Thanks Mark.

It’s important to remember, and continue to hold dear: raw materials come from some place. It’s easy to place faith in the invention and innovation of science and industry, but harder to temper that enthusiasm with the facts that resources matter. Lithium is an excellent solution, with a lot of flexibility, but it’s not perfect. In any case, unless our move to electric cars and better battery technology is coupled with a move to new models of product use (see the next post, concerning Shai Agassi and Better Place), including service rentals, and hyper-recycling / up-cycling, our already unstable economic relationship to natural resources will be no better off that it is at present.

One very heartening fact of the potential lithium boon for Bolivia is the force and foresight of Evo Morales. Assuming (as the video points out) he doesn’t go too far, he may strike an incredible blow against the conventional practices of western companies’ use of developing nations’ resources. But then, that’s a lesson he and his countrymen have learned well.

The following idea reminds me of Mr. Fusion, from the the movie Back to the Future part II; it is an entry concept for the Automotive X Prize, which is not only carbon neutral in it’s use of trash as fuel, but claims to be carbon negative. This is achieved in a process by which the fuel, gasified to create ’syngas,’ yields Biochar, a substance which can be used as a fertilizer for agricultural purposes. (The connection to the 1989 film is that Doc’s time machine DeLorean was run by a Mr. Fusion nuclear energy unit. At the beginning of the movie, Doc poured beer and then tossed the beer can into the devise, which then powered the car’s travels through time and the skies.)

It’s a nice idea in theory, but it is not without it’s flaws. Many printed paper products contain carcinogenic materials, which would not exactly make for a safe fertilizer.

More about the team’s proposal at Worldchanging.

(and John Podesta, but watching his part is not so necessary, nowhere near as focused, and i dare say, less interesting.)

A Green World is a Safer One from National Building Museum on Vimeo.

Now, this is a recording of a museum lecture, which means (for those of you who have never been to one) there’s about 10 minutes of introduction and thank you’s to supporting organizations, et cetera, ad nauseum. Just skip ahead. Also, it is a longish talk (Ed’s part is about 35 minutes long).

Boxed Water is Better, a new company describing itself as “Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious” has begun distributing their water in the Michigan area. The philanthropic part of the business is in their plan to donate 20% of their profits to charities, split evenly between reforestation projects and water relief projects. Generally their goal is to replace water bottles, by using a material (paper) that is not derived from oil (as plastic bottles are), and which can be recycled everywhere; They claim the additional benefits of being able to ship the boxes flat (using much less truck space, thus saving fuel in shipping for at least half of their life, until filled).

It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure how successful it will be, as it doesn’t exactly take the place of a water bottle, not to the user. For that average water bottle buyer the goal is to get clean ‘trustworthy’ water, which is to say not tap water. They tend to want a single serving, not something as large as these Boxed Waters. A much smaller market of people who [inadvisably*] reuse plastic water bottles, this is a market for whom again boxed water will prove unpractical, as a paper container will break down much more quickly.

In either case, the bottles will eventually be pitched, often not into a recycling bin. One of the beauties here is that even if not recycled, the planet’s systems would be much better off for having paper disintegrating in it’s oceans than it is presently, with plastic doing so.

So, definitely a case of taking the good with the bad, i’ll be interested to see how it pans out for them.

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*      Most plastic water bottles are made from a material commonly referred to as PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which contains at least 3 different carcinogenic compounds, and a couple hormone disrupting compounds. Drinking from these bottles is safe in a one-time use scenario. If used for more than a couple days these compounds begin leaching into your water, especially if the bottle has been exposed to much heat (in washing, perhaps).

While on the topic of water, it strikes me that it is another issue which is generally lacking in all the current media disputes and recent political debates on energy.

While we debate the merits of offshore drilling, clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, we seem to ignore the fact that all four of these require incredible amounts of water to sustain. This during the most severe world-wide water shortage in recorded history. According to the World Health Organization, 35% of the world’s population live in highly water stressed areas, and while we might arrogantly believe that this only effects those in the third world, we find not only Australia, but our southwestern U.S. of A. in the tally of critical drought sufferers (with many other states soon to enter the ranks). What allows us to seem so much better off in the global demand for water are the great luxuries of cheap energy and the extant infrastructure of the country, on which our society depends to alleviate the problem. However, these can only do so for a finite time period, one which is rapidly coming to an end. The triple-threat of rising energy prices, increasing populations, and dwindling supplies of water will very soon come to a head.

For one example: Las Vegas exists in the precarious situation of a desert city using drastic amounts of water to feed it’s opulence in greenery and fountains, drawing water from nearby Lake Mead. Meanwhile the lake is approaching water levels so low that it could soon lead the city to drastic water rationing, as well as a cease in operations at Hoover Dam, the primary source of electricity for the city. The situation is so dire that current projections of climate change and drought tell us the lake could be dry as soon as 2021. Even if the lake weren’t running out of water (and by extension, it’s electricity producing potential), the 123 megawatt-hours of energy required to get city it’s water for a single day is only going to get more expensive. And in a way, they’re lucky, because delivering water from a lake or groundwater is on the energy cheap side, currently about half as expensive as reclaiming waste water, and an 8th as expensive as our present methods of desalination from seawater.

On the energy side of the equation, realize that most of us in the U.S. of A depend not upon the hydro-electric power of a nearby dam for our energy, but instead on one of the 1,600 coal-fired plants in the country, the 900 natural gas plants, or the 300 nuclear power plants, all of which in turn depend heavily on water to make that electricity happen. To create 5 megawatt-hour of electricity (approximately enough to power 40 average U.S. homes for a year), the average coal or gas power plant must use 142,000 gallons of water. That is roughly equal to the yearly water use of 1.5 of those same average U.S. homes.

To take that math a little further (with a lot of averaging), we find that a typical coal power plant produces roughly 1,216,552 megawatt-hours of electricity in a year. To put it another way, and accounting for the variations from plant to plant in water use, those 1,600 coal-fired plants in the country have an annual water use approximately equal to that of 2.4 billion people. No, that is not a typo. U.S coal fired electricity plants alone use more water than one third the world’s current population. That is, based on average U.S. of A water usage. To give a little perspective, UK water use per person is one third of ours, and people living in sub-Saharan Africa use as little as one sixth what we use (this disparity is just as much a result of our indulgence as it is their relative lack of access to water, potable or not, in this part of Africa).

Again, this is just coal plants, this doesn’t count the natural gas plants, which use 10-20 percent more water than coal plants, or nuclear power plants, which tend to use the most water, at about 2 times as much as coal plants. If these numbers are worrying, remember that China builds around 100 coal-fired electrical plants a year, adding to the more than 50,000 power plants worldwide.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey report on water usage from the year 2000, 30% of the water so used is saline, meaning it would have needed treatment (and energy) to be drinkable. It also shows, however, that of the total water withdrawals in the united states for that year, less than 1% was for domestic use. 11% was for public use, and 48% was for “thermoelectric power,” or cooling down the reactions in these power plants.

By contrast, Hydroelectric plants use 1% of the total U.S. of A water withdrawals, and naturally: solar and wind power use no water at all.

So, in addition to the clouds of sulfur and mercury giving us acid rain, the decapitated mountains, the greenhouse gas emissions of “dirty coal,” which scientists now agree are the leading cause of climate change, and worldwide breathing problems, add ‘drastic strain on water supplies’ to the list of cons against coal power.

Internet petitions run the gamut of outright scams (aimed only at collection email addresses to sell to marketing firms) to amazing examples of “eCivic action,” such as the MoveOn.org campaign which restored $100 million of cut funding to NPR/PBS just a while back.

It’s difficult to say how much effect any given eCampaign can have, but the following couldn’t hurt:

article31.org is an online petition working from the following precept:

Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstance.

The basic idea is that the United Nations ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it included, and still includes 30 articles, such as “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay,” and “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.,” two particular articles the U.S. of A could use some help with of late. Naturally it is an ideal to which we all aspire, but it currently lacks an article pertaining to water.

Visit their site to read the articles in full (via a link down at the bottom of the page), or to “sign” the petition.

It is of paramount importance to recall that not only did we create The Third World, but we extend it’s plight day by day. To be more explicit: those ruling powers of the world, the countries to which we commonly refer as First World countries, or The West, at one time managed all third world countries in the form of imperial political control. It might be hard to remember that most countries around the world were monarchies until this last century, and many of them held political control over other parts of the world via Political imperialism (then just as popular a foreign policy as economic and corporate imperialism are today).

Most countries in Central and South America gained independence from Portugal or Spain toward the middle of the 19th century, whereas those in the middle east or Asia got their independence from Great Britain starting in some cases as early as the 1920’s and in others the 1970’s. Most of the countries now in Africa (as well as some others around the world) were created during the 1960’s by a wave of independence movements against mostly British and French rule, with some Portuguese.

No small part of the problems these countries now face are a result of the ways in which those political empires ended, and the continued struggle they face is a result of the economic and corporate empires which were begun shortly after WWII, here in the west.

For one detailed example, see Jamaica:

“If the upholstery fabric isn’t abrading an allergen, the paint and the office furniture are off-gassing formaldehyde. If the carpet is said to be recyclable, it might be backed with PVC, a polymer built with a vinyl chloride monomer, a known carcinogen”

~ William McDonough & Michael Braungart, from the essay redefining green

waste = life

There was a time in human pre-history when we were primarily consumers. We ate, and we drank; any parts of an animal or plant which were unused in nourishing, clothing, or housing ourselves was left for scavenging animals, fed to pets, or for the earth itself to consume. Our structures and clothes themselves would, when abandoned, become food for further production by other animals or the earth. In this kind of pre-historic state, the word waste (should it have existed) would not have been a negative: nearly any waste was fodder for growth.¹

Stone, used in the early construction of some of our smallest and most enormous structures alike, can also be swallowed by the earth, in eons long geological processes. Stone is constantly being eroded by wind, water or sun, or broken apart by plants and freeze/thaw cycles, and while mountains of earth and stone turn to fields of soil, volcanic and seismic activity make new mountains.

Simply to observe the earth is to realize that it wants constantly to reuse everything (and that come what may, it will reuse everything, whether to it’s health benefit or not). When we speak of a closed loop industrial production cycle, like the one being begun by HP for sale and take-back of it’s ink-jet cartridges, it’s based on exactly this: earth’s basic cradle to cradle closed loop of energy and matter.

waste = death

“consumption”

Now, as the descriptor “consumer” gains everyday use and acceptance in characterizing our increasingly world-wide lifestyle, we see it become increasingly abstract (as with so many things in our culture). In the mid 18th century, political changes began generating the first middle class—a group of people able to buy things they didn’t need—to this group, early economists applied the word: consumer. (the word had existed for at least 400 years by that time, but was used to mean “to take, to use, or to eat.” it now carried the specific economic meaning it still has today, “to buy.”)

For a period in the U.S. of A, beginning in the 1920s (with a gap during the depression), and lasting until quite recently, the word was used by politicians, and public-relations men almost exclusively; and generally, the public resented the implications that they were of no good to the country other than as spenders of money. During the cold war, political promotion of spending was veiled in anti-communist rhetoric, imbuing the spending of money with an ideological importance. In campaigns from this era, the word consumer was generally absent. Recently, however, it has been taken up with some pride by the public, and can now be used unabashedly. It is even politically correct: President Bush told us to fight the recession by buying, to help our country by consuming.

And we are able, by and large, to do just that (although, how much it will help our financial predicament is debatable). Various facets of the industrial revolution gave the United States middle class citizen more income than they need (and by the widest margin in the history of having income (in the form of money)). Based on U.S. census averages, our necessary expenditures break down as follows: 17% of our income on food, 21% on housing, and 15% on cars. This leaves 47% of our income “expendable.” Certainly you can argue about just how necessary the car is—or could be—in the above figures, along with the choice of not including other “necessities” like digital communication tools: computers or cell phones, TV or cable service, et cetera.

What most of us are able to ignore or forget in this “consumption,” is that all we’re really consuming is that same old food and drink from 100,000 years ago. The difference with our waste, then to now, is that not only could the earth reuse that pre-historic waste, but it was actually beneficial to do so, it was nourishing to the earth and benign to us. Most of the waste we create now is dangerous or deadly to us and the earth. We often call this kind of waste pollution.

A question might leap to mind: how is this possible? If we are indeed a part of nature (undeniable), and we’ve been using natural resources that have always been on the planet to make what we make (equally true), then what are we doing wrong? how is it so dangerous? The answer, it turns out, is that we’re just not thinking about our future, or not putting any value on it when deciding how to make what we make. In efforts to make things as efficiently as possible, to achieve a limited set of productions goals (often cost and profit related), we make poor decisions. These decisions have led scientists and tinkerers alike to make combinations of things that nature never made before we came along. As when Leo Baekeland mixed tarry carbolic acid and formaldehyde in this garage in Yonkers to make the first commercially made plastic: “Bakelite.” Leo’s process (and those of the rest of the world’s chemists soon at work trying to make their own polymer breakthrough) did not put much thought into what would be done with the stuff once it was no longer useful. In other words, as a species, we’re making poor design decisions.

So let’s look at just what it is we buy, briefly address how it’s made, and what pollution that creates. First our food: industrially grown and processed plants, industrially fed and processed animals, both shipped over great distances for our convenience, some shipped and processed under refrigeration in an effort both to keep it fresher longer, as well as to combat the time taken up in processing and shipping.²

Read more »

This video, Waste = Food, is one of two documentaries produced thus far that are based on the book Cradle to Cradle (see the bibliography), the other is The Next Industrial Revolution.

Waste = Food is by far the better of the two—at least in production value. As far as information is concerned, they are probably about equal, though ever so slightly different in focus. The Next Industrial Revolution spends more time on the issues of social and environmental justice (though a little vaguely), while Waste = Food spends more time (still vaguely) on design and economics.

Both are worth a watch if you’re really interested in the topic (and (if you do watch both) hearing quite a bit of repeated information), although the other is only “available” as a torrent download (if you don’t know what that means, forget i mentioned it), at around 450mb: here.