News Archives

Week of July 4, 2004

Picture of the Day

We haven't had a picture in a while. Here's a pipevine swallowtail butterfly, from North America.

Posted by Jennifer on Saturday, July 10 2004, 3:15 PM

Anything Into Oil

In the May 2003 issue of Discover Magazine, there was an astonishing article titled "Anything Into Oil". This article, online for subscribers only now, described a process by which any organic material could be processed into a clean diesel fuel. The process, called thermal depolymerization, is 85% efficient, which means for every 100 BTUs of energy available in the inputs, only 15 are used to power the process, while 85 BTUs are captured as oil and gas. So thermal depolymerization is a self-sufficient process, using what would otherwise be waste material, and harvesting oil and gas that can be used as fuel.

Changing World Technologies, the company behind the process, was at that time planning a full-scale run in a Carthage, Missouri plant, using waste from a turkey processing factory. They planned to eventually produce 500 barrels of high-quality fuel oil daily from this one plant.

Now, Discover has an update on the progress of the new plant. Despite the sort of set-backs any start-up operation might endure, everything continues to look very promising. "We now know that the technology is sound and the science really works," says one partner in the project. And a new advantage of this process has been found: it breaks down the prions which cause mad cow disease, and so can process diseased cattle as well as any other material.

Go read the article! This technique has the potential to revolutionize energy procurement around the world.

Comments? Click here.

Posted by Jennifer on Wednesday, July 7 2004, 9:30 AM

Science on Soils

My latest project has been to read through the special section on soils in the June 11, 2004 issue of Science magazine (Vol. 304, No. 5677). Since Science requires a rather pricey subscription, I wandered over to my local public library to copy the pages I wanted to study in detail.

Soils are the neglected stepchildren of ecological research, especially in the public eye. We talk about clean water and water wars, about air pollution and climate, and the role both atmosphere and water play in global warming. Yet the dirt beneath our feet is just as essential to life, sustaining both agriculture and wilderness, and home to the microbes without which no living thing can survive. With their ability to store and release carbon, soils also play a major role in climate control. As the introduction to this series states, in soils, ecology is writ small. Yet soil is marvelously rich in both life itself and in the chemical processes necessary for life. The editors write: "The spatial, chemical, and biological heterogeneity within a few cubic centimeters of soil rivals that of a hectare of forest or coral reef."

The articles in this special supplement cover a wide variety of detail on soils in the world, past and present. I hope to present at least some of the information this section contains in a series of posts. I'll try to keep things interesting and not too technical, and will keep a comments thread running in case people have questions or corrections. In the meantime, this interactive map of global soil conditions is available without a subscription (I think! Let me know if I'm wrong). It's a good place to start learning while I work on the rest.

Oh, and I want to say that public libraries rock! Best use of public funding ever, IMO.

Comments? Click here.

Posted by Jennifer on Tuesday, July 6 2004, 1:45 PM

Matt Gets It Sadly Wrong

I generally enjoy reading Matthew Yglesias, who has a blog devoted to political commentary. But his recent post referencing the article I linked to on Sunday, an article which described Bush's undercover revamp of the Endangered Species Act, was not only poorly thought out but factually incorrect. While it's certainly true that "species die, shit happens", his advice to "get over it" isn't very helpful as guidance for public policy. And his apparent opinion that the loss of biodiversity isn't "stuff [that] impacts, you know, people" is sadly misinformed. I would have expected Harvard to give their scholars at least rudimentary training in the ecological sciences.

Fortunately, Giblets at Fafblog was around to set me straight.

Posted by Jennifer on Tuesday, July 6 2004, 7:54 AM

More on the Endangered Species Act

Today's Washington Post has a thoughtful analysis of how the Bush Administration has reshaped the Endangered Species Act. Without actually challenging the act head-on, the Administration has worked via executive order to reduce the effectiveness of the act, and instead use their own philosophy of "New Environmentalism". Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing when you get a chance.

Under this approach, federal officials have focused more on providing incentives to private landowners to protect the habitats of endangered species than on prohibiting human activity on those lands. While some environmentalists praise the incentive programs, they say these projects are not enough to protect animals and plants on the brink of extinction.

Federal officials have added an average of 9.5 species a year to the endangered list under President Bush, compared with 65 a year under President Bill Clinton and 59 a year under President George H.W. Bush. They have designated as "critical habitat" only half the acreage recommended by federal biologists. And they are transferring key decision-making powers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to other agencies with different priorities.

Posted by Jennifer on Sunday, July 4 2004, 9:42 AM

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This site is a one-person project; I design, research, and bang together every word, graphic, and html tag. Learn more about me and my background. I update this page as quickly as I can, so drop by often. But please don't use the content elsewhere without permission. Send me email: Jennifer B Powell.

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The opinions expressed in these pages, unless otherwise noted, are my own opinions. I make a great effort to ensure that all information is accurate, but cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information contained on this site. If you catch any errors here, please let me know.

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