Grass.
Grass.
Grass.
I love grass, don't you?
I'd like to live in a
grass house:
[Link] Straw is an agricultural waste product, much like the soy wax in soy candles. Every year, enough straw is burned in the US to have built 5 million 2,000 square foot homes. Burning straw produces five times as much carbon monoxide as all the hydro power plants in the US. Finding new uses for renewable resources is the key to sustaining our earth.
Straw bale walls, made by stacking bales and covering them with adobe, are generally 2 feet thick and can decrease heating and cooling costs by up to 75%. This also cuts down on emissions. These super-thick walls are very soundproof and very fire resistant.
The bales of hale are so tightly packed that they provide no oxygen for fire to burn and make it impossible for bugs and mice to live in hollow wooden walls. They also filter the air for those of us with allergies. Not only that they're cheaper than building with traditional materials:
[Link]Thyfault says her product saves builders 10 to 30 percent in material costs and 20 to 50 percent in labor costs compared with traditional building materials.
Did you know Illinois, even with Chicago, could supply all it's electricity from grass?
[Link] If only 20% of the agricultural area in Illinois were used to produce this crop and burnt in direct combustion for electricity generation, it could meet 100% of the state's electricity demand.
Now I know 20% is a lot but unlike corn and soy it would actually produce a profit reducing the need to subsidize farming:
the Miscanthus system has a net profit of $2,900/acre while the corn/soy system has a net loss of $900/acre2.
Three cheers for
Miscanthus because it's more efficient than current proposals to use switchgrass:
On average, Miscanthus yielded 5 t/acre more than switchgrass.
And while it may not reduce energy costs in the short term it would create jobs and as importantly:
[Link] Burning Miscanthus produces only as much carbon dioxide as it removes from the air as it grows, said Heaton, who is seeking a doctorate in crop sciences. That balance means there is no net effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which is not the case with fossil fuels, she said.
And while we're at it why not fill those plains of
Miscanthus with
wind-turbines?
[Link]The U.S. Department of Energy estimates America's wind energy potential to be much larger than total U.S. electricity consumption today.
Well why don't we get started then? Is it because
wind turbines are inefficient?
The energy payback time for wind is in fact similar to or better than that of conventional power plants. A recent study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison calculated the average energy payback of Midwestern wind farms to be between 17 and 39 times as much energy as they consume (depending on the average wind speeds at the site), while nuclear power plants generate only about 16 times and coal plants 11 times as much energy as they consume.
Is it because
wind energy is exepensive?
Wind energy is now in a range that is competitive with power from new conventional power plants. The up-front, capital cost of wind energy is more expensive than that of some traditional power technologies such as natural gas. However, there are no fuel costs, and in good locations the "levelized" cost (which includes the cost of capital, the cost of fuel, and the cost of operations and maintenance over the lifetime of the plant) of wind energy can now be very competitive with that of other energy sources.
But isn't that because wind-power is subsidized?
Every energy technology is subsidized. Wind energy is no exception, nor should it be. Wind energy receives a tax credit based only on electricity produced (not dollars invested), equal to an inflation-adjusted 1.5 cents (currently 1.9 cents) for each kilowatt-hour generated over the first ten years of the project. This credit reduces the taxes paid by a wind farm, thereby reducing the cost of providing wind-generated electricity to the consumer.
Sadly
wind-energy isn't nearly as subsidized as oil and gas:
Some, like the depletion allowance for oil and gas, are permanent in the tax code. Additional indirect subsidies include federal money for research and development programs and policy provisions in federal legislation. The largest subsidy, however, may be an invisible one-the fact that the environmental impacts from fossil fuel use are not reflected through higher costs of those energy sources. Instead, all of society must pay the price for dirty air, polluted water, health costs, global warming, fuel spills, and cleanup and disposal of fuel byproducts attributed to traditional energy sources. Clean, renewable, domestic wind energy produces no emissions, requires no fuel and the cost is fixed and predictable over time.
Basically the only downside to promoting wind energy is its effect it will be the death of a few birds but:
[Link] Wind energy development's overall impact on birds is extremely low compared with other human-related activities. No matter how extensively wind is developed in the future, bird deaths from wind energy are unlikely to be ever more than a small fraction of bird deaths caused by other human-related sources, such as cats and buildings.
So
write your representatives and tell them you want more grass and you want it now!
[Cross posted at Daily Prose]