Forced Green

Good news on the environment front! The Home Depot will now accept unbroken
consumer compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) at all locations. The service
is free and the first such offering made so widely available in this country,
according to the retail chain.

Customers can simply hand over any expired, unbroken CFLs to the clerk behind
the returns desk. The bulbs will go to an environmental management company
responsible for coordinating CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to
maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance. Read more…

The number of utilities interested in renewable power is growing and more large
scale projects are being implemented, but the wider acceptance of these technologies
is still being hampered by their intermittent nature. Improved power storage will
increase the use of electricity from solar and wind power. The result will be power
on demand instead of when the sun shines or the wind blows. And of course the faster
renewable energy sources grow the slower the increase of greenhouse gases by
replacing carbon-based fuels.

With the exception of predictable peak-load requirements, most electricity demand
is for a continuous, reliable supply. If there were some way that large amounts of
electricity from intermittent producers such as solar and wind could be stored Read more…

At least one power plant cares enough to do something about
their greenhouse emissions.

In Arizona, the Red Hawk Power Generating Station owned by
Arizona Public Service (APS), is a large combined cycle
natural gas power plant. It burns natural gas to turn large
turbines which generates 1,000 mega watts of electricity
(enough for about 250,000 homes). The major emissions from this
process is water and CO2, (of course).

But, smart folks that they are, they know that when you combine
water, CO2 (carbon dioxide), and lots of Arizona sunshine, you
get the majic of photosynthesis. Now add a pinch of specially
selected algae.

That’s right kids! Algae! That great green stuff eats CO2 and
spits out oxygen!

So APS teamed up with Green Fuel Technologies in an experiment
to capture a portion of the plant’s greenhouse gases and waste
water, piping it to the bio-reactor tanks, which proportionally
distributes the CO2, sunshine, and water to the algae. Which in
turn eats the CO2 to it’s hearts content and grows until ready
for harvest.

At a certain concentration the algae is harvested. They are
looking at a three step process for the harvest:
Step one: Oils from the algae makes bio-diesel.
Step two: The algae starch makes ethanol.
Step three: Algae protein for cattle feed..
You can also make paper, plastics, and food products, (yuck!
I don’t know about that one!)

Capturing 100% of a power plants emissions takes 2 acres of
the algae tanks per mega watt. For this plant, they will eventually
have 2,000 acres of bio-reactor tanks surrounding it.

A power plant surrounded by green, how appropriate!