Needle Stewardship: Del Norte County (that last "e" is silent) is in the rural northwestern corner of California. From this link...
It's hardly the kind of place where you would expect a conservative local government to adopt what may be the most progressive solid waste management policy in the United States. But in February 2000, Del Norte did just that by passing the nation's first comprehensive zero waste plan.
That paragraph is just as pretentious as the concept of zero waste. The soggy coastal county was facing the closure of its only landfill, and options like a waste-to-energy incinerator weren't panning out. So, Del Norte County understandably pursued "discard management" strategies, knowing that it would soon cost a lot more to dispose of its garbage...in Oregon. Neighboring Humboldt County sends most of its garbage to the same place--the Dry Creek Regional Landfill in Eagle Point, near Medford.
Here's an example of how Del Norte County reduced the amount of waste it produced.
In the early 1990s, about 50 percent of the material going to the county
landfill was fish waste, he says. The county couldn't continue to provide that level of disposal capacity to the fisheries, but eliminating that disposal option would have meant shutting down the fishing industry, a potentially lethal blow to the local
economy.
Instead, the county worked cooperatively with fish processors and local manufacturer Hambro Forest Products, Crescent City, Calif., to form a new company Eco-Nutrients Inc. Eco-Nutrients uses fish carcasses and crab and shrimp shells to make a slurry for organic agriculture and animal feed.
It sure makes a lot more sense to find companies which make organic fertilizers from fish byproducts near the coast than someplace like Bakersfield (previous blog here).
Here's another way that Del Norte County is now pushing to reduce--or at least redirect--its waste stream.
The Del Norte Solid Waste Authority is taking it one step at a time in
embracing product stewardship — the concept that sellers of certain merchandise should be responsible for their disposal.
First it was batteries, and now the authority is taking aim at hypodermic needles, which were banned from normal disposal methods in 2008.
"Needles are really the scariest product we know of," said authority director Kevin Hendrick. "If not handled correctly they end up in the garbage, and sometimes in garbage collectors. There’s nothing more scary than getting poked by a used needle."
No doubt some folks don't know (or maybe care) that medical wastes require special disposal. No doubt the cost of such disposal deters some folks from doing so properly. Since it's pretty easy to get away with dumping "residential sharps" in the garbage (and elsewhere), the county needs to ensure that needle stewardship is easy for the customers.
Del Norte County is currently in the outreach phase.
"We are going to be calling and even visiting businesses in person,"
Hendrick said. "If necessary we do have the ability to come up with an ordinance that forces businesses to comply, but we would prefer it to be entirely voluntary."
So, will the businesses, health clinics, vets, etc. pass along the costs to all their customers or just the ones who use the service? And are folks there ever going to worry about the greenhouse gas emissions involved in trucking garbage 100 miles?
Downwind of Berkeley: Alameda County, California is home to famous cities like Oakland and Berkeley. This urban East Bay county also stretches across the Altamont Hills to the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley (map here).
In the rural northeastern corner of Alameda county is the town of Mountain House. The prevailing winds blow east, taking most of the pollution--but not the property taxes--into San Joaquin County.
Cheap land and proximity to major electrical substations, gas lines and water sources have attracted Calpine Corp., Florida Power & Light and Pacific Gas
and Electric Co. to the swath of land west of Mountain House on the far eastern edge of Alameda County.
...
The Mariposa Energy Project, Tesla Power Plant and East Altamont Energy Center range in size from 200 to more than 1,100 megawatts. A megawatt powers roughly 750 to 1,000 homes, according to the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state electrical grid.
Add to those the fourth full-fledged power plant slated for the area, the GWF Tracy Combined Cycle Power Plant.
GWF Energy LLC — corporate owner of the 7-year-old Tracy Peaker Plant — is poised to begin construction in 2012 to expand from a 169-megawatt station to one with a second turbine that could feed 314 megawatts into the grid.
The plants in question would all burn natural gas...wind and solar don't produce 24/7. Note though that the Tesla project is nearly dead, and the Tracy plant shows that San Joaquin County is willing to accept the air pollution if it receives the property taxes. Tracy's irrigation district might also make some money selling (cooling) water to the plants. But still, how can places like Berkeley pretend to be green or ethical when they're a party to something like this? And one more thought...
Anderson cited a study, done in July by the University of California,
Berkeley that analyzed the effects of all power plant openings nationwide since 1993. The study said that said a large power plant (380 megawatts or more) could decrease local property values by 9.3 percent.
NIMBYism is motivated by selfishness.
No New Lines Needed: Fort Irwin is in the remote desert area between Barstow and Death Valley. That and the presence of nearby transmission lines sure reduces the NIMBY issues. About two weeks ago...
The US Army Corps of Engineers signed
an agreement with Irwin Energy Security Partners to build a $2 billion, 500-megawatt (MW) solar energy complex at Fort Irwin located in the Mojave Desert, California.
Through an enhanced use lease (EUL) agreement, the Army will lease about 14,000 acres at Fort Irwin to Irwin Energy Security Parnters, a joint venture of ACCIONA Solar Power in Henderson, NV and the Clark Energy Group in Bethesda, MD. The project will be financed and developed by the joint venture partners who will deliver services in kind (e.g., operation and maintenance) to the Army in exchange for the lease of military landholdings. The venture will be able to sell
electricity not used by Fort Irwin on the commercial grid via two high-power transmission lines in the vicinity of the base.
The 500 MW project will be the largest DoD solar power project, dwarfing the 14 MW solar farm at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and the 2 MW installation at Fort Carson in Colorado.
The project will include both photovoltaic and concentrated solar thermal (previous blog here) and could eventually expand to 1,000 MW. The initial phase should be up and running in 2014.
By the by, ACCIONA Solar Power is owned by the venerable Spanish infrastructure conglomerate ACCIONA SA.
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