By Becky Striepe •
June 8, 2009
[Creative Commons photo by Jim Combs]
The spill, which dumped over 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic sludge in the area around the Kingston coal plant, was over 120 times larger than the Exxon Valdez. It destroyed homes in the area and contaminated local water supplies. Cleanup is still underway from the disaster six months later.
So why is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) shipping tons of this toxic substance from Tennessee to Georgia and Alabama?
Running your car on used cooking oil is so 2008. The hottest feedstock for home-grown vehicle fuels is wood chips.
Well, maybe not everyone’s doing it. But at least one resident of Alabama is, and he’s trying to spread the word about his innovation.
Wayne Keith of Springville, Alabama, who’s a cattle rancher and a partner in Renewable Energy Systems LLC, was inspired to develop his Bio-Truck back in 2003, when gas prices reached $2 a gallon. Looking for a better way to fuel his 1984 Ford truck, which he uses extensively on his ranch, he started building a gasifier that produces syngas from the partial combustion of wood.
Why does the argument that businesses should do more to reduce pollution and protect the environment often boil down to the issue of jobs vs. nature? Advocates of green living around the world are increasingly making the argument that green business is good business, and that clean energy and other green sectors actually generate jobs. Too often, though, many businesses still aren’t buying it.
Environmental-minded residents of the Perdido Bay area at the Florida-Alabama border have been fighting that battle for years. The conflict in this case: the economic interests of International Paper, which operates a paper mill in the Florida town of Cantonment, vs. the lifestyle- and nature-oriented interests of the area’s residents.
A standard car that got 376.59 mpg? In 1973? Where has it been hiding all these years?
Well, the record-breaking 1959 Opel T-1 wasn’t exactly tucked into a crate among millions of other crates in a giant warehouse a la “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (”We have top men working on it right now.” “Who?” “Top men.”)
But it did spend years, all but forgotten, at the Talladega, Alabama-based International Motorsports Hall of Fame until it was discovered — and purchased by — Evan McMullen, who owns Cosmopolitan Motors in Seattle.
Alabama, Georgia and Florida are expected to miss their Friday, Feb. 15, deadline for reaching a regional water-sharing agreement, the Associated Press reported today.
The states have been squabbling for years, and the situation only grew worse as last year’s drought drove levels at Lake Lanier — Atlanta’s main water supply — perilously low. When that happened, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue did more than pray for rain (though he did that, too): he asked the feds to let his state hold back more water in its reservoirs rather than maintain federally mandated river flows into Alabama and Florida.
