Happy Martin Luther King Day – And what a day it is

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Environmental Justice is predicated on the idea that pollution is purposely sited to poor communities, many of which are not of European descent:

maxevents-usa.com

http://environment.about.com/b/2008/01/21/honor-martin-luther-king-by-fighting-environmental-racism.htm

Honor Martin Luther King

by Fighting Environmental Racism, Promoting Environmental Justice

Monday January 21, 2008

On Martin Luther King Day, Americans celebrate the life and vision of the late civil rights leader who has inspired generations of people to work toward a society characterized by equal opportunity and free of racial discrimination.

In 1968, Dr. King’s life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet, a violent act of racism that stunned and saddened people worldwide. Today, racism still threatens the lives of millions of African-Americans and other people of color.

That threat includes environmental racism, in which the residents of poor minority communities are subject to much higher health and safety risks than people in more affluent communities because of the proximity of their homes and schools to landfills, hazardous waste sites and factories that pollute the air and water.

Environmental racism was first documented nearly 30 years ago by Dr. Robert Bullard…

For more please read the article or this wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism

Industrial Waste is Huge But Household Waste Ain’t Small Exactly – If you get waste conscious at home

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Then You Can take It To Work

There are only 2 of us in our household, a man and a woman. We recycle like crazy. Because the County and the City recycle different things we sometimes have to take our recyclables to town. For some reason Riverton will not recycle corrugated cardboard so we take that to Springfield. Everyone has a problem with colored glass so we have started saving it. Springfield does colored glass drops periodically. All of our “hazardous” waste goes to the State of Illinois at the Fairgrounds or the IDOT building. Our Electronics goes to BLH. Our light bulbs go to Springfield Electric. Our plastic bags and many soft plastics goes to Schnucks grocery stores. AND close your eyes…a small part of it we burn. After composting (we have two large piles) there is a small bit of what I call promiscuous paper and other stuff (about a cubic foot or less – ie. a small trash can full every 2 weeks). We then toss those ashes on the vegetable garden. In the end we toss out about 1 small sometimes barely filled cheap garbage bag. In it are mainly cigarette butts, food stuffs we can’t recycle, and some soft plastics. Sometimes we are so emberrassed we don’t even put it out by the curb to pick up because it’s not worth their time or gas to stop.

This does not take into account our own dodo and caca, however that will take a huge shift in infrastructure and agriculture to do. Nor does that take care of both of our car exhausts. Again this a huge infrastructure problem in ground transportation. Still it feels real good to minimize our waste.

Here is a really reall real rea re r really cool site to help out.

http://www.astc.org/exhibitions/rotten/rthome.htm

The Rotten Truth web site was created in 1998 by the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: Rotten Truth (About Garbage) links to a number of activities and resources provided by institutions other than ASTC and SITES. Every effort has been made to ensure that these links are accurate, but because neither ASTC nor SITES controls the content of these web sites, outside links are not guaranteed to be correct or active. Neither ASTC nor SITES shall be liable in the event of incidental or consequential damages connected with, or arising out of, providing the information offered here. External sites are not endorsed by ASTC or the Smithsonian Institution.

I put this up because I wanted them to know that I know that they know that I know….SO THERE

Rotten Truth (About Garbage) takes an in-depth look at the complex issues surrounding municipal solid waste. This on-line exhibition is organized into four major sections.

What Is Garbage? looks at how we define garbage, and why it consists of more than what we throw away.
There’s No “Away” explores how burying, burning, and recycling garbage doesn’t really get rid of it, and that reducing what we use is the only real solution to the garbage problem.
Nature Recycles shows how the natural process of decay makes new life possible by recycling the limited number of nutrients present in the environment.
Finally, Making Choices provides some helpful hints on how we can all create less garbage.

Throughout the exhibition, you can:

Read about people who have made a difference in how we think about municipal solid waste today;
Try a variety of activities at home or school; and

You can also consult an extensive resource list to find out more about garbage and what you can do about it.
For exhibit developers or those who work in museums:
Visit the section for exhibit developers to learn how Rotten Truth (About Garbage) was created. Find out how lead exhibit developer Kathy McLean became interested in the subject of garbage, or learn some tips on how to create environmentally-conscious exhibitions.

Who created this exhibition?
This exhibition was researched and developed with the help and expertise of many individuals and organizations.

Finding your way through the exhibition:
By following the icon, you can sequentially visit each exhibit area. (Clicking on the icon will enable you to return to the previous page.) Please note that several activities, resources, and profiles are located at other web sites. After visiting them, click on your web browser’s “back” button to return to your place in the exhibition. Finally, if at any time you want to visit a different exhibit area, return to this page by clicking on the “home” garbage bag icon, and selecting the desired exhibit area below. Enjoy your visit!

START :}

So get started now!

Why Call Them Landfills? They are dumps, eyesores, middens and disgraces.

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

When has it been ok to urinate and defecate in a drinking water source. But Humans world wide do it every day. Some of us purify those byproducts before they actually get to the river or the lake or the aquifer, some of us don’t. When has it ever been OK to put food products let alone industrial products (lets take the buy out of byproduct) in a drinking water source yet we have done it for 200 years. What did we think? That there would be no results?

Yet we go further. We stack our garbage in the most inappropriate places like we are PROUD of it. Heh look our garbage pile is bigger than yours. Like the garbage dump that you can see from SPACE.

http://gothamist.com/2003/09/30/fresh_killpark.php

Fresh Kill…Park?

Mayor Bloomberg announced the city’s plans to turn the closed Fresh Kills landkill into a park. The Times points out that the landfill is “a garbage dump site that is so large it can be seen from space,” which is why it’s a sensitive and important issue for Staten Islanders…especially Staten Islanders who can vote. Reporter Michel Cooper describes the city’s renderings of a Fresh Kills Park as “Monet using Photoshop” or Andrew Wyeth-like. Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro called the announcement was “the final nail in the heart of Dracula,” as people have been speculating the dump might reopen since it closed in 2001. The Post says the proposal from Field Operations, the landscape company that won the competition to transform Fresh Kills, includes “bird-nesting island, public roads, boardwalks, soccer and baseball fields, bridle paths and a 5,000-seat stadium.

Of course, all of this is also an effort to keep his approval numbers from slipping any further, although at this point, it’d be in the negative territory…people would just claim ignorance when asked about Mayor Bloomberg.

More information about Fresh Kills.

What the heck have we ever been thinking?

http://naturecalendar.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/fresh-kills-earning-back-its-name

by Erik Baard

Not so many years ago, if you told people that you were getting up early on Saturday morning to rush over to Fresh Kills on Staten Island, they would have thought you were crazy or a highly-paid union worker. Today, a few savvy folks might peg you for a naturalist.

The world’s largest dump (actually, the world’s largest manmade structure, of sorts, in that it exceeded the volume of the Great Wall of China) is quietly transforming into the city’s second largest park, after Pelham Bay Park. You can witness the process yourself by signing up for a free tour now through November through this link. Don’t fret the competition to get a ticket – the tour I joined this weekend wasn’t booked up. Besides, you have, oh, a few more years of chances. The park officially opens in 2036.

(the site has four large ones mounds, ranging between 140? and 200? tall)

At the moment the trash is being digested by microbes, which will actually cause the mounds to shrink a bit. But not before they’ve earned their keep! The methane (“natural gas” in daily parlance), organic chemicals, and carbon dioxide produced are tapped via long pipe networks (see the methane taps in the foreground of the above photo by Emmanuel). The natural gas is purified and sold to Keyspan (now part of National Grid), which in turn sells it to heat up to 10,000 homes at a time. I can imagine a “green” dry cleaner using the CO2 to spiff up designer suits for the local gentry.

Less immediately marketable is the leachate goo that landfills produce when water jazzes up microbial and fungal activity. That’s dried and shipped out to another landfill in West Virginia. As a side note, the five boroughs now send trash to Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Remember, the primary insight of environmentalism is that when things are thrown away, there is no “away.”

Please read both articles if you have a strong stomach.

Archer Daniels Midland And Greenwash – They profess green but consistenly pollute

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

We are going to trust these folks with our watershed?

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13646

Green Fuel’s Dirty Secret

by Sasha Lilley, Special to CorpWatch
June 1st, 2006

The town of Columbus, Nebraska, bills itself as a “City of Power and Progress.” If Archer Daniels Midland gets its way, that power will be partially generated by coal, one of the dirtiest forms of energy. When burned, it emits carcinogenic pollutants and high levels of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Ironically this coal will be used to generate ethanol, a plant-based petroleum substitute that has been hyped by both environmentalists and President George Bush as the green fuel of the future. The agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is the largest U.S. producer of ethanol, which it makes by distilling corn. ADM also operates coal-fired plants at its company base in Decatur, Illinois, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and is currently adding another coal-powered facility at its Clinton, Iowa ethanol plant.

That’s not all. “[Ethanol] plants themselves – not even the part producing the energy – produce a lot of air pollution,” says Mike Ewall, director of the Energy Justice Network. “The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) has cracked down in recent years on a lot of Midwestern ethanol plants for excessive levels of carbon monoxide, methanol, toluene, and volatile organic compounds, some of which are known to cause cancer.”

A single ADM corn processing plant in Clinton, Iowa generated nearly 20,000 tons of pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds in 2004, according to federal records. The EPA considers an ethanol plant as a “major source” of pollution if it produces more than 100 tons of any one pollutant per year, although it has recently proposed increasing that cap to 250 tons.

Sulfur dioxide is classified by the EPA as a contributor to respiratory and heart disease and the generation of acid rain. Nitrogen oxides produce ozone and a wide variety of toxic chemicals as well as contributing to global warming, according to the EPA, while many volatile organic compounds are cancer-causing. Last year, Environmental Defense, a national environmental group, ranked the Clinton plant as the 26th largest emitter of carcinogenic compounds in the U.S.

For years, ADM promoted itself as the “supermarket to the world” on major U.S. radio and television networks like NPR, CBS, NBC, and PBS where it underwrites influential programs such as the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Now, as it actively promotes its ethanol business, ADM has rolled out its new eco-friendly slogan, “Resourceful by Nature” which “reinforces our role as an essential link between farmers and consumers.”

Despite the company’s attempts at green packaging, ADM is ranked as the tenth worst corporate air polluter, on the “Toxic 100” list of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency has charged the company with violations of the Clean Air Act in hundreds of processing units, covering 52 plants in 16 states. In 2003 the two agencies reached a $351 million settlement with the company. Three years earlier, ADM was fined $1.5 million by the Department of Justice and $1.1 million by the State of Illinois for pollution related to ethanol production and distribution. Currently, the corporation is involved in approximately 25 administrative and judicial proceedings connected to federal and state Superfund laws regarding the environmental clean-up of sites contaminated by ADM operations.

CES Is Not The Only Organization Critical Of Archer Daniels Midland – They can be so wrong in so many ways

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1662.cfm

Download this page as a pdf Back to Hall of Shame homepage More on ADM *Corporate welfare and greenwashing *Corporate snapshot *Take actionMore info on ADM from Rainforest Action Network

Forests burn in Indonesia to make way for palm oil plantations. © Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá

First the good news: burning ‘biodiesel’ fuels emits less global warming pollution than burning standard, oil-based gasoline.

Now the bad news: producing biofuels creates tons of global warming pollution – easily enough to offset any global warming benefits gained at the tail end of the process.

At least that’s the case when it comes to Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and its business partners that manufacture and trade in Indonesian palm oil.

ADM is an agribusiness giant, and they’re a big player in the biodiesel business. A large part of the business relies on clearing Indonesia’s woodsy wetlands, or “peatlands,” to create palm plantations. The result? A whole lot of palm oil and a whole lot of resulting global warming pollution.

A 2007 Greenpeace report found that clearing, draining and setting fire to Indonesian peatlands emits 1.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. That’s about four percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Roughly half of Indonesia’s peatlands have already been destroyed, helping Indonesia achieve a dubious ranking as the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only China and the United States.[1]

But if this palm oil can be used instead of standard gasoline to fuel our cars, isn’t it worth it? Sadly no. Not by a long shot. According to Rainforest Action Network, “Producing palm oil, one of the most popular sources of biodiesel, entails so much deforestation that, over its lifecycle, palm-based biodiesel can emit up to ten times more carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline.”[2]

ADM and its partners’ rampant destruction of Indonesian peatlands also threatens the existence of endangered species like the orangutan; a close relative of ours that scientists say could be wiped out by 2012 .[3]

Corporate welfare and greenwashing
ADM is a major player when it comes to influence in Washington, DC. Indeed, one of ADM’s largest supporters is the American taxpayer; the biofuels behemoth rakes in massive tax credits to subsidize its ethanol sales.[4]

Meanwhile, ADM is bending over backwards to present itself to the public as a friend of the environment. ADM’s company slogan is “Resourceful by Nature”, and its website extols its efforts to “develop nature-based alternatives to the world’s finite stores of fossil fuels.” Unfortunately, one of its alternatives is destroying an ecosystem and accelerating global warming.

Corporate snapshot
Founded in 1902 and incorporated in 1923, the Decatur, IL-headquartered ADM is one of the world’s largest processors of agricultural crops and a “world leader” in biodiesel fuels. [5]

According to Greenpeace, “global commodity traders including ADM-Kuok-Wilmar (ADM’s business alliance operating in Indonesia), Cargill, Golden Hope and Sinar Mas have commanding control over the entire palm oil supply chain – from plantations in Indonesia to refined vegetable oil or biofuel [processing facilities]. The alliance brings together Wilmar, the ‘largest palm biodiesel manufacturer in the world’, and ADM, the ‘world leader in renewable transport fuels’.
The ADM-Kuok-Wilmar alliance have ‘rapid expansion plans’ in relation to biodiesel. Between early 2006 and mid-2007, the ADM-Kuok-Wilmar alliance gained control of more than 1.4 million acres of peatland.[6]

There is a whole lot more. Please read the entire article and see who ADM pals around with in the rest of the Corporate Hall of Shame.

If Evolution Is True Why Doesn’t ADM Evolve – (creepy voice) Because it’s not alive!

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16347-review-iwhy-evolution-is-truei-by-jerry-coyne.html

Review: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

10:16 05 January 2009 by Rowan Hooper

T he first “why” that struck me on seeing Why Evolution is True was why do we need yet another book on evolution? There are lots of good ones out there already and nothing less than a mountain of evidence to support the reality of evolution by natural selection.

But we do need another, insists Jerry Coyne, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Chicago, because creationism is spreading.

And he’s right – creationism is all over the place, not just in the US, where it often gains huge amounts of publicity. In December, a UK poll found that 29% of science teachers thought that creationism should be taught in science classes alongside evolution; a state of affairs that Richard Dawkins called “a national disgrace”. It is also on the rise in Islamic countries.

Careful persuasion

Creationism, Coyne tells us in this wide-ranging, beautifully written account, is like a roly-poly clown that pops back up when you punch it. But he resists the temptation to punch. He seeks to persuade, by carefully leading the reader through the overwhelming evidence, that evolution is a fact.

The audience is those who are uncertain about explanations of life’s diversity. The book is not aimed at people who hold faith-based positions – Coyne considers them to be lost causes – but you have to wonder how many people who are “uncertain” will be won over.

Coyne describes, for example, giving a talk on evolution versus intelligent design/creationism to a group of rich Chicago businessmen. You would think that people in the business world might think that evidence for something is worth taking into account, but this was the response Coyne got from one audience member after his lecture: “I found your evidence for evolution very convincing – but I still don’t believe it”.

So you would think that Archer Daniels Midland will evolve in this new Green World and “get it” that polluting the environment needs to stop. That their by-products as they call them must be put to a use. Like growing algae for a fuel source or making cement. But NO, they want to pump it underground. Like that’s not polluting. Why don’t they quit? Because as the man above said, “They don’t believe.”

illinois environmental protection agency

1021 north grand avenue east, P.O. Box 19276, springfield, illinois 62794-9276 -( 217) 782-3397 james R. thompson center, 100 west randolph, suite 11 -300, chicago, IL 60601 – (312) 814-6026

rod R. blagojevich, governor douglas P. scott, director

UNDERGROUND INJECTION CONTROL (UIC) FINAL PERMIT DECISION

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency provides notice pursuant to 35 111. Admin. Code 705.201(c) that a final UIC permit was issued to Archer Daniels Midland Company of Decatur, Illinois on December 23, 2008. The Agency’s response to comments, the Response Summary and Attachment 1, are available at the Illinois EPA web site at the following link: http://www.epa.state.il.us/public-notices/general-notices.html (Scroll ^l/3 of the way down the page to select documents posted concerning the Archer Daniels Midland project.)

Specific information must be submitted to the Agency as either permit modification requests or as supplemental information for review and approval prior to ADM’s use of the injection well. Please review the lists of these data requirements on page 2 of the Response Summary.

The applicant may petition the Illinois Pollution Control Board to contest this permit decision pursuant to 35 111. Adm. Code 705.212. Third parties also have appeal rights pursuant to 35 111. Adm. Code 705.212. Appeals must be filed within 35 days of the decision date. The deadline to appeal the Illinois EPA permit decision is January 27, 2009. For additional information on the permit appeal process, please contact the Illinois Pollution Control Board (312-814-3620).

To receive a paper copy of the final UIC permit for ADM or the Illinois EPA Response Summary and Attachment 1, please contact:

Mara McGinnis

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency 1021 North Grand Avenue East Springfield, Illinois 62704-9276

Mara.McGinnis@illinois.gov 217/524-3288

rockford – 4302 North Main Street, Rockford, IL61103 -(815)987-7760 • des PLAINES-9511 W. Harrison St., Des Plaines, IL 60016 – (847) 294-4000

elgin – 595 South State, Elgin, IL 60123 – (847) 608-3131 • PEORIA-5415 N. University St., Peoria, IL 61614 – (309) 693-5463

bureau of land- peoria-7620 N. University St., Peoria, IL 61614 – (309) 693-5462 • champaign – 2125 South First Street, Champaign, IL 61820-(217) 278-5800 springfield – 4500 S. Sixth Street Rd., Springfield, IL 62706-(217) 786-6892 • collinsville – 2009 Mall Street, Collinsvilie, IL 62234-(618) 346-5120

marion – 2309 W. Main St., Suite 116, Marion, IL 62959 – (618) 993-7200

printed on recycled paper

Guess What? There isn’t a single environmental group in Illinois that is going to protest it.

Archer Daniels Midland Should Lead To The Future Not Repeat The Past – Deep well injection is so last century

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

ADM just got their Permit to inject CO3 into Illinois’ soil. Why would they want to throw away the chance to produce the fuel of the future? They are so proud of it they want to spend 66 million $$$ of your money on it.

http://www.admworld.com/cgi-bin/search/naen/search.asp?Realm=Admworld_NAEN&Terms=deep%20well%20injection

ADM, MGSC and ISGS

Announce Carbon

Sequestration Project

Project to study

technology to reduce

greenhouse gas

emissions

Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) and the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) announce that they are working together on a carbon sequestration project. The project will involve the capture and storage of carbon dioxide from ADM’s ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois. In this project, carbon dioxide will be stored in the tiny spaces of porous rock deep below the Earth’s surface. This technology is one method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by permanently storing carbon dioxide in the ground rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.

The project is designed to confirm the ability of the Mount Simon Sandstone, a major regional saline-water-bearing rock formation in Illinois, to accept and store 1 million tons of carbon dioxide over a period of three years. The carbon dioxide will be provided by ADM from its Decatur, Illinois, ethanol plant, and the project will be located on ADM’s Decatur property.

“Carbon sequestration is a promising technology to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Our goal for this project is to further demonstrate its safety and effectiveness,” said Robert Finley, director of the ISGS Energy and Earth Resources Center. “Deep saline rock formations, like the Mount Simon Sandstone, offer the greatest potential for sequestration of large volumes of carbon dioxide.”

“ADM is pleased to work with the geologists from the MGSC and ISGS, and be a part of this important, timely research,” said Dennis Riddle, ADM president, Corn Processing. “We see potential for carbon sequestration to improve the environmental footprint of biofuels by further reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Yet they could be doing this instead:

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/01/02/science/975algae010109.txt

Trying to Turn San Diego into the Green Houston

Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009 | In the early 1990s, San Diego’s moribund economy was revived by a bunch of scientists who figured out how to do things like turn a mobile phone into a multi-media entertainment center and develop a diabetes therapy out of lizard spit.

Now, with the economy tanking again, another bunch of scientists is telling anyone who will listen that the region’s next economic boom might be borne out of pond scum.

Algae that is — green gold, San Diego soda.

San Diego, already home to dozens of companies involved in solar or wind energy, would be a major player in the nation’s multi-trillion-dollar energy economy if a group of local researchers succeed in turning algae into a commercially viable transportation fuel, something they think they can do within a decade.

“[It] is the scientific challenge of our generation,” said Stephen Mayfield, a cell biologist and associate dean at the Scripps Research Institute, referring to the need to cure America of its 200-billion-gallon-a-year oil addiction. “And algae is the answer.”

And a top-notch research infrastructure, a thriving biotech sector and proximity to cheap land in Imperial County, where the plant could be grown on a large scale with plenty of sun, combine to give San Diego a strong foundation for building on algae’s future.

Mayfield is one of several scientists at both Scripps institutions and the University of California, San Diego who are considered among the word’s foremost algae researchers. Other prominent names are Steve Kay, dean of the division of Biological Sciences at UCSD, and B. Gregory Mitchell, a biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Trash And What It Means To Be Human – Why do we even have garbage?

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

www.gamespot.com

Trash Talk

Much like our discussions of Burning Behavior our discussions of Trash Behavior are rooted in the past. In fact the reader could view Trash Behavior as a subset of Burning Behavior because the Fire unless perfect “throws away” effluent in the form of carbon and other particulates. This is an extreme view I do not share. I believe that Trash Behavior has its origins in the biological process of defecation.

www.time.com

What to do with feces would have been easy for early humans. Maybe they were nomadic for more reasons than following the seasons or following their food sources. Maybe they moved on to get away from their own biological waste that while fresh could create disease and pestilence but once degraded was harmless. This idea of “leaving things behind” or throwing things away may have been useful or at least harmless when there was an estimated 50,000 humans on the planet. A mere 13,000 humans in Europe alone. This habit quickly became ingrained in humans and it has spread to all of its endeavors. Much like striking a match however the act of tossing something from ones person can be easily stopped. Simply leaving something in place like not burning things up requires NO ACTION at all.

www.dvice.com

As our numbers multiplied and we abandoned our nomadic waste the behavior of using only part of what we create and throwing some things away only partially used escalating into an industry. With the creation of cities we needed someone to haul out garbage away to a centralized location and we could no longer “piss in the river” with total disregard. Still it was common in much of the developed world to throw your “slop” in the street well into the 1900’s. In the undeveloped world it still is. This attitude would not threaten the world until industry employed it to make profits in the late 1700s.

While it is true that small producer culture produced less waste it was brazen in its discharge. Hide Tanners dumped acid in rivers. Iron smelters dumped their waste behind their shops. Glass blowers and melters tossed poisonous smoke into the air. Still there were so few humans and the earth was so vast that it could handle it with very little effect. With the industrial revolution beginning with the steam engine everything changed. In a sense the concept of “disposable” was created. Things were created that would not last a lifetime or two. The idea of “passing things” down slowly but surely was eroded. This is not to pine for a long ago age when humans recycled everything they used. This is to pine for a here and now where everything and everyone is deemed valuable. That we stop throwing ourselves away. This must be said over and over. There are to many people on this planet right now. 7 BILLION people is too many. This is ultimately what humans must grapple with is Who can reproduce and how much. Until we solve that problem we are just parasites on this planets backside.

www.thelondonfog.blogspot.com

Let me be clear. Our species is in danger. We have overseen one of the largest extinction events in the history of the planet. Let us hope our own extinction is not on the horizon.

To let that be so we must change our behavior and soon. I will try to explore the different aspect of Throwing Away Behavior (TAB) in upcoming posts.

What Have Been The Top 10 Environmental Stories Over The Last Couple Of Years?

Posted on December 31, 2008 by Doug Nicodemus

Happy New Year Everyone! So how has the environment been doing lately?

Hydrokinetic Turbines Are Another Arrow In The Green Quiver – Side hung generators should be in every stream in America

Posted on December 26, 2008 by Doug Nicodemus

This starting to feel like Christmas:

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/hydrokinetic.html

Nation’s First ‘Underwater Wind Turbine’ Installed in Old Man River

By Alexis Madrigal December 22, 2008

The nation’s first commercial hydrokinetic turbine, which harnesses the power from moving water without the construction of a dam, has splashed into the waters of the Mississippi River near Hastings, Minnesota. The 35-kilowatt turbine is positioned downstream from an existing hydroelectric-plant dam and — together with another turbine to be installed soon — will increase the capacity of the plant by more than 5 percent. The numbers aren’t big, but the rig’s installation could be the start of an important trend in green energy.And that could mean more of these “wind turbines for the water” will be generating clean energy soon.“We don’t require that massive dam construction, we’re just using the natural flow of the stream,” said Mark Stover, a vice president at Hydro Green Energy, the Houston-based company leading the project. “It’s underwater windpower if you will, but we have 840 or 850 times the energy density of wind.”Hydrokinetic turbines like those produced by Hydro Green and Verdant capture the mechanical energy of the water’s flow and turn it into energy, without need for a dam. The problem for companies like Hydro Green is that their relatively low-impact turbines are forced into the same regulatory bucket as huge hydroelectric dams. The regulatory hurdles have made it difficult to actually get water flowing through projects.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has oversight of all projects that involve making power from water, and the agency has recently shown signs of easing up on this new industry. In the meantime, the first places where hydrokinetic power makes in impact could be at existing dam sites where the regulatory red tape has already been cut.

Another approach by Verdant:

http://www.verdantpower.com/

And yet another approach:

http://www.hydrovolts.com/Main%20Pages/Hydrokinetic%20Turbines.htm

State of River Energy Technology”

Jahangir Khan, Powertech Labs, British Columbia, Canada. 2006.Based on the available formal literature, the very first example of river turbine that was developed and field tested is attributed to Peter Garman. An initiative by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in 1978 resulted in the so-called Garman Turbine specifically meant for water pumping and irrigation. Within a period of four years, a total of nine prototypes were built and tested in Juba, Sudan on the White Nile totaling 15, 500 running hours. Experience gained during this venture indicated favorable technical and economical outcome. Initial designs had a floating pontoon with completely submerged vertical axis turbine, moored to a post on the bank. Later designs consisted of an inclined horizontal axis turbine with almost similar floatation and mooring system. Detailed investigation on a low cost water pumping unit indicated 7% overall efficiency and concluded with emphasis on societal and cost issues. More recent commercial ventures resulting from this work are being pursued by Thropton Energy Services, Marlec Engineering Co. Ltd. , and CADDET Center for Renewable Energy.

Community Energy Systems

Censys.org

Category Archives: gaia