One way to reduce energy consumption – jack up the price!

Usually, governments attempt to reduce national energy consumption by educating the public on practical ways they can make changes around the home. Some offer incentive programs for making efficiency upgrades. Others pay for advertising campaigns – billboards, commercials, and free give-a-ways that remind you to “turn the lights out when you leave.” A select few countries, on the other hand, have chosen to take the opposite approach.

If you can’t get people to willingly curb their habits, jack up the price of electricity until people can no longer afford to be wasteful!

Both England and Wales increased the overall price of energy, and during a six-year span in which utility bills rose 28%, consumption dropped by 25%.

This information comes from a recent report out of the UK’s Office for National Statistics. The report cites residents throughout England and Wales who’ve made significant eco-improvements to their homes in order to combat rising energy costs. Back in 2008, a mere 44% of homes had proper roof insulation, compared to 60% last year. It’s no surprise that the jump corresponds with the U.K. giving consumers more incentive to purchase energy-efficient homes and appliances.

In a country mostly dependent upon natural gas for energy, many homes managed to make improvements to their waters heaters and air condition systems. After all, nobody wants to spoil that beautiful English countryside with more fracking drills and equipment.

The same sort of price-fixing is expected to occur in the United States sometime before the end of the decade.  According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, levying home efficiency improvements will reduce the country’s energy usage per person annually until 2040.

In other parts of the world, leaders are coming together in hopes of figuring out other, less government-intense solutions. The heads of the Shanghai Environment Protection Industry Association and the China Clean Expo have agreed to collaborate on next year’s International Waste Management & Recycling Show. The show brings energy industry professionals together in an atmosphere geared towards.

Established back in 2002, the China Clean Expo is the country’s largest eco-friendly show, offering a unique trading and brainstorming atmosphere for waste management professionals. The expo showcases a wide array of technology and products, hoping one will prove to be the next big breakthrough. From waste processing and municipal equipment, to environment sanitation operations and processing technology – 2014’s event will have it all. Over 20,000 professionals and vendors from across the world are already expected to attend!

So, what’s the best way to change a bad habit: through reason, or a swift kick in the rear? It remains to be seen.

NRGLab is supporting the future of energy. For more information on our slate of projects currently in development, visit nrglab.asia.

China & India lead surge in future energy consumption

A new study released by the United States’ Energy Department predicts that the world’s energy consumption will surge 56% by the year 2040, nearly half of which will stem from China and India.

Sure, that date might seem a long ways away, but if we fail to address the problem now, there’s no telling how we’ll manage to meet future demand.

Based on current government policies, fossil fuels will account for 80% of world’s energy use by 2040; this, despite increased efforts to fund more alternative energy programs.

The natural gas industry is expected to grow faster than coal or oil, thanks in part to new extraction techniques (not to mention global warming, which is opening up natural gas deposits in the Acrtic).

While the U.S. has dominated fracking and the natural gas industry to date, they’ll soon have foreign competition to deal with. Russia is predicted to keep pace with the U.S. in terms of productivity, particularly in the Russian Arctic. The study claims that China and Canada are poised to increase production as well.

And where exactly is all this new fuel being shipped off to?

A majority of new production is intended to meet rising demands in other markets. Russia, for instance, is planning to export more gas to China, while more than a dozen other companies have proposed facilities to transport gas from the U.S. to Asia and Europe.

The Energy Department study warns that this trend could expand to other counties like India amid high oil prices, which “are expected to rise to $163 per barrel world-wide in 2040 from $105 in 2013. That increase could drive consumers to use less or seek alternatives.”

The result?

Burning more fossil fuels will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The study projects that emissions will increase 46% by 2040. That puts us well beyond the “point of no return” scientists have been warning us about for years.

The time for change is now. Follow us at nrglab.asia for updates on our slate of alternative energy projects designed to eliminate carbon-emissions and reduce consumption.

Finger-pointing: who's behind whose cyberattacks?

Over the past month, the U.S. government has criticized China for reportedly hacking government and private corporation databases. Now, China’s the one doing the finger-pointing. According to a statement released earlier today by their Ministry of National Defense, the U.S was responsible for 63% of an average of 144,000 monthly cyberattacks last year. Says China, “Now who’s the bad guy?”

Apparently, world governments treat issues of treason and national security like kids on a playground running to teacher shouting, “But he… but she!” These allegations are just about as series as they come. Strained relationships, between any two countries nowadays, send ripples through the global economy that cannot be fully predicted. Unfortunately, when that happens, those ripples tend to cause a tsunami at one end of the world.

How can they tell who’s spying on who? IP addresses, of course. Don’t be fooled — every website you’ve ever visited, every link you’ve ever clicked, every email you’ve ever opened, sits floating around the infinity of the Internet, waiting to be traced and cataloged. A U.S. security firm by the name of Mandiant first brought allegations against the Chinese after they traced a hacking group to a Chinese military instillation. In their rebuttal, the Chinese government denied all accusations and attacked Mandiant’s report for a lack of empirical evidence.

“Everyone knows that the use of (stolen) IP addresses to carry out hacking attacks happens on an almost daily basis,” said Geng Yansheng, a representative for the Defense Ministry. Basically what he said was: “Everybody’s doing it… how could you possibly know..?”

In a move that one could only describe as the pot calling the kettle ‘black’, China now claims they’ve traced IP addresses back to U.S. military installations. But how can we believe anything they say if they’ve spent the past few weeks shredding IP addresses as so-called ‘proof’?

Cyber and drone warfare appear to be the two major players in the future of national ‘in’security. As these technologies improve, mankind will find ways to adapt to create new hacks; new holes in whatever system they poke and prod. Democracy and capitalism, systems which have gone digital over the last several decades, will become increasingly more vulnerable. We must protect intellectual property. We must preserve privacy. Without these things, the world will descend into primal chaos. When world super powers point fingers like whiny children, it begs the question: has technology made us all more primitive?

Drifting winds & the air we breathe

Not convinced that air pollution is a global issue? Did you read our last post about China and think, “That’s another continent far, far away. How could anything they do possible affect me?”

Well, according to a study recently published in the Science Journal, dust particles blown thousands of miles from Asia and Africa have been discovered in California’s water supply. The increase in dust in the atmosphere has been linked to an increase in rain and snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, as well. The study took place over a two-year period, during which researchers collected samples of the atmosphere over the mountain range. What they found was startling.

“There was this sort of magical switch. The days with dust you see one thing, and the days without dust you see a different thing,” said Kim Prather, an atmospheric chemist who coauthored the study.

So, this has to be proof positive to the nonbelievers out there. Traces of PM2.5 in Beijing will, given enough time, make their way across the globe and into our air and drinking water. This is why the world needs to be watching China’s annual legislative hearing carefully. In fact, every country should be keeping a watchful eye on one another. Perhaps then, through sheer paranoia, the world will be motivated to work towards a united clean up effort.

“The fact that something happening on another continent, in terms of dust generation, could influence precipitation patterns in the U.S — that’s a challenging problem,” said Marty Ralph, the study’s coauthor and a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

How did they know the dust was from China, you ask? Well, all airborne particles carry with them a chemical fingerprint, which allows scientists like Prather and Ralph to track their movement from anywhere, to anywhere, in the world.

Again, this is why they call it ‘global’ warming. The environmental crisis we’re currently facing, which includes issues from gas fracking to carbon emissions, melting ice caps to outdated energy infrastructures, may seem abstract at times, but that’s only because it’s such a wide-spread problem with complex sociopolitical implications. But complexity is no excuse to give up. We must never forget that one person can make a difference. With vision, determination, and informed judgement, we can leave this world a better place than the one we inherited.

Because every person, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation, enjoys breathing.

Will China take the hint? Air pollution reaches dangerous levels

Mere days before China’s government is set to begin their annual legislative hearings, Beijing’s air pollution reaches a dangerous new high. Pollution is expected to be among the main topics to be addressed. Will China take the hint and get aggressive with their energy policy?

Increased air pollution means an increase of PM2.5 particles in the air. Prolonged exposure to these particles resulted in over 8,000 premature deaths in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi-an, and Guangzhou alone last year. According to the World Health Organization, a person should not expose themselves to PM2.5 levels of 25 or higher for more than 24-hours. In Beijing, levels are regularly recorded in the fifty range — nearly DOUBLE the recommended level.

On January 12th of this year, levels of PM2.5 in China rose to a mind-numbing 993. 993! People have been forced to wear masks to simply walk to the grocery store. Remember — the Earth only has one atmosphere. Their air will eventually become your air. That is why the issue of global warming cannot be confronted on a country-by-country basis. I requires inter-governmental cooperation to drastically reduce carbon emissions to ensure our air remains breathable, not just for another century, but for thousands of years to come.

And the problem isn’t just with our air, either. Pollution in the atmosphere makes its way to the ground in the form of rain, which seeps into our streams, and oceans. It pollutes our wells and drinking water. Like the first domino in a long chain of pollution, what we put into the air inevitably makes its way back into our bodies, one way or another.

This week, Chinese Newspapers protested the Environment Ministry’s refusal to make classified pollution information available to the public. The 21st Century Business Herald newspaper drew comparisons to the outbreak of SARS in 2003, which had also been kept secret from the public. It’s time for transparency in government. After all, isn’t government supposed to work FOR the people, not in spite of them? How can the public be expected to make informed decisions if the necessary information is kept from them? Change is never easy — let alone change in blind faith. It’s one thing to have to wear a mask to the grocery store. It’s another not to be allowed to know how many trips will kill you.

The chief pollutant responsible for China’s problem? Coal. Accounting for 19% of the total air pollution, the out-dated energy source continues to pump poison into our atmosphere. How little air has to be left before the world takes a serious look at our energy infrastructure? Sure, it may be China’s problem today. But tomorrow, it’s the USA’s. Next week, Europe’s. Air pollution spreads like cancer. What we need is an emergency procedure to remove the growth before it devours us from the inside, out.

Consider NRGLab’s SH-box the scalpel in this procedure. Without any grid modifications whatsoever, the SH-box is ready to start producing clean, natural energy from crystals. By converting environmental heat into electricity, these Boxes are capable of powering a community or a corporation. Because NRGLab thinks it’s about time we cleaned up our planet. Let’s start with our cities, and move on from there. Hopefully China takes the hint and the lead.