Biomass is catch-all term for technology that turns things like wood chips into energy or heat. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
Congress could wrap up a huge energy bill by this fall.
It could include a minimum renewable energy standard for
utilities. That’d mean more wind and solar-generated power.
Shawn Allee reports biomass could get a boost, too:
Transcript
Congress could wrap up a huge energy bill by this fall.
It could include a minimum renewable energy standard for
utilities. That’d mean more wind and solar-generated power.
Shawn Allee reports biomass could get a boost, too:
Biomass is catch-all term for technology that turns grass, wood chips, or even algae into energy or heat.
It’s usually ignored in political discussions, but Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brought it up in a recent hearing.
He says he was inspired by a power plant he saw at Middlebury College.
“I went to a plant they have on campus which is using wood chips replacing oil they are saving $700,000 a year and creating local jobs and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”
Congress is considering what kind of plants and agricultural waste might qualify as “renewable biomass energy.”
Some energy analysts say some plants shouldn’t be included, since it could take too much energy collect and transport them.
These mountain pine beetles are very destructive, killing millions of trees (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Research Station)
For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating
forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:
Transcript
For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating
forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:
(sound of a beetle)
That’s the sound of mountain pine beetles hard at work, laying
eggs beneath a tree’s bark. That kills the tree.
Here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains,
two million acres of pine trees have been killed.
But the same destruction caused by the bugs has also created an
opportunity.
The beetles introduce a fungus that stains the wood a unique
blue. And that’s caught the attention of Colorado’s woodworkers. They’re using the wood for everything from furniture to decking.
(sound of sawing and pounding)
Outside Boulder, a company called Kitchens by Wedgewood is using the wood for
cabinets.
Wedgewood President Jim Ames says his company started working
with the timber three years ago.
Despite the drop in the housing market, Ames says customers like the blue stained finish.
“People are starting to ask for it more and more. Again, as
we get into this green movement, everybody wants to see what all those
dead trees in Colorado look like when they’re turned into a cabinet door.”
Ames says, with so many trees being killed, there will be enough timber to make beetle
wood cabinets for the rest of his lifetime.
Chuck Leavell plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. But he also owns a plantation outside of Macon, Georgia, with 2500 acres of pine trees. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
Pine trees in Georgia, like the ones on Leavell's plantation, are seen as a potential source of renewable fuel. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
John Tharpe has designed a machine that converts
pine-tree chips into bio-diesel. The fuel can be burned to power and heat homes and
businesses. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
Range Fuels will convert wood chips into green transportation fuels. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
Some companies are making pellets out of wood products. These pellets can be burned to create energy. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
Finding alternative fuel sources in our country involves looking at what nature has to
offer. In the West, they’re harnessing wind and solar energy. In the Heartland, it’s sweet
crops like corn. Susan Mittleman reports, in the South, they’re looking to their forests to
make cleaner, greener fuels:
Transcript
Finding alternative fuel sources in our country involves looking at what nature has to
offer. In the West, they’re harnessing wind and solar energy. In the Heartland, it’s sweet
crops like corn. Susan Mittleman reports, in the South, they’re looking to their forests to
make cleaner, greener fuels:
Chuck Leavell plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. But when he’s not on the road, he
spends his time on his plantation outside of Macon, Georgia, tending to some 2500 acres
of pine trees.
“This is our tree farm here.”
From this tranquil refuge of nature and wildlife, he sees these trees as a possible way to
reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
“The fact that we have such wonderful resources, our forest, and that we are
looking for new markets, gives us a lot of hope to be able to use our trees to make
energy products, whether its electricity or gasification processes or any matter of
liquid fuels.”
Cutting down trees and turning them into fuels might not seem like the greenest thing to
do.
But people like Jill Stuckey, insist it is.
Stuckey heads Georgia’s Innovative Center for Energy, and says there’s no better source
for clean fuel here, than the state’s 24-million acres of forest land.
“We grow pine trees like Iowa grows corn. And it’s a renewable source of energy.”
Stuckey says trees grow faster and are more accessible in Georgia than any place else in
the country.
“It’s a good thing. Because trees sequester carbon. And we harvest these trees and
plant new trees, so we’re continuously replenishing our supply.”
She says an acre of pine trees can yield about seven tons of biomass per year.
Biomass is basically any living thing that grows and then can be harvested.
And that stuff can be used to make ethanol, electricity, and bio-diesel.
(sound of a factory)
At a small factory down in Albany Georgia, that’s what John Tharpe is making here.
Tharpe is semi- retired electrical engineer, and has designed a machine that converts
pine-tree chips into bio-diesel. The fuel can be burned to power and heat homes and
businesses.
“We’re using biomass. We make an oil and a char and then we are also looking now
at making electrical energy. You can use it in any commercial burner, such as
steam, boilers, those types of things.”
He’s already begun selling his biodiesel technology to people around the world.
So, Tharpe is making for electricity and heat. Other companies are making plans to use
trees to run our cars.
Range Fuels is building the ‘first-of-its kind’ bio-fuels plant in Soperton Georgia – which
will convert wood chips into green transportation fuels, things like ethanol and methanol.
Ron Barmore is the company’s project development director.
He says their facility is designed to produce upward of 100-million gallons of fuel a year.
“Our belief is that we’ll be able to compete with fossil fuels, with oil prices in the 70-
80 dollar a barrel range. We think long term that’s a viable place to be.”
And long-term sustainability is what tree farmers and environmentalists like Chuck
Leavell are looking for, not just for green energy, but for other reasons as well.
“These trees, in the period we plant them and their growing, they’re cleaning our
air, our water, providing home and shelter for wildlife, that helps everyone.”
More than 100 companies are looking at ways to use Georgia’s trees, in some form or
another, to produce greener, cleaner energy.
The grizzly bear has a new threat - the Mountain Pine Beetle that's wiping out its food source (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:
Transcript
We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:
Researchers say warmer temperatures in the last ten to fifteen years have been messing with the ecology in Yellowstone National Park.
In the fall, the grizzly bears eat pine cone nuts from white bark pine trees. It gives them a lot of nutrition before they curl up for the winter. But those trees are dying.
Mountain pine beetles are killing them. The beetle populations usually get knocked back by cold weather. But it hasn’t been getting as cold. So, there are more beetles killing more trees.
Doug Peacock lives near Yellowstone and has written several books on grizzlies.
“The white bark pine trees, this is the most important grizzly food of all in Yellowstone, they are gone. And we will not see them come back in our lifetime.”
And when the trees are gone, the bears get hungry – they go looking for food – and they run into people.
48 grizzlies out of the 600 in the region were killed last year.
Some environmental groups are suing the government to get the bear back on the endangered species list.
Foraging for fruit from people’s yards is one thing. Foraging for fruit in people’s alleys, another. Woody Sandberg says he avoids foraging in alleys where people conduct business. (Photo by Louise Baker)
The foragers don’t stop with fruit. They forage and dumpster dive and scavenge so habitually that during the short mapping ride they also found (and took) a clipboard, a pair of gloves, and a bread pan laying on the side of the road. (Photo by Louise Baker)
Woody Sandberg stares into a tree with fruit he does not recognize. He sampled the fruit and still wasn’t sure, so he took a picture of the tree, then rode off. (Photo by Louise Baker)
Woody Sandberg squeezes a foraged lemon into his water bottle. (Photo by Louise Baker)
With everybody looking for ways to save money, free food has never looked better. Devin Browne followed around a group of people who forage for fruit in the city. They look for fruit trees on private and public property to see what they can grab:
Transcript
With everybody looking for ways to save money, free food has never looked better. Devin Browne followed around a group of people who forage for fruit in the city. They look for fruit trees on private and public property to see what they can grab:
It’s perfectly legal here in Los Angeles to pick fruit from trees that are planted on private property as long as the fruit drops into a public space — like a sidewalk or an alley.
There are rules, though, to proper, legal urban foraging and the group Fallen Fruit knows them well. Woody Sandberg is with the group.
“You’re not allowed to reach across someone’s fence. You’re not allowed to reach into someone’s yard. You’re not allowed to crawl up people’s fences or lean ladders on their fences.”
Most of the people in Fallen Fruit ride bikes, sometimes mopeds. A lot of them carry fruit pickers on their back like you might carry a bow and arrow. There’s something almost primal in the way they all look together, fanning out into the street like a band of hunter/gatherers in search of fresh food.
(sound of street and birds)
“We’re looking for trees or any thing that produces food that hangs over the fence so we can pick it and eat it.”
Sandberg’s not actually picking fruit today – he’s just finding the best places to forage.
Later, they’ll go on a harvest ride. Then they’ll make jam and juice and beer with the fruit they’ve found. Today, the mission is just to make maps of where the trees are.
“Over here we got nopalitos and a lime and some nasturiums.”
People sitting on their porches seem not to mind at all when the group stops outside their house. No one in Fallen Fruit can remember a time when a fruit tree owner yelled or screamed or tried to kick ‘em off the sidewalk.
(sound of foragers giving directions to each other)
Which none of the foragers seem surprised by. Fallen Fruit is highly convinced of their mission. Part of this sense of legitimacy comes from the fact that the group originally conceived of itself in biblical terms.
The name Fallen Fruit even comes from a verse in Leviticus: “You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.”
The founders also thought that cities should start planting fruit trees in public spaces, instead of thirsty, frivolous plants.
But fruit trees are oddly political. And city officials say there are reasons why they do not and will not plant them in public space.
The first reason LA’s Chief Forrester, George Gonzalez, gave had to do with people tripping and falling on fruit & then suing the city.
“One of the main reasons is a potential liability from fruit—fruit drop.”
He also said that trends in tree-planting have changed and they like to plant hearty , drought-resistant trees now.
“Also, fruit trees require more water.”
And then, there are the rats.
“Rodents love fruit trees… yes.”
Still, the City regularly gives away fruit trees to people who want to plant them in their yards.
It’s part of the mayor’s Million Trees LA pledge. Like Sandberg, Gonzalez sees fruit trees on private space as a way to benefit the public good.
“Cause when they look at a map and see it dotted everywhere with fruit trees hanging over the fence I think its going to blow people’s minds about how much food is out there. Because the current mindset is that food is in the grocery store.”
It’s a mindset not even the most dedicated of fruit foragers can escape.
After the mapping mission, Woody Sandberg left on his bike for the supermarket, because, he says, unfortunately chocolate soymilk doesn’t grow on trees.
Musical instrument companies are a very small part of the demand for old-growth wood, but they can be very influential (Photo source: Arent at Wikimedia Commons)
People who make musical instruments know they have to start with a good piece of wood. Some guitar makers are worried that the woods they need for their instruments are becoming too rare. Tamara Keith has the story of how guitar makers are working with a group that fights to protect trees:
Transcript
People who make musical instruments know they have to start with a good piece of wood. Some guitar makers are worried that the woods they need for their instruments are becoming too rare. Tamara Keith has the story of how guitar makers are working with a group that fights to protect trees:
(sound of a factory)
There are people all over the Martin Guitar plant in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, doing fine detailed work. One man is chiseling out tiny pieces of wood to make the neck and the body of a guitar fit perfectly.
(sound of sanding)
Dick Boak does artist relations for Martin.
“So this is a D-35, this is what Johnny Cash played.”
He says this guitar’s deep resonant sound is all about what it’s made of. It’s a who’s who of rare and exotic species.
“Rosewood from East India, spruce from the Pacific Northwest, and mahogony probably from Peru or Bolivia. Those would be kind of the traditional woods for a guitar.”
Boak says logging is wiping out old growth forests where these types of woods are found.
“We would like it if every single supplier that we used was working in a sustainable fashion because that would ensure that our future as a guitar maker would be you know intact.”
So Martin Guitar has teamed up with the environmental group, Greenpeace.
Scott Paul is the group’s Forest Campaign Director and he’s super interested in the Sitka Spruce used in the Johnny Cash style guitar. We’re talking at the group’s office in Washington, DC. And he shows me where the spruce is used.
“This part on the top. This here is the soundboard. This is the species that really projects the sound.”
That Sitka Spruce comes from South East Alaska. Paul has been crusading to save the forests there for some time. He says Sitka Spruce has been logged as if there were no end in sight. Most of it is used for low-end construction materials. But when he found out the wood was used by the world’s leading instrument makers – he approached them.
“It was a very interesting meeting where you had the CEO of Gibson, and the CEO of Martin and Taylor and Fender all in the same room.”
The competitors said they were concerned about logging practices too. And the told Paul they’d work together on the issue.
“Let’s all go to Alaska and start talking to the logging companies that are providing you this product and figure out if we can do it better.”
So they did. This new Musicwood Coalition went to the Sealaska Corporation, which logs Sitka Spruce. And they’re now working with the company to save old growth trees for really valuable things like guitars.
Musical instrument companies are a very small part of the demand for old-growth wood. Paul says its less than 1%. But they can be very influential.
“They need the wood. They’re not the driving force. But their profile, and to be honest, their sex appeal is perfect. Not everyone likes Greenpeace, but red state, blue state, everyone loves guitars.”
(sound of guitar being tuned)
Dick Boak is tuning a guitar that’s just about ready to leave the Martin factory.
“Everybody has a song they use to tune.”
This guitar is part of Martin’s sustainable woods series. The hope is that someday all Martin guitars – and those of Gibson, Fender and Taylor too – will be made from trees grown and harvested in a way that makes sure the wood will be around for the long haul.
There are 751 million acres of forest lands in the United States. More than half of it – 56% – is privately owned. Some of that land is owned by big timber companies. But the majority is owned by individuals and families. The American Forest Foundation represents those private landowners. Until last week, Larry Wiseman was CEO of the group. Lester Graham talked with Wiseman just before he left the organization. Wiseman says privately owned forests are at risk.
Transcript
There are 751 million acres of forest lands in the United States. More than half of it – 56% – is privately owned. Some of that land is owned by big timber companies. But the majority is owned by individuals and families. The American Forest Foundation represents those private landowners. Until last week, Larry Wiseman was CEO of the group. Lester Graham talked with Wiseman just before he left the organization. Wiseman says privately owned forests are at risk.
Larry Wiseman: “One of the great paradoxes that most folks don’t quite get is that the largest part of the productive forest land in the United States is owned by families and individuals. Some 5 million folks who own more than 10 acres of land, some of them as long as 300 or 400 years – land has been in their family since before the United States was actually created.”
Lester Graham: “There’s a lot of concern these days because as the demand for things like newsprint, the demand for lumber is down because of the economy, there’s some concern that some pretty large tracts of land might be sold for things like development, just simply because they’re not making as much money off of this land. Is there a real risk of that?”
Wiseman: “Absolutely. The risk of conversion of forest land to development has accelerated over the past decade, to the point that we’re losing a little bit over one million acres a year. To put that in perspective, that’s about the size of the Everglades National Park every year. One of the primary pressures on forest owners, whether they own 1,000 acres or 100, is that they can’t do the kind of conservation work they want to do unless they have some cash. You know, cash is really the cornerstone of conservation when you’re talking about private property. People have to pay taxes, people have to buy liability insurance, people have to invest in the future of their forests, and if there’s no cash flow at the end, then it becomes very hard for them to say ‘no’ when a developer comes calling. This isn’t to say that all of these 4 or 5 million folks are growing timber for profit – very few of them actually do. But, by the same token, most of them have to develop cash flow, or, over time, it becomes very hard for them to keep their land as forests.”
Graham: “There has been suggestion that carbon offsets by planting more forest land, or that forest land owners should get some sort of compensation for the service that a forest would do – but there’s a lot of debate about the net-gain of a forest sequestering carbon dioxide. I’m wondering what your members feel about that issue?”
Wiseman: “There’s no doubt that on a net-net basis the forests in the United States currently absorb about 10% of the carbon dioxide upload as a nation.”
Graham: “Should your members be compensated for that?”
Wiseman: “Well, let me get to that in a minute. I believe they should be compensated. But our organization takes the position that healthy growing forests that are being managed for a suite of values – including carbon sequestration, water quality, wildlife habitat – provide a wide range of services to the public that the public doesn’t understand that it’s getting. These folks are volunteers; they’re providing clean water, cleaner air, wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation, and green space – for free! And, the great paradox is that the public doesn’t understand that they have a stake in the future of these forests, just as the owners do. Accordingly, that’s why our organization has long stressed the need to create streams of income that reward people for the stewardship investments they make that benefit the public as a whole.”
Tom Lyon is the Director of the Erb Institute of Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. He spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.
In a difficult market, more newspapers are choosing an online-only format. This means demand for pulp and paper products has gone down. (Photo by Erin Kelly)
Newspapers across the nation are either closing, shifting to a web-only presence or reducing the number of print editions they put out each week. Lester Graham reports that means a lot less newsprint is needed:
Transcript
Newspapers across the nation are either closing, shifting to a web-only presence or reducing the number of print editions they put out each week. Lester Graham reports that means a lot less newsprint is needed:
It takes a whole lot of trees to make newspapers. According to the National Geographic’s documentary “Human Footprint”, it takes 191-million trees to make all of the U.S. newspapers each year. Well, you can cut that back– a lot. Martine Hamel is with the Pulp and Paper Products Council. She says daily newspapers closing or cutting back has meant a lot less demand for newsprint.
“We’re just getting worse and worse month after month. We just released the February figures earlier this week and demand in North America was down 33-percent for the month. So it’s really, absolutely huge.”
And more newspapers are on the brink. Newsprint usually contains a fair amount of recycled paper. With less demand, markets for recycled paper will suffer further.
Not everyone can get out and walk along the Lake Superior coastline everyday, but researchers say any walk in a natural setting will help. They count an increase in productivity among the benefits. (Photo courtesy of Dave Hansen.)
You’ve probably heard about studies that show enjoying nature can reduce stress. Well, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a walk in nature can also help you focus better. It can improve your memory and attention. Lester Graham asked one of the researchers, Marc Berman from the University of Michigan, if he was up for a walk:
Transcript
You’ve probably heard about studies that show enjoying nature can reduce stress. Well, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a walk in nature can also help you focus better. It can improve your memory and attention. Lester Graham asked one of the researchers, Marc Berman from the University of Michigan, if he was up for a walk:
Marc Berman was one of the co-authors of a study on nature and focus published in the journal Psychological Science. He spoke – and walked – with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.
Argonne researchers and technicians are
tracking how well poplar trees are containing and removing
toxic solvents (such as Trichloroethane, 1,1-Dichloroethane,
and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane, Trichloroethylene) from underground
water. Pictured here are Cristina Negri, Lawrence Moss, John Quinn,
Rob Piorkowski.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
rgonne National Laboratory planted
800 poplar trees to remediate land that had been
contaminated with toxic solvents. To ensure the tree
roots suck up polluted groundwater, Argonne researchers
manipulate the trees into sending roots far deeper
than they normally do.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
When you think of cleaning up toxic waste, you might think of technicians digging huge holes
and carting off contaminated soil. It’s expensive, and they’re often just putting the soil and the
problem, somewhere else – say, to a hazardous waste landfill. Shawn Allee met researchers
who hope trees can clean some toxic waste, and leave the landscape in place:
Transcript
When you think of cleaning up toxic waste, you might think of technicians digging huge holes
and carting off contaminated soil. It’s expensive, and they’re often just putting the soil and the
problem, somewhere else – say, to a hazardous waste landfill. Shawn Allee met researchers
who hope trees can clean some toxic waste, and leave the landscape in place:
Argonne National Laboratory is a Big Science kinda place.
It’s a federal lab southwest of Chicago where they study particle physics, nuclear energy, and
advanced environmental clean-up.
The irony is, the place has been around so long, it’s now cleaning up its own environmental
messes.
In fact, it’s Larry Moss’s job. He takes me to a toxic waste site where trees help clean the soil.
More on those trees in a sec – first, here’s why Larry Moss needs them.
“This site was a very busy site back in the 50s and 60s. We had a large manufacturing process
for reactor components – did a lot of testing of reactor assemblies and different fuel mixtures. And to
do that you had to clean all that equipment and a lot of that solvent came down here.
There was a unit that was called a French drain, which basically was a trench filled with gravel. They would come down here and dump chemicals into this trench, and their theory was it would dissolve into the ground. They
thought it would just go away.”
Those solvents did not go away. They leeched into underground water.
The solvents potentially cause cancer and other problems, so the government said Argonne
needed to do something about the mess.
Researcher Christina Negri lays out what the options were.
“Put a parking lot on top of the pollution area
and basically leave it there forever. The other extreme, it would have been: dig out the soil, take it
somewhere – where you haven’t changed much. You’ve moved it from here to a landfill. That’s not the solution as
well.”
Those options – covering it up or carting it off – are also expensive.
So, Argonne researchers figured they’d try something new.
Negri says they hope to eliminate pollution on site – with the help of poplar trees.
Negri: “We’re taking advantage of a trait that these trees have to
go about finding water.”
Allee: “Let me get a closer look at a tree, here.”
Negri: “What you have to picture in your mind – See the height of the tree?”
Allee: “I’m looking at one that’s as tall as a three story walk-up building I live in.”
Negri: “You have to flip it 180 degrees and imagine the roots are going down that deep.”
Negri says they coaxed the roots into going straight down instead of spreading out. It seems to
work; the poplar trees are sucking water out of the ground and taking up solvent.
“Part of it is degraded within the plant. Part of it goes out into the air, which sounds like an
ominous thing to say, right? But if you do your calculations right, there’s much less risk when
these compounds are in the air than there is when they’re down 30 feet below.”
Negri’s team hopes the poplar trees will be more sustainable and cheaper than alternatives, but
they’re likely to be slower.
After all, it took years for the trees to grow. That’s fine for Argonne, because no one’s at risk – but that’s
not the case everywhere.
“Arguably, this is not the remedy you would adopt if you had, like, a tank spill or something that
you really need to go in right away, clean up and be done very quickly. It’s not a remedy if there’s
anybody’s at risk.”
This isn’t the only attempt to use plants to clean up toxic waste. The science behind it is called
‘phytoremediation.’
In other examples, scientists tried alpine pennycress to clean up zinc, and pigweed to suck up
radioactive cesium.
Negri says the trick is to use the right plant for the right toxin and know whether the plants stays
toxic, too.
Still, she says, toxic waste is such a big problem, it’s good to have lots of tools in your clean-up
toolbox.
Biomass is catch-all term for technology that turns things like wood chips into energy or heat. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
