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MARCH/APRIL 2009 ❧ Page 25

Copyright © 2009, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Match/April 2009

noTice & commenT

automotive fortunes look worse

than ever, the city of 115,000

northwest of Detroit is seeking

to recast itself as a hub of green

transportation. Starting with

sewage.”

at’s right, the city has

formed a partnership with a local

university and a Swedish compa-

ny to turn the town’s wastewater

into fuel for its bus f‌leet, while

reducing the amount of sewage

that needs to be treated.

“e company, Swedish Bio-

gas International, received a $4

million grant from Michigan’s

Centers of Energy Excellence

proram to develop the biogas

system, which of‌f‌icials are hop-

ing will begin powering buses by

next summer.”

Chastity, but not yet: e

Economist certainly has a way

with words in describing envi-

ronmental policy, quoting Saint

Augustine. e venerable “news-

paper” was describing “a climate

change bill [that will] take the

power to set carbon reduction

goals away from politicians and

enshrine them in law.” e bill

would create a committee that

could set and enforce carbon-

reduction goals for each sector

of the economy. “e approach

is rather that of a desperate di-

eter padlocking his pantry,” the

magazine reports.

“Evidence of the damage that

economic activity does to the

planet is mounting, but given

the cheapness and convenience

of fossil fuels, the temptation to

avoid tackling climate change

for just another year (and an-

other and another) is hard to

resist.” Or as Saint Augustine

put it a millennium ago, “Give

me chastity and continence, but

not yet.”

Carbon neutral fun: e

story is well known, if perhaps

apocriphyl: municipal water pres-

sure is said to fall rapidly during

halftime of the Superbowl, as mil-

lions of fans go to the toilet. Now

scientists have compiled resource

consumption data on that other

great American tradition, the In-

dependence Day barbecue.

According to Tristram West of

Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

on July 4 half of the grills on the

in the country are f‌ired up, releas-

ing 225,000 metric tons of carbon

dioxide. “Not too high a price

for a whole lot of fun, you might

think,” says New Scientist. “How-

ever, West also points out that this

is equivalent to burning 2,300

acres of forest.” If you do choose

to barbecue, he recommends

charcoal over propane, since lo-

cally produced charcoal can have

a neutral carbon footprint.

Another urban legend turns

out to be true. “Europe Relaxes

Rules on Sale of Ugly Fruits and

Vegetables,” headlined the New

York Times in an article that

conf‌irms those rumors of rest-

less Eurocrats regulating private

behavior. “Misshapen fruit and

vegetables won a reprieve on

Wednesday from the European

Union as it scrapped rules ban-

ning overly curved, extra knobbly

or oddly shaped produce from

supermarket shelves. Ending regu-

lations on the size and shape of

26 types of fruit and vegetables,

the European authorities killled

of‌f restrictions that had become

synonymous with bureaucratic

meddling.”

When gas is scarce: “Flint,

Michigan, has been famously dec-

imated by the devastation of the

auto industry,” according to the

Washington Post. “Now, even as

NEWS THAT’S REUSED

questration underground both practi-

cal and cost ef‌fective by removing the

carbon where suitable storage sites ex-

ist, rather than pumping it miles from

generating stations to appropriate geo-

logical formations. In addition, such a

system could also capture carbon from

mobile sources. With the right price

signals, atmospheric scrubbing could

be a reality.

Another technical f‌ix that could

bring relief without sacrif‌ice is the solar

power satellite, but progress has fallen

victim to inef‌fective governance. A

1981 study showed no technical bar-

riers to producing electricity through

orbital solar panels which would beam

power to ground stations. However,

“further development work has always

fallen between the cracks of dif‌ferent

agencies,” according to the Economist.

“‘e trouble is that the Department

of Energy doesn’t do space, and NASA

does space, not energy,” the magazine

quoted one scientist.

Finally, there is tidal energy. e

Guardian reports on a U.K. site where

the government is attempting to

trap water in a lagoon, then release it

through a dam. e newspaper pre-

dicts that the project could produce f‌ive

percent of the country’s energy needs.

Such technology is only the beginning,

according to a brilliant student paper ti-

tled “Beyond the Next Wave: Tidal En-

ergy’s Ascent.” Author Naveen Agrawal

writes that underwater devices shaped

like windmills could extract energy to

power the economy with negligible en-

vironmental impacts.

One technology to cross of the list?

Nuclear power, often touted as the

zero-carbon solution. An article in the

January/February issue of Washington

Monthly exposes the promise of cheap,

reliable power from a “new genera-

tion” of nuclear technologies that have,

unforunately, proven to be as expen-

sive as current reactors — “more than

double the capital costs for solar power

and three and a half times the cost for

wind.”

Notice & Comment is written by the editor

and represents h is views alone.