Urban Farming

In some well developed cities, the urban farming become one of the famous activities.  They will try to use the gardens, roof top, or some empty space for the agriculture use. To promote the urban farming, the cities can enjoy the advantage in three different ways:

For socially, the urban farming can be the educational use. It also can help the city to build up more space for the social to relax use. For environment, the urban farming can green up the city. The roof top farming can help to control the storm water runoff. Moreover, the garden can clean up the air and the rain water.For economically, the food product can be sell on the market and earn the money. It also can create the job opportunity for the farmer.

In Hong Kong, there are some of the commercial building in CBD, for example, the Bank of America Tower, will also use the roof top of the building to set up a system for agriculture use.  It can give the chance to the staff to take rest in the roof garden during the break.

Reference:
https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/assets/UEP/Summer_Research/HK%20Rooftop%20Farming%20Project.pdf
http://www.timetogrow.hk/

 Tesla Powerwall

For promoting solar energy, there is a great barriers is that the solar energy can not be saved for future use and it will be affected by the weather. The solar energy will become useless in the bad weather condition. In this year, Tesla has release the new solar energy battery - Tesla Powerwall.


Tesla Powerwall is the independently system which is connected to the solar panel, the electricity will save in the day time and provide the energy for the night time use. According to the official website of Tesla, each of the Powerwall has a 6.4 kWh energy storage capacity, which mean it can support for the daily household use.

From the above picture, it show the system of the Powerwall, the solar panel will directly link to Powerwall and it connected to the inverter.  The inverter direct get the electricity from the  solar panels. This is the independent system which mean your home will still have electricity even the power failure.  In personal opinion, this Powerwall should be promoted in the Australia because the Australia have high radiation to generate more energy and it is more environmental friendly. 

Reference:

https://www.teslamotors.com/zh_HK/powerwall?redirect=no

Light vehicle emissions  

In Australia, the transport sector take around 16% of the Green house gas emission. The light vehicles, it contains about over half of the transport emission- which mean contains around 10 % of the GHG emission of Australia, there are really large scale in this sector. 

For the data from the Australian government, the light vehicles will still keep in high level of the GHG emission,the second large group will become the trucks.

For reduce the emission of GHG, the main method is to develop the mass public transport and encourage the citizen to use the public transport. By develop the better mass public transport system can reduce the number of the light vehicles. Moreover, the new technique can be reduce the GHG emission, for example the electric car or hybrid car. Those type of the cars have better function of car and release less GHG. The government can also provide the  subsidy on this type of cars so can encourage the buyer to use this type energy saving car. 

Refereence:

http://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/reviews/light-vehicle-emissions-standards-australia/opportunities-reduce-light-vehicle-emissions

Walk or Take Bus?

Every Friday, I need go to Central to work from Kensington. According to the google map, the distance from my living place to Central are around 1km. I can take bus or go to my office on foot. From the view of the cost, it takes me around AUD $3.5 per trip by bus while zero cost for walk to Central. For the time cost, it takes me around 20 min by bus while it takes 64 minutes for walk to Central.

For the carbon dioxide emission,  walking is more more less than taking the bus. For environmental saving, we should try to releases GHG as we can. Walking is good for healthy also. Therefore, i suggest than if possible, try arrive the dentation by using our whole foot.

Reference:
http://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/reviews/light-vehicle-emissions-standards-australia/opportunities-reduce-light-vehicle-emissions
http://www.globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archived-posts/sciblog/index.html_p=186.html

Safety of Green Roof

As I mentioned in the previous journals, the design of the green roof should be calculate the loading of the building. In last week , the one of the green roof building in City University of Hong Kong was collapsed. Luckily, there was no one dead and heavy injured in this case.  However, it caused the whole city concern about the risk of overloaded roofs.




Nowadays, the green roof planning is no need to summit to the government department for approval. As the owner of the building will consider that will be the minor case of construction. Therefore, it will have the risk that the government can not supervise this type of building. Not just the loading of the roof, but also the whole drainage system will affect the safety of whole building structure. Therefore , the green roof should be supervise by the professional approval  and maintenance.



Reference:
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1957404/green-danger-how-trend-put-vegetation-hong-kongs

Rain Garden

We all know that the urban storm water is one of the environmental challenges we are facing today. The storm water runoff will cause the serious issue such as flooding and the pollutant will enter city waterway. The storm water runoff carries heavy metals, nutrients, oil and other pollutants from the urban landscape. Every year, there are nearly 3,000 tones of storm water pollutants enters into Sydney’s waterways, it is very harmful to the environment.

The storm water management plays an important role in urban planning. However, the cost and material used to build and maintain these ‘grey’ storm water infrastructure will cause great expense environmentally and financially. 

In this situation, construction of rain garden is one of the possible solution to lighten this problem. When rain falls in rain garden, the water is absorbed and filtered by soil and plants. Storm water runoff is therefore cleaner before entering our waterways. Green infrastructure uses vegetation, soils, and other elements and practices to restore some of the natural processes required to manage water and create healthier urban environments.

Reference:

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/issues/issue/stormwater_runoff

http://www.watertechonline.com/group-presents-strategies-to-manage-urban-stormwater-runoff-as-el-nino-nears/

http://www.lsrca.on.ca/programs/rainscaping/LID-raingardens.php

Hand dryers vs Paper towel

Most of the toilet will set the BOTH hand dryers and paper towel to dry their hand. Frankly speaking, I will use paper towel more in my daily life because the paper towel is cleaner than hand dyers in my concept. There are some rumors also said that the hand dryers will help to spread the bacteria in the toilet.

In this video, which it provided by Dyson, said that the hand dryers is more cleaner than use the paper towel They tested and the result show that the hand dyers will leave less bacteria on hand. Not just cleaner, ther hand dyer can replace the paper towel and save the paper. Therefore, the hand dryer should be promoted.

Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKxT1k1cmXc
http://www.restroomdirect.com/hand-dryers-vs-paper-towels-hygiene-studies.aspx