Green Options

A team of Taiwanese researchers has combined industrial wastewater and petroleum oil to make a new fuel that could largely eliminate the costly treatment of industrial air emissions from boilers, is an environmentally-friendly way to treat industrial wastewater, and could increase fuel efficiency by 14%.

Worldwide, many industrial processes depend on steam boilers that are powered by what’s called heavy fuel oil (HFO). In the US, where coal and natural gas are plentiful, boilers are not typically run on HFO, but many homes in the Northeast US are still heated with furnaces that use HFO. These boilers are notorious for spewing out toxins into the environment when untreated.

A previous post, Rolling Blackouts to Benefit South Africa, hypothesised that the strong reaction to the rolling blackouts Eskom was forced to implement has resulted in urgent action which will in the medium term ensure South Africa has the energy systems it needs for its long term development.

In 2004 the three major users of electricity in South Africa were Industry (64.6%), Residential (17.4%) and Commerce (12.0%). It was therefore logical that once Eskom, with the “urging” of Government, faced the situation and took co-ordinated action it went to industry.

Discussions with industries and especially the large users in mining and manufacturing, were based on Eskom admitting that it was unable to guarantee supplies to industry, presenting a long term plan of action and requesting that industry manage itself to achieve an immediate 10% reduction in its consumption.

Industry supported the request although it lead to week long shut downs of a number of mines which were unable to immediately reduce their consumption without effecting the complete process.

This was termed Phase 1 of the National Emergency Response Plan and was mainly aimed at stabilising the system to avoid catastrophic shut downs that could result from instability induced by too small a margin between demand and supply.

A new report says that global warming could cost the Californian economy billions of dollars each year, through a combination of rising sea levels, and the increased frequency of wild fires and extreme weather events.

Utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) has confirmed plans to build a massive 909 MW wind farm in Oregon. When completed, the facility will be one of the largest fully permitted wind power sites anywhere in the world.

The installation will be located in Morrow and Gilliam counties in North-Central Oregon, and will consist of 303 3MW wind turbines spread across a 30-mile radius. The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, will generate around two billion kWh of energy, roughly 10 per cent of SCE’s total alternative energy portfolio.

Note: Scroll to the bottom to find out about the new Green Kitchen Certification offered by
Food Service Warehouse

Dear Readers,

Some of you have inquired about how I’ve been spending my time since wrapping up production (and living) on the Sust Enable project at the end of July.  As I wrote in my post “Voyage to the Center of the United States,” my August was spent travelling the country, experiencing its still awe-inspiring natural beauty.

Since mid-September, I have taken work waitressing nearly full time at a restaurant.  And no, that isn’t sustainable.

Sust Enable, my three month foray of 100% sustainable living, taught me a lot of things.  The first thing I noticed after the project concluded is that I was hopelessly broke.  Trying to innovate a radical new eco-conscious way of living doesn’t pay… rather, it sapped money, as I watched my planned resources for feeding and housing myself in a “100% sustainable” way fall through.

Partly, I am okay that the Sust Enable project didn’t pay me at all–it was an educational experience to me about how money works from an outsider’s perspective.  On the other hand, I was teetering near the brink of not being able to provide for myself–literally!  As much as I loathe the fact, nearly all systems for providing for one’s basic needs exist within the money-exchange system.  The ones outside of such a system and potentially sustainable, as I learned, are either insufficient, unavailable, or sabotaged at every possible opportunity by the capitalist system–by business owners, managers, policies, laws.

So, come September, I decided I really would like a place to myself.  I really would like to be warmed in freezing weather.  I really would like to have food readily accessible to me.  Basic ideas, no?  Certainly, each of these systems in their current states are unsustainable in terms of the environment.  But at the very least, I now have a perspective on how that might be different in the future, and can hopefully work to create a society that doesn’t have to trade the health of our air or water for our immediate stability and livelihood.

Working as a server in a restaurant has been a difficult situation for me.  I know I need the money… but holding that thought aloft every day above a sea of swirling, conflicting passions has been challenging.  I watch perfectly good food go uneaten and thrown out–but paid for–because of the sentiments that day of the purchaser.  I see inordinate amounts of cruel and unsustainably-harvested meat–from steak to seafood–served with enhancing garnishes on plates to carefree consumers, who will never feel or see the horrors of a meatpacking factory.  Money accounts for all.  I see servers, some of the hardest working people I have ever met, go untipped (our main source of income) by a table of cheerful business people.  But most of all, I see a continuous flow of garbage–paper, plastic, glass, and food–into the trash bins.

This blog post was written in response to some unusually caustic replies received on my last Sustainablog post, “The Dissonance Between Dreams: Re-writing the Sust Enable Episode Scripts.” It was composed in the interrim between the second-to-last comment, and the final comment, which clarifies the author’s tone a bit and does lay out some common ground.  However, based only on reading the comment quoted below, the commenter inspired deep meditation into myself and to what extent I am trying to exploit privilege–even while claiming to be 100% supportive of global sustainability.  View the comments here.

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“It’s only irrelevant in the context of one who still feels entitled to the comforts and privileges that being white in Western civilization has afforded her.”

Overall, I think the most crucial component of changing the world is not privilege: it is responsibility. As someone who was born into a world with social systems favoring her, it is my responsibility to address and counteract these effects. As someone who enjoys the benefits (but not the costs) of systems that hurt the environment for future generations, I have the responsibility to try to undo the harm done in my name or the name of the dollar I spend.

You disparage psychology, but I believe that our shared psychological needs-take Maslow’s pyramid, for example-absolutely influences the immediate decision-making process of every human being. For Americans, it means that we often don’t opt to do the most responsible thing, if it is not also the most convenient and most personally-positive thing as well. Once again, this all goes back to perspective-if a hot shower feels good to me immediately, and I will never feel the worldwide damage that such an action causes, then I can hide from such knowledge and forgive myself for a single shower. With millions of people making such inner decisions-in situations with varying stakes-well, most of us can see the problem we are facing now.

I think psychology will be key, too, in fixing this little biological oversight-we can create social systems which enforce a global responsibility in personal situations (where our limited perspectives are failing us). If we can unite on truly valuing the Earth’s biosphere, then we as people, as lawmakers, can create systems of justice-environmental justice-that as validly as possible account for additions and subtractions of valuable assets within the Earth’s limited resources. This idea may sound radical-but it is amazingly simple. Often, the average person forgets that he or she is a lawmaker-that laws are not sacred nor eternal. People make them and break them according to their needs.

James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, that the Earth is a single living organism, has been invoked countless times by environmentalists. In their uses (and abuses) of it, the theory becomes evidence for humanity’s connection with nature and so our responsibility to treat nature with care.

In fact, Lovelock is anything but an “environmentalist” in the traditional sense. Nor is he a staunch advocate for rigorous conservation and “dehumanization” of the planet, at least in his first book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979). He quite often criticizes as fatuous and downright silly many environmentalists’ claims, using evidence gathered from his work in the sciences.

One passage in Gaia struck me as extremely provocative despite being written nearly thirty years ago. Discussing the atmospheric gases, specifically those produced by human industry, Lovelock writes,

In our persistent self-imposed alienation from nature, we tend to think that our industrial products are not ‘natural’. In fact, they are just as natural as all the other chemicals of the Earth, for they have been made by us, who surely are living creatures. They may of course be aggressive and dangerous, like nerve gases, but no more so than the toxin manufactured by the botulinus bacillus.1

The ethanol industry isn’t the only group up in arms about pervasive negative reporting on biofuels (see yesterday’s post: Ethanol Industry: Jobs Are Better Than Food?).

Two soybean growers’ groups have suspended $1.5 million in funding from the University of Minnesota, due to research showing that biofuels could worsen global warming:

The study, by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman and others, said that dedicating huge amounts of land to grow corn, soybeans, sugarcane and other food crops for fuel could drastically change the landscape and worsen global warming. Farmers in the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia and other countries will need to clear forests, grasslands and peat lands on a massive scale to grow more of those crops, according to the research, unleashing far more carbon dioxide from natural vegetation than is saved by the lower emissions of the biofuels.

Is anyone really surprised about this finding? Suspension of the funds appears to be only temporary, until the groups have a chance to meet with the Dean of agricultural science. Jim Palmer, the executive director of the two soybean groups, summed up the situation: “The university hurt the farmers’ feelings, OK? That’s probably the best way to say it.”

Korea’s rapid industrialization can be felt everywhere, from the coastal landscapes, which are dotted with factories, to the large cities–Seoul, Busan, and Daegu–which often have air quality so poor that skylines are swallowed in smog.

Now, the outgoing government of Korea has passed new legislation to combat this pollution and join in the international battle against climate change.

The aptly named “Act on Climate Change” will establish an emissions trading market, raise the bar for renewable energy, assist in reducing industrial, home, and vehicle emissions, and increase carbon capture.

If biodiesel suits any demographic best, it’s farmers. Biodiesel was designed as an emergency fuel, intended to keep farm equipment humming when military conflict cut off oil supplies. That being said, it’s taken a while for major engine manufacturers to endorse biodiesel blends higher than 20%. This month Case IH, a global leader in heavy-duty agricultural equipment, has broadened its support of biodiesel to include B100:

Farmers now can use B100 on nearly all Case IH medium- to high-horsepower tractors, combines, windrowers, and most self-propelled sprayers and cotton pickers — so long as proper protocols are followed for engine operation and maintenance.

“With record prices for crude oil, Case IH committed to exploring better ways to use environmentally-friendly biofuels made from renewable raw materials. We have conducted rigorous laboratory and in-field tests to evaluate how our engines perform with various biodiesel blends,” says Don Rieser, Case IH director of tractor product management. “As always, our ultimate goal is greater productivity for our customers. That’s why we also are committed to educating our dealers and customers on how to get the best results with biodiesel fuels — especially when using higher-level blends.”