Urban Ecoist

Part and parcel of being an urban ecoist is worrying about those lands outside of our urban habitat, as we understand and appreciate the importance of the wilderness and its inhabitants. That said, let’s get right into this.

Oil Shale: A Destructive Way to Put Off the Inevitable

It is not like oil shale has not been around forever, literally. Cavemen figured out how to burn oil shale rocks. It wasn’t until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution that mankind rediscovered this resource and started mining it in great quantities. That was all well and good, but oil shale was more expensive to process than petroleum, which also has more potential energy, and petrol became our fuel of choice.

Oil shale does not contain oil, per se. It contains kerogen, which contains hydrocarbons. But it’s a bit of a process to get those hydrocarbons, which means it costs more to get those hydrocarbons. And we all know what it means when a form of energy costs more than good ol’ gas or coal — it is not going to fly with the American public.

But wait, oil prices have been rising, which makes oil shale extraction more attractive to the American public in terms of cost. However, there are costs involved in oil shale that many of us might not see as part of the bottom line.

Oil shale has to be mined, and mining is almost always a very destructive process in terms of the environment in which the minable resource is found. Look at mountaintop removal-style mining in Appalachian coal deposits, and you will see what I mean.

In an odd move by the Obama Admin, in the person and department of Ken Salazar and the Interior, our federal government is going to offer our public lands to oil shale development projects. Incidentally, there are already six 160 acre parcels of public lands that have already bee “leased” out to companies for “research, development, and demonstration” purposes.

Oil shale is a great way to finish destroying the West. This is what the Powder River Basin looks like after coal.

It’s not so much that oil shale wouldn’t provide cost-effective energy, but really? Are we still looking for ways to fill up our conventional combustion engines, or are we looking past fossil fuels to a cleaner and more responsible future? I say, screw the development leases, save what’s left of the Western United States, and spend that money and time on algae, or switchgrass, or jatropha, or something that doesn’t rely on the same tired technology that is not only destroying our planet, but if you need a more selfish and individualized reason, but air pollution affects your health.

It’s like the ship is sinking, but we keep thinking that if we go to the lower decks, we’ll be safe. Dig deeper? Please.

You have less than a month to bitch to Salazar about this futile exercise in energy development. Click here if you want to go the National Wildlife Federation website and have them send a letter to the DOI for you, or you can mail your own letter to the following:

Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240

or save a tree and email the DOI at feedback@ios.doi.gov

oil shale, United States, energy, oil, fossil fuels, environment, mining, resources, wilderness, Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar, Obama

Despite my issues with coal, some climate modelers have discovered that even if no new coal plants were built from here on out, it would not make much difference in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

Great, we really are screwed…

Carnegie Mellon’s Jay Apt and Adam Newcomer took a whole bunch of climate data and broke everything down into four scenarios. The first scenario was inertia, that is keep the coal burning to meet increased needs, but with the help of the traditional energy sources we have all come to love. We’ll call this one the control scenario.

The three experimental scenarios all ban new coal plants. Scenarios Two and Three presume that energy needs will continue to increase at historical levels, as seen below in the graph from the Energy Information Administration.

And this graph is only data for the United States…

Anyhoo, Scenario Two is modeled on the premise that wind energy will replace coal in terms of new energy needs with natural gas as a complement. Scenario Three works on the premise that new needs will be met with only natural gas. Scenario Four takes the path of no increase in energy needs (as in the US finally starts using energy efficiently like Jimmy Carter told us to).

The final scenario quenches increased energy needs with wind and natural gas as well, but it assumes that U.S. residents won’t require any more energy than they do today–if, say, people become much more efficient in their energy usage; the only increase in demand would come from a growing population. The team applied the model to three main regions in the United States: the Midwest, Texas, and parts of the East Coast. –Science

Needless to say if you read today’s title, the cut backs in new coal power will not make a significant enough dent in carbon emissions to perhaps maybe possibly mitigate the worst effects of anthropogenic global warming.

In the best cases of the scenarios, carbon emissions may be cut by almost half along the East Coast of the US. However, the low end of the possible range of emission declines in that same case is only 18%. So sure, emissions could be cut by 18 to 48% along the East Coast, but many climate scientists feel that reductions must be cut by 80% in order to stave off significant climate change.

You can click on the link here to read the full set of numbers from the models.

And the ineffectual reductions are not the bad part. If coal goes out of style, and natural gas takes over as America’s energy choice, prices for natural gas could increase from 175 to 500%. Awesome.

energy, coal, power, electricity, United States, power plants, efficiency, climate change, global warming, energy usage

Ah, nuclear power. It could be the greatest thing ever, except for all that radioactivity.

March 28, 2009 is the thirtieth anniversary of the meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station a bit south and downriver of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was a partial meltdown of the second reactor that released so many curies of radioactive materials. It’s how many curies that are still a point of contention. Officially, the numbers are low and no one was hurt; but one study has shown higher incidences of cancers in the area . The higher numbers could be unrelated, maybe even higher because newer tests find it earlier, so that’s inconclusive for many people. But would it be so hard to maybe do some more studies?

A New York Times article from 1981 reported that the State of Pennsylvania concluded that the accident had no effect on infant deaths around the time of the accident, despite admitting that numbers of deaths went up in the six months following the meltdown, jumping to 1.9% from a normal 1.3%. That may not seem like a big number, but that equates to six out of one thousand babies. Nobody likes dead babies, especially when it could have been prevented.

I am not saying that perhaps the scope of the danger involved was dismissed or covered up, but I’m also not saying it wasn’t. If you look up a chart on the rise of the nuclear power industry around the world, you see a definite plateau in the number of nuke plants starting just a few years after the accident at Three Mile Island, right around the time Chernobyl happened.

And as if the accidents were not bad enough, the idea of nuclear power as “clean” power is a bit of a myth, which undercuts the whole package of nuclear power generation. You see, nuclear power creates more than just water vapor (which is actually a “greenhouse gas”). It creates all kinds of long-lasting toxic waste that you don’t want in your backyard.

But it’s ok if it’s someone else’s yard…

I’m not trying to be coy. Just saying that nuclear fission-based power is not the answer we need to power the future responsibly.

nuclear power, Three Mile Island, TMI, nuclear plant, radioactivity, waste, Chernobyl, fission, accident, meltdown, reactor

“Smart Grid” is quickly becoming a buzzword among politicians, environmentalists, and utility companies. But what exactly is a Smart Grid and how it is going to save the planet?

The “smart grid” is not a single thing, but rather a whole host of technologies that can be used to create or upgrade an electric grid using digital devices to keep track of usage and monitor peak usage as well as controlling the usage within a home or building to ensure that high-energy devices are switching on during off-peak times when possible. A smart grid may include monitors within buildings that allow users to better manage their energy usage. Smart grids will also become necessary to allow individual sources of energy, like home solar panels or geothermal systems, to upload to and feed the grid. And electric cars that you plug in at home? Yeah, those will need smart grid technology to work.

It’s not like a Smart Grid will solve all of our problems, but it may help us use energy more efficiently, and that is something that is becoming extremely important as the world’s thirst for cheap power grows. Even a small percentage of efficiency in a major city’s electrical grid means big savings in terms of carbon emissions. The US’s electricity grid was first developed and built in the early part of the 20th century, so yeah, that’s not outdated or anything.

Leave it to the Dutch to take the lead in converting the first major city to full smart grid technology. The city of Amsterdam may provide us with a useful case study on how a large city can install and benefit from a smart grid. Amsterdam is currently restructuring its energy infrastructure to be “smart” and hopes to have it all done in the next few years.

All told, the municipality, energy outfits, and private companies are expected to invest more than $1 billion over the next three years. That figure includes a $383 million investment by local electricity network operator Alliander in so-called “smart grid” technology that uses network sensors and improved domestic energy monitoring to trim electricity use. Also part of the plan: up to $255 million to be spent by local housing cooperatives on boosting household energy efficiency, and $383 million from companies including Phillips (PHG) and Dutch utility Nuon to be invested in other energy-efficient technology.

“In the next year and a half, we expect to be the leading smart city in Europe,” says Ger Baron, senior project manager at the Amsterdam Innovation Motor, a public-private joint venture that is overseeing the project. “We’re in the right place at the right time.”

The focus on cutting cities’ emissions could have a major impact on the battle against global warming. As of 2006, more people now live in urban areas than in the countryside, and the sprawl surrounding megacities such as Mumbai and Saõ Paolo is only likely to increase. Consultancy Accenture (ACN) reckons cities produce almost two-thirds of total global carbon dioxide emissions through a combination of car fumes, household energy use, and industrial manufacturing. In the coming years, policy shifts from the U.S. and elsewhere will put even more pressure on controlling carbon output.

“Until now, there’s been an underemphasis on what cities can do to cut emissions,” says Mark Spelman, Accenture’s global head of strategy. –Business Week

Global technology companies like IBM and Cisco are also getting in on Amsterdam’s plans to change the way the city uses energy. And Dutch banks are going to provide small loans to homeowners to purchase and install green improvements around the house, with the intention that the costs saved from energy efficiency will pay for the cost of the loans.

The Business Week article also mentions that Xcel Energy is working in the city of Boulder, Colorado to connect 60,000 homes to a smart grid.

Considering that in most cases, smart grids are being pushed by energy companies and that is a positive move. Whether it is just to make more money or not, moving forward in innovation is what this world needs, rather than trying to squeeze more money from the planet’s dwindling resources.

Smart Grid, electricity, energy, Amsterdam, technology, efficiency, homes, usage, solar panel, geothermal, electric car, IBM, Cisco, Xcel Energy, Boulder, Colorado

I have spent some time in the past on the issue of clean coal, both on this site and on Urban Ecoist’s sistah-site, Daily Science Dose, here and here. So it won’t come as any secret to anyone that I am skeptical of the fossil fuel industry and I like sharing my skepticism with all my smart and well-groomed readers.

I received my first update from a group called the ACCCE. At first, I had to wonder what group this was, but I sign up for newsletters from many, many organizations, so it was perfectly reasonable for me not to figure out immediately that ACCCE stands for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

The email itself doesn’t explain the acronym, but there are several handy links in the body of the message. One of which takes you to the Behind the Plug blog. Here, I’ll give you a link to it as well, it’s that awesome!

An example of pure comedy genius:

Today’s post is all about the “regrettable choice” that my home state of Michigan has made by forcing Big Coal to slow down plans to build more coal-fired power plants in the Great Lakes State.

Recently, Michigan’s Governor has taken a stand to become a “green energy” state. The auto plants have let the state down, and she is looking to the future to save her sorry state. Have you not noticed the ads on TV every now and then (I usually see them during PGA Tour events) with Jeff Daniels talking about how great it is to do business in Michigan? Michigan is hurting, economically, as it has depended on old, dirty technology for far too long.

The Clean Coal blog claims that due to the automaker’s forced re-tooling, the state will be needing a “robust supply of baseload energy.” And renewable sources “will not be sufficient to meet that growing need.” No evidence to support that claim there, but why would Big Coal lie? Here’s the best part…

Gov. Granholm also set a goal to reduce the carbon footprint associated with power generation in her state. That goal can be best met through deploying new technologies that capture and store CO2, not through mandates that would lessen Michigan’s reliance on affordable, domestic energy resources like coal – which currently provides more than 60 percent of Michigan’s power.

There are currently eight new coal plants being proposed in Michigan. Each of these projects provides an opportunity to create jobs for Michigan workers and ensure that electricity production keeps pace with the state’s projected energy needs. These plants can be retrofitted with advanced technologies to capture and store CO2. In fact, given the time necessary to permit and construct a new power plant today, it’s possible that these technologies would become available for deployment at or very near the time these new plants are put into operation.

I added the emphasis on that last sentence.

So the argument is that coal will be just fine when the new technology is installed to capture the carbon and sequester it elsewhere. BUT…that technology is not available. The writer even admits that, but he lamely offers a possibility that those new technologies may prove successful enough by the time that these new coal plants are built that the plants can be retrofitted to reduce their emissions.

This post is just an example of the greenwashing going on. I am tempted to leave a comment, just for giggles, as the comment will only appear after being approved by the author.

And let’s look at the author. He’s Joe Lucas. He’s the ACCCE’s VP of Communications. And he also helped found a group called the Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, which is one of two groups that merged to form the ACCCE. The ABEC was a lobbying group. They got their funding from guess who, the mining industry. In just the last year that ABEC operated, the group received over 3 million dollars in funding.

Huh, I guess that it is “possible” that Mr. Lucas is maybe just a little biased…

coal, clean coal, ACCCE, Americans Coalition for Clean Coal Technology, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, mining, Big Coal, carbon, Michigan, Governor Granholm, renewable, energy, automakers, technology, greenwashing, lobbyists

The controversy over biodiesel and biofuels is coming to a head, and in Germany, the biodiesel industry is feeling the effects of a government that fears increasing food prices are a result of increased ratios of biofuel in the nation’s petrol supply.  To counter the ill effects of more crops going into automobiles rather than humans, Germany has passed laws to increase the taxes on biofuels in addition to setting a lower standard for mixing biofuels into traditional fossil-based fuels.  Taxes to supposedly even out the playing field and make biofuels more prohibitively expensive, and lower standards in the mix ratio to ensure that farmers will still grow food crops. The result could be that smaller biofuel firms will have to close their doors.

The problem is that in Germany there are small firms that make biodiesel, and up until recently, those businesses were doing quite well.  Germans wanted to reduce their carbon footprint and carbon emissions, green industry was ready to jump in to provide a product and a service, and the German government thought that biofuels were going to be the next big thing that could save the planet.

But then reality sunk in. More and more crops were going to biofuel processors rather than food processors and markets. Food prices started going up, going up so much and so quickly that parts of the world saw rioting in the streets due to the increased price of rice and wheat. It’s simple economics. Even is demand were to remain steady, if the supply is reduced, prices will go up to reflect the now-increased demand. The equation is always balanced, so if supply goes down, demand goes up. Higher demand means that people will pay more for it, whether it is a luxury item or a staple.

And of course, there is the whole matter of whether or not certain crops used for biofuels actually create more carbon than the carbon emissions they may or may not be preventing. And then you have the whole issue over deforestation in certain parts of the world as more and more people are looking to plant things that can be sold to biofuel processors, like palm and soybeans.

Germany, biofuel, biodiesel, taxes, industry, food, crops, sustainable, food shortages, riots, economics, agriculture, carbon, emissions

This is interesting to me, not because Robert Redford is involved or that gas companies are funding the protesters, but because this exemplifies the contentious relationship between society and wilderness, the urban and the ecoist.

I have tried to bring to your attention to Bush’s attempt to sell off parts of the Utah wildlands to oil and gas companies — well, not sell, but lease at bargain prices, so that the oil and gas companies can make billions off of publicly owned minerals.

Why do poor New Yorkers hate Utah so much?

A group called the Congress of Racial Equality has set up camp in Utah just in time for the Sundance Film Festival in order to call out Robert Redford and his protests of the Bush Landgrab Auction. CoRE’s stance is that by protesting the sale of mineral rights for some of Utah, Robert Redford hates poor urban people.

CoRE believes that by not allowing the natural gas companies drill in Utah, prices will increase for Grandma on Social Security back in New York City. That may seem like a simplified version of the protest, but I have only broke it down into its real merits. Granted, fuel prices will rise this winter season, but not because Robert Redford is helping an environmental group urge Obama to overturn the late lame duck actions that did end up getting passed.

I am all for equality and environmental justice, but I gotta say that CoRE is off its rocker. To even surmise that Robert Redford or any opposition to drilling or mining is what is driving up fuel costs is so unbelievably wrong that it is almost laughable. CoRE would be better serving its members and those it claims to defend by protesting the oil and gas companies for making so much money off the backs of the poor. CoRE should be protesting outgoing (hallelujah and praise the lord) President[sic] Bush for allowing Big Oil, Big Gas and Big Coal from running rampant during his two ungodly long terms and make all those billions on substances that already lie beneath public lands. Not only that but CoRE should be protesting the whole system of a government that will pump so many dollars of subsidies into the fossil fuel industries so as to skew the cost of those fuels so low that no other fuel source can compete cost-wise — until those fuels start running out after causing catastrophic damage to the ecosystem.

Yeah, maybe you should look at your actions, CoRE. Is it really Redford that is using his fame to preserve Utah so he can “look at the scenery” or is it CoRE that is using Redford’s fame to push the agenda of ExxonMobil, a major funding source for CoRE’s operations?

protests, Utah, lease, mineral rights, wilderness, Robert Redford, Sundance, natural gas, festival, Congress of Racial Equality, Exxon, ExxonMobil, oil, gas, coal, mining, drilling, fossil fuels, heating costs, environmental justice

Like how I rhymed that…

I got an email from the Sierra Club today. Reading through it, I clicked on a link to a really scary report from the Environmental Integrity Project. Seems the Tennessee Valley Authority may not be all that truthful about the recent “leakage” at the Widow’s Creek Fossil Plant in Alabama.

No!! A member of the Big Coal not being truthful. I can’t…nay, I won’t believe it.

The Environmental Integrity Project went through the TRI’s (Toxic Release Inventory) of both the Kingston Fossil Plant and the Widow’s Creek Fossil Plant. TRI are just what they sound like, an inventory of all toxic (by the Environmental Protection Agency standards) substance released over the course of a year and these reportings are required by law. Of course, that doesn’t mean that some industrial entities don’t lie about their releases. That is how companies end up paying fines, if and when the EPA starts enforcing rules.

The TRIs from the Widow’s Creek coal-fired power plant tell a very different story from what the TVA said the day the leak was discovered. The TVA claimed that the dump site that leaked was simply relatively safe gypsum.

This is not Widow's Creek, but looks like the same color green.

Now to be fair, that could be true. I am not privy to the exact location of the leaking waste pond. However, I did check out the location of the Widow’s Creek plant on Google Earth, and there are quite a few holding ponds. One of which is a sickly green color that is oozing into another different green pond. Incidentally, that green pond looks like it is close to what I think is Widow’s Creek, which is harder to find since it looks like it may have been manipulated by the Plant. What is worrisome is just how closely the ponds are situated in relation to not only Widow’s creek (which looks pretty small), but also the very large Tennessee River.

But truly, the most frightening thing to me — and maybe I’m not the only one here — is the large amounts of toxic releases that are allowable by the EPA. Truly staggering numbers of both air and water releases of things like arsenic, lead, mercury. There was over a billion tons of mercury emissions coming from Widow’s Creek in four years (1998-2002).

It is no longer acceptable to ignore the considerable amount of toxic substances that we spew onto the land and into the water and the air. Widow’s Creek is not unusual and there are many, many, many facilities around the United States pumping out similar numbers of compounds that are making us sick. Widow’s Creek supplies the electricity for 650,000 homes according to the TVA’s website. No matter where you live, you are consuming power that has to come from somewhere. Find out where, and find out how dirty it is and just how close it is to your home and your child’s school. Then maybe we will start looking beyond the empty promise of clean coal[sic].

At what cost progress? And we are only going to be needing more energy…

Widows Creek, Fossil Plant, fossil fuels, emissions, toxins, toxic substances, coal, energy, electricity, Tennessee Valley Authority, Tennessee, Alabama, Stevenson, Google earth, Kingston, clean coal, schools, homes, pollution

I’ve been hearing about this for a little while now, but kind of took the “wait and see” approach before believing it. Although the company behind the billboard is Ricoh, and that is a company that has been a leader in corporate sustainability for a while now.

It’s funny, but ever since Napoleon Dynamite, it is hard for me to say Ricoh without an “uncle” in front of it.

Anyhoo, Ricoh’s eco-billboard is just about ready to roll.

What I think is neat is the vertical wind turbines. Instead of the usual blade-style turbine, you can see in the video that a vertical turbine looks like a tube with slots in it. The wind enters through the slots and into the body, spinning the turbine and thus producing electricity.

Of course, those huge billboards in Times Square need a LOT of electricity, so Ricoh added solar photovoltaic panels to augment the power-generation capacity. I am a big fan of coupling wind and solar, because usually if the sun is out, the wind is calm, and if there is little sunlight, you can count on wind.

Not only that but the Ricoh-eco-board (which is fun to say, try it) is using height to its advantage. Wind is stronger the higher up in the atmosphere you get, and most turbines need a healthy amount of wind in order to produce an optimal amount of electricity. You can see in the graph below what I mean.

If the wind gets too strong, the power graph nosedives in a typical blade-style wind turbine, but vertical turbines seem to be able to handle stronger wind speeds and convert them into power. Which is good as these vertical turbines are going to be pretty high up there in Mid-Town Manhattan.

Now, if we could just get NYC and other big cities around the world to install more vertical turbines and solar panels, maybe we could reduce the need for coal-powered electricity.

NYC, New York, Ricoh, billboard, Times Square, sustainability, renewables, electricity, coal, clean energy

This is one of those news stories you hear, and you just shake your head in disgust.

Maybe if the Coal Industry had spent all those clean coal advertising dollars on building better containment areas for the enormous amounts of toxic waste that clean coal is producing, these spills would not keep happening.

It was reported this morning that yet another TVA coal-fired plant has suffered a spill of its coal by-product. And this spill happened in a holding pond that was seriously just inspected and as of December 31st, was deemed safe.

The Tennessee Valley Authority that runs the Widow’s Creek Fossil Plant near Stevenson, Alabama has claimed that the spill is smaller than the Kingston spill in Tennessee last month. And this spill’s waste is mostly gypsum, which is a naturally occurring benign substance used in the manufacture of dry wall and cement. It can also be used to promote coagulation in tofu, adding calcium. Just in case you didn’t know that, tofu-nuts.

However, by early afternoon, the “spill” was renamed a “leak.” The TVA now says that it was a pipe that was leaking and they did not know how long it had been leaking. Hmm, shouldn’t that have been discovered during the recent inspection?

The TVA also claims that the gypsum leak did not significantly leak out into Widow’s Creek (appropriately named for its close proximity to a coal plant, if you ask me), but instead remains in the holding pond. Normally, the gypsum is held in that pond and then dried out and sold to companies that make cement.

On the same day that the leak at Widow’s Creek was discovered, another story came out that the Kingston Fossil Plant had two previous leaks that were not adequately repaired before the major coal ash spill a few days before Christmas.

That TVA sure is doing good work…More coal-fired plants, please. [super sarcasm]

coal, ash, spill, leak, gypsum, Alabama, TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, Widows Creek, Kingston, Tennessee

I have covered this topic again and again, and sadly the consequences of coal mining and coal-fired electric generation plants have come home to roost…actually 15 destroying homes in the roosting process.

Thankfully, no one was killed or seriously injured in the accident. However, the toxic effects of the coal fly ash spill are still being debated by those responsible, of course.

Here’s a great quote from a New York Times article that rehashes the debate over coal ash and its dangers.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has issued no warnings about the potential chemical dangers of the spill, saying there was as yet no evidence of toxic substances. “Most of that material is inert,” said Gilbert Francis Jr., a spokesman for the authority. “It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’s not toxic or anything.”

Oh, that “it’s not toxic or anything” is really reassuring, isn’t it? And what’s with that “most of the material”? What else is there besides the supposedly inert, non-toxic material?

Fly ash is a by-product of burning coal to produce electricity. And the same icky stuff that is found in coal is concentrated in the coal ash, so if you are worried about the heavy metals in coal, you should really be concerned about the heavy metals in coal ash.

And those heavy metals are…

and don’t forget the good ol’ radioactive substances in coal and fly ash like uranium, thorium, radium, and radon.

The biggest threat that most of the aforementioned substances pose is when they are inhaled or ingested. Almost of those substances are carcinogenic or carry other threats of developmental damage to animals and humans. Once that sludge dries, it will become air-borne dust. And obviously, it has already been introduced into the water supply.

Inert, maybe. Not toxic, hardly.

And when you add most of those heavy metals to water, it is a dangerous situation, indeed, whether you boil that water or not.

Fly ash is called fly ash because it used to be the by-product that flew off into the sky from coal-fired plants. The Clean Air Act put a stop to that, and the fly ash had to be captured by the plants. Unfortunately, there is that old law of matter not being created nor destroyed, and the fly ash had to go somewhere. Coal-fired plants simply built some earthen dams and made their own landfills. However, that was hardly the solution as whenever it rained, fly ash leached into groundwater supplies.

Another 2007 E.P.A. report said that over about a decade, 67 towns in 26 states had their groundwater contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps.

For instance, in Anne Arundel County, Md., between Baltimore and Annapolis, residential wells were polluted by heavy metals, including thallium, cadmium and arsenic, leaching from a sand-and-gravel pit where ash from a local power plant had been dumped since the mid-1990s by the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Maryland fined the company $1 million in 2007. — NY Times

I hate to keep pilfering from the NY Times, but here is a really good graphic to give you an overview of how fly ash is produced and a map of the Kingston fly ash spill. Click on the image for a bigger view and better detail.

Kingston, Tennessee, coal, ash, fly ash, spill, heavy metals, arsenic, lead, selenium, chromium, nickel, vanadium, beryllium, cadmium, barium, molybdenum, uranium, thorium, radium, radon, toxic substances, radioactive, dangers, water supply, coal mining, coal-fired plants, electricity

I want to say yes here, but it really depends on what your bio-diesel is made from.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have tested various sources of bio-diesel and have determined that the best choices for bio-diesel and ethanol production that actually reduce the net carbon released into the atmosphere is …drumroll, please…perennial grasses.

The researchers analyzed published estimates of changes in soil organic carbon in landscapes converted from natural or agricultural land to biofuel crops.

They focused on corn, sugar cane, Miscanthus, switchgrass and native prairie grasses. They also evaluated the impact of harvesting and using corn stover (the plant debris left over after corn is harvested) as a cellulosic biofuel source.

Their analysis showed that converting native land (grassland or forest) to sugarcane dramatically reduced soil carbon, creating a carbon deficit that would take decades to repay. While perennial grasses add carbon to the soil each year, DeLucia said, it could take up to a century for the sugar cane to rebuild soil carbon to former levels on native land.

Harvesting the corn residue for cellulosic ethanol production also reduced the carbon in the soil. The more plant residue was removed, the more the soil carbon declined.

Planting perennial grasses on existing agricultural lands had the most beneficial effect on soil carbon, the researchers found. –SPX via Biofuel Daily

Maybe you have and maybe you have not heard that corn-based ethanol is not the wisest choice for biofuels. First, you have the issue that 20% of American-grown corn is being diverted into ethanol production, and that is corn that is not being consumed as food, by Americans or anyone for that matter. Most ethanol is produced from corn kernels, so it’s not like this is waste plant matter that would be tossed or composted anyway. No, this is food stuff that no one is eating, which means if there is less corn in the supply side of the economic equation, the price of corn has gone up. With the price of corn rising, more and more farmers (yes, especially the big corporate farms) are planting corn.

With more corn going into the limited amount of arable farmland available to the US, that means less of everything else being planted. So, we now have an issue with other food crops supplies decreasing — pushing up the prices of well, everything. Have you noticed the cost of a loaf of bread lately? Less wheat is being planted and the decreased supply leads to increased prices, even if demand were to remain steady.. which it won’t as more and more people join us on this wacky blue marble in space.

So, what kind of biofuels are okay, for all us urban ecoists that want to help the planet, live lightly, be kind and rewind our consumption practices, etc? The latest study, that is going to be published in next month’s Global Change Biology Bioenergy journal (try saying that three times fast), details that every time the Earth is plowed or dug up, that action releases carbon. Soil acts as a carbon sink, and that carbon is what makes soil good for crops. Plants really, um, dig carbon dioxide, remember?

Hmm, what “crop” needs no plowing, or at least not yearly plowing? Perennial prairie grasses. The grasses grow during the growing season, can be cut or harvested at the end of that season, and the plants spend the winter dormant, and then grow again the next season. No plowing, no seeding, and little to no fertilizer required.

How ironic that so many farmers spent years and years and years plowing under the native prairie grasses of the Great Plains, only to find that those perennial grasses just may save the US transportation fleet one day…

bio-diesel, University of Illinois, biodiesel, biofuel, biofuels, corn, ethanol, perennial grasses, prairie grasses, carbon, carbon dioxide, crops, farms, farming, wheat, prices, food supply, carbon sink, plowing

George Bush is not going quietly into that good night, indeed. I warned before of the sneaky lame duck tactics of our dear, soon-to-be-departed-but-not-forgotten Dubya. And once again, I ask you to continue your good work of bitching at the appropriate people when needed, although it had no effect on the recent EPA’s repeal of the Stream Buffer Zone.

Now, the Bureau of Land Management is holding an auction, and wilderness lands in Utah’s Red Rock Wilderness are up for grabs for all the oil and gas mining you can shake a dollar at.

According to a recent press release from the BLM (a sub-agency within the Department of the Interior), the BLM is forced by law to hold such auctions every quarter. However, in that same law, the BLM is also entrusted with safeguarding “special and unique non-energy resources”.

Ah, the great debate that we will be facing more and more in the coming century. What pristine wilderness is worth saving when there is oil in that there ground?

I could go on and on about how we should save these wild lands from industrialized rape, but then I am typing on a laptop that uses electricity. I could point out that most of the energy that I am consuming right now comes from the Bonneville Dam, but then I have to apologize for the salmon hurt by dams. I am in a Catch-22 right now, but I still think that some areas should be preserved no matter what. Even if I have no gas to go the candle store to buy candles since I don’t have electricity, I don’t care. Some areas should not be touched, and maybe we should figure out a better way to support our energy habit and get off the junk.

But this is the United States, and for some reason, our industry is only looking for a quick buck and our politicians only look for quick fixes.

Vast swatches of the Utah Redrock Wilderness are coming up for sale December 19th. Many of those areas are in lands that are very, very close to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks as well as Dinosaur National Monument. This auction was initially announced on Election Day; the thinking being that with the whole nation focused elsewhere, maybe nobody would notice. That didn’t work. Under pressure from environmental groups, the BLM recently took nearly 100,000 acres off the auction block. Oh, but wait, the BLM took off the canyon floors but not the canyons’ sides.

Sorry, couldn't find a still from that scene, so I used this one.

You can bitch about this to the Bureau of Land Management, but they are hardly concerned with what you think. You can bitch about it to the Obama Transition Team, but they may not be able to do anything either. You can send letters and emails and phone calls to your Representative and your Senators. You should probably do all of the above. Sometimes complaining gets things done. Let’s hope this is one of those times.

An easy way to hit all of those people is to check out the Natural Resources Defense Council’s campaign website by clicking here. All you have to do is fill out your name and address and voila, you are protesting. I love internet activism.

A mine is a terrible waste.

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Ah, snap. I have mentioned this Lame Duck Bush Federal Fire Sale in the past, and how I fear it, and how we should all be scared about what kind of damage Dubya will do as a final “smell ya later” to the country he and his friends have looted.

And today, I get news that the Environmental Plunder Protection Agency has repealed the 1983 Stream Buffer Zone regulation that has tried to save rivers and streams and the valley floors they flow through. I worried about this happening.

You see, since 1983, there has been a little rule that prohibited mining operations from mining or dumping their waste anywhere within 100 feet of a stream. Now, personally, I think that is fairly lenient, I mean, one hundred feet? That is it. I can hit a golf ball that far with a lob wedge and about a quarter of a swing. No matter how little a buffer one hundred feet gives, it was all we had — until now.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is easing the way for coal companies to dump debris from mountaintop mining into nearby valleys and streams in a move deplored by environmental and Appalachian citizens’ groups.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved the repeal of a 1983 law that prohibited surface coal mining within 100 feet of flowing streams. Most U.S. surface coal mining is done in the steep mountains of Appalachia, across Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

EPA’s approval was the last hurdle for a proposal that originated at the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining. The rule goes into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, which has not yet occurred.

This will allow more mountaintop-removal mining, where coal is mined by blasting off the tops of mountains and the crumbled mountaintop debris is pushed into adjoining valleys, environmental groups said in a statement.

“The EPA’s own scientists have concluded that dumping mining waste into streams devastates downstream water quality,” said Ed Hopkins of the Sierra Club. “By signing off on a rule to eliminate a critical safeguard for streams, the EPA has abdicated its responsibility and left the local communities that depend on these waters at risk.”

Some 126 million tons of coal came from U.S. mountaintop mining in 2007, accounting for 10 percent of U.S. coal production, said Carol Raulston of the National Mining Association.

Raulston disputed the environmentalists’ charges, saying the new rule was “merely a clarification of what is required in order to conduct any type of mining activity.”

Mountaintop mining is safer for miners than underground mining, but its ecological impact has drawn fire from local communities and environmental activists.

More than 400 mountaintops have been stripped of trees and flattened, 1,200 miles of mountain streams have been buried under mining debris since mountaintop mining began in earnest, the groups said in a statement after EPA approved the rule.

“The EPA’s decision is a slap in the face of Appalachian communities, which have already endured enough injustice from mountaintop removal,” said Vernon Haltom of West Virginia-based Coal River Mountain Watch. “My home and thousands of others are now in greater jeopardy.”

The U.S. environment agency said in a statement that it worked closely with the Office of Surface Mining to “enhance environmental protections in the final rule, including requirements that no mining activities may occur in or near streams that would violate federal or state water quality standards.”–Reuters via Planet Ark

I love the Carol Raulston quote. “Merely a clarification” to allow more destructive mining on more mountains is what I think she left out.

Again, my urban ecoists, you may ask what exactly do mountains have to do with urban ecology? My first reaction to that question is to make fun of you for asking, as you must be clueless about how the wilderness and the city are intertwined and it is mining that supports our cities with coal-powered electricity, but then I would remember that I made a New Year’s resolution to be nicer. (I know it is only December 4th, but I like to practice my resolution so that once 2009 comes around, I am ready to rock). And hi, cities, both large and small, get water from rivers and streams, that are fed with other rivers and streams. Think interconnected.

But seriously, we city-slickers should be a little more concerned about where our electricity comes from. You can spout off all you want about wind and solar, but guess what, if you live in the US, you are getting the warming glow of your computer screen from coal — at least 57% of that glow.

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Ah, traffic. It really is the worst thing about city-living, and more and more cities across the globe are following the American model of individual vehicles for each driver. Our freeways are congested, and commute times rival the time you’d spend watching a sports game. If you have ever driven during rush hour on the interstate system in Atlanta, LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Tampa, Miami…you know what I am talking about. Well, more and more global urban centers are starting to see what I am talking about.

Location: Beijing, China — we all heard that some draconian driving laws started a little before the Olympic Spectacle began. Recent reports from China are detailing the utter confusion that most Beijing drivers are feeling with some of the new laws and their post-Olympic variants. It seems that back in July, Beijing made alternate-day driving a rule for two months…

Beijing launched new driving restrictions on Sunday [July 20] that will ban more than a million cars from its streets in a bid to rein in the city’s notorious air pollution and traffic for next month’s Olympics.

Traffic on the capital’s normally bustling streets was noticeably light on Sunday, even for a weekend, amid the new rules that will ban cars with odd- and even-numbered licence plates from the roads on alternate days for two months.–France 24/AFP

…and it was good.

Many in China seemed to approve, taking to the Internet to mostly praise the measures, which in the end produced bluer skies and generally smoother traffic flows. A survey of 5,058 people by the New Beijing News last month showed 68.9 percent supported the traffic controls based on odd- and even-numbered license plates, 19 percent objected to them and 12.1 percent had no opinion. Asked what they would do if the restrictions were to continue, 18 percent of interviewees said they would buy another car.

“Recently, it takes me nearly twice as long to commute than it did during the Olympics,” said Zhang Fengyan, 30, an appliance salesman. “The difference is too big. I’d love it if they can make this rule permanent.” –Washington Post Oct. 2

However, it seems that the more severe alternate day driving was easier to understand for most people. The one car-less day a week is further complicated when the day changes.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing car owners, many apparently puzzled by no-driving days designated by the last digit of their license numbers, now face revised rules which threaten even greater confusion.

The no-car days, introduced on Oct 11 to reduce gridlock and pollution, have apparently left so many drivers scratching their heads that one Beijing newspaper runs front-page notices each day to remind drivers which weekday they aren’t allowed to drive. –via ENN

I guess this week, the day you could not drive was moved back a day, and it threatening to destroy the whole system. Ok, I made that destroy thing up, but it is a little confusing when the days change on you, kind of like when your trash/recycling pick-up day is if it’s a holiday week.

Unfortunately, Beijing is only an example and a beginning to bigger headaches when it comes to transportation and its infrastructure and all of those darn cars polluting our skies. Think about it. Beijing has 3 million cars for its 17 million residents. That is one car per 5.6 people. In the whole of the United States, we have 250 million cars/trucks per 305 million people. So that is one car per 1.2 people. Think what Beijing would be like if it’s car ownership rate were the same as the United States.

Wait. Is it fair that I would compare Beijing to the whole of America and its multiple car households, instead of comparing Beijing’s numbers with another major urban center, such as New York City. It seems that Beijing is more like New York, if you look at these numbers.

From the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, in 2007, there were 1,738,970 registered personal vehicles in the whole NYC area. The population of the area is approximately 8,250,000 as of 2006. That’s about 0.2 cars per person in NYC. Beijing is 0.17, so it’s not far off from the US’s largest metropolis. The real problem is that Beijing is adding 1,000 new vehicles a day — if you figure 365,000 new cars a year, that represents a 12% increase. That 12% means that Beijing’s number of cars will double in less than seven years.

If I haven’t advocated it enough, this world really, really needs to figure out mass public transportation. It’s not so much that it is not available in some cities, it is that it’s seemingly ineffective. People don’t want to spend an hour on a bus or a train if they can drive themselves in their car in twenty minutes. Or what on a good traffic day is twenty minutes. More cars will mean more roads, more delays, and despite our best efforts at switching over to fuel-efficient vehicles and even electric cars, if we don’t cut the overall number of vehicles, we are all screwed.

Get a bike. Avoid suburbs.

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