September, 2009

EcoFacts — No Comments
25
Sep 09

gas=methane=fuel

Natural gas, (not to be confused with the highly refined version of oil that one gets at the gas station) is a relatively abundant fossil fuel, like coal. It provides the U.S. with about a fifth of our electricity and lots of heating fuel for homes and buildings. Burning natural gas emits about a fifth of the fossil fuel based CO2 into our atmosphere (here in the U.S., 10% of global). Methane is the primary component of natural gas and has more than 20 times the warming potential of CO2. Still, it remains a cleaner fuel, because total emissions are much lower from gas than either coal or oil per unit of energy produced, and it produces no polluting solid waste such as that of coal.

Natural gas has also been the fossil fuel used in the production of commercial fertilizers for much of the last century. It replaced manure, which also generates methane into the atmosphere, and is currently used to fertilize only 5% of U.S. farm land, the rest is amended with the commercial stuff. Manure is becoming an energy source too.

There’s a dairy in Minnesota that is powering its own operation and 70 other homes with the manure from its cows. Santa Barbara’s wastewater treatment is powered by the methane generated by its own humans.

Landfills also generate methane. Landfill and animal waste is called biomass. Capture it and it becomes a renewable fuel source. We can certainly count on us humans generating tons of it.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/technology_and_impacts/energy_technologies/how-natural-gas-works.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090904-farm-energy_2.html

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AP/AP037/AP037.pdf

Barbara Hirsch, recording engineer, eco-person

EcoFacts — No Comments
22
Sep 09

historic climate week

I hope you will forgive me for this, but the scope of events taking place this week demanded this added ecofact.

This is climate week in New York City, and the world, because of the U.N. meeting on climate change which has brought together heads of state from 100 or so countries. Today, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said “The world’s glaciers are now melting faster than human progress to protect them — and us.” Huj Jintao, President of China, and President Obama stated their commitments toward greener development, but we know this is not enough. The meeting in Copenhagen in 76 days to replace the Kyoto treaty is seen by scientists and citizens as crucial for world leaders to pledge steep changes in emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that emission levels must level off by 2015 and then drop, in order for the planet to not heat up beyond a point of no return scenario, in which catastrophes occur at a much greater rate.

Last night was the global premier, and HD broadcast in 63 countries, including over 400 theaters in the U.S. of “The Age of Stupid”, a powerful docudrama that takes place in a grim 2055, looking back in time to now, with sadness and bewilderment.

Government leaders must act, since people and industry will not all act on their own. But some of us can, beginning with conservation. One movement, 1010uk, is mobilizing people to cut 10% of their emissions in 2010. Another, tcktcktck.org is mobilizing people to effect the outcome in Copenhagen, Dec, 7, 2009. There are 50 events taking place in NYC this week.
This energy is people fueled.

http://www.climateweeknyc.org/events

http://tcktcktck.org/wakeup

http://www.1010uk.org/

http://www.ageofstupid.net/

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Barbara Hirsch

“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get
better. It’s not.”
– The Lorax, Children’s book by Dr. Seuss

EcoFacts — No Comments
18
Sep 09

Coal’s Tolls

As for coal as an energy source, it has two things going for it: 1.plentiful and 2.cheap.
Mining, hauling and burning it could supply the world with electricity, possibly for centuries.
But then if it did, we probably wouldn’t be around that long to enjoy it! After blackening the skin and lungs of miners, it goes on to foul the earth in so many other ways.

Here are a few: The U.S. and China have and burn lots of this dirtiest of fossil fuels, emitting far more
climate warming emissions than oil or gas. Methods such as mountaintop removal for mining destroy local ecosystems. Acid rain doesn’t help them. The American Lung Association estimates 23,600 premature deaths each year from power plant pollution. Huge amounts of fresh water are used in coal plants, and replaced, not fresh at all. Toxic sludge from mining taints the soil, then seeps into the groundwater. Most of the human caused mercury in our environment is from coal mining and burning.

The U.S. has over 500 coal plants. The Union of Concerned Scientists cites that in a year, one coal plant can produce:
170 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lakecan make the fish unsafe to eat.

225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion.

114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace
amounts of uranium.

49 states have issued fish advisories due to high mercury content. Creatures at the top of the food chain,
e.g. humans and dolphins, take in more of these toxins. We are clearly suffering the effects of them now.

At this time, clean coal is not realistic. Let’s hope it becomes so, really soon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=coal%20water&st=cse

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/coalfacts.cfm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0322/p01s04-wogi.html

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/Coal-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf

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Barbara Hirsch, Just Retired Recording Technician
Arts Library, UC Santa Barbara

EcoFacts — No Comments
11
Sep 09

the earth’s own heat

Geothermal energy is a renewable resource with a much lower profile than that of wind and solar, except for its figuratively high one in Iceland, that is. Icelanders derive most of their energy from this resource. Besides producing electricity with it, their plentiful hot spring water also heats their buildings and their water, rather than burning fossil or wood fuels, which otherwise generate a large percentage of global warming emissions.

The heat that exists under the earth’s crust can be harnessed in various ways to produce electricity, depending on the temperature of the water that arises or is pulled to the surface. The simplest design uses steam coming directly from the earth to drive a turbine, which then generates electricity. Other methods convert hot water into steam. For residential or building heating and cooling systems, heat pumps can transfer warm and cool air between buildings and the ground. This is because five to ten feet under ground, a constant temperature of around 50 degrees F. is maintained all year. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, these systems are more efficient than electric systems for both heating and air conditioning, and can pay for themselves in 2 to 10 years. (We even have tax credits for them!)

For large power generation facilities, areas with volcanic activity are better suited, as in the western United States. At this time, hundreds of projects are being developed in countries throughout the world. From 2007 – 2010, there is expected to be about a 35% increase in electricity generation from the earth’s heat. Also, it is estimated that many countries, especially in the developing world, have the potential in this manner to satisfy all of their electricity needs. The same power source that heats those mineral springs. . . how comforting.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/technology_and_impacts/energy_technologies/how-geothermal-energy-works.html

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/faqs.html

http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2008/update74

http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html

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Barbara Hirsch, Just Retired Recording Technician
Arts Library, UC Santa Barbara

EcoFacts — No Comments
6
Sep 09

the nuclear in the mix

Nuclear power plants provide about 15% of the world’s electricity. The U.S. makes the most of any country with its 65 operating plants and 104 reactors supplying around 20% of our electricity. These plants are all decades old, but the power they make is cheap and clean. Coal supplies just under half of our power but is responsible for close to 90% of the global warming emissions from electricity generation. Due to the urgent need to decrease these emissions and other disadvantages of relying on fossil fuels, nuclear energy is rising in stature again. An MIT report concludes that despite its many risks and costs, it should be in the mix.

Saying that nuclear power is cheap and clean is not stating a simple truth. Both adjectives recede when considering the building of new plants and the handling of the dangerous wastes the reactors produce. Questions of security, health and safety occur at all phases: with regard to the plants themselves, the people and environment surrounding them, the weapons grade plutonium waste, the transport and management thereof. If the proposed storage area in Yucca Mountain ever opened, it would not contain all the waste we have so far generated. What can be done with it?

France’s utilities derive 75% of their power from nuclear reactors, they don’t have their own supply of fossil fuels. They are reprocessing nuclear waste to get more energy from the same resources and to decrease the final amount, which is then transported to and stored in a huge concrete bunker-like facility. This storage of spent radioactive fuels is considered temporary, while the government actively funds research towards better solutions.

Here, physicists at the University of Texas in Austen are working on a method of destroying the wastes from nuclear fission using nuclear fusion. Though I know nothing about, it somehow seems appropriate.

I must say, that after researching this piece, I am grateful that simpler sources of energy are also available to us – sun, wind, water, the earth’s own heat, our own limbs….

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf01.html

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-update2009.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/05/18/18climatewire-is-the-solution-to-the-us-nuclear-waste-prob-12208.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/

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Barbara Hirsch, Just Retired Recording Technician
Arts Library, U.C. Santa Barbara