Power To Change!
Posted by: vik on: June 20, 2009
HP estimates that 100,000 users shutting down their work computers at the end of each day would be the equivalent of eliminating about 105 cars from the road each day.
Source : HP
0.23 m3 of Methane gas can light one 40 Watt bulb for an hour !
Posted by: titli on: June 8, 2009
Plants that can beat Indoor Pollution
Posted by: titli on: June 4, 2009
beat indoor pollution
- The Areca Palm (or Chrysalidocarpus lutescens) does great air cleansing work during the day. About 4 shoulder height plants per person should do the trick.
- The Mother-in-law’s Tongue (or Sansevieria trifasciata) takes over by converting CO2 to O2 at night. You want about 6 to 8 of these waist high plants per person.
- The Money Plant (or Epipremnum aureum) does the job of filtering out removing Formaldehyde and other VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds).
A study carried out by Chichester College confirms the advantages of having house plants around because they make our environment a healthier place in which to live and work. Researchers have found that one potted plant per 100 square feet of floor space can help clean the air.
The students rated the most effective plants and the ubiquitous Areca Palm came first for removing ammonia, and formaldehyde (found in many cleaning products) from the air and releasing moisture into the air. Next was the Peace Lily which removes acetone, then the Rubber Plant, then Ficus Benjamina (weeping fig) then the dracena. Number 6 is english ivy that eliminates mould causing asthma, boston ferns are highly rated for improving air quality, then the spider plant and lastly the moth orchid (phalaenopsis).
Amount of energy used in one Google Search
Posted by: titli on: May 31, 2009
An average query uses about 1 kJ of energy and emits about 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.
To add some context, below is data about the C02 impact of some everyday activities and items compared to Google searching:
| Activity | Google Searches |
| CO2 emissions of an average daily newspaper (PDF) (100% recycled paper) | 850 |
| A glass of orange juice | 1,050 |
| A cheeseburger | 15,000 |
Spam is slowly eating the environment
Posted by: titli on: May 5, 2009
Key Findings:
- An estimated worldwide total of 62 trillion spam emails were sent in 2008
- Globally, annual spam energy use totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (KWh), or 33 terawatt hours (TWh). That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes in the United States, with the same GHG emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using two billion United States gallons of gasoline
- The average GHG emission associated with a single spam message is 0.3 grams of CO2. That’s like driving three feet (one meter) in equivalent emissions, but when multiplied by the annual volume of spam, it’s like driving around the Earth 1.6 million times
- The average business email user is responsible for 131 kg of CO2 per year in email-related emissions and 22 percent of that figure is spam-related.
- The energy required annually to create, send, receive, store, and view spam adds up to more than 33 billion KWh, approximately equivalent to 4 gigawatts of baseload power generation or the power provided by four large new coal power plants.
- ICF estimates spam-related emissions for all email users at an annual total of 17 million metric tons of CO2
- Users viewing and deleting spam is the largest energy drain associated with spam, almost 18 billion kWh or 52 percent of total spam energy.
Source: McAfee
1 kg of CO2 is emitted when
Posted by: titli on: March 30, 2009
- you fly in a plane a distance of 2.2 km or 1.375 miles.
- Operate your computer for 32 hours (60 Watt consumption assumed)
- Production of 5 plastic bags
- Production of 2 plastic bottles
- Production of 1/3 of an American cheeseburger (yes, the production of each cheeseburger emits 3.1 kg of CO2!)
Methane Gas from Cow Dung
Posted by: titli on: March 26, 2009
We have the world’s largest livestock population of 250 million, which produces close to 125 million tonnes of cowdung.
1 cow = o.5 tons of cowdung
The gobar gas research station in Uttar Pradesh has established that one cow gives enough cowdung in a year to produce methane gas equivalent to 225 litres of petrol in energy terms.
0.5 tons of cowdung = 225 litres of petrol
- one kg of methane gas is more or less equal in energy content to one kg of petrol, LPG, kerosene or diesel
- Our petrol consumption in 2003-04 = 8 million tonnes
- A generator needs 200 gm of petrol to produce one kilowatt/hour (kwH) of electrical energy
- The per capita electrical energy consumption in rural area is 112 kwH per annum. Our rural population being 74 crore
- The cowdung of 200 million cows can produce 50 million tonnes of manure, which can be used for two rotations in a year to take care of the fertiliser needs of the entire 143 million hectares in the country.
- If every village (of which we have 6.27 lakh) has 50 farmer families who maintain just two bullocks and four cows each, the cowdung of these animals can produce enough methane gas to take care of country’s entire energy needs, now being met by LPG, kerosene, petrol and LNG. Besides, this livestock can provide rural electricity as well. The West has already started generating biodiesel in a big way. Even in India, trees like pungan, neem, karanji, ratanjyot or jatropha can be grown to produce oil. A thousand such trees can be planted on one hectare, which will yield 10 tonnes of oilseeds, from which 2.5 tonnes of oil can be extracted. This oil can be converted into biodiesel after esterification and used as fuel in diesel engines. Our annual requirement of diesel oil last year was 38 million tonnes.
source: The Times Of India
By recycling 1 ton of paper we save
Posted by: titli on: March 22, 2009
17 trees
6953 gallons of water
463 gallons of oil
587 pounds of air pollution
3.06 cubic yards of landfill space
4077 Kilowatt hours of energy
(Source: Weyerhaueser Info)
Making your own organic fertilizers
Posted by: titli on: March 17, 2009
- In: Plant Care
- 1 Comment
- Image via Wikipedia
Many commercial fertilizers on the market today contain ingredients that may harm or burn plants. The solution? Go organic. Think of the things you use every day.. specifically food items, such as eggs. A very beneficial fertilizer can be made using eggshells. Eggshells contain a high level of nitrogen and protein which are important to a plant’s nutrition and can help your plants grow and prosper. After cooking breakfast, save your eggshells and put them in a blender or food processor and grind them down to a powder. To this powder you can also add coffee grounds, tea grounds, and even vitamin and mineral tablets. Add bottled water to the mixture, since some water supplies contain too much chlorine that can be harmful to plants. If you see yellow leaves or burned edges on the leaves of your plants, it could be due to the chlorine content of the water you are administering to the plants.
Another method of feeding plants is to mix a teaspoon of sugar to a pitcher of bottled water and add a pinch of crushed aspirin to the mixture. The sugar feeds the plant and the aspirin serves to keep the plant’s capillaries open in order to deliver water and nutrients to all parts of the plant.
You could also feed and water your plants with freshly brewed tea or coffee (let it cool first, of course) and you can also add a few teaspoons of sugar.
Try filling a pitcher with bottled water and adding some nails (rusted or not)dried leaves, dried manure, and bread crumbs. Set the container in the sun where it will be undisturbed for three days, strain the liquid and water your plants.
Create a portable compost heap using a medium sized plastic garbage can and use it only for discarded foodstuffs from your kitchen. It can be kept in your garage or you could leave it in your back yard and the sunlight can slowly “cook” the ingredients. Periodically add bottled water to help mix the nutrients. Using a large cooking spoon, scoop out a bit of the compost and add it to a pitcher of bottled water and let it sit for a few hours, then water your plants.
the titli has arrived
Posted by: titli on: March 11, 2009
- In: developments| success
- 1 Comment
“Where do we start, how do we start…” We checked what we already had. We had enough hands and INOX (Pune) was willing to be a part of this. That left us with sourcing the plants and pot. Chetan was ready with a list of numbers and addressess. The four of us, Siddhu, Nikhil, Chetan and me divided the work amongst us. Siddhu and Nikhil looked into one half of the city while Chetan and me looked into the other half which also included meeting the GM of INOX.
The INOX deal was a huge thrust of encouragement. We were given far more than we expected. Apart from space at the parking lot and opposite the box office we were given places to put up posters.
It’s said that good always happens when good is being done. In a short while we had finalized our pots and plants and also thought of concepts for our posters.
On D-day responsibilities were shared. The girls headed by Aditi took care of operations at INOX, Vinay, our creative guy, took care of putting the concepts on paper, while the rest, the guys, had to fill the pots with mud and carefully place the plant in them.
By 3 pm we were all set. Everyone was briefed on the importance of the activity and on ek titli.
We were all spirited people having a common goal and with immense enthusiasm we distributed a total of 102 plants in just about 3 hours. A feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction prevailed amongst us, the magnitude we had not expected. With the encouraging and overwhelming response received, we knew, ‘this was just a small step for the titli‘.
Our sincerest gratitude goes out to all those people who directly/indirectly helped us make this happen.
for more pictures on the event, please click here
Ek Titli on the Web
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