Green Options

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Sure, it’s easy enough for one person to attempt energy self-sufficiency: put a solar panel on your roof, run your car on biodiesel, and you’re halfway there. But how easy is it for an entire town to become self-sufficient?

That’s the question that Reynolds, Indiana has been trying to answer for the past 3 years. In 2005, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels declared the town to be BioTown, USA—a model of energy self-sufficiency for the state.

The town was chosen mainly because of its small size (pop. 547), excellent rail and road access, and proximity to organic waste (within 15 miles of more than 150,000 hogs). According to the BioTown website, the finished project will showcase efficient methods of converting biomass into energy, use bioenergy to fuel homes and businesses throughout the town, promote alternative energies across the United States, and show that agricultural energy is safe, reliable, and consistent.

These are certainly some lofty goals for such a tiny town, and progress on the project has been slow. In fact, external signs of energy independence in Reynolds have been few and far between. So where does the project stand now?

Indiana is learning from its fellow “I” state to the west — Illinois — that there are big money and green jobs in wind energy. The Windiana 2008 conference will be held in Indianapolis June 17th and 18th. Said Lt. Governor Becky Skillman, in an article in Inside Indiana Business:

“Indiana is on the verge of explosive growth in wind energy…. There is not one single energy issue or

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A Great Lakes compact that would prevent the region’s water from being siphoned off into the thirsty Southwest and other dry parts of the country is a little closer to taking effect, now that lawmakers in Michigan have OK’d the deal.

The Great Lakes Water Resources Compact aims to protect the water rights of the eight states bordering the lakes: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Michigan’s approval of the agreement brings the number of states signed on so far to five: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and New York.

Rising prices for everything from copper and platinum to flour, gas and cooking oil are creating new markets for trend-minded thieves across the U.S.

With gasoline prices in the U.S. breaking new records weekly, for example, law enforcement officials are seeing more cases of cooking grease thefts from fast-food establishments and other restaurants. Why used grease? Because cooking oil can be converted into biodiesel fuel that can be sold at a cool profit.

The U.S.’s rush to grow corn for fuel has already been blamed for rising food costs that are pricing the world’s poor into hunger and malnutrition. But the high cost of corn is having another unintended consequence: a plunge in biofuel plants’ profit margins.

About one-fourth of all corn grown in the U.S. is now cultivated for fuel rather than for food. Meanwhile, the growing demand for both food and fuel is driving commodity prices for crops like corn to record highs. That means, even with the federal government’s generous subsidies for ethanol production, today’s biofuel profits aren’t what they used to be.

Pretty cool: the Muncie (Indiana) Sanitary District plans to use a $5,000 state green grant to outfit its employees in fleece jackets made from recycled soda bottles. Tres chic y vert, n’est-ce pas?

Photo courtesy of David Monniaux via Wikimedia Commons

What do mercury, cyanide, lead, ammonia, and benzo(a)pyrene have in common? These make up the 1.7 million pounds of pollutants that were dumped by U.S. Steel into Lake Michigan (via the Grand Calumet River) in 2005. A water discharge permit was recently proposed that may reduce or eliminate limits on heavy metals and toxic chemicals discharged by U.S. Steel into the Grand Calumet River, which flows into Lake Michigan.

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