Our Green Streets Blog

Times change, thankfully. Instead of thinking first about how to get rid of waste, more people are now asking how they might put parts of the waste stream to use.

Some landfills now capture methane to power massive generators that feed electricity to the grid; a California company makes biodegradable plastic from organic waste without using petroleum. The list of companies and people involved in promising and innovative work continues to grow.

Dog poop is now on the list of viable new materials from that can be harvested and used from the waste stream. Last year in Cambridge, MA, conceptual artist Matthew Mazzotta launched the Park Spark Project, using dog feces to power lampposts in a park.

Mazzotta’s Park Spark Project was funded through MIT and created in partnership with the City of Cambridge. Methane, a common greenhouse gas, is created in a methane digester that converts freshly scooped poop into burnable fuel.

Dog owners collect dog droppings in biodegradable bags, then toss the mess into the digester –- a closed cylindrical container, where the dog feces are broken down by anaerobic bacteria. This process creates methane that is then released through a valve and burned to power an old-fashioned gas-burning lamppost in a park.

Mazzotta has said he hopes to install permanent underground digesters in parks, not only in Cambridge, but also throughout the country.

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In an era when an abundance of items requires electrical or battery power to operate, what happens when you aren’t near the grid or – heaven forbid! – the power goes out?

There are some interesting portable power generating options are available to generate electricity from the sun or wind or by simply pedaling a stationary bicycle.

We begin with the do-it-yourself version of power generation: the bicycle. Convergence Tech manufactures the Pedal-A-Watt, a bicycle stand that not only generates electricity, it seconds as a fitness device. The power that’s generated can be used to power lights and/or other small appliances, such as laptops, cell phones, fluorescent or LED lights.

As Convergence Tech writes on its website,  “Any bicycle that is in good shape will work with the Pedal-A-Watt Stand as the stand adjusts to fit any wheel size including children’s bikes.”

The company states that the average rider can produce between 125 and 300 watts using the Pedal-A-Watt.  While this amount of power isn’t huge, many pieces of equipment draw very little power and can be powered for long spans of time with small amounts of power.  As an example, a laptop draws 70 watts, thus one 20 minute workout could run the laptop for over an hour.

The Assembled Pedal-A-Watt (including a blocking diode) allows the owner to drop a bicycle into the stand, pedal and generate watts. According to Convergence, “The Assembled Pedal-A-Watt includes the bicycle stand, generator, 20 amp blocking diode, adjustment knob and instructions. The Pedal-A-Watt is built with off the shelf components to reduce waste and carbon footprint. The stand weighs 23 lbs.”

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For those still considering creating one of this world’s next great solutions, there are but 15 days left to prepare and submit applications for the 2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Those standing on the sidelines should run onto the plying field; our world needs the help.

This important global event is considered by some to be one of socially responsible design’s highest awards. This premier international prize program awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a solution that, broadly stated, “has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.”

According to the BFI Challenge, entering creates “an opportunity to become part of a network that is advancing and accelerating the practice of whole systems thinking and design to develop the kind of high impact global solutions we so desperately need.”

The Buckminster Fuller Institute, named after Buckminster Fuller, creator of the geodesic dome, was created to share and advance imaginative work that might lead the way to solving problems for global housing and infrastructure requirements.

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This July the Italian utility Enel unveiled “Archimede”, one of the most important developments in the emerging field of concentrating solar power (CSP). The launch showcases this power plant as the first CSP  plant in the world to use molten salts for heat transfer and storage.

Archimede, a 5 MW plant located in Priolo Gargallo (Sicily). The breakthrough project was co-developed by the utility, Enel, and ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. The name, “Archimede,” refers to the rows of huge parabolic mirrors used to capture the sun’s rays, recalling the “burning mirrors” that Archimedes is said to have used to set fire to the Roman ships besieging Syracuse during the Punic War of 212 BC.

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This story came in about and the third annual Energy Technology Summit presented by the Southwest Virginia Technology Council. Some of the technologies may seem far-fetched or little better than brainstorms.

The information is interesting to hear about, especially the pursuit of aneutronic fusion. Where possible, even if the site provides scant detail, links have been added for further information.

Source: TriCities.com

reported by: Deborah McCown

WISE, Va. – Amid discussion of the shortfalls of U.S. energy policy and the nation’s future, the Southwest Virginia Technology Council highlighted five promising technologies Monday during its third annual Energy Technology Summit.

These technologies included thorium, Hydrocoal, fly ash, aneutronic fusion and sunshine advances.

Thorium – is it the fuel of the future?

Like uranium, thorium is an element that can be used to produce energy, said Charles Stevens, who said he recently revived a technology he worked on as a U.S. government subcontractor back in the 1980s.

Unlike uranium, he said, thorium doesn’t generate radioactive waste or encourage proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“It’s sustainable energy, and it represents energy independence for the United States,” he said.

Stevens, CEO of Laser Power Systems, based in Massachusetts, added that the technology uses high-energy lasers to turn water into steam, which then drives a turbine and generator. It works, he said, without the chain reaction of a nuclear reactor.

At the price of $1.85, he said one gram of thorium can produce as much energy as 7,500 gallons of gasoline or 2.2 tons of coal. A thorium-powered car could travel 300,000 miles before refueling.

A 2,000-megawatt thorium power plant could fit in a 50,000-square-foot building, he said – less than a third the size of a typical big box retail store – and he believes the technology will be ready to go commercial in 12 to 18 months.

Among his first customers are Third-World countries, which are seeking the technology as a means of generating electricity and clean water without the kind of expensive power infrastructure that’s used in the United States, Stevens said.

For a house, he explained, a thorium power system could cost about the same as a furnace/hot water system – less than $15,000. It would come fueled, potentially cutting heating bills by 80 percent for a typical American homeowner.

Cars, he said, would be priced around $25,000, and could run a million miles.

Another technology discussed was HydroCoal.

“Our business is about taking dirty, inexpensive coal, which is found abundantly all over the world, into clean renewable fuels for billions of people,” said Randy Taylor, co-founder and president of Hydrocoal, which is based in Athens, Ga., but is discussing a possible location in Wise.

“We expect to make that commercial beginning in 2011,” he said.

Thus far, the common method of grinding coal to sand was problematic, he said; his company has solved the problems with gasification by finding a way to grind the coal smaller, to particles 10 microns in diameter.

“It’s a coal tornado,” he said. “Coal swirls around inside and grinds itself.”

He said the smaller particles react faster and at a lower temperature – and, mixed with steam, they burn like natural gas.

Once coal is gasified, he said, it’s easy to clean with existing commercial technologies.

Fly ash – Studying the elements in lunar soil to learn about its use in space, scientists discovered an interesting parallel, said Larry Austin, a merchant banker and former Wall Street lawyer who said billions of dollars worth of precious metals are buried in the fly ash discarded by coal-fired power plants.

Environmentalists have hammered the ash with criticism, particularly after a large quantity of ash, which includes heavy metals, spilled into Tennessee’s Emory River in 2008. Austin said the same metals have made fly ash an unstable building material.

But it costs just $200 a ton to process the ash, and the products of that ton can be sold for $517. The figures are based on outdated prices, before the appearance of China on the world stage sent resource prices skyward, he said.

Austin said the world is throwing away $35 billion a year in precious metals. The Appalachian coalfields could become “the new mecca” for these resources – and manufacturing facilities that use the raw materials – if the ash is processed here. He estimated that as many as 20,000 jobs could be created.

Once the metals are removed, he said, the remaining material is similar to that used in making drywall and other construction materials.

The first step, he said, is a $250,000 study to update the numbers and create a modern business case. A pilot plant, which would process 10 tons a day, would cost $10 million, he said, and a commercial scale plant would be $100 million.

Another take on solving the fusion puzzle could be aneutronic fusion.

George Miley says the nation’s energy future lies in nuclear fusion – a topic that, he acknowledges, nobody mentions when they’re listing the nation’s many energy options.

“Why not? I think people become frustrated; it’s just too far off,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Scientists have studied the concept since the 1960s, but have not reached an effective way to generate fusion power. Miley believes he may have the solution – but the only way to find out is to test it.

He says the answer could lie in fusing the atoms of hydrogen and boron at a high temperature, high enough to place them in a state beyond a gas called plasma, on a small scale.

“I think it’s obvious that if what I’m saying is done, this is going to revolutionize the power industry,” he said. “If you start something, you’ll become the Silicon Valley of that field. So you have to have the vision to start it, and then you will have it.”

Sunshine advances – Robert Loftur-Thun, a principal at a firm called Sustainability Nexus, said solar power could be generated on the flat, deforested surface-mined mountaintops of Appalachia.

“Taking a mountaintop and converting it so that there could be an economic higher use, I think that would make a lot of economic sense and also provide business opportunities for the coal mining companies in the area,” Loftur-Thun said. “The time has really come. Solar technology is maturing.”

He noted the existence of several technologies, from visually appealing solar panel roof shingles to concentrated solar power plants, which focus sunlight to heat water into steam for generating electricity.

On Monday, he announced the founding of Wise Solar Development LLC, a startup focused on solar energy in rural and small communities. He said harnessing the sun’s potential has a role to play in U.S. energy security and in providing electricity in rural areas.

He said an area the size of a football field, if covered with a solar array, can generate 400 kilowatts of electricity.

For those wanting more information on algae and its low-carbon potential as an alternative fuel source, take a visit to Oilgae , a blog focused on this subject.

Some might even want information on how to grow their own. Below are clips from today’s post:

“Cultivation of Algae in Photobioreactor”

“Algae can also be grown in a photobioreactor (PBR). A PBR is a bioreactor which incorporates some type of light source. Virtually any translucent container could be called a PBR, however the term is more commonly used to define a closed system, as opposed to an open tank or pond.

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Lyle Rudensey, in Seattle, was kind enough to send a copy of his two-DVD set, “BioLyle’s Biodiesel Workshop,” for us to review. For anybody interested in knowing about biodiesel, whether as a hobby or part of a cooperative effort, watching this video set is a great way to get started. But be prepared to spend some time with it, as the running length tallies up to 224 minutes.

I am happy to add that the viewer’s time will be well-spent. Lyle Rudensey takes viewers into the classroom for an in-depth lesson concerning everything from the chemistry to the tools required for manufacture, then into his garage for a ’seeing-is-believing’ demonstration that covers all of the steps involved, from collection and filtering, to titration, processing, storing, and cleaning.

On the Utah Biodiesel Supply website, Graydon Blair writes that Rudensey “has taught literally hundreds of people how to make their own Biodiesel through his hands-on Biodiesel workshops in the Seattle, WA area. His relaxed teaching style combined with his incredible knowledge of the Biodiesel production process makes for an incredible experience that students come away from raving about. Not only does he make the whole process incredibly easy to learn, but you’ll come away knowing so much more about why Biodiesel works, why anyone can make it, and how you can get started on a budget!” Read more of this >>

Graydon Blair, the owner of this biodiesel concern, Utah Biodiesel Supply, is one of the first in line to say the fuel alternative in which he specializes is not going to answer all the world’s fuel challenges.But it will address some.

Plus, watching and hearing a vehicle smoothly roll down the highway on a tank full of used fryer oil is a sight to behold, and one that’s considerably less smelly than petroleum-based diesel. Her then, is good reason for shouting to the rest of the world know this is one alternative fuel source very much worth considering.

Here are some of the reasons Blair has posted on his comprehensive website:

First, economy:

“Biodiesel can be produced by individuals on a small scale relatively inexpensively when compared to Petrodiesel. Figures range anywhere from $0.40 a gallon to about $1.25 a gallon depending on the cost of materials required to make it. With prices that low, most people are able to save hundreds of dollars on their fuel bills. In some cases it even goes into the thousands of dollars. With savings like that, most people are able to recoup their initial investment on the equipment needed to make biodiesel within a matter of months.”

Second, the product is renewable:

“Biodiesel has been touted far and wide for it’s renewable properties. Instead of making a fuel from a finite resource such as crude oil, Biodiesel can be produced from renewable resources such as organic oils, fats, and tallows. This means that it can be made from things that can be regrown, reproduced, and reused. So, if you need more, you can just grow another crop of seeds for the oil.”

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