Local Travels Remembered...all about the Gas

It has been my pleasure to experience and see many different things as a student.  Appalachian State University has a great alternative energy center (http://energy.appstate.edu/).  As usual, I stumbled into something GREAT!! (but more on how this came to be later).

With the ASU Energy Center I had the pleasure and joy of hosting some visitors from Brazil!  The delegation came as a part of ASU's efforts in the Environmental Protection Agency's "Methane to Markets" (now the Global Methane Initiative found at www.globalmethane.org).  ASU won a phase one grant to study the feasibility of capturing landfill gas from a landfill (open pit dump) near the town of Maracanau in the Brazilian state of Ceara (northern Brazil).

Basically everyone is Brazilian except two, Ieda just wanted you to know for which team she cheers in the World Cup!

The Brazilians came to visit to see how a gas capture system would work, how it would work, and how they could use the system.  The great news for you is that these projects are very accessible for you to visit in North Carolina!  I was lucky to accompany them on a visit to two NC based landfill gas capture projects.  One was near Burnsville, NC and the other was a park in Jackson County (west of Asheville).

In the posts to come I'll give some photos, explanations, descriptions and opinions on those projects! 

Still Alive!!!

I'm still alive!!  I have not posted because I have not traveled!!  The unfortunate reality is that I have to keep a day job to support my travel.  One day I would hope to be self-sufficient for travel but that is a ways out.

I will continue to develop the blog so as not to disappoint my fan...(fans?)!

Just because I have not been on the road/water/air doesn't mean I have not been busy.  I constantly have projects going at the house while I am home.  I am starting a side blog to highlight some of these projects (www.ecoguyprojects.blogspot.com).  I hope you'll check it out to see some of my ideas and experiments.  These projects are framed in a sustainability viewpoint just as my travels.

For the travel focused I will highlight some of my previous travels.  I'll show some of my favorite locations and how they are interacting with the environment.  I will even show some local (for me) destinations in the hopes that if you cannot travel around the world you can at least travel down the block!

Sustainability....Framed!

While in China we noticed a slew of bamboo chopsticks.  Several people saw this as wasteful...well maybe not.  There are generally many sides to a sustainability issue.  One size does not fit all situations.  You really must view the life cycle of the product, process, or business to determine sustainable practices.  In essence, you must frame your picture.

Let's take the chop sticks for example.  If we are at a sit-down restaurant, the sticks could likely be washed and reused so a plastic, metal or ceramic material would be beneficial.  If we are at a roadside food stand...most likely the end result of the chopsticks will be the roadside or possibly the trash.  Here, a biodegradable product would be best.  Bamboo makes a good choice because many species can regenerate quickly. 

Before forming conclusions about the sustainability of a product or process, try to keep an eye on the big picture. 

Some closing thoughts on the China Trip

Some closing thoughts for China:  Water is a problem…switch to low-flow showers now and side step the learning curve and bias against low flow showers and appliances.  We all have an impact on the environment.  This does not mean we should stop everything, just that we should be more conscious of our choices and their consequences (good and bad). 

For business to adopt recycling and reuse, it has to evaluate and determine the true cost of such programs.  Some of our problem is that we’ve “thrown away” for so long that it has become habit, however the other is the economics of recycling.  Business understands that recycling is important, but businesses must use capital efficiently.  To recycle some goods it would be a better investment to hold the cash under a mattress rather than recycle the good.  A good example of this was when one of the presenters at the Business Environmental Council talked about the costs of recycling.  She had looked at the cost of recycling glass and wished to determine the market value for a recycled product.  She could purchase sorted, crushed glass from mainland China and have it shipped to Hong Kong for less cost than to recycle the glass in Hong Kong.  People should realize that recycling will firmly take hold when and where it makes money.  If you want to save the planet, rather than fussing over it, start making the economics work for recycling.  This means investigating alternative uses for “wastes” and investing in research and development for newer, more efficient technologies.

Time to leave...

March 12, 2011

Well, the last day in China has arrived.  We have traveled to the airport.  We crossed one of the longest multi-level suspension bridges in the world to get to the airport.  Andy, our guide, told us that this was twofold: one was to accommodate peak traffic as the cars and trucks could drive on the top while the trains have dedicated tracks on the lower level; two, monsoons.  During a monsoon service and traffic can continue sheltered on the lower level.  Andy spoke favorably about the monsoons saying they only came to kiss Hong Kong on the way to the mainland.  He added that most of the problems from Monsoons, flooding and storm damage, are the worst only on the mainland.  Now, Dr. Vogul did say he has seen a monsoon dump an inch of rain per hour for three days straight! 

Just out of curiosity I looked up an estimated carbon “footprint” for our flight back to Charlotte using a calculator at: http://www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/.  From Hong Kong to Newark (NJ) generated an estimated 2165 lbs of CO2, while Newark to Charlotte generated 275 lbs of CO2.  This does not mean we should not fly but instead think of the “true cost” in terms other than just our airfare cost.  [BTW according to another calculator, http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx, driving from Newark to Charlotte in my 97 Honda Civic would generate about 400 lbs of CO2]. 

Trip to airport.  HK airport to Newark, then to Charlotte.

Where ever I roam...I find PV!

March 11, 2011

Today was a free day to roam about the city.  We experienced some of the city transit:  ferries, and the metro (subway).  Michael, Ronaldo (the Brazilian who towers above them all except Bruce Lee), and myself walked a good part of Hong Kong Island, including a stumble into the central market.  There is so much to see within the city.  Along the bay front on the New Territories side (peninsula/main land) we came across a photovoltaic center (score one on the sustainability scavenger hunt!).  There were signs explaining the operation, how it worked and how the city used the electricity.  After a good waffle (believe me they were awesome!) and a nap we went off to a harbor dinner cruise!  This was a pleasant ride that included dinner, live entertainment (don’t worry if you do not know the word just make noise that sounds like them), and the nightly Hong Kong light show.  This show (which we had seen from one side of the harbor at the club Aqua) is in the record books for being the world’s largest permanent light and sound show.  The dinner cruise was nice and they loved singing American songs and the Boone students (minus yours truly) got out there and entertained the rest of the boat with a dance or two. 

Exploration day, Victoria harbor dinner cruise

Students and Suits

March 10, 2011

Very interesting day, so suit up!  We visited City University of Hong Kong.  We met with an expat, professor with the information technology department.  He gave a great talk about sustainability issues.  Hong Kong has done many measures to deal with their problems.  Water availability is a big concern.  The largest pollution issues are air pollution (particulate, vehicular based) and trash.  They are an island and small peninsula and thus have limited space for landfills.  No matter where it is located it will be in the backyard of someone.  The forerunning solution is municipal incineration.  Our speaker did say that up to 60% of the land (which is all owned by Hong Kong) is set aside for green space!

We had lunch in a large mall across from the City University.  After lunch we met with the Business Green Council to hear several speakers.  We met the CEO, Andrew Thomson.  The business council helps do market studies and demand analysis for companies wishing to locate to Hong Kong.  Then a program director for waste reduction and a company representative of a waste recycler presented additional topics.  Waste recycling in big business for Hong Kong.  They import up to 2,000,000 tons of waste from the United States to repackage, break down, and sell to China.  In total, Hong Kong exports about 6,000,000 tons of recycled material to China.  Hong Kong is a huge investment center and just off the trash they make considerable money off the spread between the buy and ask.  Low value recyclers merely pick out product and package it for resell.  Most trash can be recycled (up to 80% by weight), but competition is fierce among recyclers.  The tough part is recycling economically.  Hong Kong is trying to attract high value recyclers such as biodiesel producers, PC board recyclers and others.  They have built an Eco-Park that supplies infrastructure to business start ups to encourage high value recycling businesses.

City University of Hong Kong, mall for lunch, Business Environmental Council,