In 1991, Switzerland became one of the first countries in the world to implement an e-waste recycling system, in which the disposal price is paid in advance when a product is acquired. All trash electrical and electronic equipment can now be dropped off for free at collection and sales points, where it will be professionally and environmentally friendly disposed of.
Other countries have followed suit to some extent, but the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that up to 90% of the world's e-waste is illegally transferred. WEEE is increasingly being imported from developed countries, particularly to Asia and Africa, and is frequently misdeclared. More...
Embodied energy is the sum of all the energy required to produce any consumer goods or services. How much embodied energy is hidden in our day-to-day lives?
Embodied energy is the energy that is consumed in order to build a given usable object. This includes the energy from material extraction, refining (Verfeinerung), processing, transporting and fabricating. It is named as such because it is as if this energy is "embodied" within the item itself. Embodied energy also comes along with idea of embodied carbon, which is the associated (zugehörig) CO2 footprint that is emitted (ausstossen) during the objects creation.
Embodied energy is found within all types of objects, including things like cell phones, appliances (Haushaltsgeräte), homes, buildings and furniture. The embodied energy of a given object can be analyzed by knowing what materials are contained within an object, and how much of that given material there is. The amount of energy needed to produce a certain material such as aluminum, steel or concrete (Beton) is known and can be used to calculate the embodied energy within an item.
Examples of embodied energy:
Video about embodied energy:
Embodied Energy - What's that?
Our Audio Pitch:
Soil.m4a (549,72 kb)
Picture and Text Sources:
Embodied Energy 1 [energyeducation.ca]
Embodied Energy 2 [nxtgenhouses.com]
Authors:
Anabel & Sandrine
What is Hydropower Plant?
The hydropower plant or hydroelectric power plant is used to convert the kinetic energy of water into electrical energy. The kinetic energy developed in the water flow due to the gravity of falling water from higher to lower head.
The advantage of the hydropower plant:
The advantage of this power plant is that it does not require any fuel. Therefore, the running cost of this plant is very less. It only requires the water head which is available naturally. It is also renewable and sustainable.
The disadvantages of the hydropower plant:
One of the cons of hydropower is that it alters the natural conditions in the respective ecosystem.
For instance, water flows are disrupted or changed in a different direction or manner.
Through the building of dams, habitats of many animal and plant species may be destroyed. Many animals now have to relocate to other areas of land.
Further check out this explaining-video: Hydropower 101 - Bing video
Or our selfmade sway: Hydropower plant (office.com)
Or for checking your knowledge our kahoot!: Kahoot!
For any further questions, feel free to ask us!
Greets from team flirty <3
Florian & Suzana
Thanks to Mrs. Suter I found out about the Climate Now Competition. This Organisation reads through your project concept and then evaluate it. The Top Projects recieve funds for their project.
Here is the project concept I handed in:
Clima-Now_Mission_TreeNovice.docx (89.61 kb)
Sadly I didn’t here back from the competition. But during christmas and new year I visited their website and listen to all the presentations. And I can say that the project “Climate Fresk” is a deserving winner.
I will include the link to the top evaluated projects down below. I can really recommend all of you to listen at least to one of them and let yourself get motivated by the different ideas that might save our planet.
Presentation of the top projects: https://climanow.ch/de/spotlight/pitch-night-2021/
Wish me luck, because I’ll be competing in this competition next year again :D
Wishing you a long life, good luck and prosperity!
To make wishes come true, there are a few tricks, such as enjoying the right food on New Year's Eve:
Bon appétit & Happy New Year
Bioethanol
Bioethanol is a technical alcohol which is produced by biological waste products. It is a colorless and flammable liquid. It belongs to the alcohols and is containes in alcoholic drinks such as beer, wine and liqueurs.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Bioethanol, also known as E85, is an alternative fuel that can be produced independently of crude oil. E85 is the short form for 85 % bioethanol and 15 % gasoline content.
Advantages
- Bioethanol has an increase in performance of up to 35 %
- Costs are 30 % lower than for petrol
- A renewable source of energy
- etc.
Disadvantages
- Starting a car in cold weather could be more difficult than a car that runs on petrol
- During production a large amount of carbon dioxide is released
- Implementing more biothanol would require modifications to many vehicles
- etc.
Link to our Sway: Sway
Made by Daniel & Sandrine
Oil heating
Switzerland with its 45.7% has the biggest proportion of oil heating in Europe. Which means that almost half of the households in Switzerland still use a non-renewable energy source.
Advantages
- The house doesn't need to be connected to the gas network.
- You can choose your supplier yourself.
- As long as you have oil in your tank, the house is always warm.
Disadvantages
- High and repetitive costs.
- Space needs to be saved in the cellar for the tanks.
- High CO2 emissions and damage to our earth with obtaining the oil from our earth.
Also, the canton of Zurich just voted on a law concerning our heating sources, especially oil heating. It got accepted, which means that if an oil heating source is non repairably damaged, it has to get replaced by an environmental friendlier heating source if it.
Link to our Sway: Sway Oil Heating
Anabel & Tiziano
Did you know that one kilowatt-hour can vacuum for approximately one hour at medium speed (1,000-watt vacuum cleaner), drive an electric car for approximately 6.7 kilometers (with an average energy consumption of 15 kWh per 100 km), or light an energy-saving bulb for up to 90 hours? But, exactly, what do we mean by this energy unit?
A kilowatt hour (kWh) is the amount of energy consumed or emitted in one hour by a 1,000-watt electrical item (e.g., a machine, a person, or a light bulb). This unit of measurement is used to bill both electricity and heat costs.
How is a kilowatt hour calculated?
Power (watts) x time (hours) = power consumption in watt-hours (Wh), this divided by 1000 = consumption in kWh (kilowatt-hours)
Example:
How much does a 60 watt light bulb that burns for six hours consume?
60 watt light bulb x 6 hours of operation = 360 Wh : 1000 = 0.360 kWh
In my house hold the laptop is the device which use the most kwh. My parents and my sister use it and I use it too, but i use also my playstation 4, which use also kwh.
In my task I would like to calculate the electricity consumption. I always find it interesting what you can calculate from the electricity. First I want to enter in the power consumption calculator the number of watts, in my case it is 5. Then I enter in the calculator the number of hours, which was then 2. At the end, I can calculate this using my formula (see above) and come to a result of 0.33 kWh. You can calculate the result either with a formula or with the electricity calculator. The solution should be the same.
Power (watts) x time (hours) = energy consumption in watt-hours (Wh), this divided by 1000 = consumption in kilowatt-hours (kWh)
What was also exciting to break out the electricity consumption in the year. What did I calculate?
Living space in sqm * 9 kWh + 4 people in the household * 400 kWh + 15 electrical appliances in the household *400 = kWh in the year.