It is nice, for a change, to hear about one of our nation's giant commercial operators, that being Continental-United Airlines, putting into action some of the "green" promises and announcements that so many companies have been issuing lately. On Monday, November 7th, the airline flew a Boeing 737-800 plane from Houston to Chicago's O'Hare airport using a fuel blend that partially consisted (40 percent) of oil produced by genetically modified algae that feed off plant waste and produces oil. Imagine that, folks! And to boot, Alaska Airlines, on Wednesday, November 9th, was scheduled to begin flights over the next several weeks utilizing a fuel blend containing 20 percent recycled cooking oil, with the company claiming that the biofuel blend will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. Again, how about that, folks!
Yes, there still remain formidable challenges and problems to overcome and solve but the situation here is excitingly clear: the airlines have begun the commercialization of a clean energy source, and they being major consumers of fossil fuels as well as significant producers of carbon emissions (2 percent of total carbon emissions in 2000, on the way to 3 percent by 2030), this is good news indeed. Major beneficiaries include our overloaded atmosphere, our burgeoning clean energy industry, including its investors, and people, plants, and animals everywhere. Congratulations to Continental-United Airlines, to Alaska Airlines, and to Solazyme Inc., the company which produced and provided the biofuel for Monday's Continental flight. May you put those algae to good use!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
A way to quantify a major environmental benefit
Amidst the woefully ignorant din and clamor of the anti-environmentalists in Congress feverishly working to strip our nation's environmental laws and protections for the sake of these representatives' business bidders and masters, it was heartening and enlightening to learn about the results of a series of studies first begun in the mid-nineties and carried on for several years later.
The initial question poised for the study was: "Don't trees clean the air?," asked by the then- current mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Jr., in 1989. A series of other questions followed such as: "What is the character of an American urban forest? How did trees interact with the ecosystem? Do they really affect air quality?" Daley started an ambitious tree-planting program at that time but wanting to find some answers as well, he obtained federal funding for a study progam through the efforts of long-time North Shore representative Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill). The first fruits of this study was titled "The Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project." Several facts were revealed including: the Chicago metro area's urban forest contained roughly 51 million trees, two-thirds of which were in "good or excellent condition." And, in Chicago, the street trees made up only a tenth of the urban forest, buy they provided a quarter of the tree canopy. And, the canopy shaded only 11 percent of the city, less than half of the proportion city officials believed was ideal (Jonnes, Jill, The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2011, p. 38).
A panapoly of other facts emerged from the study: in 1991, trees in Chicago removed an estimated 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 93 tons of sulfur dioxide, 98 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 210 tons of ozone, and 234 tons of particulate matter. And that's not counting the 155,000 tons of carbon dioxide that our trees in Chicago sequestered a year. Sad to say, that impressive amount accounts only for the tons of carbon put out by motor vehicles in the Chicago area during one week. But, as the author notes, "over time, the urban forest could sequester as much as eight times more carbon if the city planted greater numbers of large, long-lived species such as oaks or London planes and actively nurtured existing trees to full maturity." She states that a large tree that lives on for many decades or even a couple of centuries is able to "sequester a thousand times more carbon than, say, a crab apple with a life span of 10 or 20 years."
Regrettably, Mayor Daley did not whole-heartedly adopt the implications of this groundbreaking report. He supported the planting of trees in the city but not in the larger-scaled, strategic manner that the report recommended. Nevertheless, his support pushed forward in a big way the study of trees and their public health implications for urban areas and the citizens who live in these areas. In 993, the Sacramento Municipal Utility did a large-scale assessment study after it had planted 110,000 trees in the front yards of residential customers for free. Among other things, the study found that "a tree planted to the west of a house saved about three times more energy ($120 versus $39) in a year than the same kind of tree planted to the south." The utility's shade program "collectively saves the utility from having to supply $1.2 million worth of electricity annually (_39).
In 2006, in New York City, the Parks Department asked the original study's authors to assess the value of all of the city's 592,000 street trees. The lead authors, by this time, had significantly more sophisticated data tools on hand, and were able to determine for the department that the city's street trees delivered an annual energy savings of roughly $28 million, or $47. 63 per tree. The researchers then calculated multiple other parameters such as savings to stormwater systems through the trees' interception of rainwater ($35.6 million annually); removal of air pollutants ($5 million annually); and a host of other compounding factors such as: hospital patients who could see a tree out of their room were discharged a day earlier than others who could not; shopping areas with trees had more customers than areas that did not; public-housing projects that had leafy tree areas suffered less violence than bare, tree-less projects, and so forth. Together these assessments and findings delivered a summary value of $122 million per year in savings to New York City, or about $209 per tree. This is truly amazing, both for the value that our trees serve up and for the data-finding abilities of these reports. These findings offer a promising potential to turn the minds and mindsets of those radical extremists who are frothing at the bit to remove environmental protections, to dismiss out of hand any efforts to establish a mutually-beneficial relationship with the environment that supplies us with pretty much all of our essential needs. All they do is to chant the jobs mantra. Well, how many jobs do they really think they are going to create as they tear up our nation's national parks, devastate through pollution our nation's rivers, lakes, and streams, and clog our nation's air with mercury, particulates, sulfur dioxide and all the other pestilences? And what kind of variety in jobs do they promise? And at what kind of salaries?
The data from these studies add significant support to the contentions and calls for a positive, supportive approach to our environment as we continue to draw out from it the natural resources that we require, and also over-require through greed and very high expectations for our quality of life. Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you will gain something valuable and important from this.
Note: The authors of these studies along with other professionals have come up with a free software progam called i-Tree which now has the ability to quantify the monetary benefits of any urban tree in America.
The initial question poised for the study was: "Don't trees clean the air?," asked by the then- current mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Jr., in 1989. A series of other questions followed such as: "What is the character of an American urban forest? How did trees interact with the ecosystem? Do they really affect air quality?" Daley started an ambitious tree-planting program at that time but wanting to find some answers as well, he obtained federal funding for a study progam through the efforts of long-time North Shore representative Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill). The first fruits of this study was titled "The Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project." Several facts were revealed including: the Chicago metro area's urban forest contained roughly 51 million trees, two-thirds of which were in "good or excellent condition." And, in Chicago, the street trees made up only a tenth of the urban forest, buy they provided a quarter of the tree canopy. And, the canopy shaded only 11 percent of the city, less than half of the proportion city officials believed was ideal (Jonnes, Jill, The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2011, p. 38).
A panapoly of other facts emerged from the study: in 1991, trees in Chicago removed an estimated 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 93 tons of sulfur dioxide, 98 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 210 tons of ozone, and 234 tons of particulate matter. And that's not counting the 155,000 tons of carbon dioxide that our trees in Chicago sequestered a year. Sad to say, that impressive amount accounts only for the tons of carbon put out by motor vehicles in the Chicago area during one week. But, as the author notes, "over time, the urban forest could sequester as much as eight times more carbon if the city planted greater numbers of large, long-lived species such as oaks or London planes and actively nurtured existing trees to full maturity." She states that a large tree that lives on for many decades or even a couple of centuries is able to "sequester a thousand times more carbon than, say, a crab apple with a life span of 10 or 20 years."
Regrettably, Mayor Daley did not whole-heartedly adopt the implications of this groundbreaking report. He supported the planting of trees in the city but not in the larger-scaled, strategic manner that the report recommended. Nevertheless, his support pushed forward in a big way the study of trees and their public health implications for urban areas and the citizens who live in these areas. In 993, the Sacramento Municipal Utility did a large-scale assessment study after it had planted 110,000 trees in the front yards of residential customers for free. Among other things, the study found that "a tree planted to the west of a house saved about three times more energy ($120 versus $39) in a year than the same kind of tree planted to the south." The utility's shade program "collectively saves the utility from having to supply $1.2 million worth of electricity annually (_39).
In 2006, in New York City, the Parks Department asked the original study's authors to assess the value of all of the city's 592,000 street trees. The lead authors, by this time, had significantly more sophisticated data tools on hand, and were able to determine for the department that the city's street trees delivered an annual energy savings of roughly $28 million, or $47. 63 per tree. The researchers then calculated multiple other parameters such as savings to stormwater systems through the trees' interception of rainwater ($35.6 million annually); removal of air pollutants ($5 million annually); and a host of other compounding factors such as: hospital patients who could see a tree out of their room were discharged a day earlier than others who could not; shopping areas with trees had more customers than areas that did not; public-housing projects that had leafy tree areas suffered less violence than bare, tree-less projects, and so forth. Together these assessments and findings delivered a summary value of $122 million per year in savings to New York City, or about $209 per tree. This is truly amazing, both for the value that our trees serve up and for the data-finding abilities of these reports. These findings offer a promising potential to turn the minds and mindsets of those radical extremists who are frothing at the bit to remove environmental protections, to dismiss out of hand any efforts to establish a mutually-beneficial relationship with the environment that supplies us with pretty much all of our essential needs. All they do is to chant the jobs mantra. Well, how many jobs do they really think they are going to create as they tear up our nation's national parks, devastate through pollution our nation's rivers, lakes, and streams, and clog our nation's air with mercury, particulates, sulfur dioxide and all the other pestilences? And what kind of variety in jobs do they promise? And at what kind of salaries?
The data from these studies add significant support to the contentions and calls for a positive, supportive approach to our environment as we continue to draw out from it the natural resources that we require, and also over-require through greed and very high expectations for our quality of life. Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you will gain something valuable and important from this.
Note: The authors of these studies along with other professionals have come up with a free software progam called i-Tree which now has the ability to quantify the monetary benefits of any urban tree in America.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Fish-eating coal power plants
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Many of us may not be aware of it, perhaps many are, but our nation's power plants, pretty much all fed by coal, are slicing and dicing millions of the fish that live in the streams, rivers, and lakes upon which the power plants are situated. Power plants do this unfortunate, brutal, and, now unnecessary, act by drawing in millions of gallons of water per day to cool their power equipment inside their plants. They then shoot out the water back to where it came from but now, the water is warmed considerably and is not conducive at all to survival of the remaining fish and plants in the rivers, streams, and lakes. And, as noted already, the fish that are drawn in are chopped up into countless bits. Besides killing the fish, this process also endangers all the marine life, insects, plants, and animals, that depend on these fish for their nutrition and survival, as well do the fishermen and sportsmen who fish from these waters.
There is now a new technology that can be installed by the power companies that can reduce the intake of water for cooling purposes by some 97% percent or so. But, as usual, the power companies don't want to pay for this new technology, and they are pressing the EPA very hard to exempt them from having to adopt newer, stringent standards regulating the use of our nation's waters for industrial cooling purposes. It seems that industry in America has the opinion that they have the exclusive right to use and exploit our nation's resources in the same, old ways that they have been doing it for decades, and centuries, really. But the rest of us have to change, don't we? So why shouldn't they as well?
Above this article, there are two links to an informative and colorful animation that depicts the practice of power plants drawing in huge amounts of water, killing millions of fish, and also verbalizes these companies' selfish attitude and stubborn refusal to change their position on this matter. Please take a look at this great animation and then sign the petition that's on the website of the Sierra Club urging the EPA to hold these selfish and greedy power plants to the new proposed standards. Come on, are you really fine with having Charlie the tunafish and all his relatives and friends sucked into massive turbine engines that cut them all up into microscopic pieces??
Thanks!
Many of us may not be aware of it, perhaps many are, but our nation's power plants, pretty much all fed by coal, are slicing and dicing millions of the fish that live in the streams, rivers, and lakes upon which the power plants are situated. Power plants do this unfortunate, brutal, and, now unnecessary, act by drawing in millions of gallons of water per day to cool their power equipment inside their plants. They then shoot out the water back to where it came from but now, the water is warmed considerably and is not conducive at all to survival of the remaining fish and plants in the rivers, streams, and lakes. And, as noted already, the fish that are drawn in are chopped up into countless bits. Besides killing the fish, this process also endangers all the marine life, insects, plants, and animals, that depend on these fish for their nutrition and survival, as well do the fishermen and sportsmen who fish from these waters.
There is now a new technology that can be installed by the power companies that can reduce the intake of water for cooling purposes by some 97% percent or so. But, as usual, the power companies don't want to pay for this new technology, and they are pressing the EPA very hard to exempt them from having to adopt newer, stringent standards regulating the use of our nation's waters for industrial cooling purposes. It seems that industry in America has the opinion that they have the exclusive right to use and exploit our nation's resources in the same, old ways that they have been doing it for decades, and centuries, really. But the rest of us have to change, don't we? So why shouldn't they as well?
Above this article, there are two links to an informative and colorful animation that depicts the practice of power plants drawing in huge amounts of water, killing millions of fish, and also verbalizes these companies' selfish attitude and stubborn refusal to change their position on this matter. Please take a look at this great animation and then sign the petition that's on the website of the Sierra Club urging the EPA to hold these selfish and greedy power plants to the new proposed standards. Come on, are you really fine with having Charlie the tunafish and all his relatives and friends sucked into massive turbine engines that cut them all up into microscopic pieces??
Thanks!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Another example of the risk in private companies owning and operating our natural resources.
Environmental Accident Occurs Tuesday Morning, April 5, in Tennessee.
1.2 to 3.2 million gallons of storm and sewage water, apparently without solid waste, has surged out a sewage holding tank attached to a sewage treatment plant located in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The tank collapsed early Tuesday morning. The tank and the entire sewage treatment plant is operated by Chicago-based Veolia Water, a for-profit water management firm.
The holding tank is 70 feet wide, 40 feet high, and has 12-inch reinforced concrete walls. A photo shows a section of the walls that has been blown out. Two workers at the plant are missing and a search for them is underway. The sewage is flowing directly into Gatlinburg which is the main entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
More than 2.62 inches of rain fell in the national park in the 24 hours prior to the breach Tuesday morning. Personnel from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and the National Park Service are on the scene.
Note: The content of this news brief comes from a report from the Associated Press found on the newspage for Earthlink, Inc., on April 5, 2011. The words and sentences have been paraphrased by this blog writer but all credit goes to the Associated Press.
Commentary
Unfortunately, this is yet another environmental disaster to afflict Tennessee in the last 18 months or so, and like the previous disaster having to do with the breeching of a giant coal sludge retention pond, this disaster also has to do with a retention pond, this time retaining, or supposed to be retaining, excess sewage water prior to it being transferred to the treatment plant. From what I recall, the giant coal sludge pond was managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the huge, quasi-governmental agency created back in the 1930s for the purpose of bringing electricity for the first time to the isolated, rural communities of Tennessee. The sewage plant involved in this present disaster is managed by Veolia Water. Veolia Water has been granted long-term management leases of several water districts in the U.S., including here in the State of Illinois, if I am not mistaken. It is companies like these who are pushing mightily to be granted long-term management rights to the water supplies of cities nationwide, including cities like Chicago, my home city. These companies are also pushing to be granted monopolistic, ownership rights to our nation's rivers and streams, all with the promise that they can deliver water service more efficiently, at a better price, and at equal levels, if not higher, of safety.
Oh really? From what I've read, many of the towns and counties that have turned their water departments to Veolia and other such firms are now desperately looking for ways to get out of their contracts seeing that the prices for delivery have gone up as high as seven times, and the quality and reliability of the service has notably declined. Our outgoing mayor, Richard M. Daley, has said on several occasions how he's been seriously considering outsourcing the drinking water of our city. Our incoming mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, has been rather vague and inconsistent on this proposal, at one time saying he definitely would not consider outsourcing any more of our city's public assets, and at other times saying that he would look into such possibilities.
Outrageous. If the events at this Tennessee sewage plant are any indication of the reliability and efficiency that for-profit firms are promising in return for taking over public natural resources, and then take into account the history so far of their other water management deals, I say the ideas and proposals to continue with this short-sighted, indeed blind, way of executing the public's business is a definite NO. If these companies succeed in obtaining more such contracts, which is fairly likely, it seems, then you and I can look forward to many more spills, breeches, water contaminations, etc., like we're seeing today in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Think about it. If you agree with me, then stand up and voice your concern. Say NO WAY to further privatization of our natural resources, and public assets of any type.
Thanks!
1.2 to 3.2 million gallons of storm and sewage water, apparently without solid waste, has surged out a sewage holding tank attached to a sewage treatment plant located in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The tank collapsed early Tuesday morning. The tank and the entire sewage treatment plant is operated by Chicago-based Veolia Water, a for-profit water management firm.
The holding tank is 70 feet wide, 40 feet high, and has 12-inch reinforced concrete walls. A photo shows a section of the walls that has been blown out. Two workers at the plant are missing and a search for them is underway. The sewage is flowing directly into Gatlinburg which is the main entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
More than 2.62 inches of rain fell in the national park in the 24 hours prior to the breach Tuesday morning. Personnel from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and the National Park Service are on the scene.
Note: The content of this news brief comes from a report from the Associated Press found on the newspage for Earthlink, Inc., on April 5, 2011. The words and sentences have been paraphrased by this blog writer but all credit goes to the Associated Press.
Commentary
Unfortunately, this is yet another environmental disaster to afflict Tennessee in the last 18 months or so, and like the previous disaster having to do with the breeching of a giant coal sludge retention pond, this disaster also has to do with a retention pond, this time retaining, or supposed to be retaining, excess sewage water prior to it being transferred to the treatment plant. From what I recall, the giant coal sludge pond was managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the huge, quasi-governmental agency created back in the 1930s for the purpose of bringing electricity for the first time to the isolated, rural communities of Tennessee. The sewage plant involved in this present disaster is managed by Veolia Water. Veolia Water has been granted long-term management leases of several water districts in the U.S., including here in the State of Illinois, if I am not mistaken. It is companies like these who are pushing mightily to be granted long-term management rights to the water supplies of cities nationwide, including cities like Chicago, my home city. These companies are also pushing to be granted monopolistic, ownership rights to our nation's rivers and streams, all with the promise that they can deliver water service more efficiently, at a better price, and at equal levels, if not higher, of safety.
Oh really? From what I've read, many of the towns and counties that have turned their water departments to Veolia and other such firms are now desperately looking for ways to get out of their contracts seeing that the prices for delivery have gone up as high as seven times, and the quality and reliability of the service has notably declined. Our outgoing mayor, Richard M. Daley, has said on several occasions how he's been seriously considering outsourcing the drinking water of our city. Our incoming mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, has been rather vague and inconsistent on this proposal, at one time saying he definitely would not consider outsourcing any more of our city's public assets, and at other times saying that he would look into such possibilities.
Outrageous. If the events at this Tennessee sewage plant are any indication of the reliability and efficiency that for-profit firms are promising in return for taking over public natural resources, and then take into account the history so far of their other water management deals, I say the ideas and proposals to continue with this short-sighted, indeed blind, way of executing the public's business is a definite NO. If these companies succeed in obtaining more such contracts, which is fairly likely, it seems, then you and I can look forward to many more spills, breeches, water contaminations, etc., like we're seeing today in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Think about it. If you agree with me, then stand up and voice your concern. Say NO WAY to further privatization of our natural resources, and public assets of any type.
Thanks!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Preparing for electric cars' entry into the market
Greetings everyone,
Yes, it's been three months since I've last posted. Shame on me. Then again, it doesn't appear that anyone has read my blog on environmental matters yet, so I guess I don't need to feel too ashamed. I still have hope that I will, someday, gain some interested readers.
Well, the blog news today is about electric vehicles, specifically how some companies are ramping up their charging technology and marketing plans to provide a feasible way to provide electric charging service for those brave folks, admittedly few still, who are, and will be, purchasing all-electric or mostly electric vehicles (such as the Chevy Volt) in the very near future. For those electric car owners who don't own their homes, and thus do not have a garage in which they can plug their cars in, say overnight, to charge them up, the company 350 Green LLC, based out of San Diego, California, has agreements with the city of Chicago to install 73 public charging stations within city's metro area by the end of 2011. The agreements call for a total of 280 charging stations with no specific date mentioned in the Chicago Tribune articles of February 16 and 27, 2011 (Please see the Business sections for both dates).
Isn't that amazing? Our city, Chicago, is actually taking real and tangible steps toward the realization of electric vehicle power here and now, in the present. I find this simply wonderful, despite the risks and potential pitfalls. And there seems to plenty of those to chew on. Without getting into too much detail here, one problem has to do with the charging power of the stations to be installed.
The first 73 stations, Level 1 stations, will have quick-charging sockets that will be able to fully charge a vehicle in 30 minutes, at a cost of $65,000 per station. The remaining 146 stations to be built will be Level 2 stations, which will fully charge a vehicle in around 7 hours. These will cost under $10,000 per station. 350 Green is planning on charging customers around $50 to $60 for a month's worth of charging service. Will they have any takers? And what will be the cost to use the slower-charging stations? In any case, while paying $50 to $60 per month for electric "gas" might not seem like all that great of a deal, when compared to the $120 to $200 per month that many of us most likely are now paying, and compared to the probably significantly higher prices we'll soon be paying for gasoline, the cost for charging an electric vehicle is going to sound more and more like a warm hum instead of a loud buzz.
Well, that's all the environmental buzz for this blogpost. I hope someone will read and enjoy this, and please, tune into the buzz surrounding electric vehicles entering the American car market in the very, near FUTURE!
Rudy G
Yes, it's been three months since I've last posted. Shame on me. Then again, it doesn't appear that anyone has read my blog on environmental matters yet, so I guess I don't need to feel too ashamed. I still have hope that I will, someday, gain some interested readers.
Well, the blog news today is about electric vehicles, specifically how some companies are ramping up their charging technology and marketing plans to provide a feasible way to provide electric charging service for those brave folks, admittedly few still, who are, and will be, purchasing all-electric or mostly electric vehicles (such as the Chevy Volt) in the very near future. For those electric car owners who don't own their homes, and thus do not have a garage in which they can plug their cars in, say overnight, to charge them up, the company 350 Green LLC, based out of San Diego, California, has agreements with the city of Chicago to install 73 public charging stations within city's metro area by the end of 2011. The agreements call for a total of 280 charging stations with no specific date mentioned in the Chicago Tribune articles of February 16 and 27, 2011 (Please see the Business sections for both dates).
Isn't that amazing? Our city, Chicago, is actually taking real and tangible steps toward the realization of electric vehicle power here and now, in the present. I find this simply wonderful, despite the risks and potential pitfalls. And there seems to plenty of those to chew on. Without getting into too much detail here, one problem has to do with the charging power of the stations to be installed.
The first 73 stations, Level 1 stations, will have quick-charging sockets that will be able to fully charge a vehicle in 30 minutes, at a cost of $65,000 per station. The remaining 146 stations to be built will be Level 2 stations, which will fully charge a vehicle in around 7 hours. These will cost under $10,000 per station. 350 Green is planning on charging customers around $50 to $60 for a month's worth of charging service. Will they have any takers? And what will be the cost to use the slower-charging stations? In any case, while paying $50 to $60 per month for electric "gas" might not seem like all that great of a deal, when compared to the $120 to $200 per month that many of us most likely are now paying, and compared to the probably significantly higher prices we'll soon be paying for gasoline, the cost for charging an electric vehicle is going to sound more and more like a warm hum instead of a loud buzz.
Well, that's all the environmental buzz for this blogpost. I hope someone will read and enjoy this, and please, tune into the buzz surrounding electric vehicles entering the American car market in the very, near FUTURE!
Rudy G
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