Emerging Environmental Technology

As the attention towards issues such as global warming become more and more prominent among daily life, people are developing increasingly environmental friendly technology to guard against destroying the environment. Eco friendly technologies that have not yet been introduced to the public, or are in the process of emerging, hold much potential in cleaning up the polluted world. From the newly introduced hydrogen car to electronic paper, humanity is starting to take the initiative to help save the world.

As of right now, our oil crisis is beginning to take a toll on our economy, slowly but surely. But scientists have come up with a way to produce oil from just about anything. Carbon based waste such as turkey leftovers to scrap tires can be turned into oil through a process called thermo-depolymerization. This is very similar to how nature produces oil, only with technology, we are able to heat and pressurize the carbon based remains and speed up the process by millions of years. Supporters of this process claim that a ton of turkey waste can produce up to 600 pounds of petroleum.

The world is covered with 1.4 billion km³ of water, in which m³ equals 1,000 liters. 70% of the world is covered with water, of which 97% consists of saltwater. That only leaves 3% of the world's water as drinkable. A water crisis is looming on the horizon as billions will be left without water near the middle of this century. People are rapidly attempting to find cheaper and more efficient ways of desalination, which means taking salt out of the saltwater to create drinking water. Scientists have ideas of increased efficiency which consists of heating and evaporating the saltwater with inexpensive fuels, then running the water through membranes with microscopic pores.

With new automotive technology on the horizon, prototype cars can currently use anything from bio fuel to hydrogen to run. Out of all of these fuels, hydrogen is the least harmful as bio fuel and such still need to use other sources of energy, which still emit a small amount of waste into the atmosphere. Developers of the hydrogen car claim that the vehicle emits nothing but clean water, though the future of this technology is uncertain, as experts believe a hydrogen economy is doubtful.

The sun is by far the most significant source of power that we have been unable to tap into. Various environmental technologies aim to harness that energy. Solar panels have only run at a fraction of their percentage. Scientists are currently researching on how to maximize the potential of solar power efficiency.

With 70% of our world covered in water, the oceans soak up the equivalent energy of 250 million barrels of oil a day. Ocean thermal energy conversion technologies aim to harness this source, and convert all that energy into electricity. Another alternative to absorbing energy in eco friendly ways would be to harness the power of ocean waves and tides.

Roof gardens are an increasingly popular way of being green. By planting gardens on the roof, they have a number of advances, which include reducing the carbon dioxide impact by giving off oxygen, absorbing storm water, and reducing summer air conditioning usage. This would especially be helpful in the cities, as it could potentially lower the effect of "heat island" which raises the temperature of the city.

With the help of bioremediation, we could let plants and microbes clean up the world. Microbes could clean nitrates in water while plants could take arsenic out of the soil. Plants and microbes naturally clean up after themselves, and are proving useful to humanity as the very nature that we are destroying, are actually helping us. To curb CO2 emissions, scientists have suggested injecting CO2 into the ground. Though this method is questionable currently, there is no idea as to how long the CO2 would stay in the ground. Costs and efficiency are also major drawbacks of this method, as well as safety.

The elimination of paper is not out of the question, as electronic paper has been developed. Using tiny microcapsules filled with black and white particles, with different charges, capsules could form different patterns which simulate print on paper.

Ultimately, environmental friendly technology is slowly but surely becoming part of our society. As issues such as global warming come to mind, it is essential that humanity as a whole embrace these technologies, and start to make a change in the world.