The US Patent Office is working through 25,000 green tech patents.
(Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
It takes time for green technology
to develop. The US Patent office
has one idea to speed things up,
but Shawn Allee reports
that probably won’t solve the problem:
Transcript
It takes time for green technology
to develop. The US Patent office
has one idea to speed things up,
but Shawn Allee reports
that probably won’t solve the problem:
The US Patent Office is working through 25,000 green tech patents for things like better solar panels.
The office wants to give preferential treatment to 3,000 green tech patent applications. That could save a year of waiting time for approval.
But not everyone thinks a Patent Office backlog is the problem.
Stuart Soffer is a patent analyst in Silicon Valley. He says green tech just takes time and money.
“It really takes an investment, infrastructure and R and D. We can make a little wind mill that will generate power in your back yard, but scaling that to power cities is a different problem.”
Soffer says sometimes, patent delays are companies’ fault, not the government’s. So, speeding things up at the Patent Office might not get green tech in the marketplace any faster.
Molycorp's rare-earth mining pit in Mountain Pass, California. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
To cut water use, Molycorp's installed new waste water ponds and
recycling equipment. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Beneath this 60-acre spot are 100 feet of mine tailings, which
include salts and other mining by-products. The site's being remediated and
capped with vegetation, to ensure water doesn't move contaminants underground.
It's part of Molycorp's plan to recover from waste water leaks during the 1990s. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Politicians like to show off pictures of wind turbines, hybrid cars, and other green hi-tech.
The idea is to get more of that in America, and maybe even make more of it here. Shawn
Allee found there’s a chance all of this could be complicated by the supply of key green-
tech ingredients:
Transcript
Politicians like to show off pictures of wind turbines, hybrid cars, and other green hi-tech.
The idea is to get more of that in America, and maybe even make more of it here. Shawn
Allee found there’s a chance all of this could be complicated by the supply of key green-
tech ingredients:
I don’t know about you, but there’re a whole bunch of minerals I completely ignored in
high school chemistry.
Jack Lifton knows them by heart.
“… lanthenum, serium, neodymium…”
Lifton’s a market expert on these so-called ‘rare-earth’ minerals. And he says, even if you
haven’t heard of them, you might have them – even in your pocket.
“Without rare earths, we probably would not have portable computers and you
certainly wouldn’t have display screens today on anything – television or computer,
iPod, or iPhone, whatever.”
Rare earths make electronics light and they don’t need much power: just what wind
turbines and electric hybrid cars need.
There’s a problem in the rare-earth market, though. China’s the big supplier, but Lifton
says it might keep it’s rare-earth supplies for itself.
“In the next three or four years, you cannot make a device with a rare earth unless
it’s made in China and then the Chinese have made it very clear that their priorities
are to manufacture goods for their own consumer economy and keep the Chinese
employed.”
So, is the US gonna be left dry when it comes to green high tech? Well, there is a rare
earth mine in America, but it’s had some environmental problems.
The mine is trying to turn that around now.
Honan: “On the left is the overburden stock pile. Once you’ve seen one of those,
you’ve seen them all.”
Allee: “Big pile of rocks.”
Honan: “Big pile of rock.”
Mine manager Scott Honan’s driving me around the top of a mine in the middle of the
California desert.
He manages the mine for Molycorp. Honan’s showing me the mine’s waste water
ponds.
Honan: “Those two are fresh water.”
Allee: “Basically, you’re trying to recycle as much of this water as you can. Why is
that?”
Honan: “We have to confine all of our water activities on the site. We have to be
very efficient when we use water, we can’t afford to waste it.”
Gotta admit, this is not very sexy stuff, but Molycorp is crossing its fingers that
expensive water recycling and treatment investments pay off.
Molycorp uses water to process the rare-earth ore, and back in the 90s, the mining and
processing stopped for a while due to waste water leaks.
It’s desert, after all – and regulators didn’t want what little water there is contaminated by
a slurry of salts and mining byproducts.
Allee: “So where’re we heading, here?”
Honan: “The pit.”
Allee: “Is that what everyone calls it? ‘The Pit?’”
Honan: “Yeah. It’s about 55 acres if you look at the perimeter. From the top of the
high wall over there to the bottom, it’s about 500 feet.”
Honan says Molycorp will expand the mine in a few years – just in time for when China
might stop exporting rare-earths.
The company might be jumping a tad – regulators might clamp down on the operation if
Molycorp repeats some of its past water pollution mistakes.
Still…
“I think a lot of us at the mine have a big stake in the success of this operation going
forward. A lot of us feel it’s important for our country. What we produce here is
going to drive a lot of this energy efficient technology that people are anxious about.
It’s cool to be a part of that.”
And for Honan, what’s even cooler is that someone’s talking about building a wind farm
not too far from his mine.
Honan says it’d be awefully nice if his rare-earths are in those turbines.
Many people do not know what to do with old computers and
equipment, so they end up in the trash.
Electronic waste can potentially contain harmful chemicals like
lead, mercury, and cadmium. Recycling computers and other electronics is a
way to help the environment.
If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of places to drop off your household’s old computer. But to prevent more of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:
Transcript
If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of
places to drop off your household’s old computer, but to prevent more
of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in
landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer
makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few
manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is
Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:
About a year ago, Dell helped set up and publicize a computer
recycling plant at a Goodwill Industries facility in Dell’s home city
of Austin.
(Sound of clunking)
Goodwill employees and volunteers sort through the hundreds of
boxes of computers and computer parts that are dropped off – at no
charge to the consumer – at the site. Newer computers are set aside
for repairs, and hard drive memories are erased. Older computers go
to a bench where workers like Paul take apart (or demanufacture)
them.
“I’m taking apart all the useable parts. Motherboard, power sources,
cards, ports, metal goes into bins, plastic goes into bins for
recycling and what not.”
(Sound of ambience switch)
Goodwill sells the reusable parts at its retail store elsewhere in the
building. Used LCD monitors, for example, go for as low as twenty
dollars.
Manager Christine Banks says some of the equipment is under
a 30-day Goodwill warranty. Other parts can be exchanged if the
customer isn’t satisfied. Banks says Goodwill is happy this computer-
recycling program makes a profit.
“Our operation does. However, there are 7 or 8 other Goodwills
throughout the country that do this that barely break even. We’re just
fortunate we have higher tech donations, a pool of employees with
more technology, it’s very tricky.”
Some states charge high disposal costs for unwanted computer parts,
which can contain potentially harmful chemicals. Those high costs can
make it difficult for a recycling program to get off the ground, but
environmental groups say the fast-growing pile of circuit boards,
monitors, and plastic parts can leach poisons like lead, mercury, and
cadmium into the environment.
They say small-scale projects like the one in Austin have to be part of a
broader effort to keep electronic waste out of the nation’s landfills. That
effort could include government mandates forcing manufacturers to
safely dispose of old products.
Robin Schneider is with the Austin office of the National Computer
Takeback Campaign.
“So, to really deal with the environmental problems of millions of
pounds of toxins, we’re gonna need something bigger than this. This is a
piece of it…and gonna need lot of pieces of it.”
Schneider says she’s encouraged that some Midwest states are
looking into manufacturer takeback programs. She acknowledges that
recycling may drive up the cost of new computers, but she also says
manufacturers may start redesigning computers so that it’s more
profitable for the companies to take them back.
The US Patent Office is working through 25,000 green tech patents. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
