photo via the oregonian

the field burning process was hardly popular with oregon residents. it had a long history of dirtying up the air and creating car accidents. one fire in 1988 caused a 21-car pileup resulting in seven deaths.

farmers, though, are unhappy with the legislation. burning restrictions and limitations significantly change the tactics farmers employ. according to seed-grower derek shumacher, “farmers must shorten crop rotations and work the fields more when they can’t burn.” he even claims that field burning is a healthy and “organic” process, telling the argus observer that ‘‘it reduces pests, recycles nutrients and reduces the use of pesticides.’’

their negative attitudes may be changing, however, with the proposed $25 million bioenergy park scheduled to break ground next year. according to the oregonian, “the multi-faceted facility would convert straw and other waste materials into saleable products such as ethanol, electricity,
fertilizer, compost and a compacted wood product capable of replacing
cord wood for residential heating.”

with the plant (similar to the methane migester i reported on in july) capable of powering 2,000 homes and consuming 25,000 to 50,000 tons of straw, hopes are high in the willamette valley. farmer jerry marguth told the oregonian, “if absolutely everything goes according to plan, this will be a tremendous boost for a lot of people.”

in addition to creating energy, the sale of the fertilizer created by the plant could generate several million dollars of revenue.

sadly, as with most technologies like this, the difficulty lies in getting the project off the ground. the process is proven (but only on a small scale in the us) and the numbers back it up, but the plant is expensive to build, and can’t be done without help from state legislators (who can’t provide funding until 2011). additionally, private investors want to see one plant up and running successfully before they invest in others.

anaerobic digestion is a promising technology, though. it is beneficial on multiple levels because it not only eliminates otherwise harmful waste, but it is also a source of renewable energy and revenue. though they are expensive to establish, they can be profitable and beneficial in the long-run, as farm power energy’s kevin maas can attest.

what do you think about this technology? is waste-to-energy or anaerobic digestion viable? is it detrimental to farmers, who are such an important foundation to our economy? are we costing businessmen and taxpayers money by investing in it? share your thoughts below…

environment for safe, easy disposal.”

the company, based out of whidbey island in washington state (the same place that has tidal turbines in the works), focuses on everything from contaminated mine water to air quality and stormwater runoff. xr-88 is applied to a contaminated site, which then breaks down the harmful chemicals into a safe, sludge-like substance.

the company focuses mainly on sites in the pacific northwest, including the 3,800 abandoned mine sites, the 12 million tons of coal from washington’s lone coal plant, and 14 million pounds of pollutants dumped in the puget sound annually.

the puget sound (photo from wikimedia commons)

wi environmental is expanding, though. according to a recent article in the seattle times, the company has just “signed a multi-million-dollar deal to license his environmental technology to begin cleaning up china’s heavily contaminated rivers and

soil.”

founder and president tim wandell spent five years in china, and witnessed plenty of pollution at their many factories, “all types of places are loaded with contaminants,” said wandell to the seattle times, “look out
the back side of a factory and here’s this huge mountain of the stuff.”

beyond china, wi environmental continues to move forward, announcing just last week a partnership with a company in south africa to export their xr-88 product.

is a product like xr-88 really the best and most efficient way to clean our earth and air, though? certainly avoiding pollution in the first place would be best, but we have to try out as many solutions as possible.

this technology isn’t without it’s problems, either. often environmental remediation of this kind can release many of those trapped chemicals into the air during the cleansing process, in addition to being a large and expensive undertaking.

what do you think about environmental, specifically soil remediation? how about xr-88, does it really work? is there a better way to clean up our earth and water? share your thoughts below…

this plant maintains a very important and mutually beneficial partnership with nearby dairy farmers. manure is collected from dairy farms in a pit nearby the digester.

the manure is then processed and the gas is burned to power a generator, which produces electricity.

the leftover manure is separated into liquids and solids. the liquids are sent back to the dairy farms to use as fertilizer. the solids are turned into cow bedding, which saves the farmers over $100,000 dollars in sawdust costs.

this relationship helps keep dairy farmers in western washington, an area that has already seen the industry decline.

despite the benefit to the local community and little environmental impact, anaerobic methane digesters are not a common technology. there are currently only four in the state of washington, with a fifth under construction.

constructing a digester is what maas calls a “horrible development process” that can take years. there is a lot of money that needs to be invested before construction can begin. farmers usually do not have the time or money to develop the digesters themselves, which means it is usually up to third-party developers like maas, and even then it is difficult.

maas’ plant was partially funded by grants, but still took 2 and a half years of development before it became profitable.

despite the strenuous and lengthy development process, maas believes there is a future for this technology. it is a unique technology in which nothing is lost in the process. farmers receive fertilizer and cow-bedding and the digester receives electricity to power hundreds of homes. “it’s a great deal,” says maas, “and we love doing it.”

see kevin’s pitch on the technology here: http://community.planetforward.org/video/manure-to-energy

find out more about the process and kevin’s plant at www.farmpower.com

this small-scale technology can be placed in streams where they draw energy through a small stream engine. this sort of technology certainly is not new, but this government program promoting its expansion is innovative, and most things that help offset carbon emissions tend to be positive.

as a recent article from the reno gazette-journal reports, the hydrogenerations program is already being successfully put into place on private farms. with water being more difficult to come by in nevada, the amount of energy required to irrigate farms can be large. the young brothers ranch in big smoky valley pays as much as $25,000 dollars a month in energy bills.with their hydroelectric power unit installed, they expect to save anywhere from $5,00 to $7,000 dollars monthly.

just as with any energy, hydroelectric power generated on an individual scale has a much smaller negative environmental impact. major dams can do more harm than good. they are very expensive, and they can threaten rivers and wildlife.

the diablo dam near newhalem, wa in the cascade mountains

as the wall street journal pointed out last summer, dam construction, especially in the state of washington, has been met with fierce opposition, and many dams are plauged with innefficiencies. hydro power on a smaller, more individual scale, though, might eliminate most, if not all of these issues.

what do you think about hydroelectricity? is it a viable supplement to our growing energy needs? is it environmentally acceptable on a smaller scale? should we be utilizing it more? share your thoughts below.

aside from pressing your own cider, brewing your own beer, or squeezing your own lemonade, there are not a lot of ways to create a truly carbon footprint-free beverage, so one must do all they can to cut back. an important way to do so that can have a large impact is choosing your beverage based on its container, and aluminum cans may just be the new green.

sarah benson of ink recently pointed out some of the benefits of choosing the canned option of a popular beverage, beer. the most important point? aluminum weighs twelve times less than glass, which saves in a number of ways including transportation.

oskar blues brewery in colorado is famous for offering quality, craft beer in a can.

slate.com and beeriety took the benefits of going with cans even further. in addition to being lighter, cans stack more easily, which increases their transportation and storage efficiency. slate pointed out that although creating pure aluminum takes more energy than creating pure glass, the average beer can contains 40% recycled materials versus 20-30% for the average bottle. additionally, you save 96% on average per ton of recycled aluminum verses 26% per ton of recycled glass.

there are post-production benefits to cans as well. approximately 45% of all cans are recycled compared to only 25% of bottles. aluminum from cans can be reused for a number of different things, including cars and other manufacturers, while 90% of all recycled glass goes back into bottles and similar containers. this means recycled aluminum is far more desirable. even if the bottles were refilled, they’d have to be refilled at least 20 times and travel a distance of no more than 2,600 miles to be more efficient than cans recycled at a rate of 42%.

“but glass-bottled beverages are just so much better! how will i get my perrier and craft beer?” you might say. that, though, is not entirely true. a number of high quality drinks are offered in cans, from gourmet sodas like san pellegrino to an increasingly growing number of craft beers. you can even purchase quality canned wine. brewers and manufacturers are now even able to coat and insulate cans to prevent that “metallic” flavor that consumers so often complain about. additionally, sunlight has been known to have a damaging, “skunking” effect (especially with beer). putting a beverage in a can completely eliminates this possibility.

so, the next time you head to the store, think about all the ways you can cut your carbon footprint with your beverage selections. buy locally, buy all-natural, and don’t forget to buy canned.

ethanol can be fermented from most fibrous plants, including trees and straw. the plant in boardman intends to harvest the surrounding area’s poplar population instead of the traditional and more well-known method of using corn.

according to a recent article in the seattle times, the development and production of cellulosic ethanol (ethanol from trees) has seen a sharp rise in popularity. most importantly, it allows for the production of ethanol without directly using what may otherwise be a food source (corn). the technology has seen support from both president’s bush and obama.

inside zeachem’s boardman, oregon plant

the boardman plant is not the first of it’s kind. a similar plant opened in wyoming last summer. the plant, which uses pine chips to ferment ethanol, capitalized on the $49 million dollars of stimulus dollars the obama administration allocated to the growing industry. a different plant opened even earlier in february of 2007 in louisiana.

though this new technology does avoid some of the issues that plague corn-based ethanol, it is still met with harsh criticism. first, it’s extremely expensive to construct the production plants as well as maintain their day-to-day operations. second, its production, in its current capacity, requires an enormous amount of fossil fuels – from transportation to machinery. third, though using trees to create ethanol does not directly waste a food source, it uses valuable farmland that could otherwise go towards the production of food. most importantly, an extremely large amount of ethanol would be required to make a significant dent in the current levels of fossil fuel consumption. this means building large amounts of plants, which takes even more money, uses even more farmland, and burns even more fossil fuel.

what do you think, is this new type of ethanol the way to go? does it solve most of the issues surrounding corn-based ethanol? is it worth the costs? is this going to be a key fuel for the future? share your thoughts below…

the shoplet.com blog offers a comprehensive guide to reducing your carbon footprint while at work. most of these tips – from using energy efficient lighting to cutting down on travel – are relatively straightforward. some are a little more forward thinking. for instance, shoplet suggests allowing for flexible work hours that enable more employees to carpool to work, and installing “air infiltration barriers” at loading areas.

perhaps one of the most interesting ideas is the environmental protection agency’s office carbon footprint tool. this tool allows business owners to evaluate where and how much energy they are using at the workplace, and then offers suggestions on possible energy-saving measures.

one of the simplest ways to start reducing your carbon footprint at the workplace immediately is to start using recycled paper. the seattle post-intelligencer recently reported on grays harbor paper’s “harbor 100” – a special kind of recycled paper that is 100% recycled and 375% less carbon-intensive. switching to recycled paper can have a larger impact. if an office of 20 people were to switch to recycled paper, that could have the same effect of taking 70,000 cars off the road for one year.

a ream of grays harbor paper’s “harbor 100” (from ghpaper.com)

when thinking about ways to cut back, we should focus on more than just in our homes or vehicles. the workplace, where we spend most our days, is full of things that can be made more efficient, scaled back, replaced, or removed entirely.

what have you done to reduce your carbon footprint in the workplace? has it had an effect? are you glad you did it? is this all just a waste of time? share your thoughts below…

the company has been collecting yard and food waste for some time, and according to the seattle pi, saves the city $10 in trash collection and landfill costs for every ton of waste they compost. they will draw on this already existing network of waste collection to produce methane, and then energy.

the cedar groves composting facility in everett, wa (image from seattlepi.com)

cedar grove takes in roughly 350,000 tons of waste per year, and for every 50,000 tons they collect they will generate 1.3 megawatts of electricity. their energy output is expected to increase as they begin to collect even more waste at different spots around the city.

producing methane to generate energy has become more popular at the local level. a nearby anaerobic digestion plant was announced last september in skagit county, washington. that plant generates enough electricity to power 500 homes. that plant was funded in part by both state and federal grants and loans.

using methane to generate energy is certainly one of the less discussed forms of alternative energy. yet, it seems to have multiple upsides, especially in the case of cedar grove. first, by taking yard and food waste out of the regular trash, you immediately reduce the amount that goes into landfills, and you cut the costs of trash collection. second, you use a product that would otherwise be discarded to create energy.

but, is anaerobic digestion too expensive? maybe for the costs, powering 500 homes is not enough. what are your thoughts on using methane to create energy? how “green” is the process? is it an idea we should be pursuing more? is it really not getting enough press? share your thoughts below.