Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/288717062?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 3, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
A Little Guilt, a Lot of Energy Savings
When it comes to energy efficiency, conscientiousness doesn?t inspire nearly as much change as competition Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters
How can I convince you to conserve energy? I could remind you that using less power saves money and helps the environment, but you won?t listen. Studies have proven that appeals to cost and conservation have no impact on people?s energy consumption.
But what if I told you everyone in your neighborhood is reducing their energy consumption?except you? Would competition and a little fear of judgment convince you to switch off your air conditioner?
That?s the theory driving Opower, a company that?s helped millions of people lower their energy bills. Rather than sell or produce energy, it makes software?software that is changing the way Americans consume energy by setting them in a contest against their neighbors. In the process, Opower has discovered that when it comes to energy efficiency, conscientiousness doesn?t inspire nearly as much change as competition (and a little judgment).
At the heart of Opower?s software is the behavioral nudge?a gentle push toward the right decision. Perhaps the most infamous such example was implemented in the Amsterdam airport, where painting flies on urinals reduced spillage by 80 percent. (If you give a man a target, he can?t help but aim.) In the same vein, Google?s cafeteria is brimming with nudges toward a healthy diet: Healthy foods are coded in green, guilty pleasures in red; plate sizes are smaller-than-average; and the most indulgent desserts are banished to a far corner of the room. Similarly inspired fitness apps encourage you to out-exercise your friends. But using behavioral psychology to encourage energy efficiency has been more difficult, in part because while almost everyone wants to save energy (for both environmental and financial reasons), the resolve to do so wavers once the thermostat climbs. Turning intent into action requires a special kind of push.
Robert B. Cialdini, a well-regarded researcher and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, began thinking about that in 2001. When a summer heat wave in California led to blackouts, he decided to investigate why the state seemed unable to prevent the grid-frying overuse. The big problem: While 90 percent of Californians ranked energy conservation as ?very? or ?extremely? important, and 98 percent claimed to ?try to conserve energy,? virtually no one was taking the necessary steps in their own homes.
To learn why, Cialdini and his team placed door hangers on thousands of homes near San Diego. Three of these hangers provided standard rationales for energy efficiency: saving money, protecting the environment, and helping future generations. A fourth merely listed strategies for saving energy. These hangers each had only a negligible effect on energy consumption.
But another hanger tried a different tack, reporting that a certain percentage of the neighbors were using fans instead of A/C. It was, in essence, altruistic peer pressure?and it worked. The houses that received that hanger showed a 6 percent average drop in consumption, massive in the world of energy efficiency (and more than three times as much as the other homes targeted for messaging).?
That study buttresses Opower?s strategy. Since its founding in 2007, the company has been teaming with energy producers to monitor customers? energy consumption. Opower processes information from companies, then produces detailed energy consumption reports sent to each household, like when they use the most energy and what appliances are most wasteful. The reports are mailed to homes on paper?a seemingly counterintuitive medium for a company whose mission is cutting waste. Yet Opower has discovered that virtually no one will go out of their way to read an online energy report or take the time to parse its often-dense details. That?s because energy use is considered ?low interest? information: Unless your electricity is out, you probably don?t care about it that much. Similarly, Opower requires customers to opt out of these reports rather than opt in. According to Ogi Kavazovic, vice president of product and strategy, an opt-in system will result in 1 percent of customers opting in, while an opt-out system results in 1 percent of customers opting out.
In addition to giving you feedback on your energy use, the report includes a bar graph that compares your own energy consumption with your community?s average and that of your community?s most energy efficient households?all of which can be helpful. But the real key is one last box: a grade assessing your energy consumption. You receive two smiley faces for great conservation (that is, using less than 80 percent of what your neighbors do), one for good (using less than most of your neighbors do), none for bad (using more than most of your neighbors). As soon as customers recived their first reports and saw the smiley face box, they began increasing their energy efficiency.
Without that box, ?people will just regress back to the mean? once they?ve beat their neighbors, says Kavazovic. ?We have to tell customers we approve of them.? It?s a strategy called ?injunctive messaging,? and it?s the core of the company?s own behavioral nudge Opower also used to include a frowny face for wasteful consumers, but they received too many complaints. ?People would call us and yell, ?Who do you think you are?? ? says Kavazovic. ?Now your punishment is no smiley face.? And that appears to be punishment enough. The habit acquired through nudges, moreover, can last a lifetime: According to W. David Stahlman, a professor of learning and behavior at UCLA, though ?trying to change behavior is difficult, trying to maintain already-learned behavior is pretty easy.? Once ?people train themselves to behave in a certain manner??saving energy, avoiding desserts??their behavior has become habitual.? That means that even if Opower?s customers lose interest in competition, they?ll likely retain the energy efficiency habits they acquired when striving for the prized smiley.
Regardless of the psychology behind them, Opower?s strategies have been incontrovertibly successful: By the end of February, the company has already helped customers save a total of more than $220,135,000 on energy bills, 3,170,710,000 pounds of CO2 emissions, and 2,066,950,000 kilowatt hours. A family of four saves about 2.5 percent more energy on average once their utility company teams with Opower, a figure that stays fairly steady across income levels. Without appealing to money or the environment, Opower is helping to save both.
So, how can I convince you to save energy? By telling you I?m already saving more than you are.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=ed8fa9b92d6ac9876a0647791d29e9f1
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SpaceX?s Cargo Delivery to Space Station Is Delayed
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The cargo ship?s rendezvous with the International Space Station will now occur on Sunday at the earliest.
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Friday, March 1, 2013
Renewable energy: Nanotubes to channel osmotic power
Feb. 28, 2013 ? The salinity difference between fresh water and salt water could be a source of renewable energy. However, power yields from existing techniques are not high enough to make them viable. A solution to this problem may now have been found. A team led by physicists at the Institut Lumi?re Mati?re in Lyon (CNRS / Universit? Claude Bernard Lyon 1), in collaboration with the Institut N?el (CNRS), has discovered a new means of harnessing this energy: osmotic flow through boron nitride nanotubes generates huge electric currents, with 1,000 times the efficiency of any previous system. To achieve this result, the researchers developed a highly novel experimental device that enabled them, for the first time, to study osmotic fluid transport through a single nanotube. Their findings are published in the 28 February issue of Nature.
When a reservoir of salt water is brought into contact with a reservoir of fresh water through a special kind of semipermeable membrane, the resulting osmotic phenomena make it possible to produce electricity from the salinity gradients. This can be done in two different ways: either the osmotic pressure differential between the two reservoirs can drive a turbine, or a membrane that only passes ions can be used to produce an electric current.
Concentrated at the mouths of rivers, Earth's osmotic energy potential has a theoretical capacity of at least 1 terawatt -- the equivalent of 1,000 nuclear reactors. However, the technologies available for harnessing this energy are relatively inefficient, producing only about 3 watts per square meter of membrane. Today, a team of physicists at the Institut Lumi?re Mati?re in Lyon (CNRS / Universit? Claude Bernard Lyon 1), in collaboration with the Institut N?el (CNRS), may have found a solution to overcome this obstacle.
Their primary goal was to study the dynamics of fluids confined in nanometric spaces, such as nanotubes. Drawing inspiration from biology and cell channel research, they achieved a world first in measuring the osmotic flow through a single nanotube. Their experimental device consisted of an impermeable and electrically insulating membrane pierced by a single hole through which the researchers, using the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope, inserted a boron nitride nanotube with an external diameter of a few dozen nanometers. Two electrodes immersed in the fluid on either side of the nanotube enabled them to measure the electric current passing through the membrane..
Using this membrane to separate a salt water reservoir and a fresh water reservoir, the team was able to generate a massive electric current through the nanotube, induced by the strong negative surface charge characteristic of boron nitride nanotubes, which attracts the cations contained in the salt water. The intensity of the current passing through the nanotube was on the order of the nanoampere, more than 1,000 times the yield of the other known techniques for retrieving osmotic energy.
Boron nitride nanotubes thus provide an extremely efficient solution for converting the energy of salinity gradients into immediately usable electrical power. Extrapolating these results to a larger scale, a 1-m2 boron nitride nanotube membrane should have a capacity of about 4 kW and be capable of generating up to 30 megawatt-hours (1) per year. This performance is three orders of magnitude greater than that of the prototype osmotic power plants currently in operation. The next step for the researchers in the project will be to study the production of membranes made of boron nitride nanotubes and test the performances of nanotubes made from other materials.
This project was made possible largely through the support of the ERC and ANR.
Note:
(1) One watt-hour corresponds to the energy consumed or delivered by a system with a power of 1 watt for one hour.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Alessandro Siria, Philippe Poncharal, Anne-Laure Biance, R?my Fulcrand, Xavier Blase, Stephen T. Purcell, Lyd?ric Bocquet. Giant osmotic energy conversion measured in a single transmembrane boron nitride nanotube. Nature, 2013; 494 (7438): 455 DOI: 10.1038/nature11876
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Tanzania: bishop urges government to take action against Islamists ...
CWN - February 28, 2013
Following the murder of a diocesan priest, a Tanzanian bishop has called upon the government to take action against anti-Christian propaganda spread by Muslim fundamentalists.
?The ideology that is disseminated by a few Islamists in Zanzibar asserts that the Islamic majority must not tolerate any other religions,? said Bishop Augustine Shao of Zanzibar, the Tanzanian archipelago that is 99% Muslim and 1% Christian.?
?We have become a target for these fundamentalists,? he told Aid to the Church in Need. ?The government must guarantee the security of the people, and especially that of minorities. For too long it has remained silent and allowed propaganda and hatred to be spread against those of other religious persuasions.?
Bishop Shao also noted that ?a sheikh who had appealed for moderation was attacked with acid and is now in hospital.?
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Source: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=17187
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Brace for higher Medicare Part B premiums - Business Management ...
For the second year in a row, senior citizens enrolled in Medicare Part B will have to pay a higher premium charge. Medicare Part B covers physician services, qualified out-patient hospital care, medical equipment and certain other services.
Alert: The basic monthly Medicare Part B premium for 2013 is $104.90 a month (up from $99.50 2012). This represents a 5% increase. ?
What?s more, higher-income individuals must pay even higher monthly Medicare Part B premiums, based on their modified adjusted gross income (MAGI). To top things off, higher-income senior citizens also owe a surcharge on Part D premiums for coverage of prescription drugs.
The Medicare Part B and Part D rates for single and joint filers in 2013 are shown in the chart below.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses the tax figures from two years ago to determine the Part B premiums. Thus, the MAGI reported on a taxpayer?s 2011 tax return determines whether the taxpayer must pay a higher monthly Part B premium in 2013. For example, a single filer with a MAGI of $150,000 in 2011 will have to pay a monthly Medicare Part B premium of $209.80 in 2013. ?
Note that the 2010 health care law suspends inflation adjustments to the MAGI brackets for Medicare Part B premiums until 2020. For more information, visit www.ssa.gov.
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