Published on March 9th, 2010
Given the state of the economy you’d think they’d be pinching every penny but it appears that the State of Arizona has money to burn – perhaps literally. Last week the House voted in favor of a bill that would use old tires to fill abandoned mines. The bill’s supporters cite the growing problem of used tire dumps, but apparently they don’t keep up with the latest business news. Magnum D’Or and InfoSpi are just two of the rapidly growing number of companies that see the potential for recycling those tire dumps into real money – and creating more green jobs to boot.
Squandering an opportunity to make money is bad enough, but the Arizona bill does something much worse. Tires burn, right? Doesn’t everybody know that? Tire fires are hard enough to put out when they’re in open dumps. The idea of stuffing millions of tires into abandoned mines sounds a little less than common sensical… that is, if you know anything about underground mine fires…
Published on March 7th, 2010
A team of researchers at Yale University has developed a new kind of magnetic, lead free solder that could be used to manufacture electronics more cheaply and efficiently. That would be a big boost for efforts to manage the growing problem of electronic waste disposal and recycling, because conventional solder is made from lead, a known health hazard.
Lead is a heavy metal that was commonly used in house paint and gasoline in the U.S. Those uses were banned after the discovery that lead is a potent neurotoxin, but lead solder continues to be permitted in U.S. manufacturing. That creates a huge problem in the electronic waste stream, and it also impedes U.S. companies from entering global markets where anti-lead regulations are growing.
Published on March 6th, 2010
…And this little piggy is facing an $11 million fine for inflicting “relentless and extreme” clouds of pig manure odor upon several families near a gigantic factory farm in Berlin, Missouri. The award, which was announced on March 5, was decided by a jury against industrial hog producer Premium Standard Farms, Inc. The company processes about 200,000 hogs per year, generating 83 million gallons of manure and liquid waste yearly for the past eleven years. That stuff all goes into lake-sized lagoons and ends up spread over the company’s 4,300 acre compound, with predictable results.
If only Premium Standard had invested in a few biogas digesters! Digesters convert raw manure into reusable methane gas and fertilizer. The dairy industry is starting to convert to sustainable digester-based manure management through programs like Vermont’s Cow Power, and the U.S. EPA is encouraging the entire agricultural sector to make the switch through its AgSTAR biogas program. So what was holding Premium back?
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Published on March 6th, 2010
Fresh on the heels of IBM’s breakthrough in low cost solar, Magnolia Solar Corporation has announced that its low cost thin film technology maybe coming soon to a solar array near you. The company has just won a $1 million Department of Energy grant for advancing the technology in partnership with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University at Albany in New York.
Like IBM, Magnolia Solar is focused on delivering genuinely clean (as opposed to “clean coal” clean), high efficiency solar energy that can compete on the market with fossil fuels, while helping to shift photovoltaic technology away from a reliance on heavy metals.
Published on March 4th, 2010
ARPA-E is on a roll. The agency charged with propelling the U.S. into a new energy future just announced a new $100 million round of funding aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The focus is on innovative technologies for grid-scale energy storage, along with next-generation power converters and new energy efficient heating and cooling systems in buildings – and not just because these things are sort of neat.
According to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the particular goal of this round of funding is to kickstart the economy and set it up for future growth. As Secretary Chu sums it up, “This is about unleashing the American innovation machine to solve the energy and climate challenge, while creating new jobs, new industries, and new exports for America’s workers.” In other words, to do what the fossil fuel industry is increasingly incapable of doing.
Published on March 3rd, 2010
An epic battle has been brewing over climate change in the world of commerce, and things just got a lot more epic-er. Global giant Microsoft has become the latest corporate leader to challenge the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its position on climate change. Talking Points Memo reports that Microsoft has posted a statement on its sustainability blog, making it clear that the Chamber does not speak for it on climate issues. Memo to Chamber of Commerce, what part of “Microsoft has stated that climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate, worldwide attention and we are acting accordingly” do you not get?
The fossil fuel industry will never die, but fossil fuels are on the road to marginalization, and jobs in that sector will not drive the economy. Instead of trying to prop up a fading industry, the Chamber should stop fiddling around and start supporting companies like Peerless Industries, Inc. The sustainability-minded company has just announced that it has shifted 100% of its jobs back from overseas, and moved them all into a new energy efficient LEED certified building in Illinois.
Published on March 2nd, 2010
Leave it to Harvard University to invent an entire laboratory the size of an iPod nano. The device, which actually is slightly smaller than an iPod nano, makes it possible to sort enzymes and compounds 1,000 times faster than the much larger equipment in use today, making it not only small but energy efficient, too.
The new device could precipitate a sea change in the way that new biofuels are developed. In particular, new biofuels based on microbes could be developed in a relatively short time, compared to a years-long sorting process with conventional equipment. And of course, that’s just a taste of things to come.
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Published on March 2nd, 2010
The poplar tree has entered the crowded field of sustainable biofuel crops, and now it seems that China, Israel and the U.S. are racing to tap into its potential. Poplars have a couple of big advantages over conventional biofuel crops, especially food crops like soy and corn. For one thing, raising poplars is potentially more fuel efficient and generates a lower carbon footprint than annual food crops. Depending on the growing conditions poplars don’t need as much pest control or soil enhancement, and they don’t necessarily need to be harvested each year – cut them back and they just keep growing. Also, a properly managed biofuel woodland can be part of a viable wildlife habitat, and could potentially coexist with human populations or recreation areas.
One roadblock is the slow growth rate of poplars relative to nonfood biofuel darlings like crambe and camlina. That may not be a factor much longer. Last fall an Israel-China research partnership was formed to develop new poplar variants for biofuel production in China. And here in the U.S., the National Science Foundation has just announced a $3.2 million grant for the University of Maryland and Bowie State University to create new high-yield poplars for biofuel.
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Published on March 1st, 2010
The U.S. EPA has launched a program to push to recover brownfields for renewable energy generation. The initiative, called RE-PAL for RE-Powering America’s Land (pdf alert), is focusing on solar energy, wind and biomass projects that provide local economic benefits in the form of new jobs. In doing so, RE-PAL pulls together five powerful trends: the use of low cost “green remediation,” the repurposing of brownfields to revitalize blighted communities, the generation of energy locally instead of building expensive new power plants, the promotion of green jobs, and the development of genuinely clean, renewable energy options for communities that refuse to tolerate new fossil fuel energy facilities.
Surely RE-PAL can’t be an accidental an acronym for a program like this, so let’s give our new best friend a shout-out. The program is kicking off with a study of twelve sites spread across the U.S. including one in Puerto Rico, but in fact it’s been flying under the radar on an ad hoc basis for a while now, racking up some impressive brownfields-to-energy credits along the way.
Published on February 28th, 2010
A lunch box staple is the core idea behind solar technology that could bring cost effective solar-heated hot water to cold climates. Solar Panels Plus has come up with a solar hot water heater based on evacuated tubes similar to those popularized by Thermos. Last year two of the company’s models were certified as eligible for Canada’s ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat program, but the real test will occur in southeastern Idaho, where Solar Panels Plus has installed a solar hot water system at the Homestead Family Restaurant in Blackfoot.
If the installation keeps the solar hot water coming in cold weather, it’s another big step forward for the ability of solar energy to compete with fossil fuels. Restaurants are hot water gobblers, and a low cost solar installation that works in cold weather would have a relatively short payback for high volume users — especially if it receives solar energy incentives from its utility, as was the case here.
