Make More Garbage to Produce More Energy?
June 22nd, 2007
Everyone please remember when reading, writing or talking about global warming, our oil dependency and population growth:
“Energy is not renewable. Only some earth-based sources give that appearance. “
An article on CNet regarding the use of garbage and waste to generate power made a statement regarding renewable energy.
“Solar energy isn’t the only renewable resource: there’s also garbage.”
Remember, all net energy additions to the planet come essentially from the sun. We do not “create” or renew energy.
“Energy is not renewable.”
I think we’d all agree that garbage is far from a resource we’d like to keep renewing. We should be looking to reduce or eliminate the waste from production.
The fuels we choose to use to convert to a form of energy more helpful to us, convert in a variety of efficiencies and with a variety of side-effects e.g. CO2 production from combustion, silted rivers from hydroelectric dams and food cropping sacrificed for fuel cropping.
The recent “Tortilla Crisis” is an example of an unintended side-effect of shunting more corn into the fuel cycle and out of the food cycle.
In the short-run over the next decade, our best approach to mitigate climate impact, reduce pollution and lessen our dependence on foreign sources of fuel:
- Avoid excess use (conserve) and reduce waste.
- Emphasize solar and localized wind generation.
Entry Filed under: DV - Behavioral Economics
5 Comments Add your own
1. adam Mercado | June 22nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Yes Matt, right on the money. We should be striving personally and commercially to lessen waste. Land fills are going to be a huge problem and the pollution they create. Dont buy into the garbage-as-energy philosophy. Its a fantasy to think that putting all our trash into an engine is going to cure two problems. There wil obviously be more by-product pollution to take care of.
Conservation. Re-think how we consume energy and product.
Alternative fuels. Lessen the burden of traditional energy sources.
You are bang on the money…
2. noemi | June 23rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
We must shut down our computers not to waste energy!
No more twittering or bloging!
3. Adam Dokus | June 29th, 2007 at 8:52 am
No more twittering and blogging, how sad would that be. I will just have to replace that activity with something else…hmm how about cruising around town in my gas guzzling hot rod.
How about investing in companies that have a proven track record in the green industries?
4. ania | July 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 am
good…
in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) we have a problem with the power outages…these days
now my own garbage can provide energy?
5. isabella mori | August 1st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
we are in the middle of a civic workers strike right now and have no garbage collection. it’s an interesting experience/experiment and i’m glad we get to learn from it. we are very careful to separate our garbage now into compost, recyclables, and “stinky” and “non-stinky” garbage. even though we had a move in part of the house, we’re still doing very well. every few days my husband takes the stinky garbage to work, where he can dispose of it. it all makes the garbage - more precious, in a way.
should we use garbage for energy production? absolutely! but the question is, how can we do it in such a way as to not be deluded into thinking that it’s now ok not to be careful about our garbage.
how can we think of garbage being more precious?
doesn’t it all come down again to: how can we think of all of life being more precious?
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