5 Green Technologies the U.S. Has Not Adopted

5 Green Technologies the U.S. Has Not Adopted 5 Green Technologies the U.S. Has Not Adopted 5 Green Technologies the U.S. Has Not AdoptedThere are more roofs lined with solar panels than ever before, more electric cars driving our roads than ever before, and more wind turbines powering our grid than ever before. At the large scale, American technology gets greener every year and holds its own when compared to other countries. But when it comes to smaller advancements, at the individual, household, and municipal level, many eco-friendly technologies that have blossomed overseas have yet to take hold in the U.S. Here we examine five that could thrive in the U.S. with the support of the people and the powers that be.1) ThermosiphonsTravel China by rail or road and youll see, on roofs in every city and village, a series of parallel pipes angled toward the sky with a cylindrical water tank sitting on top. These ubiquitous thermosiphons provide hot water to the residents below, at virtuall y no cost beyond the initial outlay and the initial outlay isnt much. They werent uncommon here, once upon a time. Around 1900, the U.S. actually had a huge industry of thermosiphon hot water systems in houses, says Dan Fink, a renewable energy instructor at the Ecotech Institute. But that was before electrification and before gas was discovered in California. Now, with interest in sustainable power on the rise, people are turning to photovoltaics before thermal heating, partly because Thermosiphons are less efficient in cold climates (though with glycol they can still work), and partly because bedrngnis all roofs can support a water tank. But thermosiphons have many advantages they dont need batteries, they keep working when the power goes down, and they start paying you back a lot sooner.Thermosiphon units in Weihai, Shandong province, China. ruf Wikimedia Commons2) Cogeneration UnitsThe modern human depends on electricity to be sure, but heat continues to be a basic necessity as well. So it seems a bit odd that our power stations send the heat they produce up the smokestack. Now, thanks to the low price of natural gas, you can make your own electricity and keep the heat too, with a micro-cogeneration unit. More than a hundred thousand homes are using them in Japan. Instead of wasting heat, you use it as preheating for your house, says Joshua Pearce, a professor at Michigan Techs Open Sustainability Technology Lab. Efficiencies can get really high, over 85 percent. Its a very nice, elegant technology. The U.S. has yet to adopt them on the household scale largely because no one has heard of them, but also because of the low cost of fossil fuels. For those pioneers wanting to reduce their footprint, or go off the grid, ponying up for a system is a no-brainer.Jetson Adventure electric mountain bike. Image Jetson Electric Bikes3) Electric BikesIt wasnt so long ago that in any Asian city, great or small, dawn brought the buzzing. The noise of gas-powered scooters filled all waking hours with their unique form of noise pollution. Now things have changed. The scooters are silentand electric. In China alone there are more than 200 million electric bikes, while in North American theres a mere 125,000. Their popularity in the East has less to do with the relative quiet they offer and more to do with cost. For a bike, electricity is cheaper than gas. The fact that there are no emissions is a side benefit. So why is the U.S. lagging? In China the priority is efficiency, says Josh Sultan, CEO of Jetson Electric Bikes. They dont mind how it looks. Its more about how it functions. Sultan founded his company to try to bring western aesthetics to the electric bike. By appealing to the American sense of cool, Jetson, and companies like it, may quietly save the planet, one bike at a time.4) Virtual Power PlantsAs renewable energy sources proliferate, so do questions about how to handle them. What do you do when the wind doesnt blow and the sun doesnt shi ne? What do you do when they provide an excess of energy? The answer is the virtual power plant. If you have 100 one megawatt plants out therewind turbines, or biomass plantswhen you add them up it looks like one 100-megawatt plant to the grid, says Doug Taylor, vice president of industry solutions for Europe for AutoGrid. It allows them to be operated in concert, to act like one large plant. Taking advantage of todays interconnectivity, Autogrid can track and control both the sources of electricity and where it goes, in real time. If theres a large industrial water pump that needs to fill a tank over an extended period, or an electric car that can be charged in three hours anytime during the night, a virtual plant can modulate them so they get their electricity when its most healthy for the grid. Why havent virtual power plants taken off in the U.S.? Regulations take part of the blame. But the biggest reason is that we simply dont have enough renewables on line.5) Seawater FlushWat er-challenged areas of the U.S. go through considerable expense to offer residents clean drinking water. Then that same drinking water is used to flush away bodily waste. Few things upset me more than the use of quality drinking water to flush toilets, says artist, designer, and futurist Pablo Solomon. Other parts of the world with scarce fresh water do things differently. Eighty percent of the population in Hong Kong flushes its toilets with salt water. Doing so not only saves water, its better for seestreitkraft life at the disposal end of the stream. Of course, it also requires an entirely separate plumbing system. The big problem here is that retrofitting and setting up the seawater-specific waste-processing plants is both expensive and can be a nightmare in terms of getting permits, studies, meeting regulations, dealing with the establishment politics, et cetera, says Solomon. But new developments on either coast could easily take advantage of the plentiful salty stuff.Michael Abrams is an independent writer. For Further Discussion If you have 100 one-megawatt plants out therewind turbines, or biomass plantswhen you add them up it looks like one 100 megawatt plant to the grid. Doug Taylor, AutoGrid

No room at the bar

No room at the barNo room at the barIf endurance were the measure of ones fitness to practice law, then Robert Bowman would seem to be a solid candidate for the bar. As The New York Times recounts, all Bowman ever wanted to be was a lawyer, and it seems hes spent a good part of his life trying to do just thatovercoming a difficult childhood, ten years of college, four years of law school, two debilitating accidents and three unsuccessful attempts to pass the New York State bar exam. Having finally passed on his fourth try, Bowman was interviewed and recommended for admission to the bar by the Committee on Character and Fitnessonly to be deemed unfit by a panel of appellate judges based on the size of his student loan debt.To be fair, the judges decision was leid based solely on the extent of Bowmans debt (some $430,000, including penalties), but also on the fact that, over the last two decades, hes not made a single payment to reduce it.Nevertheless, as Elie Mystal observes in an ATL post Bowman has racked up all of this debt in order to become an attorney how does he have any chance of paying back the money if he is not allowed to become an attorney? Apparently thats not the courts concern.One might question the judgment of someone whos so determined to become a lawyer that he sits through the bar exam four times and racks up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, but is that really a fair, or consistent, way to measure a persons character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counselor-at-law? After all, as the Times notes, New Yorks courts have overlooked misconduct like lawyers solicitation of minors for sex, efforts to deceive judges and possession of cocaine. Those instances have led merely to temporary suspensions from practice.Why not give Bowman the same shot to be a bad lawyer?- posted by vera

What Low-Hanging Fruit Means in Business

What Low-Hanging Fruit Means in BusinessWhat Low-Hanging Fruit Means in BusinessThe parole low-hanging fruitrefers toeasy-to-accomplish tasks or easy-to-solve problems in a particular situation. Itsa clich often uttered in business tischumgebungs that are widely used and occasionally abused. Tasks described as low-hanging fruit are inconsequential to the larger challenges. Much like the easy but low priority items on your to-do list, they mightbe quick for you to dispatch but relatively insignificant given your larger challenges. And just as time management experts suggest, focusing on the most important priorities will yield the best results. Business professionals should avoid preoccupying on what they deem as low-hanging fruit. The Original Meaning of Low-Hanging Fruit The phrase low-hanging fruit references the sweet, easy-to-reach fruit at the lower end of a trees branches. Orchard workers and homeowners appreciate the ease with which this fruit can be picked, in contrast to the effort required to reach the fruit found higher in the tree. Low-Hanging Fruit in Business Some of the goals you set for your organization will be easier to achieve than others. For example, ifyouve completed acustomer satisfaction survey thatshowed that customers are dissatisfiedwith your telephone support service, you might set a number of goals designed to fix the areas they critiqued. You might set one goal to answer all incoming calls within a certain period of time, and another goal might be to resolve ninety-percent ofcustomer support issues on the first call. The first goalis considerably easier to achieve.Improving the time-to-answer can bemanagedquickly by hiring more telephone representatives and buying any necessaryadditional equipment. Of course, adding staff and equipment requires access to capital, but this goal would still beconsidered the low-hanging fruit. The second goal is more challenging than the first, potentially requiring you to increase the technic al know-how of the customer service representatives as part of improving the overall customer experience. It involves employee evaluation, training, potentially eliminating some workers and hiring new ones, and a variety of other activities. Value in Low Hanging Fruit The low-hanging fruit is tempting, easily remedied, but potentially significantly less valuable than these latter, more challenging issues. Other examples of low-hanging fruit might include Customers who regularly re-order a product, requiring little more than an occasional reminder call from a schlussverkauf representative.Quality defects in manufacturing that are easily identified and repaired.Boosting employee morale through positive feedback and recognition.Remedying performance problems with constructive feedback.Satisfying a customer by accommodating a return request.Casual employee goal setting where the goals do not directly tie to the firms strategies.Process improvement initiatives where the simpler proce sses are attacked and improved before more complicated processes are evaluated. Ideally, those items we designate as low-hanging fruit are easily handled in the normal course of business by all associates. However, when we simplify our goals to focus on these simple items, we are potentially short-changing the firm. Remember great time management much like goal achievement focuses on the big priority items. Goal Selection and Low-Hanging Fruit Goals shouldntbe selected and pursued because theyreeasy. They should beprioritized in terms of overall importance toward achieving theorganizational strategy. Proper goal establishment includes linking the goals to key strategic priorities and building the mechanism for measuring and monitoring performance. If the goal does not directly connect to a firms key strategy, it likely should not be pursued. Low-Hanging Fruit Beyond Goals Low-hanging fruit doesnt only refer to goals. It can also refer to targets. Sales professionals will te ll you that its easier to get an existing customer to buy more than it is to gaina new customer. Some salespeople targetrepeat sales to existing customers because they consider themto be low-hanging fruit. However, if a firms overall health is predicated upon regularly capturing new customers, preoccupying on this easy-to-access business can be dangerous. Astute sales managers will ensure that their representatives strive for an appropriate balance of the low-hanging fruit with repeat customers and hard-to-reach fruit with new customers. The Bottom Line Beware the easiest goals. While the low-hanging fruit may be tempting, the true rewards oftencome from climbing higher and stretching for the real treasure in the higher branches. Updated by Art Petty