Re/Action on Climate Protection

Replace Natural Gas with Biogas

Natural gas use represents a little over 20% of the total GHG emissions in Sonoma County. (pgs 12 and 17 of inventory). Large GHG emissions reductions would result from displacing some of this natural gas with biogas generated from organic waste. Biogas could potentially compete with natural gas.

Trip to IEUA in SoCal

On Monday, 11/21, I visited two installations of the Inland Empire Utility Agency (IEUA). The IEUA is an "integrated utility" that is a water supplier as well as a

"regional wastewater treatment agency with domestic and industrial disposal systems and energy recovery/production facilities.

In addition, the Agency has become a recycled water purveyor, biosolids/fertilizer treatment provider and continues as a leader in water supply salt management, for the purpose of protecting the regions vital groundwater supplies. "

The agency operates an anaerobic digester facility that supplies biogas to generators at the desalination plant.

Zero Carbon New Development for the Gulf

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a brainstorming session with a group of local experts on sustainable architecture, green building, green business. Craig Williams, founder of the group Architects Without Borders, had recently visited Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. He felt that there was an opportunity there to present a rebuilding strategy that was innovative, sustainable and low carbon. As the representative of the Climate Protection community, I was invited to write a high-level, executive summary treatment of what zero carbon redevelopment in the Gulf States would involve, and what it might look like. Here is the paper. I'd be very interested in your thoughts on it. Download vision_for_rebuilding_the_gulf.doc

Sonoma County Biomass to Energy Workshop

Sonoma County Waste Management Agency is sponsoring a workshop in January to explore systems that produce energy from organic waste. The generic technology is known as anaerobic digestion. This is a low tech method for producing and capturing methane or biogas from decomposing organic waste. Digesters exist for many different types of waste streams, such as manure, food waste and yardwaste. The workshop will focus on several technologies such as Kompogas and Biogas Energy. Harvesting energy from the waste stream is a critical piece of the strategy for reducing GHG emissions.

For our subscribers

After having a few false starts with our email subscription service, it seems to be working now. FYI, a couple of posts were missed: here and here.

There has also been a lot of comment activity.
here and
here.

Once again, I invite you to take part and/or tell someone you think might be interested in the conversation about what can be done about global warming.

Dave

Energy from Waste

We are excited to be working with Sonoma Compost to develop new processes that allow them to harvest energy from yard waste, and other organic waste streams. This is a step in the process that we call "closing the loop." This essentially means reducing greenhouse gas emissions by recovering energy from waste. Sonoma Compost is currently the processor for the yard waste that is picked up by Sonoma County haulers. They produce a high quality organic compost, which they offer for sale.

We are working with them to select new technologies that allow the production of biogas or a liquid fuel such as biodiesel or ethanol from organic waste streams, and also a new compost product. This energy or fuel can replace fossil-based energy sources, which results in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is an example of a system that accomplishes this:

http://www.kompogas.ch/en/

Action on Climate Protection

Hello, Climate Protection Campaign is launching our blog. This blog is intended to stimulate discussion about what can be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are currently working on projects at the local level, but we advocate action at all levels: local, state, federal and international.

What we want to do in this blog is to discuss solutions. We want to know what is working elsewhere in the world...and we want to share our experiences with what is working here in Sonoma County.

Although we will post articles on science and links to basic climate science, our aim is not primarily to discuss the science of global warming and climate change. We are not climate scientists, but we view the science of global warming as basically settled. We have adopted and endorse the findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which are that:

• The planet is warming
• Most of the warming in the past 100 years is caused by humans (anthropogenic)
• The human activities most responsible for warming are emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and deforestation.
• Emissions of GHGs that are causing global warming are primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels.
• Significant reduction in GHG emissions is necessary to prevent dangerous changes to the global climate.

In addition to the findings of the IPCC, our view is that meaningful reductions must be accomplished as quickly as possible in order to stabilize the level of atmospheric CO2 as low as possible.

We are looking forward to engaging in discussion with you about how to solve the climate crisis.