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Tonight's editor: boatsie
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.
Mrs. Ignacio Marcos proudly shows of her family's biogas digester by Sustainable Harvest International
Poop piki piki for my biogas system
AfriGadget isn't on your blogroll yet? Add it Now! Here's two reasons why:
Since motorbikes or pikis pikis are the taxis of Kenya, one local eco-entrepreneur reconfigured his vehicle to transport cow dung from over long distances to fire up his home's biogas digester... makes perfect sense to do a little tinkering and move the poop efficiently.
Now that I’ve got biogas running my kitchen I wonder why so few people have done so in Kenya. There are countless articles, publications, websites and people who will tell you that biogas is the most economical and environmentally sustainable way to produce energy. In fact, the benefits of Biogas have been known for tens of years, and hundreds of systems have been built in Kenya. But it hasn’t really taken off – few of the installed systems are actually working and the uptake of biogas systems at a domestic level has been slower than slow – it’s virtually non-existent. A review of biogas in Kenya reports that technical breakdowns has discouraged uptake but the main limiting factor is cost.
Here’s a simple comparison of costs – from continuing using charcoal/fuelwood or Kerosene and LPG to using various biogas options.
For a simpleton like me these figures are immediately revealing – it takes 2 years to pay off a flexibag digester after which domestic fuel is free for at least the next 10 – 13 years. For the underground systems you have got to be hugely rich, or suffering from environmental guilt to make the decision to switch to biogas – from an economic perspective it will take 10 to 20 years to pay back. You could grow your own trees and make your own charcoal in that time frame....
Why is it so expensive for the constructed biogas systems? Because most of the biogas systems in use are constructed systems requiring engineering and masonry, they are very expensive, take weeks to install, require experts, and intensive follow up. If they go wrong it’s a major engineering task to fix it. This is why we are promoting the flexible bag option for domestic and small industry use.
motorbike (aka piki piki) by barbcollishaw
Afrigadget: A bicycle powered knife-sharpening machine - Peter Karagu's knife sharpening bicycle - Banana Hill, Nairobi, Kenya
Still steeped in the subject of cow dung, on the other side of the world -- in West Marin County, California -- the regionally famous Straus Family Creamery is running 'meters in reverse' after installing a state-of-the-art 'methane' digester which generates up to 300,000 kilowatt-hours per year.
More importantly, putting a tarp over the manure ponds eliminates the release of methane (a natural byproduct of manure) into the air. According to the 2003 U.S. Department of Energy Report on Greenhouse Gases, agricultural sources, primarily animal waste, account for approximately three percent of greenhouse gas emissions. A dairy cow can generate 120 lbs. of waste each day, totaling about 40,000 lbs. per year! Solids separated from the waste are composted and reused as fertilizer, providing additional, far-reaching benefits.
The project received a 50 percent grant from the California Energy Commission. Ours is the first system to take advantage of regulations of "net metering". Net metering allows Straus to run meters in reverse and also offset other electrical usage from other meters at the farm and the creamery.
Coal Mountain Protestors Jailed
Coal River Mountain Arrests
Activists Katie Huszcza, Colin Flood, Jimmy Tobias, and Sophie Kern, were arrested Thursday night for participation in non-violent civil disobedience against mountain top removal after locking themselves to a high wall miner on Coal River Mountain.
About Face: Dreaming New Mexico ... Doing it!
"What is our dream relationship to food and the food system that feeds us? Imagine the year is 2025 and we've done everything right. What might New Mexico's food system look like? The Dreaming New Mexico project engaged with many involved citizen-experts, gathered data and researched neglected topics. We conjured the poster map as a celebratory understanding of contemporary agrarian life, custom-designed a Big Picture of "Food in the Land of Enchantment" and distilled a complex tangle of topics into a long single-sentence shared dream."
A Bioneers collaborative project, Dreaming New Mexico describes itself as an innovative experiment designed to channel the ideas and wisdom of natural systems and indigenous peoples and grassroots organizations "to bring about positive ecological and social transformation at the local and regional level."
The focus is on issues like sustainable energy systems, food sheds, farming and crops, agro-ecosystems, water, climate change and biocultural legacies; the goal is "to reconcile nature and cultures at a state level with pragmatic and visionary solutions, using systemic approaches that address our most pressing ecological and societal challenges."
Agro-ecoregions are human-managed ecosystems: The rainfall has been modified by irrigation, the temperature by greenhouses, the soils by adding fertilizers and other amendments, and the plants are, of course, mainly crops and livestock useful to us as food, fiber and fuel. New Mexico has a long history of farming and irrigation that greatly intensified with tractors, massive dams and piping, groundwater pumping, European sheep, goats, cattle and horses; petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides; and crop breeding. Today, there are six distinct agro-ecoregions each with many micro-climates.
WarrenS made a New Year's Resolution to write a letter advocating climate action every day. The result is over one hundred letters to congresspeople, newspapers, President Obama, and more. Warren has even had letters published in the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
Learn Warren's letter writing technique here. And be sure to steal his stuff!
From his blog:
Month 7, Day 15: Keep The Oil Out Of Our Water, Keep Our Water Out Of The Oil
The people at Corporate Accountability International have a great action: the Think Outside The Bottle campaign. CAI is asking people to write their governors, requesting them to institute a change in state policy regarding the purchase of bottled water. Good idea. I took their form letter and made it my own.
Dear Governor Patrick —
I write to urge you to change Massachusetts state policy on the purchase of bottled water.
Since Massachusetts has an excellent public water system, it would be no hardship to implement a policy whereby state government offices and events are required to use tap water. Not only will this save money (San Francisco alone spent about $500,000 a year on bottled water until Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the shift to tap water), but it will help restore confidence in our water supply (especially important after the May 1st water-main break in Weston).
There are many reasons for this, but the most important is simply that the manufacture of millions and millions of water bottles (each of which is used only once before being recycled) requires millions of gallons of oil. If we as a nation are to wean ourselves from our addiction to oil, we have to do more than just cut down on unnecessary trips to the 7-11 — we have to eliminate products that consume oil.
The steady drumbeat of bad news about climate change lends grave urgency to this requirement. We must move away from any reliance on fossil fuels, and getting the Commonwealth of Massachusetts permanently off bottled water will be a significant contribution. Please make a public commitment to ending state contracts with bottled water suppliers, promoting public water systems across the state, and advocating for a renewed national commitment to water infrastructure funding.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
Meerkats, our fellow earthlings, rise each morning with the sun and stand shoulder to shoulder in what appears as a prayer. Members of the mongoose family, they reside primarily in the Botswana desert and although they bite, stink, and scent mark, they also babysit, play footraces, stand sentry, learn young and exhibit highly altruistic behavior.
According to evolutionary logic, an individual's success is usually measured by the number of offspring it raises, but some meerkats spend part or all of their lives helping others raise young rather than breeding themselves. Such seemingly altruistic behavior can be found in very few mammals, but even within this select group, which includes mole rats, marmosets, wild dogs, and some other mongooses, meerkats are unique in the extent and coordination of their cooperative activities.
Meerkats' unusual system of rearing their young poses questions that go to the roots of our understanding of cooperative societies, including our own. Why do mature offspring remain in their parents' group instead of dispersing to breed? Why do they take risks and spend time and effort to help other members breed? How do group members divide their responsibilities and coordinate their contributions? And how do they ensure that all group members pull their weight?
Few of our closest relatives, the great apes, cooperate with each other as extensively as meerkats. Human cooperation probably has an ancient history, and by studying meerkats, which depend on their group for survival, we gain a window into the evolution of cooperative societies. Link
Announcements
Going to NN10? Who's got the best eco-innovative idea on how we're gonna to identify ekos? How about an ekos flash mob. Pick a place. All agree to arrive at the 9:30 PM with a clothes pin on your nose and sing at the top of your lungs:
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone;
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot."
"Big Yellow Taxi" ... by Joni Mitchell
Late Breaking:
NAACP head signs letter along with Green For All
Senator Freshman Dems call for Carbon cap
Gillibrand's site posts parts of letter
Later Breaking
The oil blowout that's fouled the Gulf of Mexico since April is many things: a human tragedy, an environmental disaster and a wake-up call.
But it's not the greatest crisis facing the oceans today. We'll be dealing with the gushing oil and its aftermath for years, but we can't be distracted from Ocean Enemy No. 1: the grave threat of accelerating global climate change caused by the carbon pollution that people produce. Link
eKos diary rescue:
Diary | Author | Time (Eastern) | Tags |
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BP has a Jobs Plan -- They want to Buy the Scientists | jamess | 7/16/2010 6:45:11 PM | BP, Oil Spill, Compensation, Free Speech, National Resources Defense Council |
Hey, Twit Claire, we don't have "50 years" ... | A Siegel | 7/16/2010 3:26:49 PM | claire mccaskill, climate, energy, senator claire mccaskill, ekos |
BP Oil Disaster v9.0: Ecocide Ignores the Cheering | vets74 | 7/16/2010 12:37:00 PM | BP oil disaster, ecocide, Greenpeace, British Petroleum, Halliburton |
Village Green: 'Urban Farming' that Is Really Urban | Kaid at NRDC | 7/16/2010 8:38:25 AM | cities, environment, sustainability, agriculture, urban farms |
BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 52 | Gulf Watchers | 7/16/2010 6:01:00 AM | Recommended, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico |
Utilities Quietly Try to Gut Clean Air Act as Climate Peacocks Squawk | RLMiller | 7/15/2010 9:15:20 PM | eKos, climate change, global warming, extortion, Harry Reid |
June Smashes Temp Record, Today may be All Time High | FishOutofWater | 7/15/2010 5:37:09 PM | Recommended, eKos, climate change, global warming, environment |
The Smart Grid: Smart Pricing | Richard Lyon | 7/15/2010 3:59:46 PM | smart grid, smart pricing, eKos, energy |
Upper Big Branch electrician ordered to disable safety monitor (UPDATED) | Christian Dem in NC | 7/15/2010 3:59:19 PM | Recommended, Massey Energy, Upper Big Branch, mine safety, Mine Safety and Health Administration |
She Won't Back Down: Ashley Judd Defies Critics, Continues to Blast Mountaintop Removal | rperks | 7/15/2010 3:53:03 PM | appalachia, ashley judd, mountaintop mining, mountaintop removal, MTR |
A Scientist takes down Lord Monckton - Updated | tomasyn | 7/15/2010 2:39:40 PM | climate change, Monckton, eKos |
Great environment news! Illegal logging down across the globe | vc2 | 7/15/2010 2:36:11 PM | Tips for saving the enviroment, eKos |
Christopher Monckton trying to take down Prof. John Abraham's rebuttal of global warming talk | apeescape | 7/15/2010 2:18:06 PM | eKos, global warming, climate change, Monckton, anti-science |
Big Cities Want Big Changes in Energy | Bruce Nilles | 7/15/2010 1:50:20 PM | Sierra Club, coal, Chicago, environmental justice, eKos |
Special Guest Mothership #51 - Human Health Issues and the BP Catastrophe | Gulf Watchers | 7/15/2010 6:02:20 AM | Recommended, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico |
A very large and complicated problem | olmanwillow | 7/15/2010 1:23:47 AM | Oil, barack obama, politics, republicans, Rescued |
Fishgrease: Booming Feynman's Ghost | Fishgrease | 7/15/2010 5:18:09 AM | Recommended, Gulf Oil Spill, BP, Richard Feynman, dkos booming school |
"Over" | Crashing Vor | 7/14/2010 9:11:57 PM | Recommended, oil, Louisiana, oil spill, Deepwater Horizon |
On Doing vs Talking | erratic | 7/14/2010 11:21:37 PM | zen, buddhism, ekos |
Mr. President/Dems: "Set America Free", "Choice" | divineorder | 7/14/2010 10:40:44 PM | GOTV, Set America Free. Choice, energy security, plug in electric vehicles, President Obama |
Spill-eating microbes spike- eKos EarthShip Wednesday | eKos | 7/14/2010 10:36:39 PM | eKos, Environment, microbes, bp, oil spill |
NOAA is NOT withholding data or methodology | Darryl House | 7/14/2010 9:10:11 PM | eKos, BP, NOAA, EPA, dispersants |
EcoAdvocates: Obama May Reverse Bush on Indigenous Rights | Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse | 7/14/2010 8:01:48 PM | EcoAdvocates, climate change, environment, teaching, UNDRIP |
10/10/10/10/10 | A Siegel | 7/14/2010 5:40:23 PM | Recommended, 350.org, sustainable energy action, energy, climate |
Momentum on BP Respirators! | Forrest Brown | 7/14/2010 5:33:11 PM | Recommended, BP, oil spill, environment, PCCC |
Moms Turned Mountaineers in Climb Against Coal | greendem | 7/14/2010 3:52:45 PM | eKos, enviroment, mercury, coal, families |
What Press Freedom? | WashingtonPeaceCenter | 7/14/2010 3:13:13 PM | press freedom, eKos, Gulf, Oil spill |
The Third World now includes The Gulf of Mexico. | sfzendog | 7/14/2010 2:23:08 PM | Oil, Third World, exploitation, environment, politics |
The Smart Grid: Google Arrives | Richard Lyon | 7/14/2010 1:35:47 PM | eKos, smart grid, Google, smart meters |
Muzzling corporate critics: Filmmakers must turn over all outtakes? | worldforallpeopleorg | 7/14/2010 11:57:03 AM | chevron, documentary film, free speech, eKos |
Why the free market rejects green energy and manufacturing | citizen k | 7/14/2010 10:43:28 AM | capitalism, pensions, finance, eKos, environment |
Lessons from the "Enlightened Eight": Republicans Can Vote Pro-Environment and Not Get "Tea Partied" | Heather TaylorMiesle NRDC Action Fund | 7/14/2010 11:37:11 AM | cap and trade, clean energy, Climate Bill, Climate change, congress |
Reid has "rough draft" of energy bill | Joan McCarter | 7/14/2010 9:30:03 AM | energy, climate, eKos |
BP Oil Disaster v8.0: Mindless Mitigation Activity | vets74 | 7/14/2010 9:40:43 AM | BP oil disaster, Greenpeace, British Petroleum, Halliburton, Coast Guard |
BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 50 | Gulf Watchers | 7/14/2010 6:00:01 AM | Recommended, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico |