Category Archives: waste

Wasted Food Is Wasted Energy – And we waste alot

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Remember when your mom used to say, “Clean your plate. There are children in the world who are starving.”? Well now it is save the world kind of stuff. Wasting food wastes huge amounts of energy. This brief article below sums it up nicely. Please click on the authors name to see more of this authors work.

http://boingboing.net/2010/08/03/theres-more-energy-i.html

There’s more energy in wasted food than there is in the Gulf of Mexico

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:42 PM Tuesday, Aug 3, 2010

Recently, while doing some research on the carbon footprint of food, I ran across some studies that reported Americans ate, on average, 3774 calories of food each day.

Something about that smelled funny to me.

Sure, Americans eat a lot. But 3774 calories a day? I have family members who subsist almost solely off fried meat and various sorts of potatoes and I’m not convinced that even they hit that number on a regular basis. When I took my questions to the researchers, I found out that my hunch was correct. Americans aren’t, technically, eating an average of 3774 calories per day. This figure is calculated by looking at food produced, divided by the number of Americans. It assumes we’re eating all that, but, in reality, according to environmental scientist Gidon Eshel we really only eat about 2800 calories per day. That whopping 3774 includes both what we eat—and what we waste.

And what we waste—not just at home, but from the farm field, to the grocery store, to our Tupperware containers full of moldy leftovers—is a big deal.

We use a lot of energy producing, transporting, processing, storing and cooking food we don’t eat. About 2150 trillion kilojoules worth a year, according to a recent study. That’s more kilojoules than the United States could produce in biofuels. And it’s more than we already produce in all the oil and gas extracted annually from the Gulf of Mexico.

Reducing that waste requires both changes in the way we eat at home, and systematic changes that address waste at every part of the food cycle. Right now, I’ve talked to a lot of researchers who can identify the problem, but don’t have a lot of suggestions for concrete solutions. I’m sure they’re out there, though, and I’ll report back as I track them down.

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More tomorrow.

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We Waste Millions O Megawatts On Night Lighting – I have been complaining about this for 25 years

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Guess what it just gets worse every year. One year I put up the classic “night sky” compulation from the space station. It is horrid. And the excuses are myriad. One year I put up a picture of the Stratton Building in downtown Springfield. I swore 30 years ago I would live to see those lights out. Guess what? They are still on. The excuse: There are no individual shut off switches in the offices. Each floor is controlled my its main electrical panel,and the night janitors couldn’t see to do their jobs! Lighting on highways? What don’t cars have headlights? Street lightening? Gotta be able to see criminals. Put spotlights on the squad cars and get them off their dead asses. It just goes on and on and on and on. There is no off. So here is another story.

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?catid=158&storyid=132655

Federal Agency Headquarters Leave Lights On In DC

8:10 PM, Jan 25, 2011  |

WASHINGTON (WUSA) — Night after night, year after year, this nightside reporter observed lights left on in federal government buildings. So I decided to see just how much taxpayers were spending to keep empty buildings illuminated.

For several months, we kept track of the lights left on in a dozen federal buildings, including the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation and Energy always checking after 10 p.m., each on at least six occasions.

“Turn the lights off. That’s what I do anyway. That’s how I save money,” said one visitor from North Dakota.

Just how much are the federal agencies electricity bills costing you, the taxpayer? First, using the Freedom of Information Act, we requested six months of utility bills for the headquarters buildings of more than a dozen agencies. Then, we asked taxpayers to estimate the price of one month in one building.

‘Whew. $3,000 a month?” one woman estimated.

“$5,000 a month?” guessed a young man from New Jersey.

“Monthly? $5-10,000,” said a man from Virginia.

The low end is about $200,000 a month. The high end more than a million. One month’s electricity bill at the Department of Labor topped a MILLION dollars. That was a bill paid in July of last year. The month before, the department paid a bill of nearly $700,000. And utility costs of that magnitude are not unusual.

“Whoooo. That’s too much!” exclaimed a taxpayer.

“Maybe the perception is, they want to tell the American people that we’re always on,” speculated another.

The Department of Health and Human Services paid a bill last August of $799,000 for a month of service.

“Oh my God. That is per month?” was one reaction.

The Department of Commerce paid a bill last June of $794,000.

“I used to work for the federal government. I know they waste tax dollars. Do it every day,” said a man in DC.

“Turning off the lights is about the simplest way that the government can save money. There is no excuse not to do this on a regular basis,” said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste.

Most federal agencies purchase their electricity through PEPCO and Constellation New Energy of Baltimore. The buildings are large, and some appear to be making an effort to turn off their lights consistently, like the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Energy headquarters was so dark on one of our nighttime visits, we could barely see its sign.

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More next week.

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Idling Vehicles Are Costing Billions – Cops, firemen and farmers alike

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Everyone has an excuse. For Cops it is they, “gotta be ready to roll”. For small town folks who leave their cars running at the curb, “it’ll just take a minute”. For bus drivers it is the mistaken notion that, “turning it off and on is harder on it then idling”. But it is all fuelish and wasteful.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/idle_reduction.html

Idle Reduction

Idling vehicles use billions of gallons of fuel each year and emit large quantities of air pollution and greenhouse gases. Idle reduction technologies and practices are an important way to cut petroleum consumption and emissions.

Idle Reduction Basics

Photo of fleet trucks

Idling Facts

  • Medium-duty trucks use about 2.5 billion gallons of fuel to idle each year, or 6.7% of the total fuel they consume.
  • More than 650,000 long-haul heavy-duty trucks idle overnight for required rest stops at least some fraction of the time, using more than 685 million gallons of fuel per year.

Idle reduction describes technologies and practices that reduce the amount of time drivers idle their engines. Reducing idling time has many benefits, including reductions in fuel costs, emissions, and noise.

Drivers idle for a variety of reasons, such as keeping vehicles warm, operating radios, or powering equipment. Each year, U.S. passenger cars, light trucks, medium-duty trucks, and heavy-duty vehicles consume more than 6 billion gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline—without even moving. Roughly half of that fuel is wasted by passenger vehicles.

Idling can be reduced without compromising driver comfort or vehicle equipment operations. Learn about:

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More tomorrow.

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Gas Flares At Garbage Dumps – Humans just throw resources away

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In 1000s of landfills across the nation natural gas (primarily methane) is being allowed to drift into the atmosphere or worse yet “flared”. They should be at least using this to generate electricity. Like this landfill in Brevard County.

http://www.brevardcounty.us/swr/landfilltour.cfm

Your Guide to the Central Disposal Facility

click for larger image

The Central Disposal Facility (CDF) is located on Adamson Road in Cocoa. The property was first used for solid waste disposal in the 1960’s. Since then the County has continued to make improvements operationally and environmentally. For example, the 192-acre permitted landfill area is lined by a clay slurry wall, groundwater monitoring wells have been installed, and a methane gas collection and flare system is in place.

The site originally consisted of 285 acres. CDF now totals 957 acres. Portions of the landfill have been closed by capping it with a liner, two feet of cover dirt, and sod. It is estimated Brevard County will have enough landfill capacity to handle the disposal needs for the county until 2014.

In addition to the landfill area itself, there are many other areas within the landfill which emphasize waste reduction and environmental protection.

Yard waste is banned from Florida landfills but is used for daily cover material in the landfill after it’s mulched.

Tens of thousands of pounds of mulch is sent to a facility in Auburndale to be converted to Green Energy.

The mulch is available FREE to all Brevard County residents,
call (321) 633-1888 for more information.

 Mulching
click for larger image
Landfill Gas Conversion to Green Energy
click for larger image 		The gas produced by the Landfill (methane) is extracted through a vacuum system run by LES (Brevard Energy LLC) which in turn is connected to a power grid at the FP&L Facility
(Oleander Plant) and converted to Green Energy.
Anaerobic bacteria break down the garbage in the landfill which produces methane gas. These Flares were burning off the methane to reduce build-up in the landfill.

Now that the Landfill Gas Plant is up and running the Flare Station will be utilized only when necessary.

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Seems like we waste energy even when we throw it away. More tomorrow.

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Wasted Energy – Very cool blog

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I started a meditation on wasted energy last Friday by looking at all the energy we waste by “flaring” natural gas at drilling rigs. We burn more than we use. Then I got distracted by the Corps of Engineers opening the Morganza  Spillway which is a huge environmental deal. So I come back to the meditation today. I googled up the issue and this site popped up. It’s a pretty cool blog. They haven’t posted since April so I am hoping I am not hyping a dead blog.

http://wastedenergy.net/

The Palest Green

Posted by wastedenergy on April 6, 2011

Now that enough time has passed to witness what is really happening in Fukushima, I am ready to pass judgment. I notice a lot of other commentators offered their two cents up immediately, as if they could tell the full scale of the disaster from the first few hours. Not me, though. I knew something strange was afoot the instant it happened, but it’s important to keep in mind that one must always do the necessary homework before making ultimate determinations of value. Now that time has come.

The most common argument I see supposed “environmentalists” making in favor of “nuclear power” (which is a misnomer since it is actually a drain on energy over the long run) is that it is “better than coal.” “It’s carbon neutral,” they say, as if to suggest that were the only criterion that mattered, and also as if to ignore the full energy-consumptive effects of the nuclear fuel cycle from mining to ultimate disposal (it’s supposed to get disposed ultimately, right?). But the path to “clean” nuclear energy is laid with many other booby traps, and it takes an eye open to truth and closed to propaganda to catch them all.

In nature, the color yellow often means “Don’t touch me, I will hurt you.”

As I see things today, the quest for nuclear power, hailed as tomorrow’s energy source by those so obsessed with technocracy that they blind themselves to the big picture, represents better than almost any other story our civilization’s descent into madness. We have become truly power-obsessed, seeking cheap thrills today and tossing tomorrow to the winds. Let our children handle the nuclear waste, we keep saying. Well, the children have arrived, and they are ready to take the reins of power now, and we still aren’t any closer to figuring out what to do with this stuff, which keeps piling up in spent fuel pools vulnerable to release into the environment from earthquakes, volcanoes, meteor strikes, acts of sabotage, and all the other hazards that are a natural part of life on Planet Earth. So what makes today’s nuclear scientists so certain that tomorrow we will finally come up with the magic solution that will allow us to seal this stuff forever behind closed doors, especially if we continue to create even more? It’s time to stop kicking the can ever further down the road and face up to the reality we’ve created for ourselves.

Nuclear fission and radiation are natural parts of our existence. Decaying radioactive isotopes are what power the Earth’s geothermal heat, much like nuclear fusion powers radiation from the Sun. We tell ourselves there cannot be a hazard here since it is always around in one form or another. But we overdo it sometimes, and just as with oil depletion, we trick ourselves into thinking what we are doing is perfectly natural by suggesting “there’s always going to be some, so it can’t be so bad.” That is, once again, the continuum fallacy. We presume that just because we cannot draw a clear line between one phenomenon and its much larger version, that there must be no difference at all. The disaster at Fukushima, which has caused radiation levels to spike to millions of times background levels, has proven conclusively that there are real clear and ever-present dangers associated with even the most carefully operated nuclear power reactors, and the silver lining in the event is that it has brought these as well as the dangers associated with the back end of the nuclear cycle into the forefront of discussion and back into clear view. Such a perspective is necessary if we are to take an objective look at the advantages and drawbacks of our different energy options, something many players with vested political and economic interests are not particularly keen on seeing.

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Wasting my energy again tomorrow.

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We Needlessly Burn 150 Billion Cubic Meters Of Natural Gas Every Year

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That’s right. On almost every large drilling rig producing large amounts of oil there is a continuously burning flare of natural gas. This is a hold over from the days when natural gas was seen as a nuisance rather than a fuel source. BUT that was over 100 years ago. How long does it take to change the rules.

http://www.stoptheflares.org/

Stop the Flares

Together we will Stop Methane Flaring
The first and only organization working solely on the elimination of natural gas flares and venting! Stop the flares is organized to stop flaring by elevating awareness, increasing research and implementing proven solutions to get results. Stop the Flares will eliminate all flares worldwide by the 2020.

What are flares?

What is natural gas?

Why is methane flaring bad for you?

How does Flaring Methane affect the price of energy?

What could be done with the Flared Gas in Nigeria?

How can you help?

dot dot dot

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Why is methane flaring bad for you?
According to the World Bank, flares waste 150,000,000,000 cubic meters of natural gas (methane) each year. This is the equivalent to the energy in 60,000,000,000 gallons of gasoline (estimate).
Wasting fuel increases the cost of energy for everyone!

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More tomorrow.

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The Week After Earth Day – Chernobyl

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I have wanted to say some things about the situation at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant for awhile. The content you see in the Media are just so bogus. First they want to prattle on about a melt down and the chances of an explosion “like Chernobyl”.

I scream at the television, “The reactors scrammed or were off line”. Ten Mile Island and Chernobyl were both online when their catastrophes occurred. Shutting down 10 mile was their big challenge. Chernobyl was an atomic explosion that sent material 4 or 5 miles in the air. Their big challenge was preventing a China Syndrome. Fukushima was always going to be a local nonthreatening event. Dramatic – Tragic – Fool hearty but nonetheless local.

The media want to prittle prattle along about reactor types and containment vessels. They never talk about powerhouse design. Reactors do one thing they generate steam. That is it. And that is why I am opposed to nuclear power in general. There are so many simpler and safer ways to generate steam that nuclear power is a joke. Once promoted by national governments because they wanted to piggy back their nuclear weapons programs on to “local power programs”. So we will use US powerplants an example of power house design and then compare disasters.

Yes, 10 powerplants in the US use the Mark 1 reactors like what were in 4 of the reactors at Fukushima. But in the US there is “triple containment” and “plain water” steam turbine loops. That means that when 10 Mile Island malfunctioned they simply vented a bunch of radioactive steam which immediately killed about 100 people and eventually killed about 300 babies and then turned the reactor off (scrammed). The temperatures soared to 5000 degress, the fuel melted, the cooling system worked and there it sits today with a puddle of melted fuel in the bottom of the reactor vessel. That should have been the end of Nuclear Power as we know it. At Fukushima they have “double containment” powerhouses that uses radioactive water to drive their turbines. All nuclear reactors have to be shielded or sheathed  for people to be able to get close to them to operate them. So even Chernobyl had a “single” containment vessel. In Fukushima they had that and a containment pad. Actually the pad was kind of ingenious. It consists of varying layers of concrete, steel, boron and lead. This was supposed to make a China Syndrome impossible because it would self seal the waste if it tried to melt through. BUT they used that argument to actually cheapen and make more dangerous their powerhouse designs. They provided no exterior containment system and they drove their turbines with radioactive steam. Additionally they built the cooling systems on one pad and their power generation systems on a separate pad guaranteeing that the cooling systems would break in an earthquake. So yes, there were explosions at Fukushima but not at the dynamite tonnage level that happened at Chernobyl. Fukushima was like a fire cracker.

While Fukushima is a local event that was a disaster waiting to happen, Chernobyl was a momentous international disaster waiting for someone to pull the trigger. It was a graphite reactor with a single containment wall, sitting by a lake right at the water table with an inadequate cooling system. Pull the trigger they did. The point being the Media does not understand Nuclear Power any better than the public does and yet this “magic genie” produces 20% of this countries electricity. Things have gotta change.

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

Chernobyl disaster

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Changes must be reviewed before being displayed on this page.show/hide details
This article is about the 1986 nuclear plant accident in Ukraine. For more, see Chernobyl (disambiguation).
Chernobyl disaster
Chernobyl Disaster.jpg 
The nuclear reactor after the disaster. Reactor 4 (center). Turbine building (lower left). Reactor 3 (center right).
Date 26 April 1986
Time 01:23:45 (Moscow Time UTC+3)
Location Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, now Ukraine
 

Location of Chernobyl nuclear power plant

 

The abandoned city of Pripyat with Chernobyl plant in the distance

 

Radio-operated bulldozers being tested before use

 

Abandoned housing blocks in Pripyat

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine). An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western Russia and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima I nuclear incident, which is considered far less serious and has caused no direct deaths).[1] The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles, crippling the Soviet economy.[2]

The disaster began during a systems test on 26 April 1986 at reactor number four of the Chernobyl plant, which is near the town of Pripyat. There was a sudden power output surge, and when an emergency shutdown was attempted, a more extreme spike in power output occurred, which led to a reactor vessel rupture and a series of explosions. These events exposed the graphite moderator of the reactor to air, causing it to ignite.[3] The resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive smoke fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area, including Pripyat. The plume drifted over large parts of the western Soviet Union and Europe. From 1986 to 2000, 350,400 people were evacuated and resettled from the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.[4][5] According to official post-Soviet data,[6][7] about 60% of the fallout landed in Belarus.

The accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry, as well as nuclear power in general, slowing its expansion for a number of years and forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive about its procedures.[8][notes 1]

Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[9] A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. Estimates of the number of deaths potentially resulting from the accident vary enormously: the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest it could reach 4,000;[10] a Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more;[11] a Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 excess deaths occurred between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination.[12]

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More tomorrow.

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Power Plant Rewarded For Doing The Right Thing

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Povse, Nadel, and the entire press room have disappeared from my newspaper. But they still have one of their best writers left. Tim Landis wrote this article and it is pretty good.

http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x1225333763/Company-head-lauds-power-plant-upgrade

Company head lauds power plant upgrade

Posted Apr 19, 2011 @ 11:00 PM
Last update Apr 20, 2011 @ 06:25 AM
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COFFEEN — The head of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp. welcomes the creation of 400 temporary construction jobs during a major upgrade of the Coffeen Power Station.

The fact that owner Ameren Energy Resources announced this week it would upgrade a nearly 40-year-old, coal-fired boiler at the plant is even better news for the long term, Heather Hampton-Knodle said.
“They are one of our largest private employers,” Knodle said. “It’s a good sign of their ongoing commitment to that plant.”
The Coffeen facility is about 60 miles southeast of Springfield.
Even as state and national unemployment has fallen, Montgomery County joblessness has remained high. The 13.9 percent rate in February compared with 8.9 percent statewide and nationally, and 8.1 percent in Sangamon County.
Much like neighboring Macoupin County, where the February unemployment rate was 11.4 percent, Montgomery County has been hurt by job losses in manufacturing and the coal industry in the past decade.
Crews at Coffeen Power Station are replacing 14 “cyclones” used to pulverize coal for the Unit 2 boiler, said Ameren spokeswoman Susan Gallagher. She added that the 400 contract jobs are in addition to a regular work force of nearly 180.
Gallagher said the company has not put a timetable on completion of the work or how long the contract workers would be on the job.
“They are working around-the-clock, I’m told,” she said.

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More tomorrow.

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Mercury Is Good For Us – Just like the other coal pollution

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There are times when I wonder WHY is this a story? I have been leery about running articles about the environment because the state of it is so bad that any comments would be dreary. What with the Gulf Spew, Russia catching on fire and the nuclear accident in Japan, is there anything left to say? I saw this article earlier this morning and I thought, Ok this is a little different and I love Albatrosses. They are such  magnificent birds. Then I read the article and could not grasp the point of it. The headline seems pretty clear, but the body of the article seems not to support it. Read the whole thing at the site below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13121088

18 April 2011 Last updated at 17:07 ET

Feathers tell century-plus tale of mercury pollution

Richard Black By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Albatross feathers from museum specimens have allowed scientists to construct a record of mercury pollution dating back more than 100 years.

The feathers, from the black-footed albatross, contain traces of mercury that the birds picked up when they fed.

The species is endangered; and although fishing is the main cause, the team suggests mercury levels may have been high enough to impair breeding.

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team analysed feathers from 54 birds kept in museums at Harvard University and the University of Washington in Seattle, US.

The oldest samples are 120 years old.

There was no trend in overall mercury concentrations over time.

But the level of methylmercury – a toxic form of the metal, formed often by bacteria, did show a rise.

Methylmercury is easily absorbed by marine lifeforms such as small fish; and predators of those lifeforms, such as birds, can end up with big concentrations in their tissue.

It can cause developmental defects in humans, and there is evidence that it can damage reproduction in birds and fish.

“People have looked at mercury levels using museum specimens before, but mostly in the Atlantic,” said Scott Edwards, a biology professor at Harvard who also curates the university museum’s ornithology collection.

“Ours is one of the first to look at patterns in the Pacific basin; this has the largest number of seabird colonies, has the most endangered colonies, and is under severe threat from mercury emissions from Asia.”

“They’re fantastic birds, and a very tractable species to study” Scott Edwards Harvard University

About half of the mercury going into the atmosphere comes from natural sources such as volcanoes.

Of the other half, the biggest source is coal-burning, with mercury ocurring as a trace element in many coal deposits.

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More tomorrow.

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HB 14 Is Still A Bad Idea – But this is a great article

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I have many problems with this legislation. For example, if a Power Company wanted to build a powerplant would this be considered an infrastructure improvement subject to 8 1/2 month review after construction had started? It’s the “after construction has started” part that is most bothersome. To the argument about 44 other states having similar statutes, as your mother said, “Would you jump off a bridge because you saw a friend do it”? Amend that to, “Would you jump off a bridge if you saw a whole bunch of people do it”? We usually call those folks lemmings.

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=184920

Electricity legislation sparks debate

by Kate Springer
April 14, 2011

Everyone can agree on one thing: Illinois needs to update its energy grid. But the Energy Modernization Act, also known as House Bill 14, would allow  $2.6 billion worth of upgrades. It sounds like a good thing but the proposal is meeting resounding opposition from critics.

The AARP, Citizens Utility Board and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan have dubbed HB 14 a “Trojan horse” or ComEd’s “automatic rate-hike bill” in an effort to fight the legislation.

During the past three months, Commonwealth Edison Co. and Ameren Corp., a downstate utility, have been lobbying legislators to pass HB14, which would allow them to invest in “smart meters” and infrastructure upgrades over the next 10 years in return for an alternative way to set rates.

In the current system, ComEd must spend about 11 months in hearings to convince the Illinois Commerce Commission that it needs a rate increase based on wholesale electricity prices.

Most recently, ComEd petitioned the ICC for a $396-million rate hike. Ten months after its request on April 13, an ICC judge recommended a $166-million increase, or a hike of 3 percent, on the average monthly bill. That was only half of ComEd’s request. The official adjustment will be decided by the end of May.

It’s a familiar pattern and one that ComEd would prefer to avoid.

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She is a pretty good writer. And she has 2 blogs:

http://katespringerblog.blogspot.com
http://katespringerblog2.blogspot.com

More tomorrow.

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