Welcome to Vol. 7 No. 8 of Design Science News, the e-bulletin of the Buckminster Fuller Institute
Design Science News brings you news from around the world related to humanity's option for success and comprehensive design solutions. It also features updates from BFI and periodic special offers for our members.
BFI UPDATE
Design Science Lab
BFI Board Member Jaime Snyder and NC DSL participants interviewed by Chautauqua Radio
This Chautauqua Radio program is dedicated to Buckminster Fuller -- his life, his work and his legacy. Following up on the energy of the recently completed Design Science Lab at UNC-Asheville, the program features Ruth Meyers and Mark Hanf, teachers who participated in the Lab, discussing how they apply Bucky's teachings in their classrooms, and what they themselves learned in the Lab. David McConville interviews Jaime Snyder, Co-Founder and Board Member of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Inventor Kurt Pryzbilla, Navaho spiritualist Keith Curly, artist Vincent Wrenn and Black Mountain College Museum chairman John Wright also join the program.
To listen to this program, please visit: http://www.wpvm.org/archive.php
Scroll down to "Chautauqua Radio' and click "Stream'
Fuller Archive at Stanford University Goes Digital!
Stanford University Libraries has launched its first digital multimedia collection, making available online audio and visual content from the archive of the late architect, inventor and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller. Approximately 380 hours of rare, original recordings, primarily of Fuller's lectures and public talks, have been reformatted from original analog recordings and can be downloaded as streaming audio and video by registered users.
The R. Buckminster Fuller Digital Collection can be found online athttp://collections.stanford.edu/bucky
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
"All humanity will have to be successful or none will."
— R. Buckminster Fuller, 1979
TRENDS & PERSPECTIVES
Eprida: Closed-loop carbon sequestration in top soil
The Eprida process is based on the synergy among three key insights:
- First, recent discoveries have revealed an ancient soil management technique from the Amazon basin. For thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived, civilizations there had buried charcoal in tropical soils to make them productive. Those terra preta, or "black earth,' soils still remain bountiful five hundred years later. The charcoal acts like a coral reef for soil organisms and fungi, creating a rich micro ecosystem where organic carbon is bound to minerals to form rich soil.
- Just burying charcoal in the soil is beneficial. Japanese studies have found that adding up to 10% charcoal increases fertility in most soils, but adding even more charcoal won't hurt and if nitrogen is added to the charcoal it produces an even more effective fertilizer. Most fertilizer is currently produced by using natural gas to extract nitrogen from the air to make ammonia, but this releases one molecule of CO2 for each molecule of ammonia produced. Conventional urea based fertilizers, made from this ammonia, also tend to leach out and wash off into waterways, where they become a serious pollutant causing algae bloom and ultimately dangerously acidifying the oceans.
- The third breakthrough in creating the Eprida ECOSS process came with the discovery that if ammonia (NH3), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), are all combined in the presence of charcoal they will form a solid, ammonium bicarbonate (NH4HCO3) fertilizer inside the pores of the charcoal. About 30% of the hydrogen derived from the biomass will make enough ammonia to combine with all of the charcoal from the same biomass to scrub CO2 flue gases from a power plant, converting all of the ingredients into a slow-release nitrogen fertilizer on charcoal.
http://www.eprida.com/home/index.php4
Breaking the gas ceiling
Ask Jerrod Bouchard what he did on his summer vacation and he'll let you peek at the car he helped create, a teardrop-shaped three-wheeler that gets 600 miles to the gallon - if you pedal. But if you're feeling lazy, this human/solar-powered hybrid, which plugs in at home and pops out solar panels while parked, will zip off at 50 m.p.h. for 50 miles. No pedaling required.
Of course, miles per gallon in this case is only an energy equivalent. The "fish," as Jerrod's team of nine fellow students dubbed the bullet-proof vehicle, doesn't burn gasoline - just a little electricity and some calories. No need for a traditional fill-up. Ever. (Source: Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0814/p20s01-stct.html
Rain or shine, this boat powers on
It's a typical grey London day, but standing on the wooden deck of the brand new SolarShuttle feels slightly indulgent. "What a shame it's not sunny," says one of the passengers, as everyone sighs at the vagaries of the English climate. Surprisingly, the less-than-perfect conditions make this project even more believable: the SolarShuttle, the UK's first solar powered boat, doesn't stop dead when the sun decides to hide. When the boat is not in use, the SolarShuttle acts as a floating power generator, feeding surplus electricity back into the national grid. Solar energy is its one and only source of power, storing energy in batteries and working in conjunction with two silent electric motors without any help from fossil fuels or the wind. The SolarShuttle's elegant canopy of photovoltaics generates 9 to 12 amps per hour on an overcast day like today. She can store up to 80 miles worth of energy when there is no sun and run for 20 miles in complete darkness. This emissions-free wonder carries 37 passengers and cruises silently at 5 miles an hour, saving 4900 lbs of carbon compared to a traditional diesel-powered boat. (Source: Core77)
http://www.core77.com/reactor/09.06_solarshuttle.asp
World's largest solar power plant
Germany isn't the sunniest of countries, but it is a hotbed of solar power. And now it's home to what the companies involved are calling the world's largest solar electric power plant. On Friday, Silicon Valley-based SunPower marked the dedication of the Gut Erlasee Solar Park, a 12-megawatt facility located amid cropland near the Bavarian town of Arnstein. SunPower's solar cells are used in about one-third of the "mover" panels--from German solar technology company Solon--that tilt and rotate to stay facing the sun throughout the day. (Source: CNET News)
http://news.com.com/2300-11395_3-6112320-1.html?part=rss&tag=6112320&subj=news
RESOURCES
The (Un)Happy Planet Index
We are accustomed to comparing countries in terms of crude riches or what they trade. Some countries earn, or are given, reputations for music, sporting excellence, food, or as holiday destinations. There are international league tables for performance on a range of issues from corruption to football. This website introduces a measure of something more fundamental. It addresses the relative success or failure of countries in supporting good life for their citizens, whilst repecting the environmental resource limits upon which our lives depend.
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered.
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/introduction.htm
The Green House: New directions in sustainable architecture and design
General interest and technical lectures, family activities and festivals, a one-day home renovation expo called Greenovation, and more, will promote "going green' and help satisfy the growing demand for information on how to make environmentally-conscious lifestyle and design choices.
Learn about sustainable urban planning, architecture, and design. Explore off-the-grid strategies and how to draw on natural resources without depleting them. Examine the latest strategies for improving energy consumption for small commercial buildings, and more. From September through November of 2006, the Museum's calendar of events includes lectures on incorporating sustainable principles into home and building projects by architects and experts such as Paolo Soleri, Lori Ryker, Ralph Knowles, Dennis Creech, Dean Hill, and others.
http://www.nbm.org/Exhibits/greenHouse2/greenHouse.htm
EVENTS
Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi
May 19 -- October 15, 2006
The Noguchi Museum
9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard), Long Island City, New York
A special exhibition devoted to the long friendship and collaboration between visionary designer and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller and acclaimed sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi opens at The Noguchi Museum on May 19, 2006. Fuller's emphasis on the humanistic use of science and technology strongly influenced the younger Noguchi. Although they collaborated on only one specific project, Fuller's Dymaxion car, for over fifty years, the two men together explored ideas that have particular relevance today, including the search for renewable energy sources, accessible designs, and "green" architecture.
http://www.noguchi.org
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