Environment Blogger

Archive for September, 2010

With litter strewn across the site work can slow and it can quickly look untidy . This waste can clog everything up, causing potential danger to workers on your site and generally slowing down your work. You can get around all of that though just by getting yourself a skip. For getting rid of high volumes of waste Skip hire has always proved to be a popular solution. Nothing comes close to a skip when trying to shift tonnes of waste in one hit. It’s a really simple process. This convenience is is furthered by the fact that your skip will not only be delivered in the location and time requested, but will also then be collected and the waste remove for you.

That allows you to just fill it up, pay the fee and worry about nothing else. An added bonus is that you’ll also have a single container to target for all of your site’s rubbish. This means that you don’t have to wander around aimlessly, collecting debris in black sacks or just leaving it lying on the floor. You can get skips of all sizes to match your requirements. With sizes ranging from between 2 and 16 cubic yards capacity shouldn’t be an issue. This gives you plenty of scope to find something that will suit your needs.

When you are working on a site you need to keep costs down, but you also need to make sure that you have a skip big enough to handle all of your waste. Of course you can always hire a second or third one when you fill your first one, but logistically you want to ensure that you have a suitable skip in the first instance to deal with what everything you require. This will save you time and ensure you don’t find yourself with a full or undelivered skip. For the really large jobs, where you might be clearing an entire site, you might want to look into a roll on roll off skip. More like a container than a traditional skip, but these monsters can have anywhere up to 40 cubic yards of space for you to fill. Quite often they are also sealable and lockable, ensuring that everything that goes into them stays there.

Despite slight aesthetic differences and a significant size shift, the fundemental duties of both remain exactly the same. You don’t need to be too fussy about what you throw into a skip either. Invariably you tend to get a lot of different types of rubbish build up whilst working on a site, but the good news is that you can dispose of it in exactly the same way. That said, you will have to be mindful when it comes to getting rid of hazardous materials. When dealing with materials such as asbestos, it is essential that you seek out specialist waste removal so as to avoid contamination or injury. If you’re working in an area with limited space and only have space to put your skip on a public road, you will have to seek a council permit to ensure that you don’t contravene any rules. Get in contact with your local council or other authority to enquire about the permit and ensure that you will be able to leave the skip where you originally intended. If safety and ease of access is a priority for you, then you could certainly do a lot worse than hiring a skip for your site. It’ll keep everything out of the way and takes out much of the fuss associated with waste management.

If you’ve ever found yourself sick of spending hours attempting to till soil, pull weeds, and get rid of pesky invasive plants and garden pests, perhaps it’s time to invest in hydroponics systems. This innovative gardening method has been a valued technique for centuries. Now you can take advantage of it in your own home.

Hydroponics systems are unique in that they allow you to grow everything from flowers to food, all without the use of soil. Instead, the roots are dipped in a highly nutritious solution that provides the plant with everything it could need. You can also find solutions that boost growth or act as fertilizer. Some growers, depending on the type of plant, may opt to use other mediums besides soil to keep the plant standing upright, such as sand, clay pellets, bark shards, gravel, and more. While it may seem modern by looking at all of the equipment and specialized solutions, hydroponics is actually a centuries old tradition that we are just now only learning just how beneficial it can be.

There are also many different types of hydroponics systems. The most common one involves putting seedlings in containers of standing water solution. These can be everything from glass jars to specialized vats. Other methods include keeping the roots in a solution of running water or lightly misting the plants, allowing them to absorb it through their leaves.

There are many advantages to using hydroponics systems. Along with not having to deal with the inconveniences of soil, you can also grow your plants indoors no matter what the time of day or season. This is easily achieved through the use of growth lights, which provide as much heat and light as the sun would. Air fluctuating units are also important for many reasons—as you can imagine, the combined heat of the lamps and the constant source of water creates quite a humid environment! This can result in the growth of germs and bacteria as well as insect infestation and algae growth. Churning the air also lets the plants convert carbon monoxide into oxygen much easier.’

Along with keeping the surroundings comfortable, you should also regularly check the pH levels of your plants. Fortunately, you can find testing strips and acidity balancers online for affordable prices to make sure that your plants are always at the perfect level.
While tending your hydroponics systems may seem like a lot of work, the results are more than worth it in the end. As you watch your seedlings blossom and flourish, you will take satisfaction that you helped make it possible. Learn more today!

There are lots of different uses for solar panels for homes and businesses. Solar systems for home uses can be found in two different types, those that absorb the sun’s rays with photovoltaic cells, for electrical purposes, and others that are used to merely heat water. Both of these systems can save you some money in the short period, as well as in the future. Solar power generation systems have many positive things. They are capable of alleviating a great deal of pressure off of using your power grid, saving you much money when the sun is out. With the proper battery back-up, you can even enjoy power during the night, or when the regular power supply is down. Many individuals use solar electricity to completely support their entire estate, completely relying on solar power.

Home solar systems can also heat up your water supply, saving you your hard-earned money. In colder regions, where the temperature of the water table is below 60 degrees, the application of solar can heat up water to a higher temperature. This can result in alleviating a great deal of pressure on hot water heaters, because it wouldn’t take as much to heat up water. For temperatures above 60 degrees, and where you have ample sunlight, you should even be able to do away with your water boiler completely. Even if you heat up the surrounding water, this can cut your heating expenses by approximately 40-60%. Instead of solar systems having a photovoltaic cell array, one can apply the ones that have several pipes running through their frames. When the water goes through, the sun’s rays heat up the water (more or less depending on the type of piping used). If this water runs through continuously before feeding into the hot water inlet, it will be warmer.

Home solar systems do significantly more than just be used for heating your water supply and producing electrical power. Solar systems help to preserve our planet. For one thing, they work on energy that is never-ending, renewable, and absolutely free for anyone to benefit from. Producing electrical power from the sun doesn’t require the use of our natural resources, besides, these systems don’t give off any bad emanations. Whether you are still connected to the external power network, or fully self sustained, using solar panels can help minimize overall power consumption. This can decrease the burden on heat and power plants, many of which still burn fossil fuels such as coal and heating oil to create elecric power.

With the appropriate solar panel power system in place, not only can it pay back the investment in a short amount of time, but it can actually make you money. How can it make you money? If your solar panel is connected to your main power network still, and you generate more electrical power than you can use and/or store, it is sent directly back into to the main power network. In essence, you turn yourself into a small-size power plant, and by law, utility companies have to purchase this surplus power from you. You should make arrangements beforehand, but even a few dollars per week is better than nothing.

As a rule, the majority of people who use solar panels for homes and businesses will remain connected to the grid, just to receive additional income. In conclusion, not only can solar systems be used to save you hard-earned cash when paying your bills, but can also be an extra income stream.

Pan American Lithium Corp, (TSX.V:PL) is a brand new opportunity for investors interested in participating in the expected boom in lithium demand. But contrary to many of the junior companies rushing to throw their hats into the ring, Pan American Lithium is both well advanced and diversified in terms of locations and source types for lithium stocks.

“We’re going to be, without question, the best lithium story out there,” said Andrew Brodkey, Pan American’s CEO.

Quite an ambitious statement, coming from a company that has only just listed on the TSX Venture exchange. But then the developments within the company to date suggest that this might not be pure hubris.

“The reason why we’re the best story is really simple,” he continued. “We’ve got the best properties, and we’re going to be one of the fastest into production. The timeline is relatively short, and the market is failry well understood y the people who are starting to develop the industry. The whole worldwide consumption is still under 100,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate, which is the standard commodity form in which lithium is sold.

85,000 tonnes of that annually is through a couple of big operators, and 70% of the production comes from South America.”

The largest supplier of lithium in the world is Chile-based SQM, who last year boosted lithium production from 30,000 to 40,000 metric tonnes annually. SQM has 30% market share of the global lithium market.

Financing Not a Problem
Pan American Lithium has already attracted a major industrial investor – testimony to the viability of their assets. The company announce earlier this week that POSCO, a privately held Korean conglomerate, had entered into a non-binding letter of Intent with Pan American, whereby an amount of up to CDN$5 million may be invested by POSCO.

POSCO will make an initial payment of CDN$1 million on signing of the subscription agreement– POSCO will make the remaining payment of CDN$4 million at closing of the subscription agreement. POSCO will receive Pan American Lithium stock shares at a price of CDN$.50 per share, or such greater price if required by the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange– for each share purchased, POSCO will receive a 1/2 warrant to purchase Pan American Lithium shares at a price of CDN$1.00 per share for 2 years; the warrants.

POSCO is a privately held Korean conglomerate, first established in 1967, with a focus on the production and sale of steel and steel products, both domestically in Korea and internationally. POSCO is the fourth largest steel producer in the world. In 2008, POSCO produced over 33 million tons of crude steel, had revenues of over CDN$28 billion and net profits of over $CDN4 billion.

Pan American Lithium controls interests in nine “salars” with the potential to produce lithium and other metals from surface lakes and subsurface brines, all located in the mineral-rich Atacama Region III of Chile. The rights in these nine lithium salars cover a cumulative area in excess of 11,500 hectares, all accessible via serviceable roads. Pan American Lithium has submitted a NI43-101 compliant report on these projects and is currently reviewing its portfolio to determine a priority amongst these properties and a process to move forward on the technical assessment of these sites.

Mexican Geothermal Plant Brines
As announced on December 21, 2009, Pan American Lithium the option to acquire 76% of the shares of Escondidas by Pan American Lithium, which will result in Pan American Lithium receiving indirect interests in a joint venture whereby Escondidas and another party will jointly develop lithium and precious metals through concessions in the geothermal brines currently being produced at the Cierro Prieto geothermal power plant located in Baja California, Mexico, roughly 30 km south of the city of Mexicali.

The beauty about geothermal brines is there is absolutely ZERO cost or exploration risk.

Uses for Lithium Lithium is a metal from the alkaline family whose main properties are:

• Lightest solid element at room temperature;
• Low coefficient of thermal expansion;
• High electrochemical potential.

Given their versatility, lithium chemicals have a wide variety of applications. Because lithium is the lightest solid element at room temperature and it has a high electrochemical potential, lithium is the ideal cathode material for rechargeable batteries (lithium-ion) and anode material in primary, or non-rechargeable, batteries.

Around 27% of lithium is produced for batteries used in devices such as cellular phones, portable computers, digital cameras, handheld electronics (PDAs) and MP3s, among others.

In a solid state, lithium is the element with the greatest caloric capacity and therefore is utilized in applications that involve heat transfer, such as ceramic glass, an important component in kitchen stovetops. One of the main advantages of using lithium to manufacture this type of glass is that it improves its appearance, and lithium’s high caloric capacity makes glass harder. Having a low coefficient of thermal expansion makes lithium-containing glass and ceramic coatings (glazes) more resistant to high temperatures and sudden changes in temperature. In addition, adding lithium to glass gives the glass certain physical and mechanical properties such as hardness, shine and increased resistance to chemical agents, among others.

In the last few years, lithium use has experienced significant growth in the steel industry, particularly in continuous casting powder processes where lithium carbonate affords greater speed and fluidity in the molding process. Despite the fact that lithium demand for this application is strongly linked to economic cycles,this application grew between 4 and 5% in 2008.

Demand for lithium hydroxide grew by between 1 and 2% in 2008, resulting primarily from its use in batteries since the principal use for lithium hydroxide –in lubricating grease– showed no growth during the year asa result of the deceleration in the automotive industry that began during the second half of the year.

Lubricating grease represents approximately 75% of the total market for lithium hydroxide. In fact, estimates indicate that more than 70% of the lubricating greases produced in the world contain lithium.

A wide variety of organic and inorganic derivatives are produced from lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide and lithium chloride. These derivatives have various applications, mainly in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Over time, lithium derivatives have shown fairly stable growth rates which are expected to continue in the medium to long term, since these applications in general are very specific and not sensitive to economic cycles.

The company is led by Andrew Brodkey, CEO, President and Director – who has 25 years in the mining industry as a mining engineer, lawyer and senior executive with a focus on corporate legal and business development activities at major mining companies with an emphasis on Latin America, including Magma Copper Company and BHP Copper Inc. Mr. Brodkey also created the International Mining & Metals Group of CB Richard Ellis, Inc (“CBRE”).

Conclusion
Lithium is on the verge of a major explosion in demand thanks to the anticipated transformation of the world’s automotive fleet from hydrocarbon power to battery power. Most major auto manufacturers have announced their intention to produce some kind of lithium battery powered automobile, and personal electronics are increasingly powered by these highly efficient and energy-dense power sources.

Pan American Lithium, with its diverse project portfolio, is probably one of the best ways to capture the opportunity afforded by this emerging market.