I'm Seeing Green

Clean Coal is an Oxymoron

Both Clinton and Obama have come out for carbon-tax initiatives to counteract global warming effects; both have proposed implementing policies that would cut such emissions by 80% by 2050 over 1990 levels. In general, an environmentally conscious person would have no problems with the stance of either of these two candidates.

But when it comes to specifics, expediency rules...as this from ENN shows:

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are talking more about "clean coal" and less about global warming as they woo voters in West Virginia and Kentucky -- two states that sit at the heart of the nation's coal economy.

In a bid to draw voters ahead of Democratic primaries in West Virginia on Tuesday and Kentucky on May 20, both candidates are playing up the ascendant role of commercially untested and so far economically nonviable ways of converting America's plentiful coal supplies into electricity without spewing massive quantities of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

"There is no such animal as clean coal," said Brent Blackwelder, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. "We shouldn't be placing our bets on coal to bail us out. We need to be looking at getting rid of coal plants."

The problems faced with creating a "clean coal" burner are shown in this story of failure from Australian Business:

What was touted as Australia's biggest contribution to developing clean coal technology for use around the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been scrapped even before it got to first base. BP confirmed yesterday the $2 billion "hydrogen energy" coal-to-gas plant at Kwinana, south of Perth, would not proceed. The plant was to have been constructed by Hydrogen Energy, a joint venture between BP and Rio Tinto, and was designed to burn coal, converting it into water, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. 

The hydrogen was intended to be used as fuel for a 500MW power plant supplying electricity for 500,000 homes, while the CO2 was slated to be buried in geological strata between Fremantle and Rottnest Island, Perth's holiday playground. The proposed onshore site was close to BP Kwinana oil refinery and Rio's HISmelt direct iron ore smelting plant.

Back home, similar problems have caused "at least eight clean coal plants, more than a third of those on the drawing board, [to] have been canceled, delayed or rejected by regulators this year. Developers cite soaring construction costs, technology hurdles and uncertainty about regulation of greenhouse gases." from  a story in USA Today.

Coal burning plants are considered responsible for over 20,000 deaths every year in the US, and no environmental group seems to believe in the concept of "clean coal."

For other effects of coal mining, see here.

Bloggers Galore

The Brooklyn Blogfest is growing...in its third year, it's attracted over 250 participants to the Brooklyn Lyceum on Thursday night. Last year, when it was at the Old Stone House, the smaller venue was a standing-room only crowd; the Lyceum is a much more enjoyable space. Kudos to organizer Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn (OTBKB.) More party than conference, the beer, food, and company were quite enjoyable.

It's most interesting that blogging, an activity that is perhaps less than ten years old, can attract so many people. Looking at the range of blogs available, it's quite astounding that so many can spend so much time...and produce widely different results, from the mundane through the profane to the sublime. It's certainly time-consuming, as I can attest to, and I am hardly a prolific blogger. The most popular local blogs are still run by one person (sometimes two,) and posting several entries a day  must amount to an almost full-time job.

So why do it?

Place-blogs...which relate to a specific area or environment, are the most easily understandable, and most like a journal. Personal blogs are entirely a matter of taste, and your acceptance is dependent on how much you relate to the writer. Most are pretty lame and pointless, but then, it's like publishing your dairy...how interesting is most people's daily grind? And issue-oriented blogs may do a good job of disseminating esoteric or little-known information.

Several of the speakers talked about the "community" aspects of blogging. It's ironic that, using a purely solitary activity, the communitarian nature of the activity is considered so much a plus. But then, to anyone who has read Robert Putnam's  Bowling Alone, that seminal tract on how life in these United States of America has become steadily less civic-minded, should realize, we are less connected and more isolated. The community that blogging engenders is one way, and no doubt a good way, of connecting with people, but it is shallow and ephemeral as any community based primarily on an activity is bound to be...stop blogging and where goes your community? Real community is so much more, and so much more difficult to achieve. In a society that values its wide-screen TVs more than its environment, it's doubly hard to find.

And so we blog on (myself included.) There is of course the sheer egotism involved (which no one actually admits to,) the pleasure of seeing your written words or your photos "published," even if only the spider-engines may take notice of them. I was interviewed briefly by a television station and, enjoyable as the experience may have been (I don't expect to see myself on the segment,) it was hard to answer entirely truthfully about "why I blog" (and harder as to "what do you think your readership is?")

Maybe the best answer is, to paraphrase an old saw, "because I can."

An Airship in Your Future?

This post by Monbiot reminds me of that time, long ago, when I picked up a book by John McPhee called The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, about a rag-tag group of ex-Navy types who were designing the air transport of the future...an ovoid airship which had the advantage of having "lift," so was more aerodynamic and faster than a simple blimp like the GoodYear one you see everywhere.

I thought this book was fiction and read almost half of it before I happened to read the back-cover blurb, which corrected me. It was real. A more unlikely story you might not read anywhere, and of course, it's told in McPhee's scintillating signature style.

Monbiot may not be quite as visionary as the group who developed the Aeron (the Deltoid Pumpkin Seed,) which was finally abandoned after decades of trial.... or not quite; in fact the story did not end there for William Miller, now 79, the president of Princeton, New Jersey-based Aeron. He's still trying to convince the US government to continue funding of the project [image from Aeron website].

Monbiot thinks he has the answer to the problems of normal aircraft being major polluters and greenhouse-gas emitters.

From his article(emphasis added:)

There are two reasons why we make such a fuss about flying. The first is that, even as governments promise to cut emissions, everywhere airports are expanding. In the UK, the government expects the number of airline passengers to rise from 228 million in 2005 to 480 million in 2030. Before long, there will scarcely be a patch of sky without a jet in it. The other is that there are no alternative means of propelling people through the air which are not more destructive than burning ordinary aviation fuel. Or so we think.

The airline companies prescribe two cures that are even worse than the disease. Even before they are deployed commercially in jets, biofuels are spreading hunger and deforestation. At first sight, hydrogen seems more promising. If it is produced by electrolysis using renewable electricity, it's almost carbon free. The prohibitive issue is storage. Hydrogen contains just a quarter of the energy as the same volume of jet fuel (kerosene), which means that planes could fly long distances only if they were filled with gas, rather than passengers or cargo.

Even when burning fossil fuels, the total climate-changing impact of an airship, according to researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is 80% to 90% smaller than that of ordinary aircraft. But the airship is also the only form of transport that can easily store hydrogen: you could inflate a hydrogen bladder inside the helium balloon. There might be a neat synergy here: one of the problems with airships is that they become lighter, and therefore harder to control, as the fuel is consumed. In this case they become heavier. Michael Stewart of the company World SkyCat suggests burning both gaseous and liquid hydrogen to keep the weight of the craft constant.

Modern airships, by the way, are considerably safer than the infamous hydrogen-fueled Hindenberg. Monbiot notes that "Most of the new designs make use of aerodynamic lift as well as buoyancy (they are shaped like fat planes with stubby wings or tails), which means they are heavier and more stable than the old dirigibles and can land without help on the ground."...shades of the Aeron!

State of the GreenWash

Just what you were waiting for to make your life Greener

Hasbro, the owners of the most popular game board ever, Monopoly, is going green! On Earth day last week, they announced a version of Monopoly, Here and Now, with replaces the utilities in the normal game with Wind Energy and Solar Energy...eh? you are not impressed? Why, this incitement to buy a new version of the game that no doubt you already have will revitalize global commerce, reduce global warming and, no doubt, improve your sex life. And if you believe that, I have a bridge in my backyard for sale.

Sad news, your last chance to buy one of these-- via AutoBlog Green

The 3-wheeled Bajaj Motors rickshaw, ubiquitous in India and other Asian countries, has been taken off the market in the US (who knew it was on the market?) Though super-energy efficient (supposedly at 65mpg but that's with a 2-stroke engine which spews oil fumes,) its manual transmission was cited as the major reason "it didn't sell well," but perhaps discerning critics may find a few others, such as "who in their right minds would want to drive that thing in the US?" and "what happens when it rains (in India they have drop down flaps, inexplicably not shown in the photo)" [image via AutoBlogl]

Light up your Gym

The total ignorance of so many (blog and otherwise) writers (among them: Environmental News enn.com) was exposed when this ridiculous device was given wide-spread publicity: a gravity-powered light, the Garvia. It even got a Greener Gadgets award!

Supposedly you raised the weights to the top of the lamp (manually) and the falling weight would provide 40w equivalent of light for four hours. Even my 10-year-old son might have had enough physics knowledge to know this was completely stupid.

As it turns out, a simple energy calculation shows that it might, if the weights were 20lb, produce approximately 1/100th of a watt. Not even enough for that sparkle in your eye.

So what does it say that hundreds of endorsements of this perpetual-motion-machine-like gadget are still in existence? Some writers have added corrections pointing out the impossibility of the claim, but nobody, to my knowledge, has condemned the originator, who recently graduated from Virginia Tech with a Master's degree in engineering, for being deceitful.

Looks good though, might make a good paperweight.

Brooklyn Events

Atlantic Yards Rally - from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:

If you only go to one major Atlantic Yards rally...this is the one:
A major community rally will be held Saturday, May 3, 2pm at 752 Pacific Street. The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Brooklyn Speaks, and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn will join with community leaders and elected officials in calling for a freeze on all Atlantic Yards activities. The three sponsoring organizations represent thousands of New Yorkers that have had differing perspectives on issues raised by the Atlantic Yards proposal, but all agree that the current state of affairs is intolerable.

The following elected officials have confirmed attendance: NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery, NYS Assemblywoman Joan Millman, NYS Assemblyman Jim Brennan, NYS Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, NYC Councilwoman Letitia James, NYC Councilman Bill Deblasio, NYC Councilman David Yassky, NYC Councilman Tony Avella.

 
A GreenWalk of Downtown Brooklyn and Dumbo:

Join us on Thursday, May 1, from 12:30-2:30 for a walking tour led by students of New York City College of Technology of Downtown Brooklyn and DUMBO. The tour will explore selected urban environmental challenges and sustainable solutions currently being implemented in these two neighborhoods. Developed by students in five different disciplines — chemistry, English, graphic design, hospitality management and physics — the tour will offer a range of perspectives on environmental concerns. Issues considered will include global warming, the tendency for cities to be warmer than outlying areas (the "Urban Heat Island Effect"), garbage and power generation, while solutions will include recycling and composting, bio-fuel use, green building techniques, absorption of CO2 by trees and local food consumption.

Fifth Annual Brooklyn Peace Fair Sat. April 26, 11 am to 6 pm

Location: Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
Flatbush & DeKalb Avenue, downtown Brooklyn

Speakers. presenters, and performers include:
Debbie Almontaser, Eric Adams, Major Owens;  Amanda Diva & Friends, Abiodun (Last Poets), Aja Monet (Def Poet), Dragons of Zynth, Invincible (Anomolies), Mental Notes, Queen God!s, Ra Hendrix, Remi Kanazi, Stephanie Rooker, Raging Grannies & their Daughters, Dance 4 Peace, & More!

 

Beyond Plastics

The town of Modbury, Devon, UK will have a permanent place in the pantheon of environmentalism. It was the first to ban the use of plastic bags in retail, a year ago Apr 10, 2007.

The official replacement is a bag made from cornstarch as shown from the supplier's website:

From the Guradian [image by Graham Turner]

...Modbury is an unlikely spot for a revolution. Nestled on the South Hams coast, 17 miles east of Plymouth, it is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of place. With a population of around 1,600, it is the kind of community that considers you a newcomer unless you have several generations of family buried in the grounds of the local church. "It's fiercely rural and fiercely Devon," says Rebecca Hosking, wildlife documentary-maker and arguably Modbury's most - perhaps only - famous resident.

This time last year no one had heard of either Hosking or Modbury, but both have become synonymous worldwide with one thing: plastic bags. On May Day last year, the unassuming town rather grandly announced that it would be the first community in Europe to become "plastic shopping bag-free". Hosking, the leading force behind the ban, was horrified by the marine pollution she had seen while filming in the Pacific ocean. After seeing her film, local traders implemented a self-imposed ban on plastic carriers. Within a fortnight the whole town was behind the project.

Twelve months on, townsfolk are keen to paint the scheme as 100% successful. Request a plastic bag these days in Modbury and you will be asked politely if you really need one, and if you absolutely do, you will be charged 5p for a corn-starch alternative. The Co-op also sells string "turtle" bags and for around £3 you can pick up a specially designed canvas Modbury "bag for life" (ethically produced, of course).

But the good news is that the townspeople have gone far beyond just eschewing plastic bags. They have worked on all plastic packaging as well, replacing it with corn-starch cellophane or biodegradable cartons. And are replacing plastic water bottles with glass.

The comment that stands out is that the "few  (grocery) items that are still wrapped in plastic, such as grapes, salad bags and cucumbers, look out of place and unappetising because of it."

All-Purpose Greed?

Sriram Khé will never run for public office, or if he does, it's doubtful that he can win any office above that of dogcatcher...he's too honest. In this excellent article from Planetizen entitled "The United States of Gordon Gekkos?," Dr.Khé ends with this memorable quote:

"Oh well! I suppose that unlike the famous movie line, "love means never having to say you’re sorry", greed, which is a necessary evil in the economic system, means that we often do say sorry—a lot.

Dr  Khé teaches at Western Oregon University, where his rating on RateMyProfessor includes the comment "cool accent," which may or may not be relevant in his capacity as teacher. However, the article speaks for itself, and tells it like it is. It takes its title from Gordon Gekko, the unrestrainedly greedy (but still fictional) character from the 1987 movie Wall Street, and his famous words "The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed—for lack of a better word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works." Words that might be uttered by many a real-life banker, CEO or other financial master-of-the-Universe-wannabe. And certainly thought well of by many.

What makes  Khé's words memorable is that he is attributing greed not only to those in charge of the disastrous loans that have caused the mortgage crisis. He implies that greed is pervasive, and, in a parody of the conservative mantra of trickle-down, has done so to the average Joe. This is not a point of view that is widely espoused...not many examine the motivation of people who signed up for a free lunch in the form of too-good-to-be-true mortgages. He says:

It is simply amazing how much of an appetite American consumers have. In an earlier op-ed, I wrote about the paradoxical and simultaneous growth in the size of homes and the public storage industry. I referred to a report from the National Association of Home Builders, which showed that new homes in 1970 had a median finished area of 1,385 square feet. The report shows that by 2005 this had increased to 2,227 square feet. Think about all the additional stuff—from area rugs to sofas to gadgets—that will be needed to fill all this space.

It is not as if Americans are having many more children than before and, therefore, need all that additional space. Au contraire! At the same time, the consumption of extra living space is increasing, the average family size has been decreasing.

The frenzy may, however have ended. From the Atlantic's article that McMansion suburbs may become the "next slums," to the Wall Street Journal's article which notes that "McMansion may be shrinking," downsizing is the new Black. Or maybe it will result in the new Green.

But lost in all this is real tragedy of so many "folks" (to use the charming rubric that Mr. Bush so over-uses,) have really been hurt by this  situation. And, while the folks may have been greedy, they have been taught well by their masters, who are greedier still, and still greedy.

What Do You Want To Pay For Gas?

The possibility of raising the  federal gas tax, which is between 23c (Alaska) and 67c (California) is remote in these days when gas prices have risen in some places to $4/gallon.

So why raise it beyond that? You might think it akin to beating a man when he's down. But that's precisely what Lester brown of the Earth Policy Institute believes, in the policy paper somewhat naively entitled "An exciting new option." He thinks "tax shifting,"...reducing income taxes while increasing consumption taxes, is the way to go. While economists may think this is a great idea, perhaps the gas tax should not be accompanied by such a reduction, and the additonal revenues dedicated to improving mass transit and trains. We can dream.

An interesting statistic from the paper: The average U.S. gas tax of 47¢ per gallon,scarcely one tenth that in Europe, helps explain why more gasoline is used in the United States than in the next 20 countries
combined

Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-chair of the Set America Free Coalition, in this article on our oil dependence last week  in the Miami Herald, says that the real price of gas per gallon is more than double what one pays at the pump. It is over $11/gallon, when the "externalities" or side-effect costs of using gas in vehicles is included.

But the real economic impact of oil dependence is hidden to most Americans. Energy economist Milton Copulos (who passed away this month) calculated last year that the grand total of all external costs associated with foreign oil dependence -- including the cost of oil-related defense expenditures, amortized cost of supply disruptions, and lost economic activity and tax revenues -- stands at $825 billion per year.

To put the figure in perspective, this is equivalent to adding $8.35 to the price of a gallon of gasoline refined from Persian Gulf. The United States is essentially facing a terrible choice between a financial meltdown and a metastasizing sovereignty loss, political decline and eventual enslavement to OPEC and its whims.

Darn! Can't Patent Bre'r Rabbit!

if the thought of big business (or for that matter, little business or just anybody,) being able to patent life forms depresses you, here's a small bit of cheer via the International Center for Technology Assessment. While patents have been granted for plants, bacteria and other low-level life forms, this is a step in the right direction.

Not to mention the inhumanity of creating animals with deliberately damaged organs.

Advocacy groups claim another major victory against animal patents. In response to a legal challenge brought by the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS), the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation (ARDF), and the PatentWatch project of the International Center for Technology Assessment last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) decided to reject, in its entirety, patent number 6,924,413, granted for rabbits and other animals whose eyes have been purposefully damaged.

“The fact that we’re successfully overturning these animal patents brings into question just how valid or legal any animal patent really is,” said Andy Kimbrell of PatentWatch. “The more these patents come under scrutiny, the more we see that animal patents are indefensible.”

In their challenge, the groups argue that animals should not be considered patentable subject matter because they are complex, sentient beings, not inanimate objects like toasters, toothbrushes, and toilet seats. More than 660 patents have been issued on animals since the USPTO granted its first animal patent in 1987.“Animals are not machines or articles of manufacture,” said Sue Leary, President of ARDF.

“The Patent Office should not be providing universities and corporations with incentives to harm animals for economic gain.The USPTO chose to avoid the issue, focusing instead on the groups’ case that numerous prior scientific publications demonstrated that the rabbit patent was neither novel nor nonobvious, as required by patent law. Two thirds of Americans, however, consider it unethical to issue patents on animals as if they were human inventions. In addition, the public sent in over 3,000 petitions to the USPTO in support of the animal patent challenge.

For more information, including document downloads, visit www.StopAnimalPatents.org

Darling News

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchecquer (does that not trip off the tongue?) is named, charmingly, Darling.
From GreenBiz.com, news on his take on Climate Change...surely Prime Minister Brown must agree with his ministers:

As widely anticipated U.K. Chancellor Alistair Darling delivered Wednesday arguably the greenest budget in Labour's history, unveiling a far reaching package of measures designed to curb emissions from buildings, cars and the energy sector, and signaling his belief that the government's legally binding emissions targets should be strengthened.

However, the measures received a lukewarm response from green businesses and environmentalists who argued that they failed to deliver the levels of investment required to meet the government's own emission targets.

Reiterating the government's calls for the new Climate Change Committee to investigate whether a target of cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 is required, Darling said it was his belief that "we should go further" than the current 60 percent target. He also confirmed that the U.K.'s first ever carbon budget would be delivered alongside the budget next year.