Blog Archives

Cement Production to Use Old Wind Turbine Blades

1/29/2021

GE Renewable Energy and Veolia North America (VNA) have signed a “multi-year agreement” to recycle blades removed from onshore wind turbines in the United States. The blades will be shredded at a VNA site in Missouri before being “used as a replacement for coal, sand and clay at cement manufacturing facilities across the U.S.” The issue of what to do with wind turbine blades when they’re no longer needed has proven to be a headache for the industry. This is because the blades are made from composite materials which are difficult to recycle, which means that many end up as landfill when their service life ends. - CNBC

Particulate Oxidative Burden Associated with Firework Activity

1/29/2021

Have you ever enjoyed firework displays while also wondering, "Hey, what kinds of metals are those putting out? How persistent are the pollutants? Are there health impacts like asthma resulting from this?

You're in luck. This paper's abstract addresses those concerns. If you are interested, we can try to get the entire paper. - American Chemical Society

EIA Forecasts Less Power Generation from Natural Gas - Result of Rising Fuel Costs

1/28/2021

The EIA forecasts that generation from natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. electric power sector will decline by about 8% in 2021. This decline would be the first annual decline in natural gas-fired generation since 2017. Forecast generation from coal-fired power plants will increase by 14% in 2021, after declining by 20% in 2020. EIA forecasts that generation from nonhydropower renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, will grow by 18% in 2021—the fastest annual growth rate since 2010. The shift from coal to natural gas marked a significant change in the energy sources used to generate electricity in the United States in the past decade. This shift was driven primarily by the sustained low natural gas price. In 2020, natural gas prices were the lowest in decades the nominal price of natural gas delivered to electric generators averaged $2.37 per million British thermal units (Btu). For 2021, EIA forecasts the average nominal price of natural gas for power generation will rise by 41% to an average of $3.35 per million Btu, about where it was in 2017. In contrast, EIA expects nominal coal prices will rise just 6% in 2021. - EIA

Dollars, Not Politics, are Driving Colorado’s Accelerated Embrace of Solar Energy

1/27/2021

Statewide, solar power’s gradually-then-suddenly rise as a key part of overall electricity generation will add gigawatts of sunshine to the grid in the next three years, and even more by the 2030 target of reducing Colorado utility greenhouse emissions by 80%. Plummeting solar prices mean the cost of generating by the sun is now only 11% of what it was 10 years ago, and with various tax credits, significantly cheaper than building fossil fuel plants. Tri-State Generation, for example, Colorado’s second-largest utility after Xcel, has identified 1,850 megawatts of renewable power to add between 2024 and 2030, replacing high-polluting coal-fired units. More than half of that will be from large solar arrays. TriState has already contracted for the energy from 715 more megawatts of solar to go online by 2024. - Colorado Sun

Chemists Are Reimagining Recycling to Keep Plastics Out of Landfills

1/27/2021

It feels good to recycle. There’s a certain sense of accomplishment that comes from dutifully sorting soda bottles, plastic bags and yogurt cups from the rest of the garbage. The more plastic you put in that blue bin, the more you’re keeping out of landfills and the oceans, right? Wrong. No matter how meticulous you are in cleaning and separating your plastics, most end up in the trash heap anyway. - Science News

Lakes Mead & Powell Could Drop to Lowest Ever; Drought Plan Triggered

1/22/2021

Increasingly bleak forecasts for the Colorado River have for the first time put into action elements of the 2019 Upper Basin drought contingency plan. The 24-month study released in January by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which projects two years of operations at the river’s biggest reservoirs, showed Lake Powell possibly dipping below an elevation of 3,525 feet above sea level in 2022. That elevation was designated as a critical threshold in a 2019 agreement to preserve the ability to produce hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam. - Cronkite News

A New Way of Picturing Rapid, Human-Caused Climate Change

1/13/2021

We’ve learned the saw-toothed pattern of carbon dioxide levels over the past 1 million years. It has shot swiftly up during climbs to past warm intervals like the climate of today and ramped slowly down into the long ice ages in between. We can also see the sharp recent increase in carbon dioxide that humans have caused, mainly by burning fossil fuels for energy. The graph used to show this jump is arguably the most iconic figure in climate science. To me, it’s long been the most powerful illustration of climate change’s danger. At a glance, it shows how huge a departure we’ve made from normal. - Washington Post

Kauai Utility, AES Pursue Nation's First Solar-Powered Pumped Hydro Project

1/12/2021

Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and AES Corp. have executed and filed a power purchase agreement with Hawaii regulators to develop a solar-powered pumped hydro storage project the utility says will bring its total resource mix above 80% renewables.
The West Kauai Energy Project could come online in 2024. A solar array will be capable of sending 35 MW directly to the island's grid and an associated battery will store up to 240 MWh for dispatch during evening peak. The hydro resources are expected to produce 24 MW on average daily, including 12 hours of storage to be used overnight. The project will meet about 25% of the island's electricity needs and puts it on track to exceed the utility's target of reaching 70% renewable generation by 2030. - Utility Dive

Climate Crisis: 2020 Was Joint Hottest Year Ever Recorded

1/11/2021

The climate crisis continued unabated in 2020, with the joint highest global temperatures on record, alarming heat and record wildfires in the Arctic, and a record 29 tropical storms in the Atlantic. Despite a 7% fall in fossil fuel burning due to coronavirus lockdowns, heat-trapping carbon dioxide continued to build up in the atmosphere, also setting a new record. The average surface temperature across the planet in 2020 was 1.25C higher than in the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900, dangerously close to the 1.5C target set by the world’s nations to avoid the worst impacts. - Guardian

Better Disposable Coffee Cups

1/11/2021

Sugar cane contains around 10% sugar and around 90% non-sugar, the material known as bagasse which remains once the cane has been pulverised and the sugar-bearing juice squeezed out of it. World production of cane sugar was 185m tonnes in 2017. That results in a lot of bagasse which at the moment is often burned. Often, it fuels local generators that power the mills, so it is not wasted, but Zhu Hongli, a mechanical engineer at Northeastern University in Boston, thinks it can be put to better use. As she and her colleagues describe, with a bit of tweaking bagasse makes an excellent—and biodegradable—replacement for the plastic used for disposable food containers such as coffee cups. - Forbes and Northeastern University

Net Zero America

1/11/2021

With a massive, nationwide effort the United States could reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 using existing technology and at costs aligned with historical spending on energy, according to a study led by Princeton University researchers. The new “Net-Zero America” research outlines five distinct technological pathways for the United States to decarbonize its entire economy. The research is the first study to quantify and map with this degree of specificity, the infrastructure that needs to be built and the investment required to run the country without emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than are removed from it each year. It’s also the first to pinpoint how jobs and health will be affected in each state at a highly granular level, sometimes down to the county. - Princeton University

Playing the ‘Green Lottery’: Life Inside Colombia’s Emerald Mines

1/5/2021

It’s no secret that the miners in this region work in difficult and often dangerous conditions — some in sanctioned and regulated areas, some illicitly. They labor under the threat of collapsing mines, falling rocks and temperatures in excess of 110 degrees. Despite the risks, many of the miners speak to me about their work with pride, as if buoyed by a sense of tradition. - NYTimes

A Recycling Plan to Clear Wind Turbine Blades From Graveyards

1/5/2021

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

Big Oil Evaded Regulation and Plastic Pellets Kept Spilling

1/5/2021

Look on the side of a highway sometime and you might see them. Or along the railroad tracks, or a stream. Maybe even between your toes at the beach. Tiny pearl-shaped pieces of plastic, known as pellets, are the building blocks for almost everything plastic, and they’re everywhere. They’ve spilled out of petrochemical plants, rail cars, shipping containers and trucks. Large spills have soiled beaches in Louisiana and South Carolina. New research suggests more than 230,000 tons of pellets enter the ocean each year, contaminating the water and sickening birds, fish and other wildlife. The oil and plastic industry says it has programs in place to prevent any spills, but NPR and FRONTLINE found top officials have known about the problem for decades, even as they successfully fended off regulation that might have kept them in check. - NPR

The Long Decline of Arctic Sea Ice

1/5/2021

Forty years of satellite data show that 2020 was just the latest in a decades-long decline of Arctic sea ice. In a review of scientific literature, polar scientists Julienne Stroeve and Dirk Notz outlined some of these changes: In addition to shrinking ice cover, melting seasons are getting longer and sea ice is losing its longevity. The longer melting seasons are the result of increasingly earlier starts to spring melting and ever-later starts to freeze-up in autumn. The map above shows trends in the onset of freeze-up from 1979 through 2019. Averaged across the entire Arctic Ocean, freeze-up is happening about a week later per decade. That equates to nearly one month later since the start of the satellite record in 1979. - Earth Observatory / NASA

The North Carolina Hog Industry's Answer to Pollution: $500m Pipeline Project

1/5/2021

This is the same issue we address in the water modules in GLG101 and GLG110. Corporations take the profits; the citizens pay for the cleanup. Always investigate fully.

Instead of implementing safer systems, activists say Smithfield Foods is seeking to profit from hog waste under the guise of ‘renewable energy’ - Guardian

Cement Production to Use Old Wind Turbine Blades

Particulate Oxidative Burden Associated with Firework Activity

EIA Forecasts Less Power Generation from Natural Gas - Result of Rising Fuel Costs

Dollars, Not Politics, are Driving Colorado’s Accelerated Embrace of Solar Energy

Chemists Are Reimagining Recycling to Keep Plastics Out of Landfills

Lakes Mead & Powell Could Drop to Lowest Ever; Drought Plan Triggered

A New Way of Picturing Rapid, Human-Caused Climate Change

Kauai Utility, AES Pursue Nation's First Solar-Powered Pumped Hydro Project

Climate Crisis: 2020 Was Joint Hottest Year Ever Recorded

Better Disposable Coffee Cups

Net Zero America

Playing the ‘Green Lottery’: Life Inside Colombia’s Emerald Mines

A Recycling Plan to Clear Wind Turbine Blades From Graveyards

Big Oil Evaded Regulation and Plastic Pellets Kept Spilling

The Long Decline of Arctic Sea Ice

The North Carolina Hog Industry's Answer to Pollution: $500m Pipeline Project

GeoNews

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