Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
It’s a known fact the pollution continually being poured into our atmosphere is detrimental to health and wellbeing when breathed in. The fact of the matter is, as reported in The Guardian newspaper recently, in the world, greater than 9.5 in 10 people are exposed to unhealthy air, a thorough air-pollution study has found. Put … Read more
Number 38 in the Clean Air Technologies Series. Electric motors are used extensively. They’re in everything from electric drills and shavers to lawnmowers and buses, cars and trains. The sky is the limit. That these are used in the railway realm is nothing new. What is new, on the other hand, is the way in … Read more
Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future is a collection of chapters, vignettes if you will, composed by both the conductor (lead author) – Daniel Sperling – and a cohort of contributors. Three Revolutions is chockfull of information, much backed up by supporting documentation (what’s contained in the “Notes” section). … Read more
Continuing along the lines of the discussion of Tuesday’s post: “U-turn: Our driving profile, on taking the eco-smart road and what that will take,” in today’s thread, considered is where transportation is headed generally. Encouraging signs there are. Exciting times are these. The change in transportation development is coming absent my directly noticing it. What … Read more
By now, you’ve seen the ubiquitous, yes, ubiquitous images, scenes, photos of smoke billowing from industrial stacks; strings, lines, queues of light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles so concentrated, freeways and surface streets appearing parking-lot like; and smog so thick, at first glance, what’s in the air actually looks like fog. As to the point in the middle … Read more
The good news is: not all news is bad. To help lend credence, the quality of air here at home, has, in recent times in many a situation, markedly improved. The case of acid rain To put the matter in context, poor air quality in our major commerce centers didn’t just crop up on its … Read more
Oh how far we’ve come! So, what’s passive magnetic levitation or passive maglev, for short? First, some are referring to passive maglev as the fifth (or next) generation of land- or ground-based travel and transport. What makes this the fifth generation is the principle element of levitation. Be this as it may, more tweaking, refining … Read more
Breath of life: Air. Contemplative point 6: On our being aware, the common denominator education is what gets us there. Education: A must! Fact: Today, 50 percent of the world’s human inhabitants live in cities. By the mid-century mark, the figure is expected to grow to two-thirds or 67 percent. Living in the world today … Read more
Contemplative point 4: Consumption and waste go hand in hand. Reduce consumption and you get reduced waste. Increase consumption and what you get is increased waste. In case you haven’t noticed it, there is a proportional relationship thing going on here between consumption and waste. In the consumption/waste combination, never is consumption ever in the … Read more
Contemplative point 2: Running a city takes energy. The former feeds off the latter to survive. Energy: it can neither be created nor destroyed; only changed. Energy can be friend or foe; an asset or detriment, in other words. Energy is responsible for bringing to life things that we often take for granted like lit … Read more