Cleaning out Landfills and Generating Electricity

As garbage piles up, we dump trash on third world countries, in the ocean, and bury valuable resources.

Instead, we should be recycling it and saving on our electric bills.

Amplify’d from storify.com

Power to the People

As we look for alternatives to energy production we also need to find a means of cleaning up our backyards. With Plasma Gasification we can do both.

Photo by Doctor Gage

Plasma Gasification provides an excellent opportunity to clean up the garbage that we bury every year or dump on third world countries while generating electricity.  The following video describes the process.  This video suggests using trees or coal, but it's municipal waste that we should be using as feed stock not coal or trees.

NRG Energy: Plasma Gasification nrgenergyinc, September 14, 2010 at 12:14

How landfills are built and operated tvjersey, August 12, 2009 at 12:51

"They can cost as much as $2,000,000 per acre to construct."  Money that is paid by the taxpayer.   Why not invest that money into something that can reduce waste by recycling it for reuse while generating electricity?

Instead of paying third world countries peanuts to take our trash, we should recycle it and make electricity from it.

Instead of dumping it into our oceans we could recycle it with Plasma Gasification.  Dumping it into our oceans is a waste of waste, destroys our environment, and kills innocent wild life.  Not to mention we are not taking advantage of technology that could cut down on our electric bills.

Reply Retweet Plastic spells death in the ocean .... http://t.co/DbEIyFr africanpenguin June 9, 2011 at 12:57

Tax Payers and Home Owners pay for waste disposal.  If the waste was being delivered to a public recycling center, ie plasma gasification plant owned by the tax payers who's money is used to create loans to build such things, then garbage men wouldn't have to worry about not being paid and what happened in California and NYC would not occur.  Not only would we want our garbage picked up so it's not an eyesore but we would also want to make sure that we had a steady source of electricity, and our manufacturing plants would want to make sure they were getting the recycled materials from the plant.

NYC Sanitation workers protest constructiontrystar, December 30, 2010 at 18:55

Proposal Tax payers already pay for the trash to be picked up in most places, either directly to the waste companies or indirectly in the form of taxes.  Waste disposal is an integral part of our infrastructure and if not picked up can cause complications for business owners like it did in NYC as can be seen in the above video and may even lead to death as this video states happened in one instance.

Tax payers pay for the cost of landfills at up to 2 million dollars per acre, and we are not going to stop generating garbage any time soon.

Make the Plasma Gasification plant publicly owned.  Pass the savings on electricity and waste disposal to the tax payers in the costs of their electric bills. Read more at storify.com

 

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Recent Advancements in Steel Make it Lighter and Stronger

Recent Advancements in steel promise to reduce weight of vehicles while making them safer. Which in effect means improved gas mileage. The process also takes less energy to produce the steel.

Amplify’d from www.gizmag.com

Self-taught metallurgist creates lighter, stronger steel in a flash

Having been around for a few centuries, steel is what is known as a "mature technology" and the basic process of heat-treating has remained largely unchanged in the modern age. So when self-taught metallurgist Gary Cola approached engineers at Ohio State University claiming to have found a way to increase the strength of steel by seven percent, they were justifiably skeptical. However, after the engineers tested steel produced using the new method, Cole's claims were borne out and the engineers set about understanding what was happening.

Lolla says this unique microstructure boosts the metal's ductility, meaning it can crumple a lot more before breaking. This, coupled with the steel's ability to be thinned and lengthened without losing its strength, make it an ideal process for the automotive industry, say the researchers. Carmakers would be able to build frames that are up to 30 percent thinner and lighter without compromising safety, with the steel also acting as an impact-absorber. Alternatively, the steel could be used to reinforce an armored vehicle without weighing it down.

Cola also says his process is also environmentally friendly as it consumes less energy per kilogram of steel processed compared to traditional methods and uses water instead of oils or molten salt. Read more at www.gizmag.com

 

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An Old Irish Blessing -

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand. http://amplify.com/u/a1582l

Atlantic City Wind Turbines Still Bring Tourism after 5 years

Wind Turbines not only saved 2.5 million for the plant but also has affected local tourism.

Amplify’d from www.awea.org

After five years, Atlantic City turbines are still a tourist draw

Five years after they were installed, the five wind turbines of the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm have become a continuing source of interest to Atlantic City visitors, according to a recent article at Philly.com, the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer. A few highlights of the article: - Hotel operators in the resort city report that some guests ask for rooms with a view of the turbines, which generate electricity for a major wastewater treatment plant. - The Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA), which owns the treatment plant and the wind farm, offers regular tours at noon Friday and Monday during the summer months. Some 15,000 people have visited the wind farm since its installation. - The wind farm and a solar array at the site generate 60 percent of the electricity used by the treatment plant, saving the equivalent of 24,000 barrels of oil a year.  In five years, the turbines have saved ACUA $2.5 million in electricity costs. More reading: Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm: You can't help but look up, August 27, 2009   Read more at www.awea.org

 

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Colorado Town Reaches for 80% Renewable Energy by 2025

Amplify’d from www.renewableenergyworld.com

A great story of a city looking to - literally - take ownership of its energy future:

...Boulder leaders -- who let the city's 20-year franchise agreement with Xcel Energy lapse at the end of 2010 -- are now considering whether they can get an energy mix for their residents with a larger percentage of renewable energy than what Xcel is offering.

...At the "Clean Energy Slam" event in February, which gave participants two minutes to pitch a vision for Boulder's energy future, a representative of Southwest Generation told the crowd that he believed his company could provide Boulder with an energy mix of 50 percent renewables and 50 percent natural gas by 2014. And by 2025, the company could provide up to 80 percent renewable energy to the city, the representative, David Rhodes, said.

...Jonathan Koehn, the city's regional sustainability coordinator, said adding more renewables is only part of the equation. "We've heard a lot of concern that, perhaps, more clean energy is driving this analysis," he said. "But this is about long-term economic stability. When we talk about what our portfolio might look like in the future, we don't have a predetermined notion of a certain percentage of renewables. What we want is to be able to analyze how we can have long-term stable rates."

It's not just about clean energy and stable rates, however.  The decision to eschew a utility franchise was also about localization, described on a city website as taking more control in determining:

Where the energy supply comes from - Locally produced What types of energy are provided - Renewables over fossil fuels How much we pay for it - Rate control

Local generation of renewable energy will add more to Boulder's economy than importing clean electrons, and if those projects can also be locally owned (perhaps via a community solar project like the Clean Energy Collective is doing in Carbondale, CO) then the economic benefits multiply significantly. Read more at www.renewableenergyworld.com

 

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Scotland Reaches > 30% Mark 2011 and Aims for 100% by 2020

Scotland has reached their goal of getting > 30% of their energy from renewable resources this year and aims towards 100% by 2020. They continue to grow more self sufficient in their energy production and decrease their dependency on foreign countries.

Amplify’d from www.upi.com

Scotland inches toward wind energy goals

GLASGOW, Scotland, June 14 (UPI) -- The opening of two wind power facilities in Scotland help move the country closer to its renewable energy goals, the country's leader said.

Two wind farms, which combined will generate enough power to meet the energy demands of more than 100,000 households, have opened in Scotland.

The government in Edinburgh aims to invest roughly $490 million to develop the next generation of offshore wind turbines. Scotland set a goal of getting 100 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2020.

The government said the current 7 gigawatts of installed or planned renewable energy projects means Scotland is exceeding its goal of getting more than 30 percent of its electricity from green resources in 2011. Read more at www.upi.com

 

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Senate Considering Amendment to Eliminate Ethanol Subsidy

In an ever increasing need to find alternative fuel supplies to decrease dependency on foreign fuel that is destroying the environment and robbing the economy I wonder if now is the best time to do this?



Corn is not the most efficient means of producing ethanol for fuel purposes and should be replaced with more efficient means. Namely Switchgrass, which not only has been reported as being more efficient in it's production but is also better on the land and doesn't need to compete with food production. http://bit.ly/jG2YcO



Farmers have reported that they could use Switchgrass during the crop rotation periods when they are paid to leave their land fallow as they have to have land coverage and Switchgrass could serve this purpose. They state that it is a great way of land conservation. http://bit.ly/lJ9mHw



Switchgrass also has the added benefit of being able to be grown in areas that can't be farmed for food production. This means added jobs, and more food.



So the Republicans are fighting to remove competition for the oil companies and the Democrats are trying to fight to maintain the corn based ethanol.



I wonder why we are not taking into consideration the Republican's point that Corn is causing a food shortage, and that it is not making that big of an impact on the environment when we have something that can solve both those problems?



I also wonder why we would want to raise the cost of gas at the pump which is what would happen if we cut the ethanol subsidy.

Amplify’d from coloradoindependent.com

Senate considering amendment that would eliminate ethanol subsidy

The U.S. Senate may vote as early as today on an amendment that would eliminate one of the major government subsidies for the production of corn-based ethanol. The Hill reports:

Those who grow corn and those who make ethanol love this subsidy, but many experts say that it drives up the price of food and skews agricultural land use toward corn that would be better used for other crops, all with little to no benefit for the environment. Read more at coloradoindependent.com

 

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