Renewable Energy from The Big Apple

By: Sameer Rashid

Did you read the Op-Ed the other day called ‘Power from Trash‘ in the New York Times?  Using our waste in a more productive way seems to be a popular theme in the news and editorial pages this year.

New York City has been my home since 2001 and I’ve also been working hard on developing an organics recycling and biogas plant in the area, so I wanted to highlight a few important points from the ‘Power from Trash’ article:

“…As New York City’s garbage decomposes, it releases some 1.2 million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide and its equivalents — primarily methane — into the atmosphere. On top of that, the fuel it takes to haul 11,000 tons of waste hundreds of miles six days a week releases an additional 55,000 tons of greenhouse gas per year…”

“…Since New York began exporting its garbage, the Sanitation Department’s budget has more than doubled, to $1.3 billion in the current fiscal year from less than $600 million in 1997. And in the past seven years, the costs of the city’s landfill contracts have gone up more than $90 million, enough to pay 1,000 full-time firefighters, nurses or teachers….”

“…If all of the city’s nonrecycled waste were sent to local energy recovery facilities instead of distant landfills, the city would save diesel fuel and generate enough energy to supply 145,000 homes — thus avoiding the combustion of nearly three million barrels of oil to generate electricity….”

“…Newer kinds of facilities — like those that use anaerobic digestion to make methane — could be built on smaller sites…”

There were a lot of good points in the article and I couldn’t agree more with the last two quotes highlighted above.  Local facilities that utilize commercialized high solids anaerobic digestion (HSAD) technology to produce renewable energy and compost is in some ways a no-brainer for New York City and other major metropolitan areas in the country.  In addition to maintaining Harvest’s high standards, we can address issues like siting and community support by co-locating with existing transfer stations, water treatment plants, and/or compost facilities in the City and improving those facilities’ environmental footprints.  With the amount of food waste generating by New York’s restaurants, markets, and food processors, HSAD represents a tremendous opportunity to save thousands of small businesses money and simultaneously make them more sustainable.

Sameer Rashid, an avid fan of all things New York (especially the Mets), develops projects throughout the East Coast, and loves to talk food waste.

Clean Tech at GLOBE 2010

Vancouver B.C. buzzed last week with world leaders “dedicated to the business of the environment.”  Harvest was part of the mix at Globe 2010 making links between Seattle, Vancouver BC, and the world.  It all started out with transportation organized by enterpriseSeattle.  Imagine an eclectic group of Seattle leaders: clean tech engineers, marketing folks, film producers, journalists,  lobbyists, lawyers, and business strategists.  Add three gallons of coffee and an endless supply of muffins, and you have a lively bus trip.

The energy continued on the Vancouver exhibition floor with connections between countries and technologies.  Throughout the booths, seasoned veterans swapped stories about wind, solar, wave and biogas energy solutions.  Banks with green streaks shared investment strategies in the sustainability field.  Schools such as Simon Fraser University’s Work-Integrated-Learning program scoped out opportunities to combine studies with career development.  Local government agencies shared their efforts to create a sustainable regions.

People, planet, and profit ponderings continued through the evening.  Then, over breakfast, Peter Beattie, Queensland Trade Commissioner to North and South America and the former Queensland Premier, described how Australia’s clean tech industries are poised to skyrocket.  According to Mr. Beattie, the conditions are perfect:  the timing is right now that the planet has passed peak oil; political stars are aligning; economic incentives are in place; people want to leverage these opportunities to put clean energy sources in their communities.

Clean tech around the world: the conditions are perfect.

Cooperation, Not Solid Waste Showdowns

We need materials management solutions, not solid waste showdowns.  In the March-April 2010 edition of MSW Management, Rick Brandes, former chief of the Energy Recovery and Waste Disposal Branch, Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, of the EPA, implores:

Please! There is so much trash generated (between 240 and 400 million tons per year, depending on how you count it), in so many places (where isn’t it generated?), that we need all the materials management solutions we can get. Landfills are many things, convenient, inexpensive, practical, but they should not be seen as permanent solutions. Who knows what environmental legacy they represent? We don’t know what will happen with them in the years ahead.

Mr. Brandes then touches on  cradle-to-grave models of product supply chains, asks for increased cooperation between stakeholders, and recognizes that different communities have different needs.  Showcasing alternative strategies, Mr. Brandes writes:

It’s not like there are no alternative strategies. There are many, many ways to beneficially use this trash mountain of ours. Augment soil. Generate power. Make paper and save trees. Reduce bauxite mining. Recover even more metal out of the ash. Make park benches and roads. Produce ethanol and biodiesel. Use all alternatives where they make sense. Use different waste management strategies in different places. Do more of some of these things in some places and less of them in other places. But don’t editorially gun people down when they don’t do what you think they should do. Give communities the best available information, and they will probably do what is best for them. Let them make their trash more valuable.

At Harvest, we like to think we offer the collaboration and innovative solution options that Mr. Brandes would like to see in regards to organics waste management.  Read the full text of “Cooperation, Not Conflict: Municipal Solid Waste Management in the 21st Century” here.

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