What is zero waste? I believe many people have never search these two words through Google on the internet though. Basically, zero waste is meant by a concept to extend the current recycling to form a circular system which the waste can be reused and minimized. In order to solve waste disposal problems, zero waste has been largely implemented in many Western countries such as US and Canada. However, even though the 3R program (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) has been introduced in my country, I always agree that zero waste is a must for every country to adopt as 3R is only a part of it.
In fact, zero waste has the strategy to turn disposal into the raw material for other products. In other words, zero waste can turn useless outputs into useful inputs. For example, a Coca Cola glass bottle is primarily produced with a potential to be recycled and reused in the factory. When the bottle is recycled and washed, the only wastage will be the wash-water and energy loss will be minimized. Apparently, the idea is different from 3R. It is not only reusing the waste but it also relates to the redesign of the goods which has potential of reuse. As a result, the outputs will not be disposed entirely.
Besides that, zero waste has created good job opportunity for the people in these struggling communities. This has been a key factor in New Zealand, where zero waste is regarded more as a driver of local economic development than a matter of environmental conscience. (Collins, 2002) For instance, people just have to recollect and classify the wastage they created, and resell them to certain recollection centre. In addition, it always creates benefits even it is little. Who does not want the profit? Zero waste can really help the poor and grow the country, indirectly.
In summary, zero waste proposes a new idea of producing recyclable goods and increases the economic growth in a country. Although zero waste cannot be strictly zero, it always approximate to zero if the idea is well applied. As a future engineer, I strongly think that zero waste should be adopted in my country as soon as possible.
Reference
Collins, J. (2002, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean-up. The Guardian Weekly. P.25.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
W9T2
In 1995, I started my journey of learning English. Since my mother language is Chinese, I always met difficulties in writing a complete sentence. Even until now I will still make some grammatical mistakes in my writing. Most often, I could not translate a sentence well from my mind with English.
As an engineering student, writing an academic essay is unavoidable. In fact, engineering students have a lot of reports and assignments to deal with. Some of them maybe spend a student 2 days to complete and recheck. For myself, I met some difficulties in writing MLE1101 assignments. I was not able to write my assignments and lab reports with the sentences coherence with each other especially when the format is not provided. In addition, I always have grammatical mistakes in my essay. It seemed like a destiny, unavoidably. Besides that, due to lack of vocabulary, I have always stuck over my mind since I could not express my thought with words in my writing.
In order to improve my weakness in writing, I will try to use more transition signal to make the whole essays more coherent. Before I start writing, I will outline all the main points and distribute them to every paragraph. All the thesis statements have to be stated clearly with solid evidence. Furthermore, I will pay attention to my spelling and punctuation as well as the grammar. After finishing the first draft, it is time for me to proofread and edit the essay. I will also let my friends to comment and reedit the essay in order to make it more perfect in accuracy.
In summary, writing is just like a lifelong learning journey. Opportunity is always waiting for those who want to improve. So, I will enhance my writing skills with great enthusiasm, indeed.
As an engineering student, writing an academic essay is unavoidable. In fact, engineering students have a lot of reports and assignments to deal with. Some of them maybe spend a student 2 days to complete and recheck. For myself, I met some difficulties in writing MLE1101 assignments. I was not able to write my assignments and lab reports with the sentences coherence with each other especially when the format is not provided. In addition, I always have grammatical mistakes in my essay. It seemed like a destiny, unavoidably. Besides that, due to lack of vocabulary, I have always stuck over my mind since I could not express my thought with words in my writing.
In order to improve my weakness in writing, I will try to use more transition signal to make the whole essays more coherent. Before I start writing, I will outline all the main points and distribute them to every paragraph. All the thesis statements have to be stated clearly with solid evidence. Furthermore, I will pay attention to my spelling and punctuation as well as the grammar. After finishing the first draft, it is time for me to proofread and edit the essay. I will also let my friends to comment and reedit the essay in order to make it more perfect in accuracy.
In summary, writing is just like a lifelong learning journey. Opportunity is always waiting for those who want to improve. So, I will enhance my writing skills with great enthusiasm, indeed.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Writing Assignment 2
Can you imagine that 600 million cars floating on the air around the earth every year? It has the same weight as the amount of carbon dioxide emitted on earth every year. It is unbelievable. Referring to the data collected in 2007 by Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC) for United Nations, 8.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide gases have been emitted through the burning of fossil fuels annually and it is believed to be increasing continuously in the following years. Regarding to this issue, Stephens (2006) concluded that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a feasible way to reduce pollution caused by coal-fired power generation in the world today. However, I do not agree with her that CCS is applicable to all countries, especially developing countries.
CCS is mainly about capturing carbon dioxide in a large quantity from power plants and storing it in order not to release it to the air. Basically, the technology comprises three parts: capture, transport and storage. However, these three parts require a large amount of capital and investments to operate separately and it certainly will become a great economic burden to a country, especially those in developing countries. “A new power plant costs 1.5 billion dollars to build, it will cost an extra 700,000 dollars to fit the capture equipment on the first experimental plants,” said Professor Haszeldine (Hilary & Ilana, 2008). The expenses of operating a CCS power plant can be increased by using chemical absorption and energy. Furthermore, transferring the gas by container or pipe to storage will add to a country’s financial burden as well. Rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars to pump tons of gases into the ground by using current CCS technology, why not research a better power generation method by using renewable energy?
Everything in this world has pros and cons; so does this technology. CCS gives rise to other environmental problems other than global warming. In fact, the most serious risk faced is the potential leakage of the pumped gas back into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide may be emitted to the air through abandoned wells and underground cracks or even released by natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanoes. In 1986, 1700 people died after a disaster where 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide were released from the lake into the ground in Cameroon (Alister, 2006). The gases can cause asphyxia as carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen in the air. Besides that, storing tons of carbon dioxide underground and in oceans may increase the acidification of soil and sea water, and as a result, the equilibrium of the ecosystem in soil and water will be affected.
In addition, even though the concept of CCS is gradually spread among all the countries, it has not been demonstrated on a large scale power plant today. The main reason is the overall operating costs are significantly high and thus developing countries are not able to support it in long term. Even if the United States government has planned the first large scale CCS project--FutureGen--it does not have a regulatory framework and clear incentives to invest (Stephens, 2006). The public seem likely to reject the idea of CCS based on the high costs instead of the critical leakage since the technology is not yet popular.
In conclusion, CCS can bring negative impact on people. It requires the cooperation and rapport between developing and developed countries in order to maximize its efficiency in the future. Also, it may not be realistic to invest a large amount of capital on CSS since there are a lot of other social problems to deal with, especially in a developing country. Thus, I believe that CCS is not the best way to solve the problem of global warming today.
References
Alister, D. (2006, July). Concerns rise about CO2 burial. Retrieved October 2,
2008, from http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1683532.htm
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre. (2008,October). Trends-emissions
Retrieved October 2, 2008, from ftp://cdiac.ornl.gov/pub/trends/co2_emis/Preliminary_CO2_Emisions_2006_2007.xls
Hilary, W., & Ilana, H. (2008, August). Carbon capture and storage: How does it
work? Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/29/carbon.capture/index.html
Stephens, J.C. (2006). CCS: Research is not enough. In The world energy book. London: World Energy Council.
CCS is mainly about capturing carbon dioxide in a large quantity from power plants and storing it in order not to release it to the air. Basically, the technology comprises three parts: capture, transport and storage. However, these three parts require a large amount of capital and investments to operate separately and it certainly will become a great economic burden to a country, especially those in developing countries. “A new power plant costs 1.5 billion dollars to build, it will cost an extra 700,000 dollars to fit the capture equipment on the first experimental plants,” said Professor Haszeldine (Hilary & Ilana, 2008). The expenses of operating a CCS power plant can be increased by using chemical absorption and energy. Furthermore, transferring the gas by container or pipe to storage will add to a country’s financial burden as well. Rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars to pump tons of gases into the ground by using current CCS technology, why not research a better power generation method by using renewable energy?
Everything in this world has pros and cons; so does this technology. CCS gives rise to other environmental problems other than global warming. In fact, the most serious risk faced is the potential leakage of the pumped gas back into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide may be emitted to the air through abandoned wells and underground cracks or even released by natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanoes. In 1986, 1700 people died after a disaster where 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide were released from the lake into the ground in Cameroon (Alister, 2006). The gases can cause asphyxia as carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen in the air. Besides that, storing tons of carbon dioxide underground and in oceans may increase the acidification of soil and sea water, and as a result, the equilibrium of the ecosystem in soil and water will be affected.
In addition, even though the concept of CCS is gradually spread among all the countries, it has not been demonstrated on a large scale power plant today. The main reason is the overall operating costs are significantly high and thus developing countries are not able to support it in long term. Even if the United States government has planned the first large scale CCS project--FutureGen--it does not have a regulatory framework and clear incentives to invest (Stephens, 2006). The public seem likely to reject the idea of CCS based on the high costs instead of the critical leakage since the technology is not yet popular.
In conclusion, CCS can bring negative impact on people. It requires the cooperation and rapport between developing and developed countries in order to maximize its efficiency in the future. Also, it may not be realistic to invest a large amount of capital on CSS since there are a lot of other social problems to deal with, especially in a developing country. Thus, I believe that CCS is not the best way to solve the problem of global warming today.
References
Alister, D. (2006, July). Concerns rise about CO2 burial. Retrieved October 2,
2008, from http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1683532.htm
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre. (2008,October). Trends-emissions
Retrieved October 2, 2008, from ftp://cdiac.ornl.gov/pub/trends/co2_emis/Preliminary_CO2_Emisions_2006_2007.xls
Hilary, W., & Ilana, H. (2008, August). Carbon capture and storage: How does it
work? Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/29/carbon.capture/index.html
Stephens, J.C. (2006). CCS: Research is not enough. In The world energy book. London: World Energy Council.
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