California is seeking to ban Styrofoam carry-out containers (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
This week, one state is voting on a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve takeout food in Styrofoam. Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
This week, one state is voting on a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve takeout food in styrofoam. Rebecca Williams has more:
A number of cities have banned Styrofoam food containers – including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. And now California lawmakers are deciding whether to ban the containers.
The bill says styrofoam is a big litter problem. And animals can choke on pieces of it.
The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency says styrene is a possible human carcinogen. Styrene is the stuff styrofoam’s made out of.
Jerry Hill is the Assembly member who introduced the bill in California. He says the American Chemistry Council and other groups are making it hard for him to get the votes he needs.
“You would think the world was going to come to an end if we were to prohibit and ban Styrofoam. It’s an industry that whether you look at the chemical industry, the restaurant industry that’s opposing it, and they are very vocal and very powerful.”
The opponents say there’s no reason for the ban, and they say it would be bad for the economy.
Ski resorts are one of a growing number of businesses trying to be more sustainable (Photo by Baileypalblue, source: Wikimedia Commons)
Back in February, President Obama proposed $150 billion to employ people in “green collar jobs.” The idea was to create jobs that benefited the environment. But he also wanted to boost the economy. A ski resort wanted to be one step ahead. So it hired a new employee to help its 2,500 acres “go green.” Irene Noguchi reports:
Transcript
Back in February, President Obama proposed $150 billion to employ people in “green collar jobs.” The idea was to create jobs that benefited the environment. But he also wanted to boost the economy. A ski resort wanted to be one step ahead. So it hired a new employee to help its 2,500 acres “go green.” Irene Noguchi reports:
(sound of rustling cans)
Ross Freeman crawls into a giant recycling container. His legs are sticking out.
He holds a long rake and shuffles the cans inside.
“We actually fill this thing up to the brim with recycling. Ends up being 2,000 or 2,500 pounds of recycling we send off the mountain every 10 to 12 days.”
(sound of mixing cans around)
This is part of his job. Ross Freeman is the eco-steward at Stevens Pass. It’s a ski resort tucked in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state.
His official title is “Environment and Sustainability Manager.” Stevens Pass created that position last year, when it wanted to make itself more eco-friendly.
John Meriwether is director of planning and environmental services at the resort. He’s worked here for 16 years.
“The ski industry has changed a lot. And really, the biggest change I think is them realizing how much global warming is affecting their business. The industry as a whole makes a lot of snow and one degree difference in the climate can change that.”
Meriwether says ski resorts are pushing more money into fighting global warming.
Stevens Pass pledged to offset all its emissions with energy credits. It’s the only resort in the Pacific Northwest that does this.
Ross Freeman’s work is on the ground. He drags out furniture that can’t go in the landfill. He recycles rubber wheels from the ski lifts.
“Then the next moment I’m up in the office designing a policy for vehicle idling, then I’m applying for grants, applying for industry awards, then I’m out in the food and beverage world, talking to cooks and chefs in the kitchens to figure out how we can be more efficient and waste less food.”
All this is part of the resort’s efforts to meet the national “green” standards. The National Ski Areas Association has 21 environmental guidelines it wants resorts to follow. It’s called Sustainable Slopes. The Ski Association says 190 resorts endorse it, including Stevens Pass.
Ryan Bidwell is the executive director of Colorado Wild. It’s an environmental group that grades ski resorts. He says endorsing the Ski Association’s Sustainable Slopes guidelines is different than actually following them.
“To be a part of the Sustainable Slopes program, a resort just has to say, ‘Yeah, we agree with these principles.’ They don’t actually have to take any action. Sustainable Slopes contains a whole laundry list of fantastic ideas that
resorts can and should be doing, but there’s no accountability in the program.”
Bidwell’s group grades ski resorts on everything from recycling to the effect on old growth forests. So how “green” was Stevens Pass on the environmental score card?
“Stevens received a ‘C’ because it has some expansion plans that would extend the resort into currently undeveloped areas and would impact those sensitive areas. So they lose a few points on that side.”
But Bidwell says hiring an eco-steward like Ross Freeman is a step in the right direction.
(sound of feet crunching the snow)
Freeman says there are only a few jobs like his. But he hopes more ski resorts will start hiring folks like him when they go green.
The Hill's cows getting a sip of water while waiting for milking (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
From left to right, Stephanie Hill, their daughter, and Ray Hill outside their new section of the barn where they make and sell yogurt (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Inside the Hill's barn during milking time (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
In many areas of the country, small farms
are now the exception, not the norm. Farming,
especially with livestock, can mean thousands and
thousands of animals, and often distant, corporate
ownership. Even the smallest farms are pressured
to get bigger. So when a family decides to make
their farm smaller, they’re rebels. Kinna Ohman
reports:
Transcript
In many areas of the country, small farms
are now the exception, not the norm. Farming,
especially with livestock, can mean thousands and
thousands of animals, and often distant, corporate
ownership. Even the smallest farms are pressured
to get bigger. So when a family decides to make
their farm smaller, they’re rebels. Kinna Ohman
reports:
It’s five o’clock in the evening on the Hill’s dairy farm. Ray Hill just finished cleaning
out the milking equipment and is moving into the barn.
(sound of milking equipment and door)
Cows look around curiously, and afternoon light streams through the windows. Hill
moves comfortably among these cows, calling each of them by name, and cleans their
udders for milking.
(Ray describing the process)
Ray Hill and his wife Stephanie are full time farmers. They milk ten cows, twice a day.
They sell raw milk and yogurt directly from their farm. But getting to this point hasn’t
been easy. To survive, they’ve had to step away from the conventional approach to dairy
farming.
When the Hills got into farming eight years ago, they listened to the advice of farm
experts. They had more than forty cows, a tractor, and were selling their farm’s milk to the
regional processors.
But within a couple of years, they were deep in debt. Hill says the experts told him to get
more cows. He says he couldn’t see how that would help.
“Financially it just didn’t work. There wasn’t money to hire help. I had a couple of
kids and my wife and we were all running ragged and it just wasn’t fun. And there
were many days where I threatened to sell every cow in the barn.”
It’s common for farm experts and even bankers to push family farmers like the Hills to
‘get big or get out.’ Darrell Emmick’s with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
He says he’s seen regions lose more than fifty percent of their dairy farms when using
this conventional standard.
“Getting bigger or get out really didn’t help a lot of the farmers. They got bigger
and they still went out of business.”
For a farm to get bigger, farmers confine hundreds or even thousands of dairy cows inside
large barns. That means farmers spend a lot of money and time bringing food to their
animals and hauling manure away.
Darrell Emmick says that model of agriculture started
in the 1940s when fuel was pretty cheap. But these days, it makes good economic sense
for farmers to go back to letting their milk cows out of the big barns to eat grass.
“Nothing can harvest a ton of feed any cheaper than the cow or the sheep or the
horse can by itself. Bringing food to animals is something I think we’re going to see a lot
less of, especially here and now with fuel prices going over four dollars a gallon.”
The Hill’s have made that switch on their farm. Ray Hill says his cows are healthier. He
believes their milk is better quality, too. And he’s excited about providing healthy
food for his community. Ray Hill says he wants their farm to be a place where people
come to buy quality food, and definately let him know if they have concerns.
“I want to have control over how I take care of my animals. I want to have control
over how I process or don’t process my milk. I want to have control over the price,
the quality. If there’s a quality issue, it’s up to me to take care of it, not say ‘let me
call so and so.’ I don’t think you can find anyone who’d that would tell you I’d
rather talk to a corporate person than the person who produced my food.”
But bucking against the system is not easy. There are days when no one comes to their
farm to buy their milk or yogurt. The Hills know they’re taking a risk. But they feel, at
least they’re not at the mercy of the industry, the banks and the whims of the market.
The Sappi paper mill in Cloquet Minnesota produces most of the electricity it needs, using steam that also powers the industrial process. Sappi can even sell power when demand is high. Electric co-generation is enjoying a come-back. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Keith Matzdorf and Rick Morgan maintain three electric generators at the Sappi paper mill. This one burns byproducts of the paper-making process, and returns steam to the process while making electricity. The equipment is from Czechoslovakia and Sweden. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
More and mores states are establishing a “renewable energy standard”
for their electric utilities. So far, wind power is producing the bulk
of renewable energy. But there are other sources. Some are brand new.
Others have been around for a long time. Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
More and mores states are establishing a “renewable energy standard”
for their electric utilities. So far, wind power is producing the bulk
of renewable energy. But there are other sources. Some are brand new.
Others have been around for a long time. Stephanie Hemphill reports:
The first thing to know about electricity is that making it can be
incredibly inefficient.
In a conventional power plant, burning fuel turns water into steam.
The steam drives a turbine, which spins the generator. Only about a
third of the energy in the original fuel is converted to electricity.
Two thirds goes up the smokestack in the form of heat.
“Every time you convert energy from one form to another, you lose
something. That’s just the way it is, ’cause nothing’s perfect.”
Dwight Anderson works for Minnesota Power. He’s lived with that
inefficiency for his whole working life. Now, he’s trying to wring
more electric power out of every bit of fuel.
He’s high on something called co-generation. The basic idea is to
harness the heat or steam that normally goes up the smokestack.
There’s a good example of co-generation at the Sappi paper mill in
Cloquet, in northern Minnesota. Like many paper mills, Sappi makes
most of the electricity it needs.
Engineering Manager Rick Morgan points to a mountain of wood chips:
“We have about 20,000 tons of biomass stored.”
That’ll last less than a month. The plant uses 53,000 watts, enough to
power a small city.
Inside the sprawling buildings, there are several electric generators.
One of them is fueled by a recovery boiler, which burns the byproducts
of the paper-making process, to run steam through a turbine.
“…The actual turbine is manufactured in Czechoslovakia and the generator’s
made in Vestros, Sweden.”
Higher pressure steam spins the turbine to produce electricity. The
waste steam from the same boiler goes to the pulp dryer, the paper
machines, and other parts of the process.
Back in his office, Rick Morgan says energy is the fourth largest
expense for paper mills:
“If you can’t control energy costs in this business, you can’t be in
business.”
The main product here is paper, but sometimes Sappi sells electricity
too. That happened during a recent cold snap:
“The electric demand increases and the costs go higher and higher, to
the point that it’s financially feasible for us to generate power for
Minnesota Power.”
Opportunities to produce electricity turn up in some surprising places.
Like along natural gas pipelines. The pressure has to be boosted
periodically as the gas travels through the pipe. Compressors fueled
by the natural gas do that work, and normally they vent off waste heat.
But now in South Dakota, the waste heat is fueling small power plants.
They look like the barns and silos of a farm. The generator itself is
about the size of a truck.
Basin Electric Power Coop spokesman Daryl Hill says the plants are
owned and operated by an Israeli company, and the co-op buys the power:
“We get basically 22 megawatts of baseload for little investment.”
Other countries are leading in these approaches because their fuel
prices have been so high. As prices go up in the U.S., power producers
are finding ways to use more efficient technologies, and they’re
returning to old-fashioned ideas like combined heat and power. This is
a form of co-generation that was once common across the country.
A central electric plant uses its waste steam to heat buildings. Of
course, most people don’t want to live next to a coal-fired power
plant. But Neal Elliott, with the American Council for an Energy-
Efficient Economy, says with combined heat and power, cleaner fuels,
like natural gas, can become competitive:
“Use natural gas, but use it much more efficiently. And instead of
throwing more than half of the fuel value away, let’s do it with co-
gen.”
Elliott says combined heat and power and other forms of co-generation
could provide 20% of America’s electricity needs, and save on heating
fuel at the same time. And he says recovered energy generation like
along the natural gas pipelines could provide another 20%.
For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
This audio postcard captures that moment as a kid when sledding down a hill is the ultimate thrill ride. (Photo by Lester Graham)
There’s a lot of talk about the effects of global warming. But on a
recent frigid night, kids were thinking only of the cold and the thrill
of sledding down a hill. Producer Kyle Norris squeezed into the back of
a couple of sleds with the kids. She has this audio postcard
of the experience:
Transcript
There’s a lot of talk about the effects of global warming. But on a
recent frigid night, kids were thinking only of the cold and the thrill
of sledding down a hill. Producer Kyle Norris squeezed into the back of
a couple of sleds with the kids. She has this audio postcard
of the experience:
“My name is Kayli Mills and I’m twelve years old. Right now we’re
sledding and we’re actually snowboarding because last year we didn’t
really get to do much. It’s dark right now and it’s really fun to do it
in the dark not only is the hill clear, but um, and it’s quiet and
everything but it’s just really fun when you really can’t see much.”
“We’re getting on the sled and you want to sit how it’s most
comfortable to you because you don’t want to fall off, for sure,
especially with two people. Um, I’m sitting just on my butt but with my
legs hanging off. But I’m going to go on my knees in a second when we
take off, just doing this so that the sled doesn’t take off on its
own.”
(Sounds of sledding down the hill)
“Isn’t that fun? Go C.J.!”
“My name is C.J. and I’m nine years old. I smell snow and woods and
we’re at the bottom of Slauson Hill ’cause we just went down and it’s
really dark out and the clouds are white and the sky it blue. Well,
it’s creepy kind of cause, cause it’s a really steep hill.”
(Sounds of the sled thrown down on snow)
“We just sat down and we’ll probably go pretty fast but I don’t know.”
(Sounds of sledding)
“That was fun. That was really fun.”
(Kayli): “Definitely the wind in your hair is the best part….”
(C.J.): “It makes your cheek red when you go down like about five times
cause the wind blows into your cheeks really hard.”
(Kayli): “I’d say that if you look at the sky it’s very, very
beautiful I think even more than the day could even be. I mean, there’s
not really a sunset but you can kind of see the colors fading in from a
blue to a pink a yellow to a blue it’s almost like a rainbow but the
whole clouds are just a rainbow, dark skies. It’s very pretty right
now.”
(Sound of sled fades out).
Host tag: Those were the sounds of Kayli, C.J., and Austin braving the cold for
an evening sled on Slauson Hill in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
"Observations of the Astral World (1989 - 1999 )" by Norval Morrisseau. One of the largest murals the artist has ever painted, measuring just over five meters or seventeen feet long. (Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada )
Every artist depicts nature in a different way. In one artist’s world, nature is a place where people, animals and plant life are intertwined in vibrant color. Karen Kelly visited this new exhibit:
Transcript
Every artist depicts nature in a different way. In one artist’s world, nature is a place where people, animals and plant life are intertwined in vibrant color. Reporter Karen Kelly visited this new exhibit.
Six and seven year olds are pointing and chattering in front of a mural bursting with plant and animal life. One of them, Pierre Rousseau, describes his favorite parts of the painting.
“People, strawberries, some leaves, and fish, and kind of mister who has a bird on his head.”
The kids are at an exhibit of Norval Morrisseau’s work at the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa, Canada. Usually, you hear a lot of shushing when kids are in an art gallery.
Here, you can almost feel the energy between the kids and the paintings.
In one corner, Sadok Benmoussa and Amir Shallal are trying to figure out a mural that tells the story of creation.
“And what’s that big stuff? A flower? That big stuff… Oh, the big stuff, bears? A bear? A bear.”
Norval Morrisseau grew up on an Ojibway reservation on the north shore of Lake Superior, and that environment fills his paintings; the water, the animals, trees, berries.
But most important are the people, his own people interacting with that nature.
Gabe Vadas lived with Morrisseau for many years, and now that the artist has Parkinson’s disease, Vadas is his spokesman and guardian. He says when Morrisseau was growing up in the 50’s, his tribe began rejecting many of its traditions, and it’s connection to the natural world, so Morrisseau used his paintings to tell the stories he learned from his grandfather who was a shaman.
“And I think Norval just felt desperation as a young person to regain the identity that had been passed down to him. And of course Grandpa is only telling him, so there’s a desperation that ‘wait a minute, I’m the only one who’s learning these things and learning these legends.'”
One of these legends shows a man who changes into a thunderbird. It’s one of Morrisseau’s most famous works and it shows this transformation over six canvases. It begins with a man who has a bird perched on his head, as well as one in each arm. Slowly, his eyes get larger, his mouth forms a beak and his arms become wings. This is Morrisseau’s later style, and it resembles stained glass. He uses thick black lines to create an intricate design of colors and shapes.
Greg Hill curated the Morrisseau show for Canada’s national gallery. It’s now on display at the McMichael Gallery north of Toronto and it will be in New York City in January. Hill says the artist’s later works contain a message for everyone, not just members of his own community.
“He’s saying that we all exist here on mother earth and we need to respect that, those interrelationships.”
That message is something that visitor Yvette Debain says she could see in Morrisseau’s work.
“Very spiritual. That’s why it touches me because I believe also that we’re all part of a creation, and the spirit, you can say God, is in all the creation. It’s not separate.”
Morrisseau’s guardian, Gabe Vadas, says that when the artist returned to his hometown many years later, he was surprised to find many people who had gone back to the native traditions, and many told him that his paintings had inspired them to do so. Now, he hopes that with this major exhibit, more folks will be touched by his message.
Switchgrass is an easily grown biofuel crop, which can be used to make ethanol. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
This summer, drivers got a crash course in the dangers of fossil fuel. Gas prices shot above three dollars a gallon, concerns about global warming surged, and instability continued to plague areas of the world where oil is produced. We’ll be taking a look at some of the technologies that could help the US kick its fossil fuel habit. We’re starting with an alternative fuel that’s been sprouting up in gas stations across the region. Dustin Dwyer has this look at the promise, and the limitations of ethanol:
Transcript
This summer, drivers got a crash course in the dangers of fossil fuel. Gas prices shot above $3 a gallon, concerns about global warming surged, and instability continued to plague areas of the world where oil is produced. We’ll be taking a look at some of the technologies that could help the US kick its fossil fuel habit. We’re starting with an alternative fuel that’s been sprouting up in gas stations across the region. Dustin Dwyer has this look at the promise, and the limitations of ethanol:
This summer, Misty Childs found a way to do something positive about the fossil fuel problem. She says that she and her husband realized their Chevy Silverado pickup could run on E-85, a blend of 85 percent corn-based ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
E85 burns cleaner than gas alone, so it’s good for the environment. And the ethanol is made from corn grown in the US. As she tops off her tank at a gas station, Childs says that makes a difference.
“It means a lot that we’re doing something for our country here, and not having to rely on others.”
Detroit’s Big Three automakers have been making a big push for E-85 in the last year. E-85-capable vehicles get the automakers a credit on federal fuel economy standards. So, even if drivers put regular gas in the vehicles instead of E-85, Detroit still gets a credit for doing better. And this summer, as more buyers became aware of the problem with fossil fuels, E-85 was just about the only alternative Detroit had to offer.
But ethanol as it’s currently made has limits. Jason Hill is a researcher at the University of Minnesota. He recently published a study on the long term outlook for corn-based ethanol.
“What we found is if you convert every corn kernel we produce in this nation to ethanol, we would be able to offset only about 12 percent of our national gasoline usage. So that’s not that large.”
That’s every corn kernel, including what we currently use for food. Which brings up another problem with ethanol: if E85 jumps in popularity, will that mean less corn for animal feed and grocery stores?
Maybe. Corn originally became popular because it was already being grown around much of the country, with help from federal subsidies. And ethanol processors, such as Archer Daniels Midland, also got tax breaks for making corn-based fuel.
But there’s another option for ethanol. Inside a lab at Michigan State University, researchers are working on the next generation of the fuel. This is what’s called cellulosic ethanol. Instead of using grains like corn kernels, cellulosic ethanol is made from the starches in plant cell walls. It can be made from pretty much anything that stands up straight – wood, prairie grasses and corn stalks.
That offers the possibility to increase the ethanol output for every acre of land devoted to the crops, and those crops don’t require fossil fuel-based fertilizer. They also don’t require planting every year by gas or diesel burning tractors the way corn does.
Professor Bruce Dale heads research into cellulosic ethanol at MSU. He says the current problem with cellulosic ethanol is finding a cheap way to break down the stiff materials. His lab uses ammonia to do the trick.
“The idea is to make cheap sugar. And the plant cell walls potentially could give you the cheapest sugar on the planet, if we could figure out how to get at that sugar easily. That’s what our ammonia process does in combination with the enzymes.”
It turns out that, much like a teenager eating pop-rocks, cars and trucks get a whole lot of energy from fuels based on sugar. Dale says most woody plants have plenty of sugar, but it’s really hard to get that sugar out.
Dale says some cellulosic ethanol could be on the market in the next few years, and the fuel could eventually sell for about 60 cents a gallon.
Right now, ethanol is still hard to find at the pumps. And one study says, even with major investment over the next decade, cellulosic ethanol might only equal half of our current oil useage by 2050.
That’s still a lot. But to really eliminate the need for gas, many experts say it’ll take more than just one technology.
California is seeking to ban Styrofoam carry-out containers (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
