Most nuclear power plants are huge
multi-billion-dollar operations that take
ten years to build. But they can be much
smaller. Lester Graham reports on a company
that’s planning hot-tub sized reactors:
Transcript
Most nuclear power plants are huge
multi-billion-dollar operations that take
ten years to build. But they can be much
smaller. Lester Graham reports on a company
that’s planning hot-tub sized reactors:
It’s difficult to get political and financial backing for building big nuclear power plants.
But one company plans to build miniature nuclear reactors.
John Deal is the CEO of Hyperion.
He says the small reactor invented at the Los Alamos National Laboratory could be
useful for isolated areas. It could also be used by smaller cities to provide most of
their power needs.
“You might have a community of 20, 30, 40 thousand people and they can have their
own power plant. And then they might feed back their excess or draw down from
some centralized facility for when they’ve got power spikes or peak demand.”
There’s a lot of interest. But for right now Hyperion is not taking orders for the mini-
nukes from Western nations. Deal says Hyperion is first trying to bring power to
isolated areas in the developing world.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
The recycling industry is the
latest to take a hit from the world’s
economic problems. Rebecca Williams
has more:
Transcript
The recycling industry is the
latest to take a hit from the world’s
economic problems. Rebecca Williams
has more:
The bottom has dropped out of most commodity markets: recycled paper,
metals, everything. It’s tied to the collapse of economies worldwide.
Tom Watson is with the National Waste Prevention Coalition. He says
recycling companies’ profits are way down.
“A lot of it is connected with China – and the demand for fewer products
there so they need less of the recycled materials for the packaging.”
Watson says China is buying a lot less of our recycled paper and cardboard
to make packaging, because we’re all buying a lot fewer products from
China.
That means recyclables are stacking up in a lot of places. Recyclers are
starting to talk about charging garbage companies to drop stuff off. And that
might mean we’ll be paying higher trash bills.
Cranberry harvest in New Jersey (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)
One thing we can be thankful for
this Thanksgiving is cranberry relish.
After a sour decade of collapsing prices,
the industry has rebounded with a record
season. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
One thing we can be thankful for
this Thanksgiving is cranberry relish.
After a sour decade of collapsing prices,
the industry has rebounded with a record
season. Julie Grant reports:
In the late 1990s, the market for cranberries started drying up. Americans didn’t
seem to crave the pucker of our native berry. Some years growers were getting as
little as 8 dollars a barrel and they didn’t know if they could stay in business much
longer.
Today, they’re getting as much as 150 dollars per barrel.
Dawn Gates-Allen is fourth generation cranberry grower on Cape Cod.
“It’s been ten years of suppressed grower return for the price per barrel.”
Prices are rebounding because cranberries have gained popularity as a healthful
fruit overseas. Europe and Japan have started importing a third of America’s
cranberry crop.
But even with that new demand, you shouldn’t see a big jump in prices at the
supermarket this year: the weather has been great for cranberries and there’s a
bumper crop.
A net drags floating algae toward the boat
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Guiding algae into the funnel
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Blue Marble Chief Scientist James Stevens checks that the pump isn't sucking up animals, too
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
The residents of Dumas Bay hate the smell of algae rotting on their beach
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Algae is attracting a lot of
attention and investment as an alternative
energy source. It grows quickly, contains
a lot of oil, and doesn’t take up valuable
farmland. Ann Dornfeld profiles one company
that’s trying to turn algae into fuel:
Transcript
Algae is attracting a lot of
attention and investment as an alternative
energy source. It grows quickly, contains
a lot of oil, and doesn’t take up valuable
farmland. Ann Dornfeld profiles one company
that’s trying to turn algae into fuel:
I’m standing on a pontoon boat floating just a few feet off the shore of a saltwater bay.
Two men are standing in the waist-deep water around the boat. They’re guiding a layer of
floating algae into a funnel that’s sucking the algae into a burlap bag.
(sucking sound)
It’s an algae harvest – and James Stevens is directing the process. He says they
have to be careful not to suck up young salmon or other animals along with the
algae.
“This junction can be turned on, and it allows me to feed water into a box where
then I can sort and make sure there’s no by-catch actually coming through the
system.”
Stevens is Vice President and Chief Scientist of Blue Marble Energy. It’s
a Seattle start-up trying to turn algae into fuel. Most algae-to-energy researchers
are growing algae in giant tanks. Blue Marble has a different plan: gather algae
that’s already growing in noxious blooms along coastlines.
(sound of waves)
Here in Dumas Bay, not far from Seattle, huge blooms of algae often rot in the
water. That process uses up oxygen and kills marine life. And when the dead algae
washes up on the beach, it creates a smell the neighbors hate.
Blue Marble President Kelly Ogilvie says these algae blooms are common
around Puget Sound – but that’s nothing compared to more polluted waterways
elsewhere in the world.
“And the most recent, I think, salient example was Qingdao, China. And the
bloom that occurred there was, I think, like 800 square miles and they pulled a
million tons out of the water and that is prologue to what is going to be happening
on coastlines across the planet.”
Warmer water can help algae grow, and some scientists think global warming is
contributing to an increase in gigantic blooms. Nutrients from sewage dumping
and fertilizer runoff from farm fields and lawns also help algae flourish.
“If you think about what is actually happening in our oceans, the algae bloom
crisis has just begun. And if we can find a way to turn that new crisis into a
solution to something else, by goodness we’re going to try and make a go at it.”
Most companies doing algae-to-energy research focus on creating biofuels for cars
or jets. Instead of liquid fuel, Blue Marble wants to convert algae into natural gas
and biochemicals.
Along with private investment, Blue Marble has a contract with the Washington
Department of Ecology to collect algae at two bays in Puget Sound.
The department’s Alice Kelly is watching today’s harvest from the beach. She says
her agency hopes this gets rid of the rotten egg smell neighbors have been
complaining about without hurting the ecosystem, the sealife near the shore.
“It’s very important to protect that habitat. So we’re walking a very fine line here
between trying to deal with the excess odor problem and protect the near shore.”
Blue Marble’s approach provides that protection, she says, because its operation is
based just offshore. They aren’t dragging equipment across the beach. And today,
it looks like the only by-catch has been other species of algae.
But some conservationists have big concerns about harvesting wild algae for fuel.
One of them is Kevin Britton-Simmons, a researcher at
the University of Washington. He says a lot of unnatural algae blooms could be
prevented by keeping fertilizer and other pollutants out of the water.
“I feel this is essentially exploiting the problem instead
of fixing it. I’m concerned if we allow a business to develop that’s dependant on
this problem, what’s gonna happen when we fix the problem? Will there then be
pressure for this business to harvest natural populations of algae?”
Natural blooms are a valuable part of the food web, and he says removing them
could rob marine life of a major food source. He says it’s also hard to distinguish
between natural algae blooms and those caused by pollution.
(sound of waves)
Back on Dumas Bay, Kelly Ogilvie says his company has netted nearly 10,000 pounds of algae from the two harvests it’s completed. The next step is to
use bacteria to break down the algae into natural gas and various chemicals.
If all goes as planned, Ogilvie says Blue Marble’s first batch of natural gas will be
ready any day now.
Linda Nellet brought a few of her
birds to a backyard-chicken seminar in Chicago. She
and other seasoned urban chicken keepers hope to keep
chicken-raising legal and neighborly in their tight,
urban landscape. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Maybe it’s easy to imagine chickens
cooing and clucking on American farms, but
how about in big-city backyards? Well,
keeping chickens is legal in the nation’s
three largest cities, but in one of them,
chicken-lovers nearly lost that right.
Shawn Allee tells how some urban
chicken-keepers were nearly caught off guard,
and how they plan to keep their chickens in
the coop:
Transcript
Maybe it’s easy to imagine chickens
cooing and clucking on American farms, but
how about in big-city backyards? Well,
keeping chickens is legal in the nation’s
three largest cities, but in one of them,
chicken-lovers nearly lost that right.
Shawn Allee tells how some urban
chicken-keepers were nearly caught off guard,
and how they plan to keep their chickens in
the coop:
No one’s sure how many chickens are in Chicago’s backyards. But honestly, few people
thought about it until last year.
That’s when one woman showed up at a city hearing.
“Hi. My name is Edie Cavanaugh, and I’ve lived in Chicago, since 1968.”
Cavanaugh told aldermen she’d caught messy, noisy chickens clucking around her
neighborhood.
She was stunned the city wouldn’t round them up.
“I was told chickens are permitted as pets in Chicago, and I said that’s impossible,
this is a city.”
Cavanaugh’s story ruffled plenty of feathers.
You see, even some aldermen didn’t know that keeping chickens as pets or for eggs in
Chicago is okay.
“I was riding down the street, and I seen a rooster. I was like, ‘What is this?’”
For a month, it seemed Chicago’s city council would ban chicken-keeping.
People who already had chickens worried their birds were destined for the stew pot.
But Chicago aldermen kept chicken-raising legal.
Chicago’s pro-chicken contingent saw the fight as a wake-up call. Some figured, if they
wanted to keep birds, they’d better police themselves.
“So, welcome everybody for coming to the first-ever Chicago backyard Chicken
workshop.”
Martha Boyd is starting seminars about urban chickens.
She’s part of the Angelic Organics Learning Center, a group that promotes urban
agriculture.
Boyd is confident city-people can raise more of their own food if they’re neighborly
about it.
“So the idea of the backyard chicken workshop is so we can have this thing grow
without creating more problems and potentially, then, having the backlash to the
backyard chickens.”
For this first seminar, Boyd invited chicken-raising veterans to a church basement.
One is Tom Rosenfeld.
His advice to urban chicken lovers? Talk to your neighbors. And, hey, if they cringe, get
creative.
“It also helps to bribe them, because if they think they’re going to get some eggs out
of the deal or they think they’re kids come over and pet them or whatever, then of
course they’ll be a little more understanding when one day you leave the door open
and there’re chickens running around the yard or other issues.”
Rosenfeld says those ‘other issues’ arise pretty quickly. In fact, just a few hours after
chickens eat.
“A lot about chicken keeping is about poop because they do it a lot. They do it in
surprisingly large quantities at a time.”
Rosenfeld says you can literally get ankle deep in the stuff if you’re not vigilant.
But bribery helps here, too. Rosenfeld says chicken poop makes excellent garden
compost.
“Our neighbors love it. They’ll come by with a bucket and that’s their way of
participating.”
Rosenfeld says the last issue that ticks off neighbors is noise.
There’s no such thing as a chicken muzzle, but there’s still a solution – and there’s no
bribe necessary.
You see, male chickens are the noisy bunch, so if you just want eggs…
“You don’t need a rooster. It’s a sad reality as a male chicken keeper to realize that
roosters aren’t necessary. They’re only necessary if you want chicks.”
Rosenfeld says urban chicken-raising could catch on where it’s legal – if people keep a lid
on noise and smells.
As for places where it’s not legal?
You might want to change the law at city hall – just don’t try to bribe your alderman with
fresh eggs.
Digital TV is killing the analog star
(Source: Zaphod at Wikimedia Commons)
In a couple of months, television
signals will be going digital. Congress
is requiring the switch. In February, if
you have an analog TV with rabbit ears,
it’ll be useless unless you get a converter
box. And even before the official transition,
people have been buying up new digital TVs.
Rebecca Williams reports the switch to DTV
has some people worried about the growing
pile of TV trash:
Transcript
In a couple of months, television
signals will be going digital. Congress
is requiring the switch. In February, if
you have an analog TV with rabbit ears,
it’ll be useless unless you get a converter
box. And even before the official transition,
people have been buying up new digital TVs.
Rebecca Williams reports the switch to DTV
has some people worried about the growing
pile of TV trash:
(sound of guy playing guitar hero)
William Borg says he’s really bad at Guitar Hero. So instead, we’re
watching one of his teenage customers play the game on a huge flat screen
digital TV.
“And this is another reason customers are after those high definition TVs
because you can really maximize the overall picture and sound quality.”
There’s not an analog TV in the place. Best Buy doesn’t sell them anymore.
You can’t buy them anywhere actually, except maybe at a thrift store.
Digital TV is killing the analog star.
“I think the end of analog TV is here.”
Megan Pollock is with the Consumer Electronics Association. She
represents TV makers and big box retailers.
“Just like record players some people will just fall in love and keep them for
as long as they can but I think in 5 to 10 years it’ll be very, very hard to find
one in anyone’s home.”
That’s right – analog TVs are gonna be museum pieces, or, more likely,
filling up landfills.
Megan Pollock says sales for digital TVs go up every year. She expects 36
million to sell next year.
In February, all broadcasters are required to switch over to digital TV. If
you have one of those old TVs with rabbit ears or an antenna, you’ll have to
get a converter box. If you’re hooked up to cable or satellite, you’re fine.
You don’t have to buy a new TV.
But TV recyclers say they’re seeing more people getting rid of perfectly
good analog TVs anyway.
Linda McFarland runs a TV and computer recycling business.
“We’re really gonna start seeing these in droves.”
We’re standing in front of seven foot tall stacks of old TVs.
McFarland says of all electronics, TVs are the least valuable. And the TVs
are full of toxic stuff. Especially lead in the cathode ray tubes.
Most of the time we export our TV waste. It ends up in Asia or Africa.
There, everyone from grandparents to little kids use acid or open flames to
melt the circuit boards to get to the tiny bits of gold and silver.
“Children are working on top of these electronic heaps and breathing
cyanide acid.”
Linda McFarland says it’s easy for recyclers in the US to make deals with
importers in other countries. They sneak the TV waste in along with much
more valuable computer parts.
“You might just stick it on containers and tell the marketplace that’s buying
from you I’ll give you two good containers for every container I give you.”
McFarland says that probably happens nine out of ten times. She wants new
laws to force recyclers to take care of TVs correctly.
That’s at the end of a TV’s life. Others want to start at the beginning. They
want TV manufacturers to do more.
Barbara Kyle is with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. She says it’s not
just the lead in old TVs, many new digital TVs have toxic mercury in them –
and that’s hard to remove too.
“I think of the LCD TV as the poster child as to how this industry is still not
thinking about how to design with the end of life of products in mind. It’s
clearly not even in their work plan.”
But – she says some companies are getting better about taking back old TVs
for recycling. She says Sony, Samsung and LG already have good
programs. Others are just beginning.
Kyle says, whatever you do, don’t throw your old TV in the trash. She says
it’ll take some work, but you can find a responsible recycler – one that
doesn’t export waste to developing countries.
A new study shows that if you're holding something warm, you might like people more than if you're holding something cold
(Source: MarkSweep at Wikimedia Commons)
A study published in the journal
Science suggests that there might be a link
between how warm you are and how much you
like someone. Jessi Ziegler reports:
Transcript
A study published in the journal
Science suggests that there might be a link
between how warm you are and how much you
like someone. Jessi Ziegler reports:
The study was really simple.
Researchers pretended to have their hands really full, and
asked people to hold their coffee for them. Some of the
coffee was iced, some was hot. The people were then
asked to rate others’ personalities.
You know, like in terms of being a “warm” person or a
“cold” person.
They discovered that those who held the hot coffee rated
people as warmer. The people who held iced coffee? Not
so much.
Lawrence Williams at UC Boulder is co-author of the study.
He thinks this has to do with associations made when
you’re a baby. Your first concept of social warmth
coincides with physical warmth.
So, what does this study mean for you?
“This work suggests that going out for coffee might be
effective in getting the relationship off on the right foot,
as opposed to going out for ice cream, for example.”
You heard it here. Coffee dates are a much better bet.
For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.
There is a concern that pharma-crops may contaminate food crops
(Photo courtesy of the USDA)
The Bush Administration wants to
put new rules in place before its term
ends. Rebecca Williams reports one group
is worried about a proposed rule they say
could leave doors open for drugs in our food:
Transcript
The Bush Administration wants to
put new rules in place before its term
ends. Rebecca Williams reports one group
is worried about a proposed rule they say
could leave doors open for drugs in our food:
The US Department of Agriculture recently proposed new rules about
genetically engineered crops. That includes crops grown to produce drugs.
It might be something like a human gene grown in rice, or a vaccine grown
in corn.
They’re being tested in the field now, and they’re often grown near regular
food crops.
Doug Gurian-Sherman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says
there’s not enough oversight in the new rules.
“If it does take off and these things are grown year after year and widely, I
think under these kind of regulations the chances for contamination will be
you know, very good.”
He says a couple years ago, a grain grown for pig vaccine got mixed into
normal grain. It was caught just before going to market.
But Gurian-Sherman says these genetically engineered crops should be
grown indoors to prevent contamination of food crops.
You get more out of your tank of gas if it is purchased in a cold location versus a warm one (Photo by Ben VonWaggoner)
People who buy gasoline in cold
places get more bang for their buck than
people buying gas in warm places. Kyle
Norris explains:
Transcript
People who buy gasoline in cold
places get more bang for their buck than
people buying gas in warm places. Kyle
Norris explains:
Let’s say my friend Ana buys 10 gallons of gasoline in a cold place like the
Canadian tundra. And I buy 10 gallons of gas in the warm state of Florida.
My friend Ana will be able to drive further than I will with those 10 gallons.
That’s because gas expands at warm temperatures. But its energy content
does not.
There’s a gizmo gas stations can put on individual pumps that adjusts for
temperature differences. But each one costs a couple thousand bucks a pop.
Dave Maurer is with the US Government Accountability Office.
“There actually have not been a lot of studies done on the benefits and costs of installing this
equipment. Really what we found is that it’s not really known.”
Right now different states do different things. California has just started a
major study on this topic. But without much research, Maurer said it’s tough
for policy makers to make decisions.
By 2015, Proposition 2 in California forces farms to make
sure the animals are given enough room to move around.
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Voters in California are drawing
a line in the sand when it comes to the
factory farming of animals. They overwhelmingly
approved a ballot measure to ensure that
hens, calves and pigs are treated more
humanely. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Voters in California are drawing
a line in the sand when it comes to the
factory farming of animals. They overwhelmingly
approved a ballot measure to ensure that
hens, calves and pigs are treated more
humanely. Julie Grant reports:
Right now, in most states, calves raised for veal, pregnant
pigs, and hens that lay eggs are caged so tight they can
barely move.
By 2015, Proposition 2 in California forces farms to make
sure the animals are given enough room to move around.
Michael Markarian is a vice president with the U.S. Humane
Society, which spent millions to get the issue approved.
“You cram these animals into cages barely larger than their
bodies. They’re practically immobilized their entire lives. I
mean, what could be more basic than giving an animal some
freedom of movement?”
Opponents of the issue say this will cost farmers and
consumers. We’ll see more imports from countries that don’t
have these kinds of laws.
(Photo courtesy of Hyperion)
