Pig Poo Power  

Its time for one of my periodic roundups of energy news from the Viridian world. The guys over at Energy Australia have obviously been busy thinking up creative ways to both avoid the looming electricity supply crunch in NSW, and to help the environment at the same time - this particular solution involves harnessing the power of pig poo by building a methane powered plant which will harvest the gas from five large lagoons filled with pig manure near Corowa.

According to the Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO), the pork industry contributes over 1% of the methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture. While in Thailand, pig manure also contributes markedly to high nitrogen and phosporus accumulation in soil and water. In overcoming such dilemmas, the AGO, a couple years ago, suggested that “there may be significant opportunities in biogas production, particularly for large enterprise.” And blow me down, they were right. For here comes news that piggy poo is going to be a source of electricity. Energy Australia reckon their new plant will convert poo to run not only a piggery, but have enough left over to power 1,500 houses. Plus, it will stop the release of methane, a greenhouse gas ... and pongy smell to boot.

TreeHugger also has a couple of posts on biofuel - "Everywhere you look - biofuels" and "Solar-Powered Biodiesel Pump in Santa Cruz".

In the US they are planting 355,000 acres of canola to make ethanol. In Malaysia they are using palm oil. Brazil is exporting ethanol made from whatever they plant after they chop down the rainforest. In France and Austria they are making it from sugar. Even Saudi Arabia is building a biofuel plant using jatropha, a non-edible plant producing oil for blending with diesel. (growing it with what water?)

They also note that the Wall Street Journal has noticed the solar energy industry exists - and can be a conduit for government subsidies.

Long after green issues are old news to treehuggers, they get covered in the Wall Street Journal. This is a good thing - Dad no longer thinks you are completely nuts. Now they are looking at the business of solar and PV's, and of course the government subsidies available to install it. They do provide a valuable link to the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE), "a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and selected federal incentives that promote renewable energy"

TriplePundit reports that New Society a Canadian printer of generally activist material like Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over", has become the worlds first "carbon neutral" print shop.

MetaEfficient has an item on Effective microorganisms - which sound like an interesting alternative to your more traditional compost bins or worm farms.

"Effective Microorganisms" or EM is a formula of specially selected microbes which can be used in many applications. For example, they are a metaefficient compost additive. If you add a mixture of them to your kitchen compost and have it decompose more quickly and with less odor. They were developed by Dr Teruo Higa, a Japanese horticulture professor. EM is a microbial consortium (aggregate of more than one type of microbe).

There are many other uses for EM. The exact microbes in the microbial consortium may vary somewhat over time, but there are certain principles which guide which beneficial microorganisms are included and how they are combined with the other microbes in the formula. It is likely safe to say that the single largest area of EM utility is in farming (agriculture), and even moreso within the realms of organic farming, sustainable farming, or "super-organic" farming. However, EM has also found applications in waste treatment, waste water treatment, toxic waste remediation, remediation of polluted waterways, human and animal health, protecting building materials (architects call EM "building friendly"), and in many other diverse areas as well.

WorldChanging also has a post on microbes - in their case a species of bacteria able to both remediate some nasty industrial chemicals and produce usable amounts of electricity while doing so. Plus an article about a "biomimetic concept car" from Daimler-Chrysler which gets 70 miles per gallon and is designed to mimic the super-streamlined shape of the boxfish. As a result, the DCX has a drag coefficient of 0.19 - closer to the boxfish's 0.04 than the typical car's 0.35-0.4 - which helps to explain its fuel efficiency.

Finally, the Chistian Science Monitor (not a particularly Viridian source) has an article on that serial disappointment cold fusion, titled "Coming in out of the cold: Cold fusion, for real". It doesn't look like this will be a useful source of energy though.

A very reputable, very careful group of scientists at the University of Los Angeles has initiated a fusion reaction using a laboratory device that's not much bigger than a breadbox, and works at roughly room temperature. This time, it looks like the real thing.

This experiment has been repeated successfully and other scientists have reviewed the results: it looks like the real thing this time.

For the time being, don't expect fusion to become a readily available energy option. The current cold fusion apparatus still takes much more energy to start up than you get back out, and it may never end up breaking even. In the mean time, the crystal-fusion device might be used as a compact source of neutrons and X-rays, something that could turn out to be useful making small scanning machines. But it really may not be long until we have the first nuclear fusion-powered devices in common use.

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