There is a source of
pollution nobody seems to notice. A huge
quantity of green waste is allowed to rot on the ground in Hawaii,
conservatively 60,000 tons a year* (*my estimate) No doubt others will
challenge my figures, but they’re the best I can find. Sure it makes topsoil, in about 100 years,
but it makes pollutants, methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) immediately.
Hawaii, like most
places, has energy issues, but environmentally friendly options. Wind and solar are popular but they have limits
too; neither can be depended upon when the need is greatest. Solar needs sunlight, but peak demand is in
the evening. Wind is fickle. The turbines only work in a relatively narrow
speed range, if the wind is too slow they can’t make usable power, if it’s too
fast they can break. Some efficient
inexpensive storage is needed. Unfortunately all known methods for storing
electricity are expensive or inefficient.
There are a number of
technologies that can turn that green waste, a fuel, into electricity, and
while storing electricity is difficult, storing fuel is not. We have been doing it for eons. Green waste is
not only available it is abundant.
Hawaii County Environmental services collects 40,000 tons of green waste
annually converts it to mulch, hauls
it 40 miles and gives it away. That
pales compared to undocumented green waste rotting by the roadside. The total green waste is probably over
100,000 tons a year*. Half the people I know have a secret “puka” where they dump green waste rather
than burn gas to drive 40 miles to Puuanhulu. I alone dispose of a thousand pounds a year
from my house lot. Then there is the
timber from trees that Helco has to cut to protect power lines. No the diesel fuel to haul it to a power plant
is not prohibitive; I did the calculations. Burning 100,000 tons of green waste - renewable biofuel- could generate about 290 megawatt hours*
of electricity a year, about what we need.
If those numbers sound absurd, consider that Hawaii used to export over a
million tons of sugar a year (Wikipedia) and burn a comparable amount of the bagasse,
waste to generate electricity. The idle Hu Honua plant was built to burn
bagasse; then converted to coal and recently began conversion to burn
logs. Anything that will burn and
release energy, can be used to fuel a power plant. (Babcock and Wilcox) Yes, there are more sophisticated ways to turn
waste to electricity, or even motor fuel.
Why not?
Now one objection that
comes to mind is that burning creates CO2, but so does rotting. Rotting also creates methane a greenhouse gas
ten times as powerful as CO2. A power
plant that can turn green waste to energy can also do it with garbage and trash. If adding recyclable paper, to the mix can
make it viable that should not be arbitrarily ruled out. Granted there are concerns that in order to
make such a plant viable there would be a temptation to burn recyclable
material. So?
I support recycling
but just as there is a wasteful mentality there is a recycle-at-any-price mentality
that leads us to pay $140 a ton to ship low value recyclable materials to the
mainland where most of it will hopefully be recycled. On the other hand
using paper for fuel - worth maybe $40 a ton* - is summarily rejected. So the
actual cost to recycle it is about $180 a ton. There is an environmental impact
of shipping it 2600 miles.
Recycling is a means
to achieve a goal. It should not be the goal. Otherwise we could recycle more by insisting
on more wasteful packaging. Sometimes the highest and best use of surplus
material is to extract the energy. The
measure is not how much we recycle, but how little we consume
unnecessarily. What do you think? obenskik@gmail.com
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