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24 February 2009

Got Manure? These Trucks Run on It

By Ben Mack from Wired Blog Network

A California dairy has converted a pair of 18-wheelers to run on biomethane produced from cow manure, creating what is believed to be the nation's first cow-pie–powered trucks.

Hilarides Dairy will use manure produced by 10,000 cows to generate 226,000 cubic feet of biomethane daily — enough to reduce the Central Valley farm's diesel fuel consumption by 650 gallons a day.

"For us it made sense to invest in this technology. Now we can utilize the dairy's potential to power our trucks in addition to generating electricity for our operations," Rob Hilarides (pictured above), owner of the dairy, said. "This will significantly reduce our energy costs and give us some protection from volatile energy prices."

Not to mention something to do with all that manure.

Hilarides announced the conversion at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, and it begs the question "Got Manure?" Methane is a natural byproduct of the microbial process that breaks down sewage, and it is emerging as a viable alternative to gasoline and diesel. City officials in Oslo, Norway, recently announced they would convert 80 municipal buses to run on methane generated from human waste.

As gross as it may sound, Hilarides isn't shoveling cow pies into the fuel tanks of his rigs. The bio-gas manufacturing process involves flushing manure and other waste from the cows' stalls into a covered lagoon where bacteria breaks it down. Methane is pumped out of the lagoon to a refinery that removes carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and other impurities. The purified methane is pressurized before being pumped into the trucks; the Cummins engines have been converted from compression-ignited diesels to spark-ignited methane-burners. Hilarides financed the project with a $600,000 grant from the California Air Resources Board Alternative Fuel Incentive Program.

"It's energy projects like this that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and get us off our dependency on foreign oil," Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, said in a statement. "It also addresses sources of long-term air and water pollution problems."

Using cow manure to produce bio-methane cuts greenhouse gas emissions in two ways. Burning biomethane produces less pollution than conventional fuel, and producing it cuts down on the methane released into the atmosphere by the manure itself.

Biomethane advocates say the wonder gas can turn rural communities like Lindsay, California — where Hilarides Dairy is located — into alt-fuel producers. Allen Dusault of Sustainable Conservation says manure from the nation's dairy cows could generate enough fuel to fuel some 1 million vehicles, a carbon-cutting move he claims (.pdf) that would be the equivalent of taking 16 million gasoline or diesel vehicles off the road. Others have said California's 1.7 million dairy cows could produce 8 billion cubic feet of methane a year, the equivalent of more than 150 million gallons of gasoline.

"In California the manure is plentiful," Dusault said. "The technology is here and public-private partnerships can make this work. Biomethane is the only vehicle fuel that is carbon negative."

See Also:

17 February 2009

Unprecedented Investment in Restoring Our Battered Environment

By Bob Bendick from The Nature Conservancy's Cool Green Science

On Friday, Congress approved a $787 billion Economic Stimulus Bill that will now be signed into law by President Obama. While the analysts are busy debating the politics of the bill and its likely impact on America’s battered economy, there is one aspect of this legislation that, thankfully, seems quite certain — it will provide unprecedented investments in restoring our country’s battered environment.

In doing so, the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 can be an important moment of recognition that our economy and our environment are intertwined, that the health of human communities depends upon the health of natural communities.

It looks like as much as $10 billion in the stimulus bill is allocated for environmental restoration and another $45 billion for energy conservation and for developing new, less-polluting energy technologies. While these may seem like moderate amounts in comparison to the total, they far exceed any previous single appropriation for these purposes. The environmental provisions of the bill do not include earmarks — that is, they don’t specify the use of funds for specific projects. But let me suggest the kinds of things the money should be used for:

  • In Florida’s Everglades Ecosystem, wetlands have been ditched and drained so that they can no longer hold water and absorb pollutants in times of flood or retain water in times of drought. This threatens populated areas and estuaries in times of heavy rainfall and water supplies when it is dry. Restoring and expanding the original wetlands will bring back these important functions while also creating exceptional wildlife habitat.
  • Along the Front Range of Rocky Mountains in Colorado, years of trying to suppress every fire have caused forests to grow up to unnatural densities such that catastrophic and uncontrollable wildfires threaten whole forest ecosystems, built-up areas and the watersheds of big cities. These forests should be thinned carefully such that they more closely resemble their natural condition. Smaller, more manageable fires will then be the norm and forest ecosystems can fulfill their role of taking up carbon from the atmosphere, protecting water supplies, and providing the venue for outdoor recreation.
  • In coastal areas like Chesapeake Bay and the North Carolina sounds, vast reefs of oysters once filtered the water, were nursery grounds for fish and shielded the shoreline from the impacts of storms. Many of these reefs have been damaged or lost by overfishing, pollution and disease. They can be rebuilt and restocked to once again provide a livelihood for baymen and other important benefits to human and natural communities.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, such projects support just as many or more jobs per million dollars of investment as do conventional infrastructure projects, and what we have now come to realize is that they also produce ongoing “ecosystem services” — the kind of real, tangible, cost=effective and measurable benefits to society that come from healthy natural systems.

It is our hope at the Nature Conservancy that the inclusion of environmental restoration in the economic stimulus bill is not a one-time thing, but rather is the beginning of recurring investment in restoration activities that will be carried forward into the federal FY10 and FY11 budgets. These budget allocations should be based on the realization that the healthy natural systems that sustain the diversity of plant and animal species also sustain human well-being.

Our country’s resources are finite. Like it or not, our growing population and our harnessing of technology require that we act as stewards of the air, land and water upon which our own lives depend. The discussions about whether to include substantial environmental expenditures in the stimulus bill were a test of our readiness to recognize the connection between a healthy environment and long-term economic sustainability.

Thanks to Congress and the president, we passed this time. But the next exam — the decisions on ongoing appropriations for federal environmental and conservation spending — will be upon us shortly.

09 February 2009

Here come the plastics ambassadors!

By Lisa Frack from Environmental Working Group's Enviroblog)

Good news, everyone! The Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council and the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. are rolling out a new 'plastics ambassador' program.

You'll be happy to know that this is part of the industry's plan to 'aggressively respond to the onslaught of misinformation about their industry.' Because, in their minds, the general public (yes, that's you) 'does not intuitively understand that [they] are, in fact, a sustainable industry.'

Which is exactly where the new Plastics Ambassadors come in! Their job is to help you understand that the plastics industry is sustainable and good for consumers (right, you again). The ambassadors will 'unify and amplify' the voice of the industry. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for that all that unity and volume! It'll be like the "Wonderful World of Chemistry" exhibit at the New York World's Fair in 1964, all over again (no, I wasn't alive, but it's worth checking it out - if only to see the Dupont 'Happy Plastic Family Dance.' No really.)

One of the industry's goals is to 'promote policies that allow decisions about health, safety and the environment to be based on the best-available science.' Which is funny, because we also support science-based decisions. It's just that we support the neutral scientific studies with no industry ties. The kind we hope EPA and FDA will include in their chemical assessments going forward. So naturally we are thrilled with President Obama's clear emphasis on the importance on the role of science in policy making.

If you happen to encounter a plastics ambassador in the coming months, be sure you're ready. EWG has some great resources on plastic and how to use it safely:

02 February 2009

While The Cat's Away: How Removing An Invasive Species Devastated A World Heritage Island


ScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2009) — Removing an invasive species from sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, a World Heritage Site, has caused environmental devastation that will cost more than A$24 million to remedy, ecologists have revealed. Writing in the new issue of the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, they warn that conservation agencies worldwide must learn important lessons from what happened on Macquarie Island.

Using population data, plot-scale vegetation analyses and satellite imagery, the ecologists from from the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), the University of Tasmania, Blatant Fabrications Pty Ltd and Stellenbosch University found that after cats were eradicated from Macquarie in 2000, the island's rabbit population increased so much that its vegetation has been devastated.

According to the study's lead author, Dr Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division: “Satellite images show substantial island-wide rabbit-induced vegetation change. By 2007, impacts on some protected valleys and slopes had become acute. We estimate that nearly 40% of the whole island area had changed, with almost 20% having moderate to severe change.”

Rabbits were introduced to Macquarie Island in 1878 by sealing gangs. After reaching large numbers, the rabbits became the main prey of cats, which had been introduced 60 years earlier. Because the rabbits were causing catastrophic damage to the island's vegetation, Myxomatosis and the European rabbit flea (which spreads the Myxoma virus) were introduced in 1968. As a result, rabbit numbers fell from a peak of 130,000 in 1978 to less than 20,000 in the 1980s and vegetation recovered. However, with fewer rabbits as food, the cats began to eat the island's native burrowing birds, so a cat eradication programme began in 1985. Since the last cat was killed in 2000, Myxomatosis failed to keep rabbit numbers in check; their numbers bounced back and in little over six years rabbits substantially altered large areas of the island.

According to Bergstrom: “Increased rabbit herbivory has caused substantial damage at both local and landscape scales including changes from complex vegetation communities, to short, grazed lawns or bare ground.”

Invasive species can cause large-scale changes to ecosystems, including species extinctions and – in extreme cases – ecosystem “meltdown”. As a result, control or eradication of invasive alien species is widely undertaken. However, important lessons must be learned from events on Macquarie Island, say the authors.

“Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007 there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised. The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs. On Macquarie Island, this cost will be around A$24 million,” says Bergstrom.

The changes documented in this study are a rare example of so-called “trophic cascades” - the knock-on effects of changes in one species' abundance across several links in the food web. “This study is one of only a handful which demonstrate that theoretically plausible trophic cascades associated with invasive species removal not only do take place, but can also result in rapid and detrimental changes to ecosystems, so negating the direct benefits of the removal of the target species,” Bergstrom says.

Macquarie Island (34 km long x 5 km wide) is an oceanic island in the Southern Ocean, 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania and approximately halfway between Australia and the Antarctic continent. Low-lying, with a cool, maritime climate, it is covered with tundra-like vegetation. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1997 because of its geological significance – it is the only place on Earth where rocks from the Earth’s mantle (6 km below the ocean floor) are being actively exposed above sea-level.

The Forecast from The Keswick Theater on 3/7/09 from Phrequency.com: