popular logistics

MetaEfficient reports that starting in 2010, Hawaii will require solar hot water heaters in new residential construction

Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.

The new law prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Some exceptions will be allowed, such as forested areas where there are low amounts of sunshine.

State Sen. Gary Hooser, vice chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee, first introduced the measure five years ago when he said a barrel of oil cost just $40. Since then, the cost of oil has more than tripled.

“It’s abundantly clear that we need to take some serious action to protect Hawaii because we’re so dependent on oil,” Hooser said. “I’m very pleased the governor is recognizing the importance of this bill and the huge public benefits that come out of it.”

Other Resources

Makezine - several recipes for DIY solar hot water heaters

Another recipe from Makezine

From the Sietch - a solar water heater also suitable for distillation, purification, and possible boiling/cooking. Thanks to Sustainable Design Update for the link

On Wired.com, Dave Bullock has an article and image gallery in New Purification Plant Answers California’s Water Crisis, which uses microfiltration and other technologies to treat sewage and pump it back into aquifers. Here are a few of Bullock’s excellent photographs:

Liz Borkowski at The Pump Handle has an interesting discussion of sewage systems - she points out that

While most of sewage systems do a great job of making the water look clean and getting rid of bacteria and viruses, they often aren’t designed to remove synthetic chemicals. With so many of us dependent on daily doses of pharmaceuticals, we’re excreting lots of drugs (or their metabolites), and they’re sticking around in treated wastewater. Researchers are now starting to discover what that means for the environment.

What’s In Your Sewage? at The Pump Handle

And then, typically for The Pump Handle, follows up with well-sourced, calm discussion which will leave you better informed.

There may be long-term planning implications with respect to how we design sewage and filtration systems. We’re also reminded of the toxic soup post-Katrina - composed not only of sewage - but of every opened bottle of household cleanser, paint, insecticide, etc. which was on a floor low enough to have the water pass through. (I’ll try to update later with links to the post-Katrina water issues).

In mid-2003, the World Health organization reported on cholera in Iraq:

rom 28 April to 4 June 2003, a total of 73 laboratory-confirmed cholera cases have been reported in Iraq : 68 in Basra governorate, 4 in Missan governorate, 1 in Muthana governorate. No deaths have been reported.

From 17 May to 4 June 2003, the daily surveillance system of diarrhoeal disease cases in the four main hospitals of Basra reported a total of 1549 cases of acute watery diarrhea. Among these cases, 25.6 % occurred in patients aged 5 years and above.

Link.

From Frank Shorter’s October 12th Op-Ed, “Running Into Trouble,” in the Times:

AT the 16-mile mark of a very hot and humid marathon at the Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia, in 1971, I looked over at my good friend and teammate Kenny Moore and noticed something. “You’ve stopped sweating,” I said, trying to sound calm. Kenny looked at his dry forearms, and then his eyes got very big. Ten minutes later he was in an ambulance, incoherent with heat stroke.

• Make salt packets available at the start of races that are dangerously hot. In this context, salt is a good thing.

• Strip down. At the expo before the Chicago race, I advised men to go shirtless and women to wear as little as possible in order to maximize the refrigeration effect of wind against sweaty skin. (Unfortunately, this time there would be no wind.) The elite runners have learned this. In Chicago, I would have gone shirtless, and explained to my sponsors later.

• Have showers and misters at every aid station. In Chicago, drinking water ran out after runners poured hundreds of thousands of cups over their heads.

•  Change the standard ambulance procedures so that only those truly in danger are transported. Doctors will tell you that dehydration can often be initially handled on the scene, but many ambulance protocols call for sufferers to be transported automatically to the hospital.

According to Chris Kahn, of the Associated Press, (Yahoo! News article here):

A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.

“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”

According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.

So it turns out that the average American household consumes 70 gallons of water per person per day, which seems problematic and unsustainable even for those of us living on big islands still soggy from spring. (Calculate just how much water you waste with your thoughtless ablutions here. Now for the last time, would you please turn off the tap when you’re brushing your teeth?)

That’s the bad news. The good news is that populist logisticians are at work on the problem. There’s an article in the NYTimes today about “the Greywater Guerrillas, a team focused on promoting and installing clandestine plumbing systems that recycle gray water–the effluent of sinks, showers and washing machines–to flush toilets or irrigate gardens.”

Interested? Get your hows and whys here.

Medgadget reports on a new portable water purifier.   At 50 liters per duty cycle, given a 30-day supply problem, 1 liter per day per person - this might be ideal in a go-bag - but we’d like to see larger non-electric filtration devices - gravity-fed would be nice - that could handle the water needs of small apartment buildings, perhaps.