quantum dots

While solar energy is the wave of the future, it is currently hampered not only by its expense, but by its technological inefficiency. Currently, on average, solar panels convert only about 15% of the sunlight hitting them into power.

However, additional investments in research will quickly get us to where we have to be. We already have the inklings as to where that is. Read on:

"Quantum dots have the potential to change the world. They are a form of solar cell that is completely beyond anything you might imagine. Traditional solar cells produce electricity in a unique way. When the sunlight hits material in the cell, the material kicks off an electron and the charge is the electricity. Quantum dots work the same way, but they produce three electrons for every photon of sunlight that hits the dots. The dots also catch more spectrums of the sunlight waves, thus increasing conversion efficiency to as high as 65 percent, a stunning figure.

The really interesting thing about quantum dots is they do not require big, bulk solar panels to work. Researchers are combing the dots with liquid polymers. In practical terms, this means they can be sprayed onto any surface. This literally means that anything painted can act as a solar cell. Think about that. In the near future, you will be able to go solar by just repainting your house. Hybrid cars will be revolutionized, so will your mobile phone. On a cold day, you can put on a coat and gloves that are heated by the solar cells imbedded in their surfaces. The scope of this breakthrough is as breathless as it is unlimited."

When my kids were very little, they used to walk to school. When it was very cold outside, I gave them a headstart in staying warm by putting their coats in the dryer for a few minutes so when they put them on, they were all toasty. But the heat soon ran out. Imagine putting your kid in a coat covered with quantum dots! They could play outside in the snow (assuming we ever get snow again in Baltimore, and assuming they dust the snow off every now and then so it is exposed to the light), and never get cold!

For more information about this and other inventive technologies that will save the world, check out their site:

http://nanotechnologyfordummies.com/uncategorized/the-nanotechnology-solar-cell-revolution

curioser and curioser

In case we needed a reminder that there is so much about our earth we don't yet know: Scientists in England, in conjunction with the United Nations, report the following:

"Melting icebergs, so long the iconic image of global warming, are triggering a natural process that could delay or even end climate change, British scientists have found.

A team working on board the Royal Navy’s HMS Endurance off the coast of Antarctica have discovered tiny particles of iron are released into the sea as the ice melts.

The iron feeds algae, which blooms and sucks up damaging carbon dioxide (CO2), then sinks, locking away the harmful greenhouse gas for hundreds of years."

This is both good news and bad news. It is good news because it might be a new source of carbon capture and sequestration. It is bad news because (1) we don't know what collateral damage the additional iron, algae and ice melt might do to the eco-system and (2) this news may reduce the sense of urgency to reduce co2 emissions. For even at its height, scientists say, this ice melt will only absorb 1/8th of the earth's co2 emissions. There are still thousands and thousands of tons of co2 that we need to avoid producing. And we need to remember not just the toll in emissions, but the cost - both financial and environmental that we pay in extracting and transporting the fossil fuels.

Still and all, the news is intriguing.

For more of the story and a colorful graphic describing the process, can be found at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1104772/Amazing-discovery-green-algae-save-world-global-warming.html?ITO=1490

My children like to quote the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov musing about inspiration: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka' (I found it) but 'That's funny...' "

Curiosity, wonder and a desire to solve a problem are what drive the scientific imagination.

Hearing that, I wondered what magic words ignite the social entrepreneurial imagination. What drives some people to choose to work for change, begin or join new organizations, shake up structures set in their ways and otherwise make trouble for a settled but faulty world. It seems to me that those words are just as simple, almost as terse, and even more searing. They are: "Oh. That's not good."

Social entrepreneurs see the world the way it is and say that is not the way it could and should be. But that is just the beginning. Many people, even most, see that things are not right, just as many people look at something and wonder what makes it work. But they don't move from thought to action. So what is the extra impulse that urges one to become a scientist and turns a person from someone who tsks and laments to someone who digs in and acts? I would argue that the answer is twofold: an inner demon that drives them to do more coupled with a hope that perhaps they really can.

So the scientist and the social entrepreneur are similar in some ways. But in one huge way they differ. The scientist can research, study, think, tinker and try a thousand experiments by themselves. Though they may achieve a breakthrough sooner with others to help think things through, they do not need them to make their discovery.

Not so with the social entrepreneur. No social entrepreneur ever achieved their goals alone. Their very medium is other people - speaking with them, inspiring them, and being inspired by them in turn.

All of you reading this are social entrepreneurs. You would not bother to be here, at this site, on this blog, engaged in this issue to the depth you are if you had not at one point looked at what the human race is doing to the world and said, "That is not good." So thank you not just for noticing, but for taking that extra step.

Thanks to all of you who have worked with BJEN over the past year and a half. With your help, five synagogues have voted to join our Green Synagogue initiative to date. More are exploring the option. Sustainable actions are also underway in various sectors of the Baltimore Jewish community including the Associated, the JCC and of course Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center and Kayam Farm. The tide is turning, but there is still much to do. And with your help, BJEN will continue to be certain is gets done.

So as daylight hours begin to lengthen, and as we turn from a political era of environmental degradation to one of renewal, healing and growth, I offer you thanks for being wayfarers on this most important of journeys. There is still much to do and I look forward to doing it with you.

Rehoboth Bay

There is a spit of land in Delaware that is two blocks wide. In the morning, you can roll eastward out of bed and catch the day’s sunrise over the placid Atlantic. In the evening, you can stroll westward to the eastern banks of the Rehoboth Bay and catch the sunset over the distant trees.

I have been coming to this place for 25 years and never really knew that before. Evidently, many other people don’t know it either. With literally tens of thousands of people vacationing here, my family and I were one of only three groups who gathered on a public pier to watch the evening show at pocket-sized Monigle Park,

Compared to the beaches on the ocean side of the spit, this park is small, roughly the size of a modern Great Room. It is bounded by rocks that serve as breakers, dune grass to hold the sand in place and a handful of beach houses of modest and grand proportions.

While the surf at the ocean lunges and sweeps, this water at the bay gently laps its shore. Today is a most glorious day at the park. Nine in the morning, and no one to be seen. Just the distant voices of families at ease. Cool, dry air and a cloudless sky. Seagulls gracing the wind. About as close to peace as you can get in a robust resort area like Rehoboth.

If I had the leisure, and the talent, I would create a Year of Sunrises and Sunsets. Imagine what it would be like to capture the daily show of the beauty and power that brings all things to life on earth. Through rain and storm and clarity and haze, to catch the changing moods of our planet in the face of the sun, across the reach of a year.

What astonishes me is that this show happens every day, and truth be told, most days I don’t even notice. Of course, I can tell if it is light or dark outside, whether I need to turn on the lights or draw down the shades. I pay attention to the progression of weekly sunsets that tell me when Shabbat is to begin. But noting the mundane majesty of this solar perambulation? I only wish. Witnessing the brightening of the sky each morning does not cause me to gasp at the sheer splendor and blessing of this most life affirming act. Although it should. Even with the nudge of the daily blessings I most often fail in this constant call of awareness. It often takes illness, or loss, or more kindly the unbroken vastness of a maritime horizon to remind me of the awe and necessity of nature. How much we depend on it and how much we still do not know.

A few years ago, a man full of hubris declared the end of scientific inquiry. He argued that we had essentially conquered all the major frontiers and the rest is just tinkering. The truth is, we still don’t know what gravity is and what makes it work. We don’t know what fired the Big Bang, where all that energy came from or exactly where it is going. We don’t know what determines consciousness or conscience. One day, I hope we do. How awesome it would be to know these things.

For now, everyday, we whirl and twirl around our life source on our corner of the Milky Way in our neck of the Universe. It is good, now and then, to remember this, look up, and have it, for a moment, take our breath away.