Calling the fight against cancer “one of the most notorious public health failures of the 20th century” four leading cancer and environmental experts called on Congress and the Obama Administration this week to acknowledge the role environmental carcinogens play in triggering cancer and dedicate more money to cancer prevention.

In a letter to Congressional leaders, the national medical and scientific experts said they were concerned that prevention has received little attention in the Obama Cancer Plan. They noted that health care costs could not be brought under control without a better plan to fight the disease that claims 1,500 American lives daily and costs $89 billion a year to diagnose and treat. (Costs rise to $219 billion annually, when lost productivity and premature death costs are factored in).

“The connection between our losing the cancer war and the need to control costs through prevention is clear. Cancer is not only one of the most costly and sometimes deadly diseases in America, it is also one of the most preventable,” they wrote.

As Congress ramps up this week to craft what could be a massive health care reform package, the advocates asked that elected leaders make revisions to the National Cancer Act (of 1971) that would reduce Americans’ exposure to carcinogens by half over the next decade.

They also want a complete public registry of carcinogens.

For too long, they say, the National Cancer Institute has blamed the vast majority of cancer on human behaviors, such as lack of exercise, poor diet and sun exposure – ignoring the role of environmental carcinogens.

But environmental and occupational exposures to carcinogens are the primary cause of non-smoking related cancers, say the petitioning experts, led by Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, MD Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition in Chicago. They cited “preventable exposures to carcinogens in the workplace and environment” such as nitrites in processed meats, formaldehyde, chlorinated organic pesticides, organic solvents and other substances.

The letter listed many more examples of how environmental factors, beyond tobacco use, that are believed to cause cancer.

“To be sure, smoking remains the best-known and single largest cause of cancer, particularly lung cancer. While incidence rates of lung cancer in men have declined by 20% over the past three decades, rates in women increased by 111%. But more importantly, non-smoking cancers — due to known chemical and physical carcinogens — have increased substantially since 1975. Some of the more startling realities in the failure to prevent cancer are illustrated by their soaring rates of increase. These include:

Mainstream, affordable solar power is not just pie (or energy) in the sky. So say MIT researchers who have devised a process to store solar energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine.

Photo: Donna Coveney
 
MIT professor Dan Nocera

Massachusetts Institute of Technology energy professor Dan Nocera and post-doctoral fellow Matthew Kanan have found a way to harness the sun’s energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, according to an effusive announcement today by the university. The oxygen and hydrogen then can be recombined inside a fuel cell that can produce carbon-free electricity for homes and electric cars – regardless of whether it’s day or night.

The researchers say the process is so simple it could be powering our lives within a decade, triggering nothing less than a “solar revolution”, according to the MIT news office.

Nocera and Kanan were inspired by photosynthesis – the energy storage system of plants. In their work, the scientists came up with a system that duplicates the water-splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis and then used the fuel cell to store that energy.

A fuel cell is similar to a battery in that it produces electricity by converting the energy released from a chemical reaction into electric power. The two differ in how they are fueled – batteries have an internal fuel source that keeps them charged; fuel cells have an external fuel source – usually hydrogen gas. Fuel cells produce electricity as long as fuel is supplied. As a result fuel cells never need electrical recharging.

The MIT process requires a special catalyst made of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. But it is relatively simple to set up and works at room temperature, according to the MIT release. “That’s why I know this is going to work. It’s so easy to implement,” Nocera said in the MIT statement. (For more from Nocera see the MIT Tech TV video.)

The operation of the fuel cell is relatively simple, but until now, they have been expensive to make, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that advocates for the efficient use of resources for a sustainable world. At the moment, fuel cells cost more than traditional power sources, but that may be a thing of the past, thanks to MIT’s latest discovery.

“This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy, in the July 31 issue of Science. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

Nocera believes that within a decade, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells. The excess solar energy will then produce hydrogen and oxygen that in turn will generate household fuel cells. He says that electricity-by-wire from a central source — the “grid” power system — will be history.

Department of Energy spokesperson Jennifer Scoggins says that the DOE will be reviewing the MIT discovery, but couldn’t comment on it at this time. The MIT news, she says, coincides with what the DOE is doing in terms of researching ways to make solar cost competitive.

“And not just solar,” she adds, “but wind and geo-thermal – all clean energy sources. We’re already seeing breakthroughs.”

Brian Palmintier, a fellow with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Resource and Energy team says the findings are potentially exciting because “the concept of storing solar energy is huge” But he had not reviewed the MIT results yet and had reservations about how practical the process would be.

For the immediate future, he said, researchers should be looking at not just solar, but wind and geo-thermal energy solutions, and “at balancing clean energy with the existing grid system.”

The MIT project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million to launch the Solar Revolution Project.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

An engineering team at MIT has developed a new solar concentrator that doubles as a window and generates more electricity with fewer solar cells than typical solar panels — moving toward the day when on-site solar power might make fiscal sense for homeowners.

“The device,” says team member Jon Mapel, “is the solar concentrator which collects and focuses light to the edges of glass plates, and could function as windows or [become] integrated into existing solar panels to increase power output.”

In a recent presentation, project leader and electrical engineer Marc Baldo, explained how the new solar collector/panel works:

“We’re built a solar concentrator that is a flat piece of glass with dye on top of it. Light comes in, hits the dye, is absorbed by the dye and then the dye re-emits the light at a longer wavelength. The light is trapped and guided to the edge of the glass and collected around the edges [by solar cells].” The cells then convert the light energy into electricity.

“We are collecting light over a large area,” says Baldo, “but only need a small amount of solar cells to generate electricity. We think the combination of the solar concentrator and the solar cell will give us twice as much power and use half as much as area on the roof.”

The windows not only use sunlight to efficiently power the building they are part of, they allow light to enter a room — unlike current rooftop solar panels, note the engineers.

The invention is particularly good news when it comes to price, according to the MIT team.

“We think these will be fairly inexpensive to make because the dye is common car paint, which is extremely inexpensive and tolerant of defects,” says Baldo. “The system won’t short-circuit or crash the whole panel if there are a few defects,” he says.

In addition to windows, the MIT team says that the solar concentrators could also be used in conjunction with existing solar panels on roofs and walls to improve their efficiency.

So when can homeowners start shopping?

“We believe we can get the product to market within three years,” Mapel says

And that should be one hungry market, given the rising costs of most traditional energy sources, combined with the fact that only about one percent of the country’s current energy consumption is solar powered.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media