalls dramatic Hollywood movies. The first picture coming to my mind is Bruce Willis drilling an asteroid which threatens to destroy our planet…

Unfortunately such a scenario is not completely unrealistic, despite every effort to switch towards clean energy sources and sustainable lifestyles. In fact this change will possibly decrease future emissions, but the carbon dioxide we’ve already produced will keep warming the Earth for centuries (and it’s doing it faster than expected).

That’s why science might eventually be our last resource.

Let’s go back to June 15th 1991, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted with such a violence that the ejected gas penetrated into the stratosphere. Besides killing hundreds of people in one of the world’s most populous areas, this cataclysmic eruption allowed scientists and engineers to establish a huge and unexpected tryout: Pinatubo injected about 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it reacted with water and formed a layer of particles, able to absorb part of the sunlight.

This caused a relevant cooling effect over the entire planet.

Well, a human-driven injection of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere is possible, and would cost less than many other methods for stopping the global warming. This is what Paul Crutzen, winner of a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the ozone hole, has proposed since an article he published in 2006.

Here’s the definition of Mr. Crutzen’s area of interest: Stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry, and their role in the biogeochemical cycles and climate. So let’s say he definitely appears qualified. I just hope these guys are going to be very careful, since the possible collateral effects of releasing SO2 into the stratosphere include the enlargement of the existing ozone hole over the South Pole (see the picture beside) and even the origination of a second hole above the North Pole.

Back to the Hollywood movies I mentioned before… what I hope above all, in case the human race will face such a threatening situation, is that we’ll fight all together just like usually imagined by those talented filmmakers…

Raise your hand if you’ve never imagined to ride a US coast-to-coast with one of those cult Volkswagen micro-buses, like in some inspiring movies.

Of course my arms have remained steady. But today I’d rather be in front of a modern and technological dashboard like the following, with much more comfort and safety.

Though, I could still feel that kind of old-fashioned taste… because I would be driving the beautiful silver bullet below!

Powered by a hybrid (bio-diesel + electric) engine and provided with a photovoltaic rooftop, this amazing vehicle should be ready in form of prototype by next summer and available for purchase a short time later. Its creator, Canadian designer Alexandre Verdier, has recently stated: “I wanted to build a car that’s low impact and makes the most out of nature”.

Well done, Alexandre! Once you’ve stopped and turned your Verdier into the mobile house below, you’ll definitely enjoy the environment you’ve contributed to protect.

More details and pictures can be found here, or by googling Verdier.

A fully equipped Verdier will cost the crazy amount of $129,000, but a more affordable $69,000 version should be in pipeline too. While wondering about a time in which I’ll be able to purchase and intensively use such a vehicle, I can’t wait for the first time I’ll sight one of them outside!

This morning I watched the news on TV while having my breakfast. For once, they made me start the day with a positive mood: President Obama and family were celebrating the Earth Day by planting some trees.

That might appear trivial. But the huge investments he’s planning on renewable energies are quite tangible instead.

By the way, settled to write a post about this topic, I searched the web for an Earth Day logo. And I found dozens of different ones! Of course this might mean nothing. Or maybe it’s a signal of how fragmented the world’s commitment against global warming still is.

Unfortunately my feeling is not based on this isolated episode only. Yes, every day I read about new amazing projects, like (in the last couple of days only) an entirely solar-powered city in Florida or the first low-cost small electric car. But I also see that most of the bad behaviors which took us to the current situation are unchanged.

The Italian government is planning to build several new incinerators, through a procedure which adds insult to injury: they’re partly financed with those funds (CIP6) which should support the investments in clean energy!

The citizens’ health is completely ignored. Look at the following picture. Based on recent data from the World Health Organization, it clearly shows the decrease in life expectancy within Western Europe caused by air pollution.

People who live in Northern Italy like me, or in other industrial areas of Europe, are shortening their own life by 36 months on average. But who lives in the large red coloured areas can’t consider himself lucky either.

Less fascinating than the map of solar irradiation I showed in a recent post, isn’t it?

The real question is: what are we waiting for? Which other signal should Mother Earth send us before we stop killing her and ourselves?

Happy Earth Day…

Yes, the attractiveness of installing a photovoltaic module is strongly influenced by your latitude, because the amount of generated electricity basically depends on how much light the FV modules can receive from the sky.

Decades of studies have allowed the definition of detailed maps, whose visual result I find as fascinating as interesting. They report the yearly sum of electricity generated by each single KWp (KiloWatt-peak) in every area: an amount that can even double if you move from Central Europe to Southern Italy or Spain.

I’m publishing a map of the whole Europe, but many local maps are available here and some googling will definitely cover any other world area.

Solar irradiation is an essential parameter indeed: on equal terms, it could even halve the break-even period of your investment. But many other parameters are relevant, starting from compelling public incentives. This explains why Germany, even though its territory appears quite sad in the map above, has rapidly become one of the world main hosts and producers of photovoltaic systems.

Ernst & Young has developed a research named Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index, whose aim is just giving a whole picture of the renewable energy market. Many interesting details, including the ambitious targets set by the world’s main countries, are reported in this excellent article published in 2007. More recent and really complete data can be found in the EPIA (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) latest Solar Generation Report, developed in collaboration with Greenpeace.

Are we actually going to build a clean planet for our children? Recent developments, like soaring oil prices and President Obama’s ambitious plans, give us hope.