Yellowstone National Park is one of the most environmentally protected parks in the world but we can’t protect the plants and animals from global warming. Yellowstone is plagued by disappearing ponds and lakes due to a decade of drought. Both plant and animal species are running out of suitable habitats and falling prey to insects, disease, and predators. The wildlife is suffering from weather related events such as intense storms, flooding, and excessive heat, which are all due to global warming as well.

Migration of animals and plants is changing all over the world. Migration lets animals and plants pursue the best food sources and allows them to survive the harsh changing seasons. In some cases migrating species are moving farther and to higher, cooler areas. They are looking for sustainable food sources and are traveling further to obtain it. Most noticeable are populations of butterflies, birds, frogs, and certain species of plants. It’s simple, they must move or become extinct. Yet, the latest research shows that migration is dwindling in Yellowstone due to climate change. This has been seen in the herds of Elk.

A recent study has found that the lush grasslands in Yellowstone have shrunk by 40 percent. Rising temperatures and drought has played a large role in the change of the grasslands. In contrast, satellite images prove that the lower elevations are showing a greening of vegetation. Yellowstone’s herds of Elk need these lower grasslands to survive.

New data has found that about one third of the Elk herds migrate and the remaining elk stay. The remaining Elk have a more stable food source than those who do migrate. The migrating Elks herd reproduction is down 70 percent. Most blame the shortage of food. In contrast, 90 percent of the Elk who remain reproduce. It seems that some of the Elk have changed their migration patterns to stay where there is a stronger source of food.

The migrating Elk also seem to fall victim to predators considerably more than the non-migrating herd. Yellowstone has seen a slight increase in the numbers of grizzly bears and wolves whose diet consist of Elk. The wolves have been reintroduced recently and they are having an impact on the elk herds. Wolves are not only eating the calves like in the past, but the wolves are dinning on large male Elks. Researchers believe that with the hot, dry years and less grasslands, the male elk are not able to bulk up. So they become weak due to less food, their strenuous mating season, and intense weather which makes them vulnerable to the wolves. While the opposite appears to happen with the non-migrating elk.

Many scientists believe that migration is adaption. Plants and animals move, or in the case of the Elk herds of Yellowstone, stay to survive and learn to adapt. Changing migration patterns are important to the environment and our ecosystem. A single change on one species effects so many other plant and animals species, like the wolf and grizzly populations in Yellowstone. Only humans can do the research and make the necessary changes. Unfortunately, other plants and animals are forced to adapt to their environments due to global warming and climate change.

Venture Capitalist Paul Holland and his wife Linda Yates are building what Holland refers to as the greenest home in America. The home, which is being constructed in Portola Valley, CA will be over 5,600 square feet and will feature solar panels, LED lighting, water reclamation, and geothermal heating and cooling. Using the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) point systems, the LEED certified house expects to have the highest LEED rating for any home in the United States.

Along with capturing rainwater, the water from the sinks, showers, and bathrooms will be treated, filtered, and re-used on the property for things like plant irrigation. The home’s lighting will include compact fluorescent lights and LED lighting to reduce the amount of electricity needed for lighting the house. Holland estimates an energy savings close to 80% for lighting.

Heating and cooling will be managed by ground source heat exchangers. This process, also know as geothermal, will supply cool water from about 250 feet underground via a closed loop water system. In the summer, cool water will circulate through the flooring of the home, and in the winter when the underground water is warmer compared to surface water and air temperature, the system will supply warmer water for heating. The house will also make use of a solar system and windows that allow sunlight to warm the house.

Other features of the house include recycled steel and FSC certified woods, or wood that has been harvested from sustainable forests. Holland also has no plans to stain or paint the interior or exterior wood which also leads to lower carbon emissions and a more Earth friendly approach since most paints and stains are water based and require transportation to deliver them from the manufacturers, stores, and then to the home site.

While the house will still have an energy source from the local power company, the home’s 21 Kilowatt Solar system will make the house completely energy independent. During most of the year, the solar system will actually be supplying power back to the local grid. During periods of rainfall or cloudiness, the home may use some energy from the grid, but the overall net result is a negative net use, meaning the property supplies more energy than it uses throughout the year. In most states, the energy company will provide energy credits for the power supplied; meaning at some point the home owner may actually receive a check for the energy provided and will most likely never receive an amount due bill from the energy company.

It is important to note that the features used in building this home range from a little more expensive to a lot more expensive. While federal and state tax credits and rebates are available for many of these green upgrades, in most cases, it is incumbent upon the home owner to initially fund the green additions. Another hurdle is that many green homes cost more to build but do not currently appraise at higher values than say a similar house in the same neighborhood. While there has been movement to appraise green homes differently to account for the added green features, in most cases the buyer has to make up the difference in the amount of the house purchase or build price versus what the banks will provide for the mortgage loan which is based on the appraisal.

Perhaps we are going too far afield here with or exploration of green vehicles and the batteries that power them. But cars create emissions and plenty of them. One of the easiest ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions will be to have zero emissions cars. With that said, here are a few articles that follow a reverse path of the proverbial prose, “For want of a nail.”
Nissan is gearing up boldly to release their all electric super golf cart Nissan Leaf. This 100% Electric Powered Vehicle will have a 100 mile range and receive its fuel by means of that extra wall socket in your garage over by the washing machine. Overnight the special lithium batteries will charge and you will be set to commute all around town the next day.

What marks the Nissan Leaf as superior to other electric powered vehicles is the use of a lithium ion battery. Most hybrids rely on cheaper, heavier Nickel-metal hydride batteries. As anyone who has a mobile phone will tell you, lithium batteries are the only way to go. The Leaf will need just 480 pounds of batteries to move itself around the town. These particular lithium batteries are lighter and jacketed differently than most to counter cooling problems, for when current flows from anything, including from a battery to a electric car motor molecular friction creates heat. The true advance of the leaf is its superior lithium ion battery heat dissipation. Nissan is banking much of their future on electric cars. They continue to work on lithium battery improvement as a way to improve vehicle range to double the current 100 miles by 2020. It does seem they have underestimated progress by means of technology. In 2000 a mobile phone battery allowed the user to talk for around an hour and twenty minutes. Ten years later talk time on a full blown data streaming color display mobile is around 5 hours. Ten years is a long time in the world of technology. By 2020 we will have moved beyond lithium ion. Where to? We are glad you asked…

As a child I remember changing the position of batteries in my flashlight so as to try and squeeze a little more light out of it. I was summarily amazed when those newfangled alkaline batteries lasted 5 times as long and didn’t leak all over the place. Rechargeable Nickel Cadmiums followed and are a further improvement.

But if you really want a flash light that can live ever ready in the glove box of your car for years, try a lithium ion powered LED flashlight. LEDs barely trickle power from the batteries and lithium ion’s store huge volumes of potential current. String enough of these little mobile phone batteries together and you can power a car. (Like the Nissan Leaf) But even these powerful little wonders have weight and heat release issues.

Even the most efficient battery type creates electricity by means of a chemical reaction. This is designed to happen when demand is placed on the negative and positive poles of the battery. Also lithium is a heavy metal. It is all well and good to talk about how we will no longer dump harmful ingredients into the air by using electric cars, but if we instead load the landfills with billions of tiny little batteries we have hardly made a giant leap for mankind.
Enter a different type of battery. This is a battery that is not a battery at all. It is a capacitor. Capacitors store electricity. They do this because the air space between a positive and negative pole will perpetually hold a charge. And in a reversal of logic that only science can provide the closer those two charged plates can be without touching the more current can be stored. So if we could just get these two poles separated be a few atoms in width we would have a D sized flashlight cell that could drive a car from Seattle to Miami.

Still, the concept and working model of the ultra or hyper capacitor is being developed. Some people in Texas claim to have a working auto sized battery/capacitor package ready to launch. The unit from a company named eestor is rumoured to be a marvelous piece of fantasy. Scientists have debunked every piece of information eestor has released. A dipolar capacitance can only hold so much juice unless it is created on a sub molecular level. As soon as someone comes up with a combination of chemistry and physics that allow for multi pole function the cap/bat will exist and energy storage will change forever. This is coming. Give it twenty years. Sadly it is likely eestor is more a good idea than a working model. But one idea leads to another and we believe the people at eestor are honestly trying to build the thing.

For want of a chemical formula the physical theory could not be enacted.
For want of a working model mass production of a lighter battery/capacitor never occurred.
For want of a long range battery the Nissan Leaf failed.
For want of a Leaf we continued to pollute the air.