International Society for Industrial Ecology In the News

UL Environment Releases Manufacturer Guidance on Use of Pre-Consumer Recycled Content

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:28:44 GMT

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NORTHBROOK, Ill., July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, UL Environment, a global leader in environmental validation and standards development, published the position paper Interpreting Pre-Consumer Recycled Content Claims, which outlines multi-industry guidelines regarding the use of pre-consumer recycled content. The paper provides clearer definitions and guiding principles expressing what constitutes pre-consumer recycled content and leads the global marketplace towards best practices for its incorporation into product manufacturing.

"Manufacturers have historically struggled to understand pre-consumer recycled content," said Steve Wenc, president of UL Environment. "Our guidelines are intended to make it easier for manufacturers to identify and incorporate pre-consumer recycled content, helping to make recycled content more prevalent in many products and industries."

The new UL Environment position paper represents a shift in the common understanding of this type of recycled content and has process implications across a wide range of industries, including: chemicals, metals, minerals and plastics. The paper is based on the concept of industrial ecology, which takes a holistic approach to examining sustainability in industrial systems and leads to a well-defined goal of zero-waste manufacturing.

"UL strongly believes that the foundation of environmental responsibility starts by creating a common vocabulary," said Wenc. "We are helping to support a more sustainable economy by providing manufacturers with direction to achieve greater material reuse and encouraging recycling and reuse of all waste materials."

To download a copy of the UL Environment pre-consumer recycled content white paper or learn more about related testing and certification services, visit http://www.ulenvironment.com/ulenvironment/eng/pages/env/newsroom.

About UL Environment, Inc.

UL Environment is helping support the growth and development of sustainable products, services and companies in the global marketplace through standards development, independent third-party assessment and certification and knowledge services. UL Environment is a wholly owned subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories, a global leader in conformity assessment that has been testing products and writing standards for more than a century. UL Environment currently offers Environmental Claims Validation (ECV), a service testing and verifying manufacturers' self-declared environmental claims, Sustainable Products Certification (SPC), a service evaluating and certifying products to accepted industry standards for environmental sustainability and Energy Efficiency Certification (EEC), a service certifying products for compliance with government energy efficiency specifications. UL Environment is developing additional environmental standards, as well as training and advisory services to support organizations in the sustainable products and services industry.

Green energy unit is a national ‘first’

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:24:59 GMT

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CONSTRUCTION work has been completed on a ground-breaking “green” energy plant at brewing and leisure retail company Adnams’ distribution site outside Southwold.

The anaerobic digestion (AD) unit will be the first of its kind in the UK to use by-products from the brewing process and local food waste as a renewable source of gas for injection into the national gas grid as well as providing gas for use as a vehicle fuel.

Adnams Bio Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of the Cambridge-based Bio Group, to which the Adnams has licensed its name, will start supplying gas to the grid once commissioning work is completed later this summer, in a partnership with British Gas and the National Grid.

The plant will generate up to 4.8million kilowatt-hours of energy a year, enough to heat 235 family homes for a year or run an average family car for four million miles.

In practice, around 60% of the output will be supplied to the National Grid, with the remainder being used to power the Adnams brewery and run the company’s fleet of lorries.

The plant consists of three “digesters” − sealed vessels in which naturally-occurring bacteria act without oxygen to break down organic waste. The result is the production of biomethane, plus a liquid organic fertiliser.

Biomethane is very similar to natural gas and, once upgraded to grid specification, can be injected into the gas network for end use by customers.

Besides representing a renewable source of energy, so helping to reduce carbon emissions, the plant will also prevent the release into the atmosphere of methane − another contributor to global warming − which would result were the waste to be sent to landfill.

Under an agreement with British Gas parent company Centrica, Adnams Bio Energy is also installing solar thermal panels and photo voltaic cells on the site, effectively creating a mini “energy park” and ensuring that all of the site, including the Adnams distribution centre, will be using renewable energy generated on-site with some surplus energy available for export.

The £2.75million project has been supported by funding from Royal Bank of Scotland and grants from the European Regional Development Fund, the East of England Development Agency and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Steve Sharratt, chief executive of Bio Group, which has experience in the design and construction of renewable energy processing plants across the UK, said the Southwold facility represented the first stage in a national roll out of AD plants.

“We use innovative, low carbon building techniques to produce energy through a completely organic and natural process; nothing is wasted,” he added.

Adnams chief executive Andy Wood said: “We are delighted that Adnams Bio Energy is located on the site of our eco-distribution centre.

“For a number of years now, Adnams has been investing in ways to reduce our impact on the environment. The reality of being able to convert our own brewing waste and local food waste to power Adnams’ brewery and vehicles, as well as the wider community is very exciting.”

Mr Wood said the “industrial ecology cycle” would be complete as the fertiliser produced from the AD process could be used on farmland to grow barley for Adnams beer.

“This facility will have a major impact on the reduction of carbon emissions in the region and the production of renewable energy,” he added.

“The food waste would otherwise be destined for landfill, but processing it through the digester will save an estimated 50,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents from landfill.”

Gearóid Lane, managing director of communities and new energy at British Gas, said: “This project demonstrates how local communities can help us move to a low carbon energy future.

“Using waste that would otherwise end up in landfill to produce renewable gas is mutually beneficial for the environment and homes and businesses”.

Adnams claims UK first with beer AD plant

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:23:36 GMT

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Brewing firm Adnams is claiming a UK first as it nears completion of building work on its anaerobic digestion plant.

The Suffolk-based beer maker says it will be the first to turn brewing and food waste into a renewable source of gas when it opens the plant in around October this year.

About 60% of the gas will be used to run the brewery's fleet of delivery trucks and, once commissioning work has taken place later this summer, the rest will supply power to the national grid.

The £2.75 million plant is capable of producing up to 4.8 million KW hours of energy each year - enough to heat 235 family homes for a year or run an average car for four million miles.

The plant features three digesters inside which naturally occurring bacteria act without oxygen to break down up to 12,500 tonnes of organic waste each year and produce biomethane.

Adnams' chief executive, Andy Wood, said: "For a number of years now, Adnams has been investing in ways to reduce our impact on the environment.

"The reality of being able to convert our own brewing waste and local food waste to power Adnams' brewery and vehicles, as well as the wider community is very exciting.

"The industrial ecology cycle is completed when the fertiliser produced from the anaerobic digestion process can be used on farmland to grow barley for Adnams beer.

"This facility will have a major impact on the reduction of carbon emissions in the region and the production of renewable energy.

"The food waste would otherwise be destined for landfill, but processing it through the digester will save an estimated 50,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents from landfill."

10 Things to Know about Life Cycle Assessment, Green Biz

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:36:04 GMT

For full article, click here.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has come a long way in the past few years, evolving from a niche activity carried out by academics and a few forward-thinking businesses to a mainstream practice talked about publicly by Fortune 500 companies.

But there is still some confusion about what LCA is, what it's good (and not so good) for, and where it might be headed.

What follows here are 10 facts -- and a few opinions -- to help shed some light on this exciting young field.

1. LCA is a tool in a growing field called Industrial Ecology

Industrial Ecology seeks to redefine the global economy from the old paradigm of open loop systems (linear flows of materials where resources are extracted, goods are produced and used, and waste products are disposed) to closed loop models (the goal of which is to mimic nature, where the wastes from one product are the raw materials for another).

2. Think "cradle-to-grave," or ideally, "cradle-to-cradle"

LCA is a "cradle-to-grave" (or, ideally, cradle to cradle) accounting of the key environmental impacts of products and services.
To perform an LCA, you essentially sum up all of the material and energy inputs to the production, use, and disposal of a product; then sum up all of the outputs (air and water emissions, materials, and waste) from each phase; and interpret the results in terms of impacts on human health, ecosystems quality, and resource depletion.

3. LCA is often performed to determine the impact of consumer products

Though there are many uses for LCA, consumer products have long been a prominent target for practitioners. There can be many reasons for this, but it seems likely that it is a response to the growing consumer demand for environmentally-responsible products. The increasing prevalence of product carbon footprints (see next bullet) is a good example of this phenomenon.

4. A product carbon footprint is a type of LCA

There are many ways that LCA can "quantify" the environmental impact of products. One such method is the product carbon footprint, which is really an LCA that focuses on climate change impacts. The increasing prevalence of carbon footprinting can only be good news, as so-called supply chain carbon (that is, carbon emissions that occur outside the direct control of the company selling the final product) make up a very large percentage of the emissions associated with the goods we buy and sell every day.

5. To do an LCA the right way, you need to know (and communicate) the "What" and the "Why"

Why are you performing an LCA? Is it intended for use only inside your organization to make improvements to a product? Or are you intending to "go public" with your findings and make an environmental claim? And what will you be evaluating? Is it a single, consumer facing item (like a can of soda), or is it an entire product line (such as carbonated beverages)? Also, what year will you be evaluating (most recent is always best)? These are the kind of questions you'll need to answer when you state the "What and the Why" of your study (technically called the Goal and Scope), the first stage of any LCA.

6. LCA is data driven

To perform an LCA, you need a lot of data. Some of the data is relatively easy to come by -- the amount of energy used in a manufacturing plant that your company owns and operates, for example. Other types can be extremely difficult to obtain -- a common example is a material used in your product (such as plastic packaging) that is bought from an overseas supplier. Fortunately, there are databases that contain representative information for common materials. Some of these databases are proprietary, others free, and all are of varying degrees of quality. But there are global efforts to improve the data available to LCA practitioners, so we can look forward to stronger and more robust results as time goes on.

7. The Life Cycle Inventory is the meat of LCA

The grunt work of LCA begins with data collection and modeling, or Life Cycle Inventory in LCA terms. This is often made easier by drawing a process map of your product's life cycle -- a box flow diagram of all the inputs and outputs across the entire supply chain. Once this is sketched out, the LCI essentially becomes a matter of acquiring and filling in data at each relevant step. So, the LCI is really a balance sheet of all the material and energy inputs and the emissions outputs over the product's life cycle.

8. It's not enough to know how much -- we have to place the impacts in context

After the LCI is compiled, the inputs and outputs are interpreted to broadly explain their effect on key environmental categories -- the usual suspects are human health, ecosystem quality, and resource depletion. This part of the LCA is known as life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and is used by decision makers to make choices about how to lessen the environmental effects of the evaluated product. So, for example, while the LCI might tell us how many grams of different greenhouse gases are emitted across a product's life cycle, the LCIA would go a step further and quantify the global warming potential of all those emissions.

9. Interpretation

Once the life cycle inventory and assessment are finished (these are usually accomplished with the help of software tools, which are proliferating at a rapid rate), it's left to the human practitioner to frame the results. Questions such as which impact categories to emphasize the most (human health is a common choice) and which processes to focus on for improvement need to be decided. Answers to these questions are often highly subjective, and depend upon many things, such as the priorities of the organization performing the LCA, the target audience, and other issues decided in the Goal and Scope phase.

10. LCA is what we make of it

LCA is a powerful tool to help us understand the impacts of the products we make and use. But like any tool, it can be used in many different ways, some of them not so helpful. If, for example, we evaluate a "bad" product and use LCA to improve its impact incrementally, we still might not realize the true aim of our work -- the production of goods and services that do not hinder the ability of current future generations to provide for themselves. In other words, only in the context of broader sustainability goals can LCA do what it was created to do -- help to enable the creation of truly green economy.

Scott Kaufman is a senior manager at the Carbon Trust and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, where he teaches a course in Industrial Ecology and Life Cycle Assesment (LCA).

Adnams to turn brewery waste to gas by Matt Eley, The Publican

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:28:19 GMT

Suffolk brewer will provide enough gas for more than 200 homes

Brewer Adnams is set to provide enough gas to heat 235 homes a year by converting brewery and local food waste.

The Suffolk-based company has constructed the first UK anaerobic digestion plant to use such materials to create biomethane.

This will provide gas to use at the brewery and to inject into the National Grid.

It has teamed up with British Gas and the National Grid for the project and will start pumping renewable gas into the grid later this summer.

Chief executive Andy Wood said: “For a number of years now Adnams has been investing in ways to reduce our impact on the environment.

“The reality of being able to convert our own brewing waste and local food waste to power Adnams brewery and vehicles as well as the wider community is very exciting.”

Biomethane is similar to natural gas and according to National Grid could account for 15 per cent of the domestic supply by 2020.

Nanomaterials in the Construction Industry and Resulting Health and Safety Issues

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:11:04 GMT

Source: Nanowerk
Author: Michael Berger

The construction industry has recently begun to look at a variety of manufactured nanomaterials as a way to advance conventional construction materials, according to this article. Nanomaterials could help the construction industry enhance material properties as well as reduce energy consumption. Commercial buildings and residential houses use 41 percent of all the energy consumed in the United States. Scientists at Rice University, United States, have completed a review that looks at the benefits of using nanomaterials in construction materials and highlights the potentially harmful aspects of releasing nanomaterials into the environment. The review contains a list of current uses of nanomaterials in various building applications and highlights potential and promising future uses. The authors state that "[W]hether nanoenabled construction materials could be designed to be "safe" and still display the properties that make them useful is an outstanding question," and suggest that adopting principles of industrial ecology and pollution prevention should be a high priority to prevent environmental pollution and the associated impacts. Substances should be re-engineered to create safer, greener, and yet effective products, the authors say. They conclude by emphasizing the potential of manufactured nanomaterials in the construction industry to harvest solar or other forms of renewable energy, and as substitutes for materials such as lead and mercury that can become harmful environmental pollutants. The article and a link to the review can be found online at the link below.

The original article may still be available at www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=17138.php

New York biofuel road map released

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:53:36 GMT

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By Anna Austin

The New York State Energy and Research Development Authority has released a renewable fuel road map for New York that indicates there is potentially 1 million to 1.68 million acres of nonforest land that can be used for bioenergy feedstock production in New York.

The 140-page document assesses the prospects for the expansion of biofuel production within the state while focusing on biomass resource availability and economic and environmental impacts. The road map considers 11 key issues, including stakeholder input, analysis of sustainable feedstock production in New York, feedstock transportation and logistics, life-cycle analysis and public health and biofuel industry economic impacts and analysis.

The road map’s lower estimate of available biomass crop land (1 million acres) assumes that no cropland is used for new bioenergy feedstock production, rather new production lands come from abandoned farmland, old pasture, and scrub and shrub lands not currently used for production. The estimate also assumes that only about half of New York landowners would be interested in production. The higher estimate of 1.68 million acres assumes additional land (approximately 0.68 million acres) becomes available by the year 2020 due to projected increased crop and milk yields but on less land, freeing some current crop land for lignocellulosic energy feedstocks.

Another potential feedstock source the report considers is municipal solid waste (MSW) for ethanol production. Using data from two New York State MSW characterization studies and a U.S. EPA waste characterization study, estimates of waste biomass available for ethanol production were extrapolated from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Waste Management Plan 2000 update. The road map calculates that if New York were to convert only the yard waste and paper waste fraction that’s not currently being recycled into ethanol, it could possibly yield 426 MMgy of ethanol in the short term and 524 MMgy in the long term, depending upon the conversion process used.

Overall, New York lands could potentially provide 5.6 to 16 percent of estimated 2020 in-state gasoline consumption, assuming that the technological barriers to commercial-scale production of lignocellulosic ethanol are overcome by the year 2020, according to the road map. It also finds that New York-derived biomass could support four large-scale centralized lignocellulosic biorefineries (capacity ranging from 90 MMgy to 354 MMgy) or up to 24 smaller capacity (60 MMgy) biorefineries.
The Renewable Fuels Roadmap and Sustainable Biomass Feedstock supply For New York can be accessed at www.nyserda.org.

California gets a look at greener ethanol numbers this week

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:46:40 GMT

Dan Looker

Successful Farming magazine Business Editor

6/15/2010, 4:17 PM CDT

Click here for full article.

Most farmers are painfully aware that corn prices have been trending down for much of this spring, even as the ethanol industry recovers and expands its use of the grain to make fuel.

California doesn't know. At least officially, at the California Air Resources Board, or CARB. CARB is in charge of a state law that aims to lower the carbon emissions from fuels 10% by 2020. Last year CARB ranked the "carbon intensity" of fuels and used a controversial theory on indirect land use that had the effect of making gasoline look greener than Midwest corn ethanol. The theory assumes that an expanding ethanol industry will raise grain prices and lead to tropical savannas and rainforests being cleared for crop production.

No one disputes that clearing tropical forests puts a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. That's why Indonesia, a relatively poor country, ranks third behind China and the U.S. among the planet's top greenhouse gas producers. Indonesia is a major producer of timber and paper and has been converting rain forests and tropical peat bogs to palm oil production.

But the science of calculating how biofuels fit into the equation is new and still uncertain. This Thursday CARB will hear from a Purdue University economist, Wally Tyner, who led a team that refined a computer model for a report that shows ethanol has a much smaller effect than originally believed.

"Sometimes I tell people this whole land use issue has only been around for three years," Tyner told Agriculture.com in a recent interview. "Over the last 14 months, we learned a lot about the kind of data we need and the parameters."

Tyner's latest computer analysis comes up with at least a 10% cut in greenhouse gases from ethanol over gasoline, even including indirect land use.

Tyner will talk about a report that he and others released this spring for the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Tyner is a member of the CARB Expert Working Group.

Economic computer modeling might seem like a dry subject, but it's a big deal to the ethanol industry.

California represents nearly a tenth of the nation's market for ethanol, said Geoff Cooper, vice president of the Renewable Fuels Association. New rules for blending fuel in California take effect next January and gasoline suppliers are already making decisions based on a low carbon fuel standard that the state adopted last year.

"They're going to be looking for biofuels that generate credits that help lower the carbon intensity of their fuel blends," Cooper told Agriculture.com. Current rules favor ethanol made in California and Brazilian sugar cane ethanol over corn-based ethanol from the Midwest.

That's why the RFA has asked CARB to give credit to Tyner's work right away, even though CARB has until December to make any changes it its low carbon fuel standard.

RFA considers the whole concept of indirect land use flawed and, along with another trade group, Growth Energy, is challenging CARB's low carbon fuel standard in court.

"One thing I want to make clear is that us pushing CARB to adopt the new Purdue numbers is not an endorsement of the concept (of indirect land use) in any way," Cooper said.

Mark Stowers, vice president for research and development at POET, the world's largest ethanol producer, is another industry member of CARB's Expert Working Group. He, too, is skeptical of the validity of earlier estimates of the effect of ethanol on land use in other nations.

"I think CARB needs to look at a two-year moratorium and let the science settle out," Stowers told Agriculture.com recently.

Tyner's estimate of the effect of land use changes on greenhouse gas emissions from ethanol is only about 13% as much as the first estimate published in Science magazine by Tim Searchinger and others. And it's about half as much as CARB estimated last year.

Tyner said there are several reasons why the new computer modeling cut ethanol's impact.

The original Searchinger paper didn't account for distillers grains from ethanol, making the loss of corn for feed seem greater than it is. Tyner's estimate does. It also gives more credit for the productivity of pasture and marginal land that would be converted to crops as ethanol uses more corn. Previous reports estimated that marginal land converted to crops would be only about two-thirds as productive as prime land.

"In many areas of Brazil, for example, it's closer to one," Tyner said.

As experts and CARB debate the carbon footprint of ethanol, the industry isn't standing still.

At least half-a-dozen plants have applied to CARB for approval of ethanol production processes (called a pathway by CARB) that are more efficient at conserving energy and carbon, said Cooper of the RFA.

One is Corn Plus, a farmer-owned plant in Winnebago, Minnesota, that gets part of its electricity from two windmills and which burns part of the soluble portion of distillers grains for heat.

Last year CARB gave Midwest corn ethanol a "carbon intensity" of 99.4 (above gasoline's 95.86).

Keith Kor, manager of Corn Plus, said his plant has hired a consultant to do a life cycle analysis for its own carbon intensity rating.

It may be as low as 72, "which basically would be the same as Brazilian sugarcane ethanol," Kor said.

POET, too, is a major innovator.

At the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in St. Louis today, it released its own life cycle analysis of cellolusic ethanol that will be produced at its corn ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

According to an independent analysis of POET's Project Liberty, the cellulosic ethanol will lower carbon emissions by 111% compared to gasoline. It will actually have negative emissions, offsetting more carbon than it releases. The plant will use corn cobs and the upper 25% of corn stover for its feedstock.

"Not only is cellulosic ethanol a clean and safe alternative fuel, in cases such as Project Liberty, it can literally reverse some of the effects of our nation's dependence on fossil energy such as oil," POET CEO Jeff Broin said. "By expanding the number of sources for ethanol production, the entire nation can contribute to helping our nation's economy, security and environment through alternative fuel production."

Broin gave the results to reporters today. A lifecycle analysis tracks the emissions of ethanol production from "field to tank." It includes emissions from planting and harvest, feedstock transportation, conversion to ethanol, waste products, co-products and transportation of the ethanol. It also includes Environmental Protection Agency calculations for changes in land use and effects on agriculture inputs.

Waste from the cellulosic plant will produce biogas, which will be used to help power an existing corn ethanol plant next to the cellulosic plant.

Click here for details on the POET announcement.

Click here for the full report of Wally Tyner's research, Land Use Changes and Consequent CO2 Emissions due to U.S. Corn Ethanol Production: A Comprehensive Analysis.

Tunisia launches clean production to preserve enterprises

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:29:13 GMT

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TUNISIAONLINENEWS- The Tunisian Clean Production Project (TCPP) was launched on Thursday, in Tunis, in the presence of Mr.Nadhir Hamada, Minister Environment and Sustainable Development.

Eco-friendly or clean production prevents all forms of pollution, in order to reduce risks for health and the environment, while improving the competitiveness and economic viability of businesses.

Funded by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), this project aims at strengthening capacities of the National Clean Production Centre (NCPC) in terms of resources efficient and clean production (RECP).

The TCPP which is part is part of implementing the second phase of the UNIDO’s integrated technical co-operation program with Tunisia, is structured around two main axes.

The first aims at strengthening the capacity of national skills in terms of dissemination of the concept of cleaner production, through training of 25 Tunisian national experts in the master of the basic tools of cleaner production and innovative concepts (industrial ecology, analysis of life’s cycle, social responsibility, Eco-label) and accompanying 75 industrial companies and hotels for the implementation of cleaner production tools.

The second axis, aims at putting up a network of the Tunisian CNPP with its counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to promote technology transfer and knowledge on cleaner production.

To this end, a knowledge management system (KMS) will be established to promote the exchange of information and expertise between countries of the region.

The targeted sectors are textiles, leather and footwear, food, hotels, engineering, electrical and chemical industries.

Mr. Nadhir Hamada stressed that the project, which is part of the national objectives in of environmental upgrading, will help enterprises reduce their consumption of raw materials, water and energy, while increasing their competitiveness.

Other factors mentioned by the Minister, including benchmarking studies conducted nationally in this sector, which revealed the interest for Tunisian companies of clean products.

In a related event, Mr. Nadhir Hamada, held on Thursday a conference on “national and regional planning and the fight against the challenges of climate change and desertification”, in which he said that Tunisia implemented projects aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gas, the main cause of climate change.

He mentioned in this context, the adoption by the National Clean Development Mechanism Office of 37projects in the sector of energy efficiency, exploitation of renewable energy in addition to the strengthening of the Tunis railway network, the reduction of emissions of phosphate sector and control of waste management.

Recent biomass studies misconstrued, inaccurate

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:49:37 GMT

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By Anna Austin

Posted June 16, 2010, at 4:45 p.m. CST

Mainstream media outlets have largely misinterpreted a biomass sustainability and carbon policy report released last week by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, according to study contributor Pinchot Institute for Conservation.

In fact, the rapidly spreading assertion that woody biomass is dirtier than coal “couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Pinchot President Al Sample told reporters during a media advisory call held June 16, held to clear up erroneous news stories regarding the report’s indications of woody biomass power plant environmental consequences in comparison with coal power plants.

The six-month study, titled “Biomass Sustainability and Carbon Policy Study,” was performed to address a wide array of social, scientific, economic and technical issues related to the use of forest biomass for generating energy in Massachusetts, after citizen and activist opposition to three proposed biomass power projects in the state prompted the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources to commission the study. Pinchot’s main role in the study was to provide a review of regulations and standards needed to ensure the sustainability of forest resources in light of potential increases in wood consumption for bioenergy.

Sample said initially, an Associated Press story mischaracterized the study, and then countless other news outlets continued to repeat the same inaccuracies. “It was a gross simplification that resulted in a misinterpretation of the study’s overall conclusions,” Sample said.

As far as the data that influenced the misconstrued assumptions, Sample said when narrowly interpreted, the study suggests that when looking at the smokestack emissions, woody biomass emits slightly more CO2 emissions per unit of energy produced. That does not at all mean it is more polluting or inferior to coal plants, however, because it doesn’t take into consideration any type of life-cycle analysis or other harmful emissions that coal emits and biomass does not. “That [wrong] impression surprised a number of us who contributed to the study,” he said.

Sample emphasized that the reason Pinchot felt it should provide clarification on the matter was because the organization is a nonprofit research institution that serves to provide accurate and comprehensive information to policymakers; he also noted that some groups may benefit unfairly from the widely circulated misreading. “We need to ensure that [policymakers] decisions, particular on wood biomass energy in the U.S., are based on fully comprehensive and accurate data, as we have the American Power Act and a number of other things in play,” Sample said.

He added that the institution still feels that it is a strong study, though, and provides good analyses and information that was not previously available.

Adding insult to injury, the Environmental Working Group released a report June 16 that associates biomass power with “clear-cutting trees,” wrongly claiming that state and federal incentive policies would soon support such activities.

In the report, EWG states it calculates that the current recommended goal of generating 25 percent of U.S. electricity from renewable sources by 2025 would require the equivalent of clear-cutting between 18 million and 30 million acres of forest. The claim significantly contrasts with studies performed by other renewable energy technology-neutral groups, such as the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, that have calculated the goal as achievable using only wood waste materials that the biomass power industry actually uses.

Biomass Power Association President Bob Cleaves said prior to the report he had not been aware of the organization, and that its assertions have no relevance to how power is generated from biomass today in the U.S. or to how it will be in the foreseeable future. “The study is flatly wrong that federal tax incentives are used to harvest trees; both the production tax credit and investment tax credit are only available for waste wood products, and the law has been clear on this point for about six years,” he said. “The assumption that biomass electricity uses or will use harvested, merchantable trees to make power and will do so increasingly if Congress passes aggressive renewable energy laws is based on a premise without any economic analysis that suggests it’s even viable to use whole trees.” If that were the case, Cleaves pointed out, the many biomass power plants that are currently idle in the country, most located in heavily forested areas, would be running. “Right now they can’t afford even waste wood at current fuel and power prices, let alone whole trees at twice the cost,” he said.

Referring to President Obama’s recent call for a constructive dialogue on changing the U.S.’s energy policies in light of the BP Gulf oil spill, Cleaves pointed out that it will never be accomplished by engaging in tired rhetoric or environmental scare tactics. “We (the biomass power industry] welcome the debate,” he said. “But let’s get the facts right … we are going to make every effort we can to protect the truth.”

University of Oregon students to help plan Salem's future

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:27:59 GMT

Click here for full article.

By Michelle Andujar
from WillametteLive, Section News

The City of Salem has been selected by the University of Oregon's Sustainable Cities Initiative as the site for students in different fields to engage in real world projects and help city council reach its goals. The students will travel to Salem frequently and are expected to present their research findings concerning fourteen projects in Salem at the end of the program in September 2011.

Salem was chosen among thirty-five cities that wanted to participate the Sustainable Cities Initiative. "Salem had the best application. It had a lot of staff commitment, time and the projects had real world components," said Nick Fleury, UO's program coordinator.

The City of Salem will invest up to with over $345,000 for the project. That is broken into three parts: $125,000 from urban renewal agency, $60,000 from Salem Housing Authority, and $160,000 from the City of Salem.

"The money will be used to assist students commuting to Salem, and to invite expert speakers [for example]," said Fleury.

Among other projects, the City expects the participating UO students to present their vision for the North Downtown waterfront area. "It's just outside a historic district. It's prime for development," said Fleury. A plan for the connection of downtown parks with urban trails and bike routes, as well as one for the restoration of Minto Brown park are also envisioned.

The UO departments of architecture, landscape architecture, arts and administration, planning, public policy and management, business management, journalism and law will be in charge of carrying out the initiative's proposals.

Jennifer Howard, a professor of industrial ecology will focus her class on the reusing of waste byproducts in Salem's industries. "One farm could use the byproducts of another, like using food scraps for animal feed," she said. The waste recycling program between industries will center around Salem's dairy, metal and food processing companies. "We're looking at existing exchanges and opportunities to have more," said Howard.

There will also be a market analysis aspect, where students will determine the potential growth of existing industries and examine Salem's demographics and other qualities in order to designate potential new ones. Other students will look at ways to improve civic engagement, representation and participation.

City of Salem's Project Manager Courtney Knox said, "Projects will begin when classes start in September, but there may be some meetings this summer for the community of Salem to get involved."

Is ethanol a scam?

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:35:40 GMT

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Michael Vaughan

Globe and Mail Update Published on Thursday, Jun. 10, 2010 2:04PM EDTLast updated on Thursday, Jun. 10, 2010 2:12PM EDT

The gigantic ecological tragedy of the deep-sea oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico grows worse and worse. So far, this disaster has caused some rethinking about how deep-sea drilling for petroleum can be better regulated as it goes ahead in the United States and Canada. It has also unleashed the lawyers to argue about which petroleum company or petroleum contractor is legally liable.

But the fact that has been almost ignored in the highly charged debate is this: anything you can make from petroleum (including fuel), you can make from alcohol. Had 80 million litres of alcohol been spilled into the Gulf it would have been harmless as it dissolved. Alright, if it had been ethanol (grain alcohol) a lot of fish might have hangovers. The point is there has never been an event like this one to emphatically point away from petroleum and toward bio-based energy.

Some opposition to ethanol is fierce. One of my distinguished colleagues in this section has told me repeatedly, “Ethanol is a scam.” The argument is that the ethanol industry is “heavily subsidized” and that “ethanol increases greenhouse gas emissions.” The big moral objection is the “Food for Fuel” issue – that using corn for ethanol drives up food prices for the world’s poor. Well, if biofuels are that bad, then Drill Baby, Drill.

Subsidies for What

But let’s look at the issues one by one beginning with “heavily subsidized” first. Every energy source has subsidies including, of course, the oil sands.

The federal and Alberta governments recently put up $1.5-billion for research and development on carbon capture. The petroleum industry also has depletion allowances, royalty tax credits, off-shore drilling credits and the ability to finance development with flow-through shares.

On the ethanol side, the federal government has a 10 cent per litre excise tax on gasoline and gave the ethanol industry an exemption on that tax. The Ontario government has a program that kicks in if corn prices are high and oil prices are low. In that event, the ethanol industry can draw up to 11 cents a litre. When oil was at $80 a barrel recently, the ethanol industry received nothing from the Ontario government.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The objection that “ethanol increases greenhouse gas emissions” should be off the table by now.

Last year, The Journal of Industrial Ecology at Yale University published a study titled Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Ethanol. This is an all-in accounting from farmer’s field to gas tank. The conclusion: “Direct-effect GHG emissions were estimated to be equivalent to a 48 to 59 per cent reduction compared to gasoline, a twofold to threefold greater reduction than reported in previous studies.” The report said that even more improvements are on the way. “These results suggest that corn-ethanol systems have substantially greater potential to mitigate GHG emissions and reduce dependence on imported petroleum for transportation fuels than reported previously.”

In Canada, a little-noticed independent analysis of Canadian renewable fuel production reached an almost identical conclusion last November. The study used the Natural Resources Canada GHGenius lifecycle assessment model for transportation fuels and concluded, “On an energy basis, the results show that the reduction in fuel cycle GHG emissions from one megajoule (MJ) of ethanol (when used in an E10 fuel blend) is 62 per cent of the fuel cycle GHG emissions for one megajoule (MJ) of gasoline.”

The report’s author, chemical engineer Bill Palmer of Cheminfo Services Inc., told me, “This is big news. I’m surprised it didn’t receive more coverage.” In other words, definitive proof supported by proper research is out there to show ethanol is effective in reducing GHG.

Food for Fuel

Last year, there was a record corn crop in North America with 14 billion bushels grown. From that 47 billion litres of ethanol was produced, which is roughly the same quantity of gasoline used in Canada in a year. However, the corn crop also produced millions of tonnes of high fructose corn syrup – which goes into soft drinks and other obesity related goodies – plus it fed all the cattle and chickens and pigs, which would be better off eating grass.

After feeding all that there was still 1.9 billion bushels of corn exported, half of it as foreign aid. The United Nations has objected to our corn exports because farmers in Africa who are trying to grow corn to make a living are going broke because governments are giving away too much of the stuff. And after doing all of this, there’s still two billion bushels of surplus corn in bins.

“What would you do with all this corn if you didn’t make ethanol,” asks Ken Field, founder and CEO of Canada’s largest ethanol producer, Greenfield Ethanol. “You plant a seed in the spring and you can have gasoline in the fall that’s local. That’s a wonderful advantage to a local economy.”

Bio-based versus Deep-water

Close to half the world’s oil production and 25 per cent of U.S. production is expected to come from deep-water wells by the end of the decade. Regulation will become more stringent while insurance premiums for offshore drilling will rise steeply as costs mount for the damage caused by the almost unstoppable blowout.

“We should be making as much ethanol as we can and producing it from energy crops and from stover (leaves and stalks) and from wood waste and municipal waste – all this is coming,” says Field. “This is where the world is going. It’s a lot smarter than drilling two miles down in the Gulf of Mexico or off our own coasts.”

To get to The Green Highway we need technology that is coming from the auto industry but also a greater reliance on renewable energy. This column will follow both.

Michael Vaughan is co-host with Jeremy Cato of Car/Business, which appears Fridays at 8 p.m. on Business News Network and Saturdays at 2 p.m. on CTV.

UN urges global move to meat and dairy-free diet

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:23:27 GMT

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Felicity Carus
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 June 2010 18.09 BST

A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: "Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."

The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.

The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth, they said.

Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel, said: "Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides."

Both energy and agriculture need to be "decoupled" from economic growth because environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income, the report found.

Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UNEP, said: "Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent challenge of poverty alleviation."

The panel, which drew on numerous studies including the Millennium ecosystem assessment, cites the following pressures on the environment as priorities for governments around the world: climate change, habitat change, wasteful use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers, over-exploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure to particulate matter.

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, says the report, which has been launched to coincide with UN World Environment day on Saturday.

Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said that food production would have to increase globally by 70% by 2050 to feed the world's surging population. The panel says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.

Prof Hertwich, who is also the director of the industrial ecology programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that developing countries – where much of this population growth will take place – must not follow the western world's pattern of increasing consumption: "Developing countries should not follow our model. But it's up to us to develop the technologies in, say, renewable energy or irrigation methods."

Clean technologies will increasingly rely on metal recycling industry

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:31:19 GMT

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Unless recycling of special rare metals such as lithium are increased there will not be material available to make clean technologies such as wind turbines, fuel cells and energy efficient lighting systems, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme has found.

The report Metals Recycling Rates, to be published by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management later this year, found that only one per cent of these metals are recycled. Currently, 99% is thrown away at the end of the product’s life, causing concern among experts that they could become unavailable for us to use in modern technology.

Metals such as lithium, neodymium and gallium are needed to make key components for wind turbines, photovoltaics (which convert solar energy into electricity), the battery packs of hybrid cars, fuel cells and energy efficient lighting systems.

UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said: “Urgent action is now needed to sustainably manage the supplies and flows of these specialty metals given their crucial role in the future health, penetration and competitiveness of a modern high-tech, resource efficient green economy.”

Preliminary results in the report found a lack of recycling infrastructure for waste electronic and electrical equipment in most parts of the world causes total losses of copper and other valuable metals like gold, silver and palladium.

Professor of Industrial Ecology at Yale University and chair of the UN’s working group on metals Thomas Graedel added: “One of the phenomena of our modern, industrial age is that increasingly metal stocks are above ground in structures such as buildings and ships and products from cell phones to personal computers…Yet these above ground supplies represent an extraordinary resource for sustainable development not only in terms of supplies but also the opportunity for reducing energy demand while curbing pollution, including rising greenhouse gases.”

The report also found that secondary steel uses 75% less greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to virgin steel, while emissions from recycled aluminium are around 12 times lower than primary aluminium production.

Wasted Potential

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:53:39 GMT

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Business Spectator

Nicholas Aberle

Concerns about exactly how much stuff the human race accumulates have started getting louder and more persistent. At issue here is the fact that we live on a planet of finite resources and, therefore, we cannot continue to make such large numbers of things that are treated, ultimately, as completely disposable.

Annie Leonard, author of “The Story of Stuff”, contends that we humans only engage with the consumption phase of a product’s life cycle, despite the fact that this is preceded by phases of extraction, production and distribution and then followed by the disposal phase – thus blinding us to the true cost of our consumerism; environmental degradation, the emission of greenhouse gases as well as a range of toxic chemicals into our water and air, diminishing levels of natural resources, and so on.

The significance of these side effects of consumerism cannot be overstated. For example, chemicals released into our environment have been implicated in increasing incidences of autism and declining fertility rates (anyone who has seen or read “Children of Men” can imagine the potential long-term consequences of this); and the threats of dangerous climate change are obvious.

But does it need to be this way? Obviously, humans will not simply quit being citizens of the 21st Century and return to basic agrarian societies – ultimately, we want stuff. Phones, computers, furniture, bicycles, coffee mugs, soft drinks, toothpaste, baby toys, houses – it is all a celebration of how civilisation has advanced and it is, for better or worse, fundamental to our self expression and identity.

So how do we continue to enjoy the fruits of advancement without leaving a legacy of environmental ruin for future generations?

The emerging field of industrial ecology tells us that this can be achieved through design. Better design. Smarter design. The title of a 2002 book provides the best summary of how this smarter design works: cradle to cradle. The current paradigm is cradle-to-grave: we take raw materials, make it into something, then we ultimately throw it into landfill. The cradle-to-cradle design concept – which can theoretically be applied to anything from a pen to a car to a factory – proscribes that everything should be made of biological nutrients (ie. things that will decompose and safely re-enter the biological life cycle) or technical nutrients (ie. materials that maintain their value through repeated product cycles). Basically, every element that makes up any one item should, at the end of its life, seamlessly re-integrate into the production of a new item.

The authors of a 2002 book called "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things", German chemist Michael Braungart and US architect William McDonough, cite numerous instances where their firm, MBDC, has helped clients develop products using this new paradigm: the new products save their clients money, they’re better for the environment, and waste from one process provides the input for the next cycle of production. While this “design for environment” should not be used to justify rampant consumerism, it can certainly minimise the impact of modern lifestyles.

An early success story from MBDC was a textile mill in Europe that wanted to develop an upholstery fabric that could be ultimately discarded in a compost heap. Once the new design and manufacturing process was implemented, the company no longer had to pay to ship their waste to an external site for treatment; they reduced their regulatory burden because the water coming out of the factory was now cleaner than the water going in; workers no longer needed to wear masks and gloves to protect themselves from toxic chemicals used previously; and, critically, the new product was cheaper to produce and proved to be extremely popular and successful.

On a larger scale, the Kwinana Industrial Area outside Perth has been a world leader in regional resources synergies, or industrial symbiosis, wherein waste can flow out of one factory into an adjoining factory as required raw materials.

This type of thing may not be achievable for all manufacturers, though. Perhaps not every product will be amenable to having certain chemicals removed or to incorporating a greater degree of re-usability of its components; even if a cradle-to-cradle design can be achieved, perhaps it will be too expensive to implement. In some cases, the cost of investigating a new design process might be prohibitive. But there is certainly potential for both financial and environmental savings. Policy measures could be used to provide some incentive to companies who are interested in the concept but uncertain about the rewards. For example, a logo, like the Heart Foundation tick, displayed on a product that incorporates cradle-to-cradle features might spur the increasing numbers of environmentally concerned consumers to purchase that product instead of a competitor’s.

So here is a challenge to industrial designers and the CEOs who employ them: Can you re-design your products and their packaging with a cradle-to-cradle view? Can you replace the toxic chemicals with innocuous alternatives? Can you maximise the re-usability of your components? And can you make money by doing this? This can be a way of improving environmental credentials, and it could just as easily be an excellent business opportunity: to derive profits from waste streams, to minimise costs, to be at the forefront of a new generation of industrial design and to reap the associated rewards.

Nicholas Aberle is a research scientist at the University of Melbourne

Yale and UNEP release report on rare metals recycling

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:55:08 GMT

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Yale University released a preliminary report over the weekend in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) that said industries will have to significantly impact recycling rates for enough rare metals to be recovered so that alternative energy technologies can move forward.

According to the report, dramatic boosts in recycling rates will be required to enable the supply of adequate amounts of raw materials for production of alternative energy equipment to move forward. Equipment such as solar cells, wind turbines, and other types of renewable energy items need raw materials for assembly.

The report forecasts that unless there is a jump in recycling rates of rare metals, there will not be enough to continue mass production of alternative energy technology. Currently, it is estimated that under one per cent of the globe’s indium, tellurium, neodymium, and other such uncommon metals are being recycled. The remainder ends up in waste heaps in landfills.

Thomas Graedel of Yale University, and the lead author on the report, said that the document was in no way trying to forecast that these rare metals would be exhausted, but rather that these materials will be in short supply in two or more decades if not recycled making it difficult to produce industry level equipment using them. He also urged countries committed to a greener economy to focus on increasing recycling rates.

The UNEP-Yale team plan to continue their research partnership by expanding on the report with supply details, industrial applications, and ways to recycle over 60 rare metals. According to the team, the secondary report should be published by October.

As UN Pitches Metal Recycling, Congo Coltan and Worker Safety Are Afterthoughts

Mon, 17 May 2010 05:25:12 GMT

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UNITED NATIONS, May 13 -- Metal recycling was promoted Thursday by the UN Environment Program. Inner City Press asked about the conflict metals and minerals like coltan mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and if the UN is doing anything about the working conditions of those who work in recycling.

UNEP's Achim Steiner, who until this final question in the press conference had presented recycling as an unmitigated good, now described waste dumps as "killer sites," and said that the International Labor Organization is on the case.

Achim Steiner previously at UN, coltan and worker safety, where?

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Riefsnyder acknowledged safety as a problem, but said that in the U.S. it is a matter of local (state) rather than federal law.

Professor Thomas Graedel said that coltan is made up of cobalt and tantalum. The former, he said, is 24 to 30 percent recycled. But tantalum is not. One third of global supply comes from Africa, he said. Cassiterite is a form of tin. He added, "we are not locked into the Africa situation there." Video here, from Minute 40:12.

The UN system has disparate goals, which are rarely reconciled or working together. If the UN is concerned about conflict metals being mined, perhaps it should focus its call for recycling there. And if it cares about worker safety, this should be worked into the campaign from the beginning, and not be an afterthought. We'll see.

As UN's Ban Partners with Statoil Despite Oil Sands and Angola, Indigenous and Weaver Hit Brazil on Dams

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 28 -- The UN picked Statoil as its poster child to Wednesday launch the report of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change. Inner City Press asked Statoil CEO Helge Lund about his company's move to oil sands -- being criticized this week by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues -- to drilling Marcellus shale, criticized for pollution, and financial criticism for projects in Angola, Libya and Nigeria. Video here, from Minute 30:13.

Mr. Lund's response to these specifics was to claim that Statoil is "transparent, open," then to speak about carbon emissions. But the critique of oil sands is not only about emissions, but the destruction of the land and driving indigenous people off.

Likewise, the criticism of Statoil in for example Angola was a lack of transparency and openness, working with local firms connected to government officials.

Mr. Ban left his press conference before any questions could be asked. But Inner City Press asked Achim Steiner, recently re-appointed by Mr. Ban to head UNEP, to explain what standards the UN applies and how it selects companies to be on its podium.

Steiner replied that people are on the Advisory Committee in their personal capacities. But Lars Josefsson the CEO of Vattenfall, a company moving ever more into fossil fuel development, bragged that his membership on the UN Committee reflects on Vattenfall's practices. Inner City Press has raised this to a number of UN officials, including Ban's "global goods" aide Bob Orr, but nothing has been done.

Statoil's Lund, at right, looks down as UN's Ban smiles

Steiner referred to the UN Global Compact, telling Inner City Press "you are more familiar with it than most." But that has been without the assistance or even consent of Compact leadership. Outside the most recent Compact board meeting in New York, Compact director Georg Kell told Inner City Press "you can't quote anyone here," or even ask them questions.

Only because Ban's Group of Friends on Myanmar was meeting next door was Inner City Press able to ask if there would be a Compact press availability. No, was the answer. What was that, about openness and transparency?

Later on Wednesday, indigenous people and the actress Signourey Weaver protected outside Brazil's mission to the UN, against the Belo Monte dam. Fox News was there -- incongruous, some said, until they remembered that Lulu is thought to be a left leaning president -- as well as a slew of photographers and paparazzi waiting for Ms. Weaver.

She arrived an hour late, but then spoke with conviction, how after the film Avatar indigenous groups had contacted Avatar director James Cameron. On Saturday Cameron told the Press that in preparing the movie, he had "read books" on indigenous beliefs. Now, he and Ms. Weaver seem to be listening to the indigenous. Oh that this were true of Statoil. Or of the Executive Office of the Secretary General of the UN, at least on oil sands, for that matter.

* * *

Avatar Shown to UN Forum by Cameron, White Messiah Alleged, "We're All Indigenous"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 24 -- Avatar was screened by its director James Cameron for the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Saturday night in Manhattan. Afterwards Cameron was asked why the hero had to be a white male, in the tradition of Dances with Wolves and before that Little Big Man.

Cameron replied that he was trying to "wake up Caucasians." He said both that "we are all indigenous" and that he wants "everyone to be a white Messiah." While unclear it was heartfelt. At the end an indigenous legislator from Peru stepped forward to give him her business card. It's 2010 and networking is everything.

In fact in the film, networking is central. The enormous trees which the U.S. corporate invaders are seeking to fell have "roots which interconnect," Signourey Weaver informs us, making up a network. The invaders are not impressed. Echoing Iraq, pointing at a book about the Na'vi, it is said that "when people are sitting on [stuff] that you want, you make them your enemy."

In another echo of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and post 9/11/01 war, the military villain vows "we'll fight terror with terror." He has looked at the protagonist's file - "I see you were in Venezuela." One wonders, is Cameron predicting a US assault on Hugo Chavez, before the time frame of the film?

While the movie was being screened, Cameron did fast one on one interviews with reporters. Inner City Press didn't ask for one, but heard about at least two. The "we are all White Messiahs" line was said both in private and in public: it is a talking point, for better or worse.

Inner City Press asked the UN how the screening came about and was told

"Matthew - The idea for the screening came about as the Secretariat for the Permanent Forum had heard many positive reactions from indigenous representatives on the film and how it was echoing their own stories. Through personal contacts of the Secretariat and the NGO co-sponsors, they contacted James Cameron re the possibility of a screening and it went from there."

Cameron (per Broddi) at UNPFII screening: White Messiah?

Since, as Cameron put it, the movie made "$2.7 billion for Rupert Murdoch," clearly he doesn't need the publicity. It seems he consented to the event in order to put to rest the residual criticism of the movie as racist -- although the "White Messiah" critique has been raised mostly by, well, white Messiahs -- and to show that his motives weren't commercial.

Witness Cameron's support to a protest of a project in Brazil. One wonders what Cameron thinks of President Lula's policies on the indigenous. Or of Evo Morales' recent comment that Western food, genetically engineers, leads to "baldness and homosexuality."

Cameron disclosed that he opposed the invasion of Iraq -- very courageous, at this point -- and that corporate interests are "plundering if you will." Yes, they will, including the financiers of the studios distributing Avatar. But if enough business cards are passed, perhaps there will be justice. At least, there will be a sequel. Watch this site.

UN footnote -- and the United Nations is increasingly often only a footnote -- one wanted to ask Cameron where he thought the UN would be in the conflict he depicted. But the public Q&A session was too short and smacked of pre-determined. If reality's any guide, the UN would be offering humanitarian assistance on behalf of the invaders, after the invasion.

UN panel sees future shortage of specialty metals

Mon, 17 May 2010 05:03:01 GMT

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Reuters

* Panel urges increasing use of existing metals stocks

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS, May 13 (Reuters) - Recycling rates for many specialty metals used in high-tech devices are so low -- often less than 1 percent -- that they may become unavailable in two to three decades, a U.N.-appointed panel said on Thursday.

The figure was disclosed as the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) began issuing a series of reports on metals, designed to encourage more recycling of existing metal stocks rather than depending on fresh mining for ores.

Thomas Graedel, a member of the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management set up by UNEP, said that without recycling the increasing use of specialty metals by the electronics industry would strain their availability.

At a U.N. news conference, he cited the case of indium, used in liquid crystal display glass, semiconductors, photovoltaic cells and other products. Demand for the metal is set to grow from 1,200 tons this year to 2,600 tons in 2020.

"Currently we think that recycling rates for indium are below one percent. We think that's the case for almost all the specialty metals," said Graedel, a professor of industrial ecology at Yale University.

He said that while he was not predicting the materials would run out altogether, "we do think there is a reasonable prospect that over the next two or three decades some materials may be in short enough supply so that they will become essentially unavailable as routine materials for industry.

Prices for such metals could in turn rise, changing the way they were typically used, said Graedel in releasing preliminary findings of a report the panel plans to publish in full in October.

Other metals whose recycling rates the panel said needed to be improved included neodymium, used in wind turbine magnets, and gallium, used for light emitting diodes in indicator lamps and lighting.

RECOVERY UNECONOMIC

Graedel cited information from microchip maker Intel Corp. (INTC.O) that the number of elements it used for computers rose from 11 in the 1980s to around 60 now, indicating that it would be hard to maintain current levels of computer performance if newer specialty metals became unavailable.

He suggested that one reason for the poor recycling rates was the very small quantities of the metals used in each device, making recovery uneconomic. But better design could make the metals easier to recycle, he said.

In a separate report, the U.N. panel detailed what it said was a substantial shift in metals stocks from underground ores to existing products. "These 'mines above ground' have growing potential for future metals supply," it said.

Above-ground copper amounts to about 50 kg (112 pounds) for every person on earth, compared with more than two tons of iron, the panel said. The recycling rate for steel is about 75 percent but for copper between 25 and 50 percent, it found.

UNEP chief Achim Steiner told the news conference the rising cost of polluting could force companies to recycle more metals. Greenhouse gas emissions from recycling aluminum, for instance, are 12 times lower than primary production, the panel said.

(Editing by Paul Simao)

The Better Brick: 2010 Next Generation Winner

Thu, 13 May 2010 14:04:20 GMT

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Metropolis Magazine

Brick built the ancient citadels and hypocausts of the Indus Valley and ornamented the Chrysler Building, that great monument to the machine age. But in recent years, it has had a more sinister legacy: environmental menace. Tossing a clay brick into a coal-powered kiln, then firing it up to 2,000˚F, emits about 1.3 pounds of carbon dioxide. Multiply that by the 1.23 trillion bricks manufactured each year, and you’re talking about more pollution than what’s produced by all the airplanes in the world. The winner of the 2010 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition proposes a radical alternative: don’t bake the brick; grow it.

In a lab at the American University of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, Ginger Krieg Dosier, an assistant architecture professor, sprouts building blocks from sand, common bacteria, calcium chloride, and urea (yes, the stuff in your pee). The process, known as microbial-induced calcite precipitation, or MICP, uses the microbes on sand to bind the grains together like glue with a chain of chemical reactions. The resulting mass resembles sandstone but, depending on how it’s made, can reproduce the strength of fired-clay brick or even marble. If Dosier’s biomanufactured masonry replaced each new brick on the planet, it would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by at least 800 million tons a year. “We’re running out of all of our energy sources,” she said in March in a phone interview from the United Arab Emirates. “Four hundred trees are burned to make 25,000 bricks. It’s a consumption issue, and honestly, it’s starting to scare me.”

This year’s Next Generation competition asked entrants to invent a “small (but brilliant and elegant) ‘fix’” for the designed environment. Jurors saw space-saving clothes hangers and solar-powered window shades and souped-up planters. Dosier’s bricks are certainly small—in lab tests so far, about the size of a Lego—but with further research, their impact could resonate all over the world. Consider the prospects in countries like China and India, where outdated kilns put brick production among the top coal consumers. “There was a strong feeling among the judges that the award should go to someone dealing with an issue on a global scale,” says Chris Sharples, a juror and a principal of SHoP Architects. “Here was a very simple concept defined by scientific method and an example of how you can come up with some very innovative ways to solve basic problems.” Choosing it as the winner was, he adds, a “no-brainer.” It was also a testament to the value of an architect who knows her way around a microscope.

Dosier, 32 years old, isn’t the first to dabble at the crossroads of microbiology and chemistry. In Precambrian times, bacteria created geological formations through a process that scientists would only begin simulating 3.45 billion years later, growing ground-firming minerals in oil patches and contaminated soil. Nor is she alone in trying to green the humble brick. Intrepid entrepreneurs have tamped everything from fly ash and plant refuse to car tires and plastic bottles into a neat little block and called it a brick (thoroughly peeving the brick industry, which will tell you that anything short of clay and shale is just a cheap imitation). Dosier’s act of alchemy was to apply science to design. “There are thousands of examples of microbial mineral precipitation in the scientific literature, but few if any of them have been explored for use in fabrication of construction or design materials,” Grant Ferris, a geology professor at the University of Toronto, who conducted early MICP studies, writes in an e-mail. “This is what makes Professor Dosier’s work so compelling. Bioremediation and industrial applications look out!”

The first lines of Dosier’s résumé would hardly peg her for a chemistry nerd: an undergraduate degree in interior architecture from Auburn; a semester at Rural Studio under Sam Mockbee, who sermonized, Messiah-like, about “architecture as kindness”; a master’s in architecture at Cranbrook, the free-flowing essence of everything hard science isn’t. Just before graduate school, Dosier threw away her worldly possessions—her clothes, her typewriting tables, her precious antique glassware. In retrospect, it’s when much of her thinking about materials in design took shape. “I was questioning this idea of ownership, and I got really interested in chemical processes, researching what materials are made of, what you can add to them to change how they grow and die,” she says. Soon, she was building furniture out of salt and calcium carbonate (a compound found in shells), then watching it evaporate in the forest like an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture. Her master’s thesis, a salt-composite handrail, cleaned germs off anyone who touched it, before wearing away to a flimsy scaffold. “I wanted to show,” she says, “that architecture can do more than just exist.”

To develop her ideas further, she needed a firmer grasp of the technology. So she did what any aspiring scientist would have done: she headed to the toy store and bought crystal-growing kits. Lots of them. “My favorite was a crystal-geode kit, where you seeded plaster of Paris with crystals and placed it in an aqueous solution of crystal-growth media,” she says. The kits taught her invaluable chemistry basics: keep your solution wet (otherwise nothing will grow) but not too wet (otherwise nothing will grow), and keep the room cool (otherwise nothing will grow) but not too cool (otherwise nothing will grow). And so on.

This informal education continued apace at North Carolina State University, where she landed a visiting professorship in 2005. She audited classes on materials science and pored over books like Bio-mineralization: Progress in Biology, Molecular Biology and Application. By then, she had familiarized herself with research on growing solids for industrial uses and knew she wanted to adapt it for architecture. She sought out mentors, including the microbiologist José Bruno-Bárcena, who became, in matters of scientific inquiry, the Anne Sullivan to her Helen Keller. “From an architecture–interior design background, I always wanted to go big, and my experiments would fail 98 percent of the time,” Dosier says. “I felt like I needed to buy Chemistry for Dummies.

He started opening the door of my mind on how to think.” Bruno-Bárcena encouraged her to narrow her focus. When she announced she wanted to grow brick via microbes in either waste mineral water or a porous skeleton, he suggested she limit herself to the latter. Another mentor, James Patrick Rand, an NCSU architecture professor, convinced her to train her attention on developing basic bricks instead of more complex building forms. Like Bruno-Bárcena, he saw value in simplicity.

All the while, she read: Introduction to Industrial Minerals; Microbial Sediments; Biomineralization: Cell Biology and Mineral Deposition. “Ginger is not at all fearful of the science of construction materials,” Rand says. “She readily engages chemical processes—things many architecture students and practitioners are afraid of.”

It’s true: architects don’t do this sort of thing. In a great disservice to themselves and their profession, they avoid science the way poets avoid calculators. “Typically, architects are not involved in the development of building products and sustainable technologies,” SHoP’s Sharples says. “We rely on experts outside the field, so often these green products are just applied directly to our designs.” Put another way, when architects have a hand in producing new materials, they exert more control over how buildings perform. That is Dosier’s coup.

Yet for all her toil, her first successful experiment was somewhat accidental. At the University of Sharjah, where she moved in 2007 to teach full-time, she spent two years trying to develop a brick with different microbes, material proportions, and pH levels. Everything failed.

(It didn’t help matters that the first bacteria cultures she bought from India and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were duds.) Then one afternoon, she threw together a bunch of scraps from some old, ill-fated tests, for kicks. Practically forgetting about it, she revisited experiment No. 112 a week later, only to discover that the medium had transformed into a “baby brick,” as she tells it, a four-by-two-by-one-centimeter proof of concept. “I was shocked to find that it had worked,” she says, “and glad that I took detailed lab notes.” The magic formula was in allowing the right concentration of bacteria to fester just long enough.

The months since have been an exhaustive exercise in reproducing and strengthening the results. She has repeated the combination more than 30 times, experimenting with assorted sand grains and aggregates, like recycled glass. She has also explored various manufacturing techniques. Traditional casting is the most obvious method, since it requires few resources—formwork, sand, bacteria, and the calcium chloride–urea solution, almost all of which is available locally, both in New York and in the UAE. Rapid prototyping is another, decidedly less democratic option. In the future, Dosier says, she’ll be able to program the brick’s precise composition, then fabricate it layer by layer on a 3-D printer. The technology poses countless design possibilities. Ball-shaped bricks: Why not?

The future poses countless obstacles, too. She’ll have to figure out how to create a strong brick without squandering raw materials, and how to scale up for mass production given that the chemical process is inherently slow. (Dosier’s blocks take a week to grow; clay bricks can be made in two days.) But the most pressing hurdle is that the biobrick pollutes. Microbial-induced calcite precipitation spews tremendous amounts of ammonia, as scientists affiliated with Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, discovered recently when they tried the chemical process on contaminated sand and soil. “High ammonia concentrations result in environmental eutrophication and eventually, via microbial conversion to nitrate, the poisoning of groundwater,” the Delft researcher Henk Jonkers writes in an e-mail. If the bacteria continues to convert ammonia to nitrous oxide, he adds, it can produce a greenhouse gas 320 times more powerful than CO2. “The results show that working with natural processes is not necessarily equivalent to sustainable practices!”

Dosier plans to capture emissions before they transform into noxious gases. A closed-loop system would recycle waste back into the brick-production cycle using organic buffers (carbon filters, for example), though she acknowledges that it would require “collaborations with additional researchers and scientists in various fields of environmental study and industrial ecology.” (Crystal-growing kits can’t do everything.) A regular designer would’ve bowed out of the game by now. But Dosier, versed as she is in the methods of both science and design, welcomes—and is perhaps ideally suited to overcome—the challenge.

In the meantime, she dreams about actually putting the bricks to use. She wants to field-test them on a large expanse of desert north of the UAE–Saudi Arabia border, where Bedouins, the seminomadic tribes who populate the Middle East’s sandy wilds, hitch their camels seasonally. And a friend from Cranbrook, who works in humanitarian aid, invited Dosier to join him in Ethiopia this summer to “get this material going.” A rash of violence ahead of this month’s elections postponed the trip indefinitely, but Dosier remains optimistic.

“Even if [Ethiopia] doesn’t work out, I can think of plenty of regions here where I would like to work,” she says. “The lab is fun to work in. But seeing if it could really happen? That for me is the whole deal.” Maybe then, brick buildings will no longer be villains of the green age but monuments to it.

Closing the Loop

Thu, 13 May 2010 14:01:25 GMT

Click here for full article.

The Atlantic
By Nicole Allan

It took a "spear to the chest" epiphany for carpet manufacturer Ray Anderson to recognize that the most efficient industrial system around was nature. "Nature recycles waste, nature operates on renewable energy," says Erin Meezan, vice president of sustainability at Anderson's carpet company, Interface, Inc. After reading the book that sparked his epiphany, Anderson convened an environmental task force and told them, "I want to come up with a new model for business. I want to figure out how a company would look if it respected nature's systems."

He sent carpet designers into the forest for inspiration. Engineers began using gas from a nearby landfill to power a manufacturing plant. By 1995, the company had saved $10 million in waste reduction. By 2008, these savings had reached $405 million and Interface had reduced energy use by 44 percent and switched to 24 percent recycled and bio-based raw materials.

In retrospective, such a strategy seems pretty obvious. Nature, like industry, is a complex, multi-level system that creates, powers, and eventually destroys goods. Whereas modern industry leaves a murky trail of gases, chemicals, and materials, nature reuses all it discards. Mimicking this closed-loop system could save industries huge amounts of money.

Yet this business approach, known by academics as industrial ecology, is far from widespread. While many companies -- GE, Dow Chemical, Ford, IBM -- have followed Ray Anderson's lead in looking to nature to reduce waste or streamline a particular product, few have made the conceptual leap to situating themselves within an industrial ecosystem. This reorientation is the next frontier of industrial ecology, one that requires a tweaking of the American corporate mentality.

The Danish town of Kalundborg hosts a group of businesses that stumbled onto the industrial ecosystem model. In the 1970s, the town housed an oil refinery, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a coal-fired power plant, and other resource-intensive operations. As these businesses operated side by side year after year, they realized that one plant's waste was often another's fuel. The coal plant dumped huge quantities of water while the oil refinery fed equally huge amounts into its boilers. The refinery's desulfurization process produced inconvenient amounts of gypsum, which a nearby plant needed to manufacture plasterboard.

Without planning in advance or fully realizing what they were doing, Kalundborg's businesses started engaging in byproduct exchanges. The first collaborations began in the 1970s, and by 2007, participants had cut water consumption by 25 percent and were saving $12 million and exchanging 2.5 million tons of waste per year. The town of Kalundborg also benefited, replacing an oil-based heating system with steam from the power plant.

The Kalundborg network is often held up as a model eco-industrial park: A group of commonly located businesses who collaborate on environmental and resource issues.
But industrial ecologist Ernest Lowe, who pioneered the term, does not think it applies. "There was no conscious development process," he says, "just one-on-one exchanges that developed over time. No one knew this was happening, collectively." According to Lowe, whose consulting group helps companies work together to identify collaboration opportunities, collective planning is vital to successful eco-industrial parks.

One such park in Devens, Massachusetts, started out as a decommissioned military base that was so environmentally damaged that the state designated it a Superfund site. An eco-minded steering committee, however, was able to turn it around by convincing a wide range of companies to set up high-efficiency and collaborative facilities on the former brownfields. Devens now hosts state and federal agencies as well as over 75 green technology, pharmaceutical, and construction companies who participate in small-scale waste exchanges and resource collaborations. The project has created more than 3,500 jobs and helped the participating companies conserve resources and save money.

Devens was largely funded by private investment; unlike England, China, Japan, and other countries, the U.S. does not provide a federal foundation for eco-industrial projects. National attention for these kinds of projects spiked during the 1990s, when Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development latched onto the eco-industrial park concept, but it has since trailed off. Lowe says that the momentum stalled after George W. Bush entered office and defunded the Environmental Protection Agency, giving positions "to people who would just as soon abolish EPA."

Another bureaucratic obstacle was the EPA's definition of waste, worded in a way that excluded the possibility of re-use. According to Joseph Fiksel, a senior research scientist in industrial and systems engineering at Ohio State University, this issue has not been resolved, although the current EPA has been generally supportive of industrial ecology.

Companies interested in setting up waste partnerships with other companies face not just bureaucratic roadblocks but legal stipulations that prevent them from sharing trade secrets with potential competitors. Andrew Mangan, executive director of the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development, helps companies that wouldn't normally interact identify and implement collaboration opportunities. One of the most important parts of the process, he says, is developing trust amongst participants. "We have them sign a legal agreement that covers confidentially, intellectual property, and antitrust issues, which are classic legal barriers," he says. "If you cover that base over the course of this process, you get people to reveal things to each other that they wouldn't normally reveal."

Mangan stresses that while regional EPA offices often support eco-industrial projects, "there hasn't been a focus at the national level since the Clinton initiative." He and his colleagues are currently working on municipal and regional levels "with the goal of getting critical mass around the country so we get federal attention." He is confident that escalating energy costs and climate change risks mean federal support for eco-industrial projects is just around the corner. "The great thing is that we have close to 15 years of data that shows this is a winner," he says. "Companies like it, cities like it."

Mangan hopes to convince the government to invest in something similar to an initiative the UK launched in 2005 that orchestrates by-product synergy projects among 8,000 different industrial participants. The National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, jointly operated by national and local agencies, has so far diverted over 6.3 million tons of waste from landfills, generated £159 million in new sales, reduced carbon emissions by over 5.9 million tons, and saved its members over £145 million.

"If the UK can do it, we can do it. If we were to extrapolate and apply the UK project here, even conservatively," Mangan says, the U.S. could take a giant step toward meeting emissions reduction goals as well as generating new jobs and stimulating the economy. "It's a great economic story, but you also get all this environmental value."

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