Posts by Gen Hua Tan
Simulated Gravity
Flying. I always thought about how great it would be if I can fly, levitate, or just float. In space that’s possible, but we have little to do in space so therefore that’s not useful. It would be great if flying is possible on Earth. So my drawing is of clothing made of some light weight and flexible material that can convert probably solar energy into electricity to power the simulated gravity sensors that is on the person’s hands, legs and possibly the person’s back/front too. Traveling would be so much more convenient. Future cars could probably imitate this technology too, but restrictions or air lanes will have to be stationed to avoid traffic/too many cars driving randomly. Personally, it would be nice just to have people flying while cars become obsolete.
Energy Race or Pure Optimism?
Although there has been much talks of increasing the use of green, renewable energy (focusing on wind and solar), its usage and productivity in generating electricity is minuscule (only 3.35%). Just looking at the statistics above of increasing energy usage, it should be clear that we cannot continue to rely on the limited amount of fossil fuel and coal as our primary energy source. We need to transition to cultivate primarily wind and solar energy if we are to continue the increasing energy usage. The question is, how fast?
From both the PlaNYC 2011 Report: Energy and “The Long Slow Rise of Solar and Wind,” they suggest that transition to two types of renewable energy will take a long time, perhaps too long. The other article, “A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030” is much more ambitious, calling for “3.8 million large wind turbines worldwide” and with enough solar panels to cover “0.33 percent of the planet’s land,” (Jacobson, 2009). There are, however, more than enough wind and solar energy to supply the world many times over if we have the equipment to harvest and store it. Do you think there will be an energy race in the future, where countries scramble for materials to build wind turbines and solar panels? Or are we looking at a society that will slowpoke it?
Comments by Gen Hua Tan
"It's interesting that the city is planning to reduce truck-based transportation of wastes in the city. However, on the article, it also projected that barge will be used much more in the future to transport waste. I'm wondering what they're intended this mode of transportation to do for the wastes. Are they using barge as an alternative to trucks and transporting wastes to stations near the pier? Or are they using barge to move waste to outside of the states? They weren't specific on that so I wasn't clear.
The projected increase use of barge as a mode of transportation raises another question on the article. From all the methods that they named, WTE incineration, Anaerobic Digestion, and Thermal Processing, non of them seems to be planned to be located near a water/river source for barges to transport the wastes to. How is this system or future projection use of barges going to work then?"
--( posted on Feb 18, 2014, commenting on the post
Finding New Ways to Move Our Garbage )
"The article seems really geared towards the WTE incineration method since it is efficient in eliminating trash and not too costly compared to Thermal Processing. I am totally for realistic approaches to our waste problem but looking at the bigger picture, Thermal Processing is the way to go. It has potential to reduce even more waste than WTE incineration AND generate much more electricity for use. The only downside is the expense and maintenance. I'm wondering how Japan is financing its 40 million tons of waste through thermal processing whereas it's been projected to cost about 500 million to maintain one facility that processes about 1 million tons of waste annually."
--( posted on Feb 18, 2014, commenting on the post
One Man’s Trash… )
