W. J. Oswald, 86, Algae Miracle Worker, Dies - New York Times

W. J. Oswald, 86, Algae Miracle Worker, Dies - New York Times: "William J. Oswald, a scientist who pioneered ways to use algae to address immense human problems - including treating sewage, increasing food supplies, generating energy and facilitating voyages into deep space - died on Dec. 8 at his home in Concord, Calif. He was 86.

Saxon Donnelly/University of California, Berkeley
W. J. Oswald in undated photo. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said the University of California, Berkeley, where Dr. Oswald was a professor emeritus in civil and environmental engineering.
Dr. Oswald promised miracles from the humblest of plants and proceeded to perform more than a few. He developed a system of ponds in which algae eat and purify wastewater, and built more than 100 around the world. The algae could then be harvested using his patented process as protein-rich food for animals or people able to ignore its provenance. The leftover water, now cleansed, could be used for irrigation, as a coolant for engines and even, with more purification, for human consumption.

The sludge from the bottom of the pond could be added to the soil as humus, he advised. Methane gas produced by the algae could be captured and used. The per-acre yield of protein is 10 times that of soybeans, and algae suffer from few of the diseases that affect other crops. Since algae can do all this work in seawater, more precious freshwater can be conserved.
'It is technically feasible to apply controlled photosynthesis to reclaim and reuse our wastes an indefinite number of times and in so doing to produce unprecedented quantities of food, water and raw materials at costs within the economic reach of most societies,' Dr. Oswald said in a speech in 1960. Many of these concepts were realized in experiments or actual projects. Dr. Oswald's ingenious idea for having astronauts take along some algae to treat their waste, while producing oxygen and water, has so far been tested only with mice, successfully.

Treatment systems designed by Dr. Oswald or patterned after his design are now in use in Bolivia, Brazil, Greece, Mexico and South Africa, as well as in the United States.

Dr. Oswald was particularly interested in applying his ideas for simple, affordable, sustainable wastewater treatment to developing countries. In recent years, he worked with the government of India to develop a way to use algae ponds to purify the Ganges River.

In a 1998 article on this Ganges effort, The New Yorker declared, "Oswald is to algae what Michael Jordan is to basketball."


This year, Dr. Oswald received a lifetime achievement prize from the International Society for Applied Phycology (the branch of botany dealing with seaweed and algae). In addition, colleagues from around the world have nominated him for next year's Stockholm Water Prize.


Dr. Oswald was born in King City, Calif., on July 6, 1919, and grew up on a ranch in Southern California, where his interest in water, agricultural production and human health began. As a child, he witnessed the choking death of a schoolmate from a roundworm infection caused by poor sanitation.


During World War II, he served in the Army Air Forces and was responsible for food and water sanitation for one of the D-Day invasion camps. While still in the Army after the war, he was a hospital administrator and coordinated the care of patients suffering from the effects of contaminated water.


He used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a degree in civil engineering. He stayed on to get a Ph.D. in sanitary engineering, biology and public health in 1967, the same year he joined the Berkeley faculty. He became a full professor in 1970.


In 2001, Dr. Oswald joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a senior staff scientist.


Dr. Oswald is credited with developing the advanced wastewater pond systems technology in which wastewater passes through a series of ponds to be treated. These "high-rate ponds" use algae fermentation to produce oxygen, which purifies sewage. The more common and much more expensive methods use electromechanical methods to produce oxygen.
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Impact Portable Multi-Gas Detector Benefits From New Infra Red

Impact Portable Multi-Gas Detector Benefits From New Infra Red: "Impact Portable Multi-Gas Detector Benefits From New Infra Red Sensor Technology
12/12/2005


The Impact multi-gas detector from Honeywell Zellweger Analytics now benefits from an innovative new Infra Red (IR) replaceable sensor to further expand the best-selling portable unit�s gas sensing capability.



The Impact IR system uses Impact�s unique replaceable sensor cartridge concept to house the IR sensor alongside three other toxic and oxygen deficiency sensors. Operators can now interchange cartridges to detect a variety of gases, especially those best monitored with the poison resistant, solid-state optical sensor technology.



IR allows the Impact to measure Carbon Dioxide (CO2), providing a stable, drift-free long life sensor method to detect CO2 in such diverse applications as waste water treatment, drinks bottling, fire suppression, leak detection and other industrial monitoring applications. Methane and natural gas are now also detectable by IR, making it ideal for gas industries including offshore drilling, gas transmission and utility companies, and the sensor can also be configured to measure hydrocarbons at % LEL or % Vol levels for a variety of industrial monitoring applications.



IR sensing also works in the absence of oxygen so the multi gas Impact Pro can now, enable an operator to briefly monitor prior to entry for leaks, purging efficiency or hull integrity in container vessels or pipes where there is reduced oxygen content or where an inert gas blanket has been laid over a combustible product. The multi sensor array is not intended for continuous monitoring in inert atmospheres as this may affect the accuracy of the other electrochemical cells."

China Blames Oil Company for Benzene Spill in River - New York Times

bbChina Blames Oil Company for Benzene Spill in River - New York Times: "HARBIN, China, Nov. 24 - The Chinese government on Thursday blamed the country's biggest oil company for a pollution spill that allowed a 50-mile slick of toxic benzene to reach this northern city of almost four million people on the river that normally supplies it with running water."

My Thoughts: WE ARE ALL DOWNSTREAM!!! here is a qoute from my upcoming book. :

"Even as children who came of age in the time of Love Canal, we were somehow bred to be cynical of mass marketers selling “Better Living Through Chemistry”. Some of my friends, whenever the Dow Chemical Ad would come on TV we would challenge each other to think of, and remind us all of the most horrible examples of this philosophy at work like Hitler’s Death Camps or Bhopal, India or the Santa Barbara Oil Spills or the Exxon Valdez. Now we can add the Hurricanes of 2005, Katrina and Rita churning and flushing the petroleum and chemical toxins of 50 years of environmental neglect into the city of New Orleans as a toxic sludge with added asbestos, lead, mercury, pesticides and solvents from residential destruction. But this is no time for cynicism, we must seek solutions."

...

"We are all downstream. Downstream can be over time or space, the stream is over time when slow leaks of jet fuel contaminate well-water in Morgan Hill, CA. or the stream can be over space as in the 100 tons of Benzene spilled in China into the Songhua River from which millions take their drinking water flowing down river to Russia (November, 2005). Many industrial chemicals, household chemicals, petroleum, and drugs end up in our water or chemicals that are similar enough to our natural chemical structures so as to interact with and disrupt the normal chemical state of humans and animals, altering growth patterns and creating other anomalies and imbalances. China sent 150 tons of activated charcoal to Russia to assist in the treatment of the water pollution. This issue of cleaning, treating and retreating captured water must be addressed eventually as water becomes more and more a precious and thus more recycled resource. "

...

"People can no longer count on “Dilution as the Solution to Pollution”. There are too many people and too much prime land, agricultural and urban, squandered for purposes that are sub-optimal. More and more land is being degraded worldwide and taken out of agricultural or wild production. A complex and systemic analysis of all energy, manufacturing, agricultural and transportation systems is needed, best guided by the “precautionary principle” and “harm reduction”, balancing poison control with human economic and social needs. Our cities need clean humane environments that protect the public health while supporting natural freely chosen living situations, social interaction, agricultural commerce and light industry within the city limits. Remember, all these epidemics of disease are pointing to the systemic socio-biologic breakdown of an inefficient system of living. A system of living whose death knells peel across the miles of desolate sameness that is Suburbia."

- Thomas Fenaughty

SoLux Full Spectrum Bulbs: Light Bulbs Etc, Inc.

SoLux Full Spectrum Bulbs: Light Bulbs Etc, Inc.: "SoLux Bulbs

SoLux is a patented light source that provides an unparalleled replication of the daylight spectrum. SoLux light bulbs are used in various disciplines ranging from museum lighting, light therapy, photography, digital color proofing, automotive paint finishing, and machine vision."