New Energy Watch

Butts, Bags, Bottles, and Balloons

It takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose in the environment. Where we live, these things litter the streets, overflow public trash cans, and clog the storm drains. When it rains, they get flushed out the drains to Long Island Sound, along with all manner of other plastic litter. Same thing when the wind blows -- someone’s lazy about stuffing a plastic shopping bag into a garbage can and pretty soon the bag is sailing out over the water.

Listed below are a bunch of items commonly found in the world’s waterways and oceans. The list comes from the Pocket Guide to Marine Debris, a booklet originally published back in 1993 by The Ocean Conservancy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The top two debris items collected worldwide from 1996 to 2000 were cigarette butts (6,373,283), and food bags and wrappers (3,053,561).

In Long Island Sound these days, bags and butts are accompanied big-time by plastic bottles and balloons, particularly the hateful shiny Mylar kind. When we go out in the boat, we don’t fish for fish, we fish for trash. The  Mylar balloons are a good challenge, because they skim along the surface. We net ‘em or harpoon ‘em with a boathook.

Time it takes garbage to decompose in the environment:

• Glass bottles ~ 1 million years
• Monofilament fishing line ~ 600 years
• Plastic beverage bottles ~ 450 years
• Disposable diapers ~ 450 years
• Aluminum can ~ 80-200 years
• Foam plastic buoy ~ 80 years
• Rubber boot sole ~ 50-80 years
• Foamed plastic cup – 50 years
• Tin can ~ 50 years
• Leather ~ 50 years
• Nylon fabric ~ 30-40 years
• Plastic film canister 20-30 years
• Plastic bag ~ 10-20 years
• Cigarette filter ~ 1-5 years
• Wool sock ~ 1-3 years
• Plywood ~ 1-3 years
• Waxed milk carton ~ 3 months
• Apple core ~ 2 months
• Newspaper ~ 6 weeks
• Orange or banana peel ~ 2-5 weeks
• Paper towel ~ 2-4 weeks

The other day we were coming down the Branford River and saw a white plastic shopping bag floating in the middle of the channel. We swung by and my daughter scooped it up in a net. Inside were two good-looking harbor bluefish. Someone had caught them, put them in the bag, and then lost the bag overboard. A shame, inside and out. We returned the fish to the river for the gulls and crabs to eat, and put the bag in the big trash barrel we keep in the boat for our catches.

There are plenty of good non-profit, volunteer organizations that try their best to monitor and maintain the country’s waterways and coastlines. In our area, one of the best is soundkeeper.org. If you look at their links page, you can probably find a like-minded group to support in your area. But the most important thing we can all do is just stop and pick up the trash when we see it, especially when it collects in storm drain grates.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Foreign Affairs: How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

The May/June issue of Foreign Affairs has an article called How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor, by C. Ford Runge, Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota, and Benjamin Senauer, Co-director of the Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota.

The title of the article is a bit histrionic, and the cover blurb on Foreign Affairs, “Ethanol’s Real Costs,” seems ominous. Both undercut the balanced and well-supported argument of the article, which is simply that the biofuels supported by vast, long-lasting subsidies in this country -- ethanol from corn and, to a somewhat lesser extent, biodiesel from soybeans -- are not panaceas. They’re more like red herring in the broader search for alternative fuels and energy sources. If the United States and other countries were to carry out the farming, processing, and selling of these particular biofuels to the extent that the current hoopla surrounding them suggests we should, bad things would happen.

“Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol,” say the authors, “requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.”

That’s the thesis, and it’s no doubt true. As the demand for both petroleum and biofuels rises in coming years, spurred largely by economic growth in China and India, the economic ripple-effect will be profound, and this is almost inevitable whether the price of oil rises or falls. Never mind the biofuel mania or bubble in which speculators drive prices up and down in ways that have little to do with real supply and demand: “Whatever happens in the oil market, the drive for energy independence, which has been the basic justification for huge investments in and subsidies for ethanol production, has already made the industry dependent on high oil prices.”

The authors cite the oft-quoted statistic that the entire U.S.corn crop, if used to make ethanol, would only replace about 12 percent of current U.S. gasoline use. “Thinking of ethanol as a green alternative to fossil fuels reinforces the chimera of energy independence and of decoupling the interests of the United States from an increasingly troubled Middle East.”

That sentence is disappointing, because it makes no distinction between total independence, which may in fact be a chimera, and practical independence, or independence from sources that can exert harmful leverage. Practical independence may be difficult, yes, but fanciful and deluded, no. The U.S. burns about 21 million barrels of oil per day. Of that total, about half is imported. Of those imports, about half come from OPEC. Get rid of the OPEC piece and we get rid of the truly unhealthy part of our addiction –- a quarter of our total demand and half our imports. We need to do that immediately. If there were political courage and a public sense of urgency (which can only be instilled from the top down) we could do it in a few years. With less courage and less urgency it might take a decade. From there it would still be a push to full practical independence, but the difference would be only a few million barrels a day, and at that point maybe we could relax a bit. Our biggest supplier now is Canada, selling us over 2 million barrels per day. That’s not the same dependence, by a long shot, as being oil junkies at the mercy of the Saudi candy men.

In any case, professors Runge and Senauer wrap up their article with a dose of good sense, reiterating the absolute fact that conservation trumps all other methods and technologies for “going green” and saving the nation in both the geopolitical and environmental realms: “Limiting U.S. dependence on fossil fuels requires a comprehensive energy-conservation program. Rather than promoting more mandates, tax breaks, and subsidies for biofuels, the U.S.government should make a major commitment to substantially increasing energy efficiency in vehicles, homes, and factories; promoting alternative sources of energy, such as solar and wind power; and investing in research to improve agricultural productivity and raise the efficiency of fuels derived from cellulose. Washington’s fixation on corn-based ethanol has distorted the national agenda and diverted its attention from developing broad and balanced strategy.”

Runge and Senauer are positive about the U.S. DOE investment in cellulosic ethanol refineries, and it would be interesting to hear their take on some of the newer experimental biofuel technologies like the one being developed by Greenfuel Technologies -- fast-growing, carbon dioxide-eating algae that can be broken down into either ethanol or biodiesel.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

 

Get With Pepsi. Rack Up Some RECs

A couple of years ago we signed up for the Connecticut Clean Energy Options program, which allows customers to "buy" up to 100 percent of their electricity from clean energy sources (in our case mostly from wind farms in the mid-Atlantic region). We're not actually getting our power directly from the wind generators; we get it from our provider, Connecticut Light & Power, through the regular electrical grid. However, the clean energy we pay for through CL&P directly offsets energy that would have been generated by traditional sources like oil, coal, and nuclear power. There's a small monthly surcharge for customers who opt in for this program. (In a logical policy world, a policy world with guts and brains, there would be a small incentive break instead.) Still, for the average customer the surcharge amounts to about $4.00 per month for a 50-percent involvement, and $8.00 if you choose 100 percent, which we chose. We haven't noticed much of a difference in our bills, maybe because we've become so careful with electricity that we've negated the $8.00 surcharge.

This program in Connecticut is part of the larger world of RECs, short for Renewable Energy Credits or Renewable Energy Certificates, depending on who's in charge of acronyms. Here's the Wikipedia explanation of RECs.

All this is by way of mentioning PepsiCo's recent purchase of 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours of RECs per year for the next three years. The news is a month old, but deserves constant replay, because this is the kind of big-player move that will save America. The purchase is equivalent to all the grid-supplied electricity used by Pepsi's US operations -- enough electricity to power 90,000 average homes. Here's the press release from the U.S. DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy website.

Wouldn't it be outstanding if all the country's major corporations followed suit, and inspired all the medium-sized companies, and then the small companies, to go for RECs? That would give the renewable movement huge momentum, and put a good-sized dent in OPEC.

If you own a business, or have the ear of the people who run the place where you work, push for RECs. For more information, visit the EPA's Green Power Partnership. If you check the partnership list on that site, you can see you'll be in great company. The 735 partners currently listed there account for 9 billion kilowatt-hours of green energy per year.

If you're already familiar with the concept of RECs, you may be wondering who certifies and monitors the organizations who are applying for and selling RECs. Good question. It appears that the Green-e Program, administered by the national non-profit Center for Resource Solutions, is the trusted broker both for Connecticut Clean Energy Options and the PepsiCo commitment.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Tom Friedman: Our Green Bubble

I wish I could just copy and paste Tom Friedman's column from today's New York Times here, but it wouldn't be cricket. It's called "Our Green Bubble." If you happen to be a Times Select subscriber, here's the link.

What he says, basically, is that that there's a lot of talk and froth about green energy, and a surprising amount of corporate involvement, and a lot of individuals jumping on the bandwagon... but until the federal government works up the guts to do something serious, the movement, as it were, is not going to be nearly as effective as it could be at a very critical time. Here are two excerpts that count. First:

It has to start with a clear, long-term price signal. That is, a carbon tax or gasoline tax — or a cap and trade system with a binding national ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions — which would set a price for dumping carbon into the atmosphere or driving a gas-guzzling car.

Absolutely right. You're welcome to drive a "prestige" guzzler like a Hummer or an Escalade or a Lincoln Navigator, but you'll  need to compensate for something else beside your insecurity or your manhood. If you have to drive a pick-up or van guzzler for business or because you ferry a lot of kids and gear around, well these are choices too. Really, though, there ought to be an across-the-board fuel tax whose proceeds would fund alternative energy solutions. The guy in the Prius would have to pay the same $1.00 per gallon tax as the guy in the Navigator. The difference is that the tax might be $9.00 for a Prius fill-up versus $40.00 for a Navigator fill-up.

Second:

Get Washington to signal that gasoline is never going to retreat from a level of $3.50 or $4 a gallon — and that wind and solar subsidies will be there for a decade, not stop and start as they always have before; get Washington to commit to buying a fixed volume of solar and wind power for government buildings and Army bases for 10 years, with only U.S.-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts; get Washington to set a new fleet average of 35 miles per gallon for Detroit within 10 years — with no loopholes; establish government loan guarantees for any company that wants to build a nuclear power plant; and, finally, build a national transmission grid — a green power superhighway — so that solar energy from Arizona or wind from Wyoming can power homes in Chicago. Do all that and our private sector will take America from green laggard to green leader.

Think of Eisenhower and the interstate highway project of the Fifties. Think of Kennedy's moon program of the Sixties. Where -- come on, seriously, where -- is the leader who can take us from blathering and bloviating and lobbying and special-interest crap about alternative energy to national action?

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

ReusableBags.com. Good on 'em.

Talk about a vertical site with bite... check out reusablebags.com. These people are informed, committed, and energetic about countering the disposition to disposables in our gluttonous shopping culture. They fight bags, they fight bottles, they fight school lunch trash. They fight the whole idea of use-it-and-toss-it.

The throw-away plastic bottle is a complete abomination. Hardly any are recycled. They escape the garbage, blow around, litter the sides of every road, float down streams and gutters, clog storm drains, foul the waters -- all for the sake of convenience. What a lot of hooey. Assuming that we don't have access to potable tap water, are we really so feeble and lazy that we can't be bothered to keep liquids in   refillable containers? How hard can that be? At home, not so hard. On the road in megalopolis, damn near impossible. When we travel, we always end up with a half dozen store-bought containers. If they're glass or aluminum, they're easily recycled. If they're that cheesy thin plastic, we carry them around, refill them a bunch of times, then store them for when we can get them to a recycling place elsewhere in our state. (Our town only recycles glass and metal.)

A couple of weeks ago a few of us went out with the Branford Land Trust and cleaned up the local marsh for a while. Here's a picture of some of what we found. Aside from two large tires, styrofoam from broken docks, and detached lobster pot floats, most of the jetsam was cans and disposable plastic bottles. Hateful things, really.

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~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch