Our World and Everything in It

Researchers at Purdue offered details for converting carbon-containing waste products like paper, wood, plastic, and rubber as an alternative energy source on September 29 during the 6th Global Conference on Sustainable Product Development and Life Cycle Engineering in Busan, Korea according to an article on Environmental News Service.

The various sources of carbon containing waste would need to be mulched into tiny bits in the millimeters. The tiny pieces would be fed into a gasifier where they break down to gas containing “hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and other hydrocarbons.” The most desirable of the gases are the hydrogen and carbon monoxide or synthesis gas better known as syngas.

Syngas can be used as is to run a turbine for electricity or converted further for gas or diesel. The solid wastes can be used for jet fuel, ethanol, and other biofuel production. 

We have plenty of waste in the U.S. to work with. The article stated that the U.S. generates “1.3 billion tons of biomass - including agricultural and municipal wastes” annually. It also says that it is quite possible to replace “15 to 20 percent of transportation fuels consumed daily in the U.S. with liquids derived from this flexible process…based on the present consumption level, which is about 390 million gallons per day.”

We’re finally using our noggins to utilize much of our solid waste for energy production. No need to “Drill, Baby, Drill” after all. I never thought there was a need to drill for more. I think it’s quite feasible to get away from oil and most fossil fuels once and for all in the not too distant future from some of the progress and inventions I’ve seen.

After all, India has been using cow dung for energy production for awhile. It was only a matter of time before we caught on. It’s a sad statement for the U.S. though that it has taken so long. We are catching up with a country that was considered partly third world for its squalor not all that long ago. But ingenious inventors in India decided to do something about the waste and the country’s energy needs leading the way for us to realize that most refuse is indeed fuel in another form.

Read more: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2008/2008-10-16-091.asp

I went to Pontiac for Arts, Beats, and Eats Saturday night. I like that festival. The food is from restaurants, and there is good entertainment, and unusual art. Despite a bad economy there was a good many people and they were buying this may have been due to the evening hour after an afternoon of eating and imbibing however.

I’ve gone to this event about 6 times now and I noticed the green effort this year. Garbage was labeled trash or recyclables. There were people there to tell you what to throw where. When I looked in the recyclable barrel there was Styrofoam, plastic cups, like the one I was tossing, and plastic utensils. I soon found out the stuff was made out of sugar cane, corn, and potatoes. The guy told me vegetable oil also. The idea was no petro products even the plastic bags vendors used to wrap their wares. Pretty amazing. It looked and appeared to be just plastic.

Chrysler had some of their Global Electric Motor (GEM) E2 and E4 cars that either drew interest, criticism, or laughter. They are hybrids that use electric up to 35 mph and then get something like 50 mpg thereafter. I’m going by what my husband remembers.

The E2 is a two seater. It looks like a cartoon mini car that parking ticket officers drive. The E4 is a four seater of course, a tad more substantial. The price for the E2 began in the $5,000 range but by the end of the sheet jumped up to in the $14,000 range. This was cause for criticism. Then there were safety issues. It’s a bug.

Maybe the E2 is not for the highways of Michigan but getting around a crowded city where traffic is always a crawl, it might not be too bad. It’s more comfortable than a bike and comparable in price to a Harley. If traffic only crawls the danger issue is reduced. As for parking—it’s a bug.

http://www.gemcar.com/

Check this out. Someone has come up with a way to extract the water from the atmosphere the way leaves dew, get it?

The structure collects dew and makes it into fresh water. I have to ask about acid rain type water, or water passing through a polluted atmosphere? But it is quite a nice structure as far as contemporary sculpture, which is up my alley, maybe not so much for country folk.

It’s not big, provides shade, does not take up a lot of space around the bottom and yields 48 liters of water per day!  Holy Cow, if a liter is a tad over a quart (1.0567 quarts), then 48 liters is 12.68 gallons.  Couple this with reduced shower usage, a water saver shower head, low flow toilets, gray water recycling system, this WatAir as it’s called,  gets close to what all is needed in a two person household. My two person household does a heck of a lot less laundry, dishwasher loads, and such than larger households.

One of these atmospheric dew extractors in a place like Michigan could have a ridiculous yield. But would we homeowners keep viable water from re-entering the Great Lakes?

Read more about it: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604222124.htm

I can’t pass up reading the Science Daily website. There are so many articles lately about microbes, that they are the real engineers for climate control. As one article stated: “Microbes will continue as climate engineers long after humans have burned that final barrel of oil. Whether they help us to avoid dangerous climate change in the 21^st century or push us even faster towards it depends on just how well we understand them.”

Well it seems science understands them better and better every day and hopes to use the enzymes produced by microbes to break down all sorts of material in a “closed, integrated system that produces edible products, flowers, and biodiesel with little waste.” Sugar cane and hibiscus flowers are key to this closed system.

Scientists plan on using the enzymes from microbes to break down the sugarcane/hibiscus biomass to sugars, and ferment them to ethanol. I have to LOL here because this product is basically the same as that pure grain alcohol that we can get out of the hills of Tennessee, namely WHITE LIGHTENING. Every drink this stuff? I think a person could hallucinate on it. I know the ring from the pint jar it comes in can be lit easily and burns for a while. But I digress.

After the biomass is fermented the carbon dioxide produced during the fermentation is trapped. It’s then fed to micro algae (more microbes) in ponds. Once this micro algae goes to work a type of polymer is produced that could be refined further into jet fuel. The spent micro algae is then harvested and used as fertilizer for the sugar cane and hibiscus flowers again. That’s quite an efficient loop.

I say they get on with this microbe research because the Bush/Cheney regime is about to ruin more of our country than invading enemies would ever do. Right now, Halliburton is ruining parts of Utah, Colorado, and other places in search for natural gas, when methane is right under our nose, get it, methane—nose? Ditto for oil. Halliburton’s trucks are already corroding prehistoric drawings that stretch across the rocks in Nine Mile Canyon.  No one knows or cares because everything is either overshadowed by the economy, Iraq, and the election. Let’s just say the Bush/Cheney administration is having a field day in its final months in office to the detriment of irretrievable artifacts, land, and animals in our national parks and areas around them.  

I would love to see these guys just deflate like a balloon and buzz off into the atmosphere but that would just be adding some really defiled waste into our air.

Remember that what the powers that be tell you about not having enough alternative sources of energy to replace oil and natural gas is a lie. There is probably enough methane alone to blow us sky high. That’s a lot of energy laying around they like us to believe is waste, because it’s cheap and works just as well as natural gas because—it is.

Read more about microbes at Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080604141014.htm. 

There were many events going on in communities this weekend in honor of Earth Day. Monroe celebrated in St. Mary’s Park, Grosse Ile had events, the Toledo Zoo had Earth Day celebrations and there was the 16th Annual Lake Shore Cleanup at Lake Erie Metro Park this weekend. And do we need a clean-up.

Has anyone else noticed more roadside litter? I pass by other property of mine on my daily walks so I notice the garbage I need to get out of the ditches. It’s no longer beer or liquor bottles strewn about but empty plastic bottles of Vitamin water, Aquafina, Sunny D, and one of those flavored waters.

The discards are representative of health conscious human consumption. The fact that these human litterbugs care about their personal health but not the earth’s health is ironic. Taking care of ourselves is futile if we do not take care of the environment that sustains us. It’s a matter of math for Pete’s sake.
I see human populations growing, and pollution growing exponentially along with it. And the pollution is stuff that just doesn’t decompose like plastic.
 
An example of old plastic: This weekend I was fluffing rocks. I have river rock in my landscape and tossing them aside and putting the dirt back under the weed barrier refurbishes the rock. I end up with buckets of river rock that were sinking into the ground, which I put back on top of the mound. Lot’s of work but it’s therapeutic too. 

Well I’ve been lax. I haven’t tossed rocks for about 5 years. I found the plastic weed barrier had sunk about 8 inches down into the ground. Years ago perforated plastic was used as a barrier. It was still there after 17 years and sinking. All I could think is what if layers of plastic built up? Would it eventually solidify into one humongous block of plastic? Nothing could be dug where it existed until it sunk deep enough, and would this block keep traveling downward into the earth? What kind of sticky goo would it become as it heats?
Scary thought, an earth filled with pockets of digested, melted plastic.

One of the simplest things we can do for the earth is not litter, and recycle whenever we can. We’re slowly learning to take care of ourselves with the food and drink choices we make. To throw the plastic litter from these healthy choices onto the ground is an unconscious act we need to break. Once we begin to associate the idea of health and maintenance to our world and everything in it not just ourselves, I believe things will begin to improve greatly. Besides, it is almost impossible to be healthy while living in an unhealthy environment.

There are many states that adopted RPS’s (Renewable Portfolio Standards) years ago:
California – 2002, New Jersey – 2006, Texas – 2005, Nevada – 2005, New Mexico – 2004,  New York – 2004. These particular states were so successful they upped their ante. California is aiming at 22.5 % by 2021, Texas doubled their previous goal, Nevada’s raised their goal to 20% by 2015 with 5% from solar, and New York originally required 25% by 2013. http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/clean_energy_policies/clean-energy-policies-and-proposals.html

And what does our Michigan Senate come up with—an extremely weak little energy bill. SB 1000 simply says that state government, and no one else, should buy at least 25% of the electricity that powers the state government buildings from renewable sources by 2025, but only if renewable energy costs are within 5% of the cost of non-renewable energy. What does this end up amounting  to—1%? Also approved was SB 1041 that requires all electricity providers to offer customers the ability to purchase power through renewable resources. Big deal.

The Senate says its part of a larger package to come. They may mean a larger comprehensive House Bill outlining Michigan’s RPS, but I doubt it. The Senate beat that House Bill with this one to show they really are green, a really, really transparent green at best, which isn’t reassuring that they mean serious business or cooperation. All I see is stalling either by haggling with the House/Governor over everything, putting out lukewarm bills of their own that will cause haggling, and taking too long to pass legislation that didn’t come from the Senate, giving lobbyists more time to water down bills.

Due out soon, the House RPS presents a statewide renewable energy requirement of obtaining 10% renewable sources by 2015. Compared to other states reaping the economic benefits of establishing a good RPS, Michigan is late, and not very aggressive except the cost, which is being shoved on us, and to the benefit of big business. I’m feeling right wing economics here, giving big breaks to business and sticking us with the cost again. Big business can benefit all they want, it doesn’t mean it will trickle down to the little guy. I deem the trickle down theory dead. I didn’t see Exxon Mobil’s 40.1 billion annual net income in 2007 trickle down to the pumps! Did you?

Just this past October 24, 2007, Michigan’s Senate Republicans launched the Green Michigan Initiative that predominantly focuses on the Great Lakes, expanding recycling, developing green energy alternatives (this bill?), and reduction of waste in landfills. Sounds great doesn’t it? Most of what I’ve seen addresses recycling, and it took 4 years to come up with that! http://www.senate.michigan.gov/gop/readarticle.asp?id=876.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester said that the Senate had been hard at it for more than five years to initiate proactive legislation. Why so long? We’re years behind states that are sitting a lot better economically than Michigan. We need green jobs. The states that surround us that have a good RPS are drawing green business in the millions, like Minnesota—250 million in new green business just from implementing a wind generation program.

Most of Michigan’s Senate legislation so far is about recycling relative to landfills. It’s just a start also.  Most of these bills just left in November, 2007 to go to the appropriate committees. Who knows how long they will linger there. Plug in bill numbers 889-907 at this website to read them: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(su1elh45wa2xlkzion3od445))/mileg.aspx?

Are you getting the idea yet that our senate is dragging their feet, because besides the recycling bills above the only other environmental bills I’ve seen from 2007 are as follows: 

· SB 0616   Environmental protection; water pollution; CAFOs; regulate land application of manure.
· SB 0483 Environmental protection; water pollution; baseline environmental assessment fee; eliminate sunset
· SB 0152 Environmental protection; prohibited products; use of phosphorus in dishwashing detergents; prohibit.
· SB 0081  Environmental protection; landfills; solid waste disposal surcharge; establish and earmark for recycling and other programs.
· SB 0007 Energy; conservation; appliance and equipment energy efficiency standards; establish.
· SB 0008 Environmental protection; permits; zoning compliance; require as a condition of issuance of wastewater permits.

All of this fiddle faddling around about going green in Michigan stalls thousands of new jobs with new business, a new economy besides the auto industry, and millions in new tax revenues. Michigan can’t afford it. So why the stall? Our governor wants to move ahead for change. Why would our Senate take so long to come up with nothing all that exciting, the big green wash, when people are really struggling financially in Michigan? Do they want us to starve until we scream we’ll take $14.00 per hour and forget unions? Because this feels like Psychology 101 to me used over and over by the Feds and now here. Strain people to the max like $4.00-$5.00 per gallon at the pumps, so we scream drill in the Arctic, drill in the wild life refuge, drill in my back yard, just give me cheap fuel again. And at least half of us don’t even know we’re being manipulated.

My blog about an RPS and how much money it brings into a state: http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=250.

Another article about SB1000: http://www.mitechnews.com/articles.asp?id=8499&sec=104
 

Last week on Good Morning America there was a guy who has been fueling his little diesel car with Chinese oil. What is Chinese oil? It’s the leftover oil from Chinese restaurants. He said the restaurant was only too happy to give the oil away. He put it in a plastic gas container and uses a funnel to put it in his car. He said he probably saved $3,000 last year by not buying gas. So if you have a little diesel car you drive to work, why not? The Welsh do it. The Welsh were using so much vegetable oil in their cars they had to come up with laws to stop it because the country wasn’t getting enough money from gas tax. The big clue? Everytime there was a new delivery of cooking oil to the supermarkets, the shelves were wiped out in hours. Now the Welsh police are allowed to stop a car and look at what it’s running in its tank. 

On that note, I ran across something good from an oil company. While I was researching oil company contributions to alternative energy, I read that Conoco Phillips is working with Tyson foods to use chicken fat for fuel.  Reuters.com has the entire article. The article stated: “Beef, pork and chicken fat from Tyson rendering plants will be processed at ConocoPhillips refineries to create transportation fuel.” They plan in the future to produce about 175 million gallons per year of this biodiesel. Conoco Phillips is already preparing some of their refineries for processing the animal fat. The first one is in Borger, Texas. ConocoPhillips is processing soybean oil as a biodiesel fuel already at its Whitegate refinery in Cork, Ireland. Tyson said “the fats will be processed with hydrocarbon feedstocks to produce a high-quality diesel fuel that meets all federal standards for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.” And unlike ethanol, this fuel can run through pipelines. 

This is good news. These two companies are making good use of leftover pollution, and there is a lot of it in the meatpacking industry. Since Conoco Phillips doesn’t stand to gain or lose from doing this, this is a very generous move.  I just hope finding a way to get rid of rendering material doesn’t cause a spike in eating more meat, or establishing more CAFO’s! There is a humane and ethical side to the treatment of animals that figures in here, not just the environment, or money. Industrialized farming is extremely horrific for animals, totally inhumane, and we end up with sickly meat.

http://www.reuters.com/article/consumerproducts-SP/idUSN1629340720070416?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Yep, you read that right. An article in the “Science” section of the New York Times is about scientists F. Jeffery Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., who propose a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline. They’ve dubbed the concept: Green Freedom.

It’s supposed to be a simple process. Today’s article states:

The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.

This is still in the pre-prototype, hashing it out in the garage phase. The scientists said it was all based on existing technology. It sounds really good doesn’t it? Well it kind of goes downhill from here.
There is a reason someone hasn’t already does this. It takes a lot of energy.  Each plant would require its own nuclear power plant or a heck of a lot of solar panels. And the recycled CO2 is only economical when gasoline prices are $4.60 or greater. What?

I know this was a real reach. It made a real nice headline but hey we’re trying to lower prices at the pump and if I had my wish there wouldn’t be any pump at all. Back to the drawing board.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/science/19carb.html?_r=1&ref=environment&oref=slogin
 

HP has found a use for leftover plastic bottles. When we return our used HP (Hewlett-Packard) print cartridges, they “undergo a multi-phase recycling process that reduces them to raw materials such as plastics and metals.” The plastic from the inkjet cartridges gets mixed with recycled bottle resin and other binders to create brand new ink cartridges according to an article in Environmental News Service. They are not remanufactured. Other cartridge suppliers have yet to do this. The amount of recycled content varies from 70 to 100 percent, while the finished product remains at HP’s highest standard.

That’s a pretty good solution for some of our leftover plastic problems considering mixing plastics usually diminishes the strength and durability of a finished product. There are 10,000 different types of plastics, and many are not compatible together. If you haven’t noticed, most recyclable bottles are stamped with numbers. These numbers are to group the different plastic materials together when reprocessing.

But new research just might change things in the future. HP has discovered a way, and according to an article by Michigan Molecular Institute, “researchers from Eastman Kodak, Eastman Chemical, and the University of Florida (UF) accomplished that goal by establishing the fundamentals of compatibilization of multiphase polymer blends.” Researchers found effective methods to compatibilize comingled-plastic waste.” In other words they’ve found a way to mix some of the normally incompatible leftover plastic we toss to make new plastic.

Sharp has developed “a new technology to blend plant-based plastic that uses corn as the raw material, and waste plastic recovered from scrapped consumer electronics” according to an article on Physorg.com.  Now this is real news because Sharp is getting away from petroleum based plastics, which is the common raw material for most plastic. I don’t think corn should take a hit again, because of its overuse by the ethanol industry, but who knows, corn today, rutabaga tomorrow as a raw material for plastic. 

With new technology coming out all the time relative to plastics, hopefully we will greatly reduce the environmental impact our leftover plastic products produce. Next on the list, we need to see plastic that easily strips away in one zip from the cloth part of those dirty disposable diapers that get tossed. Anybody got any ideas about that? 

Read more about HP at: http://world-wire.com/news/0801300001.html

About MMI’s article on mixed plastic technology read:  http://www.atp.nist.gov/eao/sp950-1/mmi.htm.

About Sharp: http://www.physorg.com/news5062.html.
 

I finally broke down and bought a new gas range and gas dryer today. I put it off because I have a habit of keeping things as long as they work well. Keep them looking nice and hey, they’re vintage. I also have a propensity for anthropomorphism, which is endowing inanimate objects with a human or animal persona. You know, fishermen refer to their boats as she and give them names. Ditto for vehicles. We can also get too attached to our homes, like they are part of the family or something, well, with feelings anyway.  For me, it is anything that has given me years of service that is still hanging in there. My range and dryer are 22 years old!  I haven’t named them but have had them an awfully long time. Of course each piece has had a minor repair or two through the years but nothing to speak of. Things were just made better back then.

I don’t like my new refrigerator, washer, or dishwasher as well as my old. Newer things are made so shabbily. There are all types of plastic parts on them that break. Even though there aren’t any kids running around my house, and I maintain things well, parts broke on my fridge the first year I owned it. And a funny thing happened to the washer. I bought a washer with a stainless drum inside, but on the outside of that is a plastic drum. It’s pretty thick plastic, but not thick enough. One of those studs used in a nail gun worked its way through one of those tiny drain holes in the stainless drum, then proceeded to score the spinning outer “plastic” drum enough times that water eventually poured out of the bottom during a rinse cycle.

Going to buy two new appliances because a good deal was to be had wasn’t a good motivator for me either. I will miss my old range and dryer, well not so much miss as feel bad they are going to be destroyed. They still work. If they didn’t work, it would be a whole different story. I thought about donating the appliances, but they are so old the trip would probably kill them.

I was assured at the store that the appliances that are hauled away are recycled. Good to know. I looked around and found that most major home appliances consist of about 75 percent steel. Scrap steel is needed to make new steel. Steel manufacturers count on recycled material as do copper, aluminum, and zinc manufacturers. So I’m helping the steel industry. Do we have a steel industry? I also found an old article that stated: “According to the Environmental Protection Agency, using recycled steel results in an 86% reduction in water pollution and a 97% reduction in mining wastes.” Who knew?

So my fear of filling a landfill with my old appliances is no longer relevant and I can think of all this as a rejuvenation process for them. Good then.  Out with the old, and in with the new. I cook every night.  I deserve a new stove. As for the dryer, I use it as little as possible. I hang my clothes out in the summer. But my winter dryer bill should surely drop. I made sure I purchased a dryer with moisture sensors so that it doesn’t stay on any longer than necessary. Oh, and I did get a good deal.