GEOLOGY WITH JEFF SIMPSON
  • Home
  • GLG101IN
  • GLG110IN
  • GLG280/281
  • GEONEWS
  • JEFF
  • Sustainable Building Project
  • UDP

A Recycling Plan to Clear Wind Turbine Blades From Graveyards

1/5/2021

0 Comments

 
It’s difficult to recycle a gigantic wind turbine. The blades are built to withstand extreme weather, from scorching desert heat to hurricane-like winds, and that means their life almost always ends in a landfill. In Europe alone, about 3,800 blades will be removed every year through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF, as the oldest turbines reach retirement age.  Now a Danish startup has found a way to crush these blades, turning an ultra-resistant mix of fiberglass and industrial glue into barriers designed to block noise from highways and factories. Copenhagen-based Miljoskarm can grind the blades into small pieces of 1 to 2 centimeters with the same type of machines used in auto junkyards. The material is then placed in recycled plastic cases that block noise at least at the same level as barriers made from aluminum and mineral wool, with less maintenance required. - Bloomberg Green
Picture
0 Comments

A Desert City Tries to Save Itself With Rain

11/25/2020

0 Comments

 
In an average year, Brad Lancaster can harvest enough rain to meet 95% of his water needs. Roof runoff collected in tanks on his modest lot in Tucson, Arizona where 100 degree days are common in the summer months — provides what he needs to bathe, cook and drink.  When Lancaster gets thirsty, he sips filtered rain “known as sweet water,” he says, having never picked up salt from soil. When he wants a hot shower, he places his outdoor shower’s water tank in the sun. To irrigate his fruit trees beyond the Sonoran Desert’s two rainy seasons, which bring the vast majority of Tucson’s precipitation, he uses fresh rainwater or greywater — the latter being, in his case, used rainwater leftover from the shower, sink, or washing machine. - Bloomberg
Picture
0 Comments

Dutch Inventor Cleans World's Most Polluted Rivers in Effort to Save Oceans

10/19/2020

0 Comments

 
Just 10 rivers are responsible for around 90% of all the ocean's plastic, according to a 2017 study.  "...If we focus on the worst rivers, we believe we can really have the fastest and most cost-effective way to close the tap and prevent more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place."  Ocean Cleanup is deploying floating trash collectors or "Interceptors." These solar-powered, autonomous systems use the rivers' currents to guide the trash onto a conveyor belts that carry the waste to awaiting bins. - CNN
Picture
0 Comments

This Game-Changing Solar Company Recycles Old Panels Into New Ones

10/11/2020

0 Comments

 
At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia. Right now, the holistic lifecycle approach isn’t common among other solar producers. But Wade says that now is the time to think about the problem. “Our aim for solar is to help our customers decouple their economic growth from negative environmental impacts,” he says. “So it is kind of a mandatory point for us to address the renewable-energy-circular-economy nexus today and not 20 years from now.”  - Fast Company


Picture
0 Comments

    Geo News

    I started a CGCC Facebook page in May of '20 to share geo-environmental news but had concerns about FB's issues with accuracy.  This page, GeoNews, is a response and partial solution, sharing a few items from reliable sources each week.  

    Click the
    source link after the included text to read more.

    To respond thoughtfully or ask questions, click "Comments". 

    To complete the extra credit option, use this Google Doc.

    Contact Prof Jeff to share items.


    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020


    Categories

    All
    Agriculture
    Air Pollution
    Arizona
    Beaches
    Climate Change
    Earth's Interior
    Economics
    Energy
    EQ
    Erosion
    Fire
    Fossil Fuels
    Geologic History
    Glaciers
    Groundwater
    Health
    Humor
    Magnetic
    Meteorites
    Mining
    Oceans
    Ozone
    Plate Tectonics / EQs
    Pollution
    Population
    Recycling
    Renewable Energy
    Rivers
    Soil
    Space Science
    Sustainability
    Transportation
    Tsunami
    Volcanoes
    Waste
    Water


    RSS Feed

Site powered by Weebly. Managed by MacHighway
  • Home
  • GLG101IN
  • GLG110IN
  • GLG280/281
  • GEONEWS
  • JEFF
  • Sustainable Building Project
  • UDP