Now this is alternative energy!

BioGas

I think this is so interesting. Using methane created from waste to generate electricity or power stoves is not new. There is a dairy farm somewhere that I saw that went from spending $1000 a day on electricity to selling $400/day back to the grid.

Now I read a book called A Fine Balance that was about India and the caste system. These people live/lived in some pretty unsanitary conditions. Check out this article.

Waste Not, Want Not
By Jeremy Kahn
(Fortune Magazine) -- Sintex Industries, a plastics and textiles manufacturer in Gujarat, India, is betting it can find profit in human waste. Its new biogas digester turns human excrement, cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity, simultaneously addressing two of India's major needs: energy and sanitation.
Sintex's digester uses bacteria to break down waste into sludge, much like a septic tank. In the process, the bacteria emit gases, mostly methane. But instead of being vented into the air, they are piped into a storage canister.
A one-cubic-meter digester, primed with cow dung to provide bacteria, can convert the waste generated by a four-person family into enough gas to cook all its meals and provide sludge for fertilizer. A model this size costs about $425 but will pay for itself in energy savings in less than two years. That's still a high price for most Indians, even though the government recently agreed to subsidize about a third of the cost for these family-sized units. "We want to create a new industry for portable sanitation in India that's not available now," says S.B. Dangayach, Sintex's managing director.
Government officials plan to end open defecation by 2012 (hundreds of millions of Indians use railroad tracks or other outdoor locales instead of toilets) and say biogas plants are part of the solution. A.R. Shukla, a scientific advisor in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, says India could support 12 million such plants, but only 3.9 million - mostly pricier models big enough to accommodate entire villages - have been installed to date. And last year the government fell far short of its target for new installations.
The future can be glimpsed on a dusty, rutted road in a poor South Delhi neighborhood. Here 1,000 people use an immaculately clean public toilet constructed by a nonprofit foundation, the Sulabh Sanitation Movement. The biogas digester attached to toilets provides cooking gas for a 600-student school and vocational-training program the foundation runs. In the past, nongovernmental organizations like Sulabh were the only ones offering biogas digesters.
But Sintex is hoping cities, real estate developers, building managers, and hospitals will jump at a ready-made way to harness the same energy.
Biogas digesters are just a small fraction of Sintex's business. The company has installed only about 100 of them. But it plans to increase investment and production tenfold in the coming year. That growth potential has helped Sintex stock more than double this past year. Human waste may be a stinky business, but to investors it smells like money.

Managing the risk of Global Warming

Jim Maloney sent me this. This argument isn't perfect, but pretty interesting. Take a look...

Do vs. Done

OK, on a more serious note. I can't take credit for this, I listen to a podcast for a program called 'The White Horse Inn'. It's 2 presbyterians, a lutheran and a baptist talking about the church. It's interesting if your into that stuff, and I am.

Anyway, I listen while I jog (aren't I healthy). Today I was struck by this quote.

"The law is what God commands. The gospel is what God gives. God gives in the gospel what he commands in the law."

We as Christians tell people to 'love your neighbor' and the world will be a better place, or if we just vote a certain way or pray a certain prayer then our lives will be better. If we will just have more faith or be more obedient then we will be happier. When we say these thing we miss the point complete. We are telling ourselves to DO and when we do that we are not different from any religion. All religions have good advice about what to DO to be better, happier, etc.

When we talk like this we are just reiterating the old testament law. Jesus told us that the law was summarized in two points "Love God, Love Your Neighbor." But it's still the law, and you know what we can't DO it very well.

The Gospel is the story of Jesus. It is already DONE. He came and obeyed the law in our place, then took the punishment for our sin, and gives us the reward He earned by his obedience. What a gift! That is truely good news.

Stop trying to DO and embrace what He has DONE.

Here is the program if you want to listen.
Good News vs. Good Advice

Hillary-ous

I think the top row is my favorite.

Coming to a sports team near you....

You can bet money these will be parked at Reliant and Texas Stadiums when traning camp starts this summer!

Chicago Auto Show XUV

Alton F-650 XUV
Based on a Ford Super Duty truck, the F-650 is powered by a 7.2-liter Caterpillar diesel engine.
Inside, it's got hardwood floors, custom captain's chairs, a 42-speaker sound system, two 16-inch TVs that drop down from the ceiling and another 42-inch plasma screen TV. It also has four computer workstations and, in case someone doesn't see you coming, a train horn.
The total price is about $200,000.

Speaking of Composting...

Terra Cycle is a really cool company that makes organic fertilizer. The really cool think is that they store their product in recycled soda bottles. Check it out. http://www.terracycle.net/. See what they are doing with other waste products like yogurt containers.

Earth friendly investments

I am having fun with this, I hope some of you subscribed so we can continue to dialog.

Here's one for you. What 'obligation' do we have to invest in green? Economically it doesn't makes sense to do some of this stuff. Do I get a hybrid car? That is more expensive. Do I drop 10K for wind or solar at the house?

I think there is an argument that we should be investing for the future and this is part of it. I don't have an extra 10K sitting around, but I wouldn't be opposed to having a 5-7 year pay back if the initial investment was just a little more reasonable.

The other thing I worry about is how my home owner's association would react. It would probably increase the value of my house, so maybe they wouldn't mind.

On a related note. Have you driven a Toyota Prius? That has the most unusually controls of any car I have seen. I had to sit in it for a while and figure everything out. Check out the interior controls: http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/photo-gallery.html. Especially the gear shifter. Park is a button! It was a little strange pressing a button to park. I was afraid to take my foot off the brake.

Recycling Plant Tour

Last week Jennifer and I went on a tour of the Plano recycling plant operated by Allied Waste. I guess there are multiple processes for sorting recycling, but this plant used a 'single line' process (I think that is what they called it). Our recycling is picked up in one bin. We don't sort it or anything. The truck that picks it up looks like a regular garbage truck (in Sugar Land the truck driver would sort the recycling into bins in the truck) and all the recycling is packed in together. When it comes in it is literally dumped on the floor and loaded into this HUGE hopper, where it is sifted up a conveyer belt into the sorters. There are several stages where cardboard, glass paper and plastic are all sifted. It was pretty crude and TONS of trash was in the recycling. Diapers, bicycles, food, shoes. It goes through the process and most is either sorted or manually picked out by workers on the line. What isn't sorted get dumped at the end of the line. There were a lot of recyclables at the end. The tour guide said that is was all re-processed to remove any more recycling. I don't know. They then load all the garbage and take it to the land fill.

The plastics are sorted basically in colored and clear. Paper goes one way and cardboard is baled. Glass pretty much sits in the back until someone wants it. Different mills have contracts to pick up the sorted stuff to be recycled.

The tour guide said that their site was 'pretty good' but apparently New York and California are way ahead of the curve. It was also pretty clear that it was still all about the economics. The focus is to get the most processed with the least amount of manual labor. The glass is a loser. Nobody wants it. They had some processes in the past that would crush it and make floors, etc out of it, but it never took off and the equipment sits and rusts while the glass pile gets bigger. Someone figure out what to do with the glass!

So what should you recycle?

ALL paper. Unless it has a wax coating or food on it. This includes newspaper, white, colored, receipts, junk mail (the windows are ok), everything.
ALL Cardboard. This includes cereal box like cardboard packaging
All Glass. As long as the take it.
All Plastic. If it is plastic, we put it in the bin. Only NO Bags! The clog the sorters. You can sort those separately and take them to the grocery stores where they usually have a place to take it.

The tour guide said, "If you think it might be recycleable put it in the bin" They do so much sorting there that it at least has a chance if you send it. If it isn't recyclable it will still just go to the land fill.

It has been much easier than I thought to really increase our recycling and decrease our garbage. I am about to add a recycle bin and remove a trash can!

OK, well I have a lot to say on this subject. I'm enjoying the blogging on it.