Tag: truck

Capturing Wasted Methane From Landfills

  • A landfill is full of things people don't consider useful anymore. One group begs to differ. (Photo by Roberto Burgos S.)

The landfill is often seen as the end of the line… the burial ground of our trash. But one company says there’s still something to gain from that buried garbage. It’s planning to build a new plant to retrieve one final product from all of our trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kasler has the story:

Transcript

The landfill is often seen as the end of the line… the burial ground of our
trash. But one company says there’s still something to gain from that buried
garbage. It’s planning to build a new plant to retrieve one final product from
all of our trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kasler has the
story:


You probably don’t think of landfills as “green.” But Steve Wilburn does.
Wilburn is the president of FirmGreen. He says he knows different ways to
turn byproducts of landfills into useful energy.


First, capture the methane that’s produced when all that garbage stews
underground. Second, use it as fuel to generate electricity. Third, turn it into compressed gas for trucks. And finally, mix
it with soybean oil to make soy diesel.


Steve Wilburn says it’s an ambitious project.


“This is the first of its kind in the world. The Green Energy Center concept is
something I came up with about four years ago, and as we explored for ways to
implement it, we needed a centerpiece, a technology that was missing, and that
was to clean up the landfill gas in a very cost-effective way.”


FirmGreen is building what it calls its Green Energy Center right next to the
landfill in Columbus, Ohio. Mike Long is with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio – SWACO for short. Long says right
now, there’s no practical use for the methane and carbon dioxide produced by the rotting garbage in the landfill.


“Currently, SWACO’s control technology is to have a flare where we burn off the
gases to keep it from getting up into the atmosphere. But the new technology,
we will take that gas and make it into energy and consumer products rather than
just simply burning it and exhausting it.”


Instead of burning those landfill gases, they’ll be redirected a small
electric generator operated by FirmGreen. The electricity will be sold back to
SWACO to power its main office and its fleet garage. That’ll start in just a
few months.


Later, FirmGreen will convert methane into compressed natural gas. That will
be used to fuel SWACO’s vehicles, which could save the waste authority an
estimated 100 thousand dollars a year.


FirmGreen’s President, Steve Wilburn says the final part of the project is the
real profit maker for his company: turning methanol into biodiesel.


“When we create
methanol, we then have the bridge to the hydrogen economy because ethanol is an
excellent hydrogen carrier. It’s also used in the manufacture and production of
biodiesel. Ohio is a large soybean producing state. So we’ll take our green
methanol and we’ll blend that with the soy oil and we’re going to create
biodiesel.”


When the FirmGreen biodiesel processing facility is up and running, it will
need 69 thousand acres of soybeans to produce 10 million gallons of biodiesel
annually. FirmGreen already has a contract with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical
Company to provide 6 million gallons of biodiesel a year. FirmGreen also hopes
to interest the growing hydrogen fuel cell industry.


“Biofuels” have their critics, who are concerned that it takes as much energy
or more energy to create biofuels than they produce. Mike Long at SWACO says
he’s heard that before, but it doesn’t apply to this project.


“The
energy is already here, and is being flared off right now at our landfill. There’s no recovery of the energy, no beneficial
use. So for those who argue that this process would be a consumer of energy, it’s not a net consumer, and right now, we’re wasting energy.”


Long and Wilburn point to statistics from the U.S. EPA. They says the data show
the Green Energy Center will have the same effect as reducing oil consumption by
more than twenty thousand barrels a year. They say that’s like taking 2,000 cars off the road.


Sam Spofforth is with the Central Ohio Clean Fuels Coalition. He says even
when factoring in the fuel used by trucks transporting the methanol to the
remote biodiesel processing facilities, the project still looks green to him.


“In terms of biodiesel, it’s about three point two energy units out for every one energy
unit in. What is even more exciting about this project – methane
gas is about twenty times as potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. So the
fact that they’re using methane that would otherwise be vented into the air
makes the net emissions of those greenhouse gas even more positive.”


The Green Energy Center in Ohio is the first in the nation, but a second one
is planned to be built near Saint Louis, Missouri. With giant landfills venting
off methane in places around the country, if these two make money, it’s a
pretty sure bet others will be built in the near future.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kasler.

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Dairy Farmers Keeping Milk Close to Home

  • When people drink a tall glass of milk, they seldom think of how much energy it takes to produce the milk they consume. (Photo by Adrian Becerra)

A dairy farmer who got tired of shipping his milk to far away dairies is now processing it on the farm. By not trucking it away, he’s reducing the amount of energy used to produce milk and giving local customers different kinds of dairy products. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

A dairy farmer who got tired of shipping his milk to far away dairies is now processing it on the farm. By not trucking it away, he’s reducing the amount of energy used to produce milk and giving local customers different kinds of dairy products. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


(sound of glass clinking)


Recycled glass bottles are banging around inside a giant dish washer.


“Bottles just are put in here in rows and they go through a soap tank for 3 to 4 minutes and they come through a few rinse cycles and a chlorine rinse, down the belt down to the filler.”


After they’re washed, the bottles are filled with milk and capped. Crates of fat-free, 2 percent, whole and chocolate milk are stacked into a cooler.


Sally and George Shetler set up this bottling plant on their farm 5 years ago. They say for a pretty small investment, they’re reaping more profits. They’re also saving energy because they don’t ship their milk somewhere else for processing. Their 38 cows are just a few feet away in their barn, so the milk’s journey from cows udders to containers is short.


George Shetler used to just sell his raw milk to a company that would pump it out of his tank and into their truck. But he says – like milk everywhere – the first trip was only the beginning of a long trip for his cows’ milk.


“Now some of the larger dairies, it goes through one or two transfer stations where it’s transferred from one truck to another truck to another truck to a milk plant. I’ve got a cousin that used to drive for a milk company out west where he was hauling milk from New Mexico up to North Dakota for processing then some of it goes from North Dakota to Wisconsin for processing.”


And so a lot of fuel is wasted getting the milk from cow to jug. George Shetler says he’s also saving energy at the beginning of the process. Instead of trucking in grain, or burning fuel to plant and harvest grain to feed the cows, he’s letting his cows eat grass.


Brian Halweil is with the WorldWatch Institute in Washington DC. He has written a book on local agriculture called “Eat Here.” He says the grass-fed cows require less energy to produce milk than do cows on modern farms.


“The feed that the cows eat needs to be brought in, driven in, which consumes a lot of energy, the production of that grain takes a lot of energy, there’s water pumping and cleaning that’s associated with factory farmed dairy cows and in contrast to that the grass-fed farms essentially runs on sunlight.”


Sunlight is the only energy grass needs to grow. But despite all the savings in energy costs, the Shetlers’ milk is more expensive. That’s because the huge system in place to distribute milk works on economies of scale. The big dairies can balance production and distribution. Milk reaches just the right place at the right time in the right amount. The dairies also get huge government subsidies to keep the price of milk lower.


“It’s kind of a fake price that we pay in the supermarket.”


Brian Halweil says that the price should not be the only reason to buy a locally produced gallon. Burning extra diesel fuel and gasoline should also be considered.


“It’s a price that doesn’t include the cost of shipping, that doesn’t include all the pollution associated with that shipping and it doesn’t include all the health and environmental and social impact of factory-raised animals versus a local grass-fed dairy.”


And many people would rather buy the milk from cows that don’t receive as much antibiotic medicines and hormone injections that make the cows produce more milk.


Inside their pasteurizing vat the milk is heated to a lower temperature. This allows some of the enzymes to stay alive, which some people believe is healthier. One customer says she comes to the store right on the farm because she wants to connect with the people and animals that make what she drinks.


“It’s much better. That’s all I can say. It’s wonderful milk.”


And many of the customers who buy the locally-produced milk from nearby stores say they prefer it. Just like farmers markets, local dairy products are becoming popular. Environmentalists believe that’s good for the local economy and for saving fuel.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

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Study Shows Decline in Suv Appeal

An automotive research firm has conducted another study showing that large sport utility vehicles are falling out of favor with American consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more:

Transcript

An automotive research firm has conducted another study showing that
large sport utility vehicles are falling out of favor with American
consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more:


A study conducted by the Power Information Network says near-record
high gas prices may be taking their toll on sales of large sport
utility vehicles. The research says most car and truck owners are less
likely to buy a large SUV now than they were in first two months of
2004.


Tom Libby is with the Power Information Network.


“Consumers who before did not have much of a choice if they wanted an
SUV had to purchase a truck-based traditional SUV, now have the option
of getting a car-based SUV, which has several advantages. One of which
is it drives more like a car. Second of all they tend to be smaller,
so they get better gas mileage.”


Libby says the trend could be troubling to the auto industry because
SUVs are among the vehicles generating the highest profit for
automakers. But he says it would take higher gas prices over an
extended period to make the trend away from larger SUVs a permanent
one.


For the GLRC, I’m Jerome Vaughn in Detroit.

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Diesel Maker Works Toward Cleaner Engines

The Environmental Protection Agency last year set new emissions standards for diesel truck engines. Most of those engines are manufactured in the Midwest by Indiana-based Cummins, Michigan-based Detroit Diesel, Pennsylvania-based Mack Truck, and Illinois-based Caterpillar. One of those companies is trying a different approach to meet the new standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency last year set new emissions
standards for diesel truck engines. Most of those engines are
manufactured in the Midwest by Indiana-based Cummins,
Michigan-based Detroit Diesel, Pennsylvania-based Mack Truck,
and Illinois-based Caterpillar. One of those companies is
trying a different approach to meet the new standards. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


A truck engine the size of a
small couch is up on blocks at the
testing center of Caterpillar’s engine
research division just
outside of Peoria, Illinois. When it starts up,
you can feel
the vibrations.


(ambient sound, engine)


While this engine for a typical 18-wheeler is
large and loud,
the engineers who designed it say what makes it
different is
very small. Tana Utley is an engineering
director for
Caterpillar.


“We actually talk about the amount of fuel
that an injector
injects in terms of cubic milliliters. We measure the
time in
milliseconds. And even the degree of accuracy that is required to
measure what we are doing is not unlike what you’d find if
were to go to the space program and look at some of the things
they do for NASA.”


Caterpillar is trying a different approach to reduce
pollution from the engines on vehicles like school busses, dump trucks,
and 18-wheelers. Other engine makers are using a process
called
cooled exhaust gas recirculation. That essentially
means
cooling off the exhaust from the engine that
includes
pollutants, and running it back through the engine
instead of
releasing it into the air. Cooling the exhaust makes it
easier for
filters to pick up pollutants, and reduces the amount of
outside
air required to run the engine. But Caterpillar says it has a
better system. They call it ACERT, or Advanced
Combustion
Emissions Reduction Technology. ACERT doesn’t bank
on one thing
to clean up engine emissions like its competitors.
Tana Utley
says it is a combination of dozens of improvements to
the way a
large diesel engine works. She says one
example is a second
turbine placed at the end of the
engine.


“When we put a series turbo on, what we
do is we take the
exhaust energy that would normally be wasted and go out to the
environment at that temperature, the
second turbine takes that
temperature and turns it into useful work. That useful
work is used to add energy to the intake air, which helps us to
reduce the
fuel consumption. It also provides plenty of cool, clean air to
the engine to give us clean combustion.”


Utley says improvements to the engines air intakes,
fuel
injection systems, and the electronics
that run the engine all
combine to make for cleaner exhaust. John Campbell is
Caterpillar’s director of On-Highway Engine Products. He says
the ACERT engine follow Cat’s mission of taking a comprehensive
approach to solving problems.


“Who invented ACERT? The answer is Caterpillar invented ACERT.
Because it took a series of people with all kinds of
different
backgrounds, working together, and if you will,
playing off of
each other. And ACERT development
was a true teamwork effort
among a broad-based skill of people to make it occur and
actually bring it to production.”

Campbell says because ACERT does not rely on one piece of
equipment or technology to comply with new standards, Cat
will
have an easier time of meeting the next round
of emission
standards in 2007. But not everyone
shares Caterpillar’s
confidence that ACERT will be the clear
leader in the engine
market. Mike Osenga is the publisher of
Diesel Progress, an engine trade magazine. He says Caterpillar’s
unique approach to the engine market goes beyond the technology.

“The interesting thing that Caterpillar did with
ACERT is they
said, not only does it, in their opinion, change
the game
technically, but they also intended to charge more for ACERT
equipped engines. Especially the truck engine
market is hugely
price competitive. So Caterpillar has said
they’re coming in
with a new technology and they intend to get more
money for it.
That is typically not a path taken in moving a technology
into to a market.”

Osenga says it is impossible to predict which technology will
prevail, or which engine manufacturer will have an easier time
meeting future emissions standards. He says the biggest
question mark is durability. Osenga says none of the engines
currently on the market have been tested for the hundreds of
thousands of miles trucking companies demand from their engines.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

Biodiesel Enthusiast Brews Own Fuel

  • Joe Rappa holds up the final product: biodiesel made from used vegetable oil. Photo by David Sommerstein.

This winter, U.S. automakers have unveiled more environmentally friendly cars, SUVs, and trucks. They include gas-electric hybrids, even hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles. The new models will reduce smog and other emissions and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But a cleaner domestic fuel already exists for diesel cars and trucks, and you can find it at most restaurants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein profiles a man who brews his own biodiesel from used vegetable oil:

Transcript

This winter U.S. automakers have unveiled more environmentally friendly cars, SUVs, and
trucks. They include gas-electric hybrids, even hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles. The new
models will reduce smog and other emissions and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But a
cleaner domestic fuel already exists for diesel cars and trucks, and you can find it at most
restaurants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein profiles a man who brews
his own biodiesel from used vegetable oil:


Joe Rappa’s VolkSwagen Quantum looks like any older car. It’s a maroon station wagon with
180,000 miles on it. It’s got a diesel engine with the tell-tale diesel rattle.


(car starts)


But even though we’re inside an enclosed garage in an auto lab, there’s no black exhaust, no acrid
diesel smell. Instead, it smells like a kitchen.


“Some people say it smells like French Fries, some say it smells more like hamburgers on the
grill than anything else. But everyone smells something different with biodiesel.”


Rappa teaches automotive courses here at the State University of New York in Canton. He lives
120 miles away. Several times a week he commutes in this car powered by biodiesel – a fuel
made from used vegetable oil he collects from local restaurants. He says anyone with a diesel car
can do it themselves.


“It might be a bit unnerving at first because we’re so conditioned to put the same fuel in our car,
that y’know that you go make something in your garage and then go pour it in the tank of your
car goes against everything you’ve been ever taught for the last 20 years that you’ve been
driving.”


Joe Rappa has a mischievous smile when he talks about brewing his own fuel, especially with
most people worrying about the price of gas, the places our oil comes from, and what it does to
politics and the environment. But Rappa insists he’s not an environmentalist.


“I don’t consider myself a big polluter, either. I’m a tinkerer. I always have to fool around with
something. It’s funny, my dad always used to kid me from the time I was a little kid, ‘You’re not
happy unless you’re screwing around with something.’ My bicycle worked fine, I’d take it apart.”


As an adult, he bought a diesel car. One day, he started reading about biodiesel on the Internet.


“And the more I looked at it, the more I thought, that’s kind of silly, but I bet I could do that, and
got a hold of the chemicals and started fooling around and making mini-batches, and once I was
confident the mini-batches were actually biodiesel and something I can burn in an engine, I
started making bigger batches and putting the stuff in my car.”


Today Rappa spends Sundays in his garage brewing up to 120 gallons of it at a time. He’s
considered a leading expert on biodiesel bulletin boards on the Internet.


Most of the enthusiasts he e-mails with are environmentalists. They see biodiesel as a way to
reduce our reliance on foreign oil and clean up the choking exhaust cars and trucks belch out their
tailpipes. Rappa says biodiesel creates less than half the smog-causing emissions of regular
diesel.


“The particle emissions out of the tailpipe, 70% less simply by switching fuel, 70-80% less
hydrocarbon, 70-80% less carbon monoxide, those are some serious numbers.”


Nitrous oxide levels are a little higher, though. Those also contribute to smog. But for Rappa,
the big number is price. It costs him 54-cents a gallon to brew the stuff.


Rappa snaps on rubber gloves to show me how it’s done. Basically you mix methanol and lye to
make methoxide. Then you add the methoxide to the oil. The ratio depends on the amount of
animal fat in the vegetable oil, which you figure out through what’s called a titration, and the
amount of biodiesel you want to brew.


“Now we just add the methoxide to the vegetable oil.”


Rappa uses old Pepsi bottles for this demonstration and a wine carafe to hold the oil.


“Put our lid on there. Give it a shake. Immediately it turns to a milkshake consistency. And the
reaction only takes a couple seconds to take place. You mix it thoroughly and it’ll start to get
dark as my biodiesel starts to form.”


The result is honey-colored biodiesel. Glycerine – basically soap – settles on the bottom as a by-
product. Rappa cautions this takes practice. You have to boil the vegetable oil to remove any
water in it. You need to make sure you separate the biodiesel from the glycerine.


In fact, most people who use biodiesel in their cars buy it commercially. Their number is
growing. The National Biodiesel Board predicts biodiesel production will increase by 20 million
gallons this year. Most it is made from soybeans. Some producers use other vegetable oils. But
a U.S. Energy Department-funded study says there’s enough used vegetable oil and other waste
grease to produce 500 million gallons of biodiesel each year.


(sound up of driving)


That’s plenty to keep Joe Rappa’s car on the road and encourage others to join him.


“I still chuckle every time I pour in fuel I made in my garage in the tank of my car.”


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Bush Administration to Redefine Auto Standards?

The government is considering redefining what is a truck and what is a car. The difference will affect the federal fuel economy standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The government is considering redefining what is a truck and what is a car. The difference will
affect the federal fuel economy standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


Fuel economy standards for light trucks are less restrictive than they are for cars. The auto
industry takes advantage of the rules regarding the definitions to make vehicles you might think
of as a car fall under the less restrictive light truck fuel economy standards. For example, the
popular Chrysler P-T Cruiser qualifies as a light truck. The New York Times published a report
indicating the Bush administration is looking to further change the definitions. Environmentalists
are concerned.


Daniel Becker is with the Sierra Club.


“You can redesign to either save more gas or guzzle more gas. Our fear is that the Bush
administration, responding to their friends in the auto industry and the oil industry, will instead
decide that we need to guzzle more gas.”


The Bush administration is reported to be considering the changes to achieve greater fuel
economy, but some environmental groups remain skeptical.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Automakers Rated on “Green” Car Protection

A new survey is out that ranks which automakers make the least-polluting cars. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new survey is out that ranks which auto-makers make the least-polluting cars. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Together Ford, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, Honda, Toyota and Nissan sell nine out of
every ten vehicles in the U.S. An environmental watchdog group, the Union of Concerned
Scientists, found, as in the past, that Honda is the least polluting auto-maker, followed by the
other two Japanese companies. But, Jason Mark, the author of the report, says there’s been a shift
among the U.S. companies.


“The big news is that Ford has now surpassed General Motors as the greenest of the Big Three
car companies on the strength of voluntary commitments that they have made to improve the
environmental performance of their products.”


Federal regulations allow trucks, such as SUVs, to pollute more than cars, but Ford has taken
steps to reduce truck smog-forming emissions on its own.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Chretien Plan Calls for Transport Changes

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien recently outlined a new long-term political agenda. It includes a proposal for major changes to transportation that would affect traffic bottlenecks at crossing points like the Ambassador Bridge. The Bridge is the biggest trading corridor between Canada and the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien recently outlined a new long-
term political agenda. It includes a proposal for major changes to transportation that
would affect traffic bottlenecks at crossing points like the Ambassador Bridge. The
Bridge is the biggest trading corridor between Canada and the U.S. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


Prime Minister Jean Chretien calls it part of his Kyoto plan, which is intended to reduce
traffic congestion on the main highway link along the north shore of Lake Ontario all the
way to the U.S. border for almost 24 hours a day that highway looks more like a moving
warehouse as goods travel by truck north and south of the border.


But the emissions from thousands of trucks each day are creating smog from Toronto to
Buffalo to Detroit.


Chretien’s plan is to shift more truck traffic to rail and water.


Ken Ogilvie of the environmental organization, Pollution Probe, says it’s a positive step
but it needs more government incentives similar to those in the U.S.


“What the United States is ahead of us on and should and could do a lot more is on the
policy side of tying some of this funding to make sure there is improved rail and transit
systems.”


Ogilvie says further study would be needed to determine whether the plan would simply
shift environmental problems to the Great Lakes and to rail infrastructure on both sides of
the border.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk in Toronto.

Truckers Rush to Beat Epa Regs

Truck fleet owners are scrambling to order diesel trucks before new environmental regulations go into effect this fall. Since the beginning of the year, orders for new diesel trucks have gone up nearly seventy percent over the same period last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:

Transcript

Truck fleet owners are scrambling to order diesel trucks before new
environmental regulations go into effect this fall. Since the beginning of
the year, orders for new diesel trucks have gone up nearly seventy percent
over the same period last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt
Shafer Powell has more:


The biggest reason for the sharp jump in orders is that truck fleet owners
are trying to buy as many trucks as possible before October 1st. That’s
when the EPA is going to require that trucks use newer, cleaner-burning
engines in them. Trucking industry analyst John Stark of “Stark’s News” says
these new engines will cost anywhere from three to five thousand dollars
more per truck.


“The trucking fleets are making a decision to try to beat the EPA
standards, not so much trying to be non-compliant with EPA standards, but
to avoid major price increases with these diesel engines.”


Last month, the EPA began to investigate claims that some engine
manufacturers were encouraging trucking companies to buy up the old-style
models. If true, that would be a violation of an agreement the
manufacturers made with the EPA back in 1998.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.

Super Unpatriotic Vehicles

Recent reports that sales of SUVs, mini-vans, and light trucks have outstripped car sales has Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Don Ogden wondering if SUV is short for Super Unpatriotic Vehicle: