Monday, December 12, 2011

What to do with humanure?


Lets face it, humans are mammals, and human excrement is very similar to that of other mammals. Lets begin by calling it humanure.

What to do with humanure?  We used to simply leave it where it came out – as most other mammals do. Because of our propensity for living close together, and the knowledge gained from science that humanure can transmit disease, a sanitation regime has developed. At least where it can be afforded - approximately 30% of humanity still leaves their their feces lying on open ground.

However, the sanitation regime of the industrialized world is problematic in terms of its environmental impact. What follows is a description of what we currently do in America (or what is done on your behalf after you push the flush button), and how we might substantially improve upon it.

First we use a large amount of potable drinking water (approximately 100 times the volume of the feces) to flush it out of our toilets and into our sanitary sewers. There it is further diluted with household gray water. And then we often mix  in industrial waste (often adding toxic heavy metals, e.g., mercury, adding real injury to what so far could be described as merely environmental insult). 

This witch's brew goes to the regional Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP), often requiring considerable utilization of energy in pumping. There solids are settled out, and suspended organic matter digested by bacteria to the extent necessary for most of it to also settle out. The remaining liquid is treated with chlorine to render it sterile, and then released into our waterways, still bearing substantial organic matter, heavy metals from industrial waste, and copious quantities of non- metabolized pharmaceutical agents and their biologically active metabolites! Approximately 60% of the anti-depressants and their metabolites pass straight through current WWTPs. If your drinking water comes from waterways with upstream WWTP discharge (and most does), and you are taking anti-depressants, your doctor may soon be able to reduce your prescribed dosage because of what is already in your drinking water! If you don’t want to take anti-depressants … too bad - unless you are willing to pay for distilled water (or water treated by reverse osmosis), an option not available to fish and other wild life.

And what do we do with the WWTP sludge (or biosolids) that settle out. We dump most of it on agricultural fields. A green solution you might think? Wrong, it also carries with it heavy metals from industrial waste, contaminating not only the produce grown there but also the soil. There is also concern about pathogens in the sludge. Regulation prohibits direct human consumption of produce thus grown. In the 1990s, hundreds of dairy cows that ate grass produced from sewage sludge from Augusta, GA died of thallium poisoning.

In summary, our so called civilized treatment of humanure is a process that consumes large amounts of drinking water, uses substantial amounts of electrical energy, pollutes surface waters with WWTP effluent, and contaminates soil (with heavy metal laden biosolids).

In addition, we are wasting potentially valuable bi-products! If manure digestion happens in an anaerobic environment, it yields methane-rich biogas which can be used as fuel for producing electric power and/or heat. Also the resulting biosolids (if they were free of contaminants) would be valuable fertilizer for agriculture.

For these reasons, reform is strongly indicated. I’d like to be involved in the development of a   green humanure paradigm that is congruent with American sensibilities. The crucial question is “to what extent can the technology evolve to reach congruence versus the extent to which American sensibilities can or should evolve toward congruence?” An essential first step is to treat residential waste water separately from that of industry. Also, I expect that village scale (or possibly neighborhood) treatment will be more efficient and effective.

An approach of interest for me is the anaerobic digestion of waste materials for the production of bio-methane for cooking and other domestic uses. Such a digester could be feed with controlled combinations of agricultural animal manure, humanure, kitchen waste. and agricultural plant wastes. 

Small scale biogas plants are widely used in China. It would be appropriate to study the Chinese models (there are several, for different climates), and design a system appropriate for local climate and social values.

It would be crucial to develop a process so that the residue left after anaerobic digestion can be used for agriculture locally without substantial health risk, and in compliance with county and state health codes, possibly through Pasteurization followed by aerobic composting.
Separation of humanure from gray water eases the difficulty of  treating both. Gray water could be treated with  a biological system that includes both microbes and plants, possibly yielding effluent water of sufficient quality to be safely used in agriculture, at least for fuel or fiber crops, and possibly also for closed fruits that grow above ground, e.g., blue berries and apples. The system would ideally be passive in that it would be designed to operate without any pumping of water during treatment. 

Findings should be publicized with the hope that such systems will find broad future acceptance in American culture. This technology could provide a major step toward sustainability for the world, as it eliminates the harmful aspects of "modern" sanitation practice mentioned above, and hopefully creates a cost effective sanitation regime that can more rapidly be adopted in developing regions.The proposed technology could also allow us to eliminate our current practices in rural parts of America where septic systems inject effluent water bearing heavy metals and other poisons into the soil where it often finds its way into the ground water.

When Robots Do all the Work, Who Will They Be Working For?

Timothy Travis gave a talk on Sunday, 12/11/11, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fayetteville entitled, When Robots Do all the Work, Who Will They Be Working For? A very lively discussion followed.

I agree with one objection that was raised during this discussion, robots will not be doing all of the work in the foreseeable future. Notwithstanding, this is a apt topic for discussion. Technology will continue to displace human labor while simultaneously enabling processes that will create tremendous new value. What should be done with this value (i.e., wealth) when far less labor is required?

The consensus of the discussion on Sunday is that democratic socialism is in order. It was pointed out that socialism has a bad reputation in America. I think this is primarily because it has been conflated with Soviet style totalitarianism.

American democratic socialism should be a DEMOCRACY, where the direction of the state is determined by the will of the people. And the private sector should not be abolished; au contraire, it should be encouraged. Valuable innovation can be expected to continue to occur there.

I think it is important to acknowledge that many aspects of the current organization of American life are indeed provided by all for all, consistent with the essence of socialism. I suggest that many of these should remain public, and that we should make deliberate choices going forward as to what aspects of our lives should be within the public sector, see specific suggestions below.

Can public sector enterprise be managed much more effectively than it currently is? Sure!
Can innovation and excellence happen in the public sector? Indeed!
How did humans get to the Moon? It was a public sector effort!
For excellence in the public sector to be a reality, we  need to cultivate an ethos of excellence and entrepreneurship in public servants. Why not? Greed is not the only motivation that humans can respond to! Look at this recent  research on altruism and empathy in rats. Do you really think that humans aren't also sometimes motivated by altruism and empathy? I think that we could expect much better behavior from individuals if we encourage them to act out of altruism rather than greed!



I. Some activities under state control that should remain under state control

        A. The military
Would anyone advocate for allowing the use of armed force to be a laissez faire situation (À la Mexican drug cartels)? Hopefully enough said!

         B. Transportation infrastructure
Should air traffic control be abandoned? Probably not!

Would many support the privatization of all of the nation's highways? I expect not.
To support the construction and maintenance of roads, I suggest that society should tax private vehicular travel according to the miles driven per month multiplied by the impact of each vehicle on the roads. I suggest below the abolition of  gasoline taxes which now partially support roads.

      C. Public Education
Public education. I think that it should continue to be public, and continue to be free - and should also be free at public colleges and universities through the baccalaureate level.


II. Some venues where publictization should be considered 
A new word is introduced here (for a new era) - definition - publictize: to convert a formerly private activity into a public enterprise. Note the contrast with the existing word publicize; e.g., we need some our best minds to publicize publictization.

         A. Fossil fuel extraction
It should be acknowledged that the private sector was vital to the development of the fossil fuel industries. But continued profligate combustion of fossil fuels now threatens the very existence of civilization (through carbon dioxide emission and consequent global climate change). Thus we should consider the publictization of the extraction of fossil fuels. Public management is appropriate for this new era where we must use fossil fuels very carefully to mitigate carbon emissions and to prolong fossil fuel availability. I think that we should stop burning them for energy as soon as possible. In addition to mitigation of carbon, this will provide for their prolonged future use for other critical applications (e.g., manufacturing of drugs, lubricants, plastics). This should be done in a manner that generates public revenue - so that the price can appropriately moderate demand. Also, this would allow the gasoline tax to be abolished.

Why should we allow the oil companies to continue to make hundreds of billions of dollars of profit each year from peak oil? Petroleum should now be viewed as a public resource while the external costs of its production and combustion should be viewed as the public liabilities that they actually are.

This public fossil fuel revenue would be subject to democratic control. I suggest public initiatives (see B&C below) which would require substantial public revenue.

The private sector should be encouraged to develop new sources of energy. The stable price for fossil fuel energy that would result from its publictization would lower the risk for the private investments required to develop alternative and/or sustainable energy.


        B. Health care
Public sector health care works well in many places, e.g., England, and Canada.
I think that basic health care should be available to all US citizens free of charge. Thought must be given to developing a process to specify what is "basic health care" and what is "elective" (to be paid for personally or with private insurance). And these specifications will need to change with time. I suggest that cosmetic surgery should always be elective, and that heart transplants should also be elective (at least for the time being). American health care professionals could focus their abundant talent on the development of effective and cost-effective medical procedures and on the promotion of wellness. Perhaps the provision of American medical procedures at cost to large numbers of medical tourists from around the world would become a major source of future international good will and national pride. This initiative would allow medicare and medicaid and the taxes that support them to be eliminated.

       C. Public stipend
I suggest that every citizen of the USA should receive a public stipend from the moment of birth to the moment of death. This is analogous to the Alaska Permanent fund (which payed each individual $1174 in 2011). This would allow Social Security and the pay roll tax that supports it to be phased out.

I think that this stipend should be sufficient to support the basic needs of the individual (approximately $1000 per month in today's economy). Desperation would thus no longer need to be a motivation for crime in America! 

Some individuals may thus choose to live a life of simple leisure. Why shouldn't they? Leisure seems to be basically what nature designed mammals for!

Others may choose to live simple, but expansive lives - perhaps making tremendous contributions to the arts or in public service.

Many will work for additional income or participate as entrepreneurs in various enterprises. No problem! They should not be discouraged! And their public stipend should continue - although I would suggest that their additional  income should be taxed. The 2011 1st quarter profit of the 5 largest oil companies was 31 billion dollars -  substantially less than the ~$1 trillion per quarter needed to fund this proposed stipend at the proposed level.


What do you think? Please let me know if you have concerns!

John Mattox, 12/12/11

  


Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Writings of Thomas Berry

I recently completed a reading of all of the books published on eco-theology by Thomas Berry during his lifetime:

The Dream of the Earth (1988, Sierra Club Books).
Here is a review. Here is a recording of a reading of chapter three.

The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era, A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (1992, Harper San Francisco, co-authored with Brian Swimme). Here is a review.

The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future (1999, Bell Tower).
Here is a review by Herman Greene, founder of the Center for Ecozoic Studies.

Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community (2006, Sierra Club Books, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker). Here is a review.

After Thomas Berry's death in 2009, Mary Evelyn Tucker (Thomas' student, and founder of the Thomas Berry Foundation) published two additional books that incorporate Thomas' writing, The Sacred Universe, and The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth.

I commend Thomas Berry's work, and I agree with his thesis that the turning (using the term used by David Cortan and Joanna Macy, see my 9/21/11 entry in this blog about Joanna's Great Turning Workshop) of humanity back into alignment with Nature is crucial for a prosperous human future. Such a Turning will have implications for how we generate and use energy, thus my inclusion of this entry here in my Energy Matters Blog.

I'm looking forward to participating in a Retreat on 11/12/11 at the the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World, entitled Thomas Berry's Sense of the Sacred.

Here is a audio recording of Thomas Berry speaking entitled, Planning for a Planet.
And here is a video recording of an interview with Thomas in 2006 by Caroline Web.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Do Neutrinos Travel Faster than Light?

Today the media published preliminary reports (here is one) that neutrinos generated at CERN are being detected 450 miles away at the Gran Sasso Laboratory  in Italy 60 nanoseconds sooner than they would be expected to arrive if they traveled at the speed of light.

If this result is upheld through further experiment, it will be revolutionary (and very exciting!) within Physics as Einstein's Theory of Special Relatively (which is very well established) postulates that no particle can travel faster than the speed of light.

It is noteworthy that neutrinos travel in a straight line, and a straight line between Geneva and Rome is underground (but neutrinos can travel through rock essentially unhindered).

I've asked students in my classes at FSU, for up to 5 points of extra-credit, to answer the following questions.

How many nanoseconds would neutrinos take to make this flight at the speed of light?

What is the percentage difference between the expected and the observed travel time? Hint, you should use scientific notation to express this result.

If the experimental error is 10 ns as expected, what is the probability that the experimental error can explain this discrepancy? Hint, divide the discrepancy by the expected error, and then integrate the Chi-square distribution from this number of standard deviations (6) to infinity (you should get 2E-9).

What other errors might explain this? Hint, Google unrecognized systematic error.


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Great Turning - A Weekend with Joanna Macy

Last weekend, I had the great honor of joining with more than 100 others in Chapel Hill NC to learn from Joanna Macy about the Great Turning. This phrase was used by David Korten in the title of his book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.



On Friday evening, 9/16,  Joanna presented her vision of The Great Turning. On Saturday, 9/17, she lead us in her workshop, The Work that Reconnects.


I left the workshop on Saturday afternoon with an ardent desire to participate fully in the Great Turning. I'm convinced that the continued prosperity of humanity is contingent upon changing human culture such that a respect for Nature is preeminent.


During a dialogue with our descendents on Saturday afternoon (using the power of moral imagination), I became acutely aware of the fact that every year we delay a turning from irresponsible consumerism to a lifestyle that respects Nature result in further impoverishment of the lives of our descendents. This has been established by numerical simulation at MIT, see the book, Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et al.. For example, if we continue to exploit high grade copper ore for wiring and HVAC for MacMansion vacation homes without rigorous policies for recycling for much longer, the Earth's high grade copper ore will be depleted and our ancestors will be forced to use low grade copper ore (e.g., our landfills) making copper much more costly. An even more striking limitation we are creating for them is the destruction of the natural world as our extravagance extinguishes many species of life per day - some of which would surely have been of substantial benefit to our descendents.

I will ardently seek future opportunities to contribute to the Great Turning. Please feel free to contact me if you think that I might be able to advise you on how you can also contribute.
 

John Mattox

Monday, September 5, 2011

Why I got arrested to help stop the Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline


I was the 955th person to be arrested in front of the White House for civil disobedience on 9/2/11 during the Stop Keystone XL Pipeline Action. Photo by Josh Lopez. 1252 people were arrested from 8/21/11 - 9/3/11 during this Action.

Why did I do this?  
The production and refining of tar sands oil produces more earth-warming carbon dioxide than does conventional petroleum - substantial amounts of natural gas are burned in its production. It also results in despoiled landscape and polluted water. Also, the transportation of the synthetic crude oil thus produced through pipelines creates the risk of leakage and the potential contamination of wilderness lands.
James Hansen calculates that burning all of the Earth's coal and unconventional fossil fuels  (like those in tar sands) could potentially release enough carbon dioxide to change the climate to the extent that humans could not survive on Earth.  Hansen was arrested on 8/29. Here is a link to his writings regarding this action.

Some ask. don't we need more domestic oil production? I think we need to draw the line short of tar sand production. I believe that with aggressive conservation measures (e.g., 100 fold increases in bicycle commuting) and aggressive development of renewable energy (e.g. solar power), existing domestic sources of conventional petroleum could be sufficient. I think that a progressive carbon fee with rebate would be effective in moving us toward this.

But what about the approximately 150 pounds of carbon dioxide that I released into the atmosphere driving from North Carolina to DC in my Volvo for this? A concern! But I see this as an investment to enable my support of this Action, support that may turn out to be key to an eventual turning of humanity toward sustainability.  

I would like to have traveled to DC by train for this, releasing only about 10% of the carbon per passenger-mile, but unfortunately my schedule did not allow for this. If we all insisted on leading low carbon lives, there would be more trains running, and my schedule could probably have been accommodated. 



I was honored to be photographed during the 9/2 Action behind Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Canadian author, Naomi Klein. Photo by Josh Lopez.


Sunday, May 29, 2011

What About Global Warming and Tornadoes?

There has been recent discussion about a possible link between the recent rash of mid-west tornadoes and global warming. Bill McKibben implies a link in his 5/23/11 Opinion Piece in the Washington Post. Discussion of this assertion is warranted.

In 2010, John Holdren, President Obama's Assistant for Science and Technology, and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, spoke at Berkeley on Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being. He points out that the phenomena called Global Warming is well established (although, as any scientific hypothesis, subject to potential overturn through further investigation, but this is very unlikely for a phenomena as widely documented and successfully modeled as global warming).

The increased energy density of a warmer atmosphere is predicted by extensive numerical models to lead to intensified droughts and storms. Holdren suggests that rather than Global Warming, we should call this phenomena Global Climate Disruption.

Modeling indicates that the frequency of tornadoes is not expected to increase - while enhanced temperature of  warm and humid air masses colliding with cold air masses makes tornadoes more likely, a decrease in atmospheric shear with increased global temperature is expected to counteract an increase in tornado frequency. However, an increase in the intensity of tornadoes that do form may be a  result of global warming, and may be evident in the EF5 tornadoes that have recently ravished Tuscaloosa Alabama and Joplin Missouri (although I would suggest that more modeling would be appropriate before possibly stating this more strongly).

Even though we cannot be 100% confident of anthropogenic global warming, and consequent global climate disruption, I believe we should move very aggressively toward implementing policy (e.g., a carbon tax and rebate) and technology (e.g., solar power, and sequestration of carbon dioxide in building materials) to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide content to 350 parts per million - see James Hansen's 2008 paper on why this limit is expected to be required to avoid a potential disaster for humanity.

Holdren suggests that policy makers should not ignore global warming - thus betting with the public's welfare against unfavorable odds. I agree. As McKibben, I find reprehensible the vote this spring by the U.S. House of Representatives (240 to 184)  to defeat a resolution saying that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.”

I suggest that McKibben's assertion of a link between global warming and the damage to Joplin and Tuscaloosa should not be casually dismissed.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Accident

The generation of electrical power with nuclear power is controversial - with positive attributes (no direct CO2 emissions, and a relatively good safety record - fewer attributable deaths per kilowatt-hour than coal), and negative attributes (large potential damage per accident, e.g., Chernobyl & Fukushima, and production of radio-active and fissionable waste).

Clearly we must reduce the risk of nuclear accident through more thoughtful nuclear plant design and careful operation if we are to go forward with the generation of electrical power with nuclear plants. In retrospect, the  design elements are clear that would have prevented the hydrogen explosions and release of radio-active isotopes at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant  following the massive tsunami wave inundation there on 3/11/11.

Used fuel rods should have been stored away from the reactors - with those sufficiently cool (out of service at least 5 years) in dry casks. A garden hose size supply of water could have indefinitely keep the rest from melting.

There should have been provision for an electrical connection of portable generators (supplying very modest amounts of power) to indefinitely extend the emergency batteries that held valves open to allow steam powered turbines to circulate cooling water in the reactor cores as they cooled following the successful deactivation of the fission reactions.

The reaction to Fukushima Daiichi appears to be a flight from nuclear power. I suggest that rather than reacting emotionally to this accident, we give serious thought to our future course. If we are to abandon nuclear power, let us follow a reasoned process.

On 5/10/11, Japanese Prime Minister Kan announced that his country would abandon their plans to build 14 additional nuclear power plants to generate 50% of their electricity with nuclear power by 2030. Kan specified that they will turn instead largely to renewables and conservation.

If this does not meet demand, it is likely that the Japanese will also utilize natural gas to generate electrical power (with demand for it easing with the advent of shale gas production). This will be a setback for CO2 emission mitigation - at least in the near term. But it may turn out that in the longer term  CO2 emissions will be reduced because of Japanese development of renewable energy technology and conservation practice).

A similar flight from nuclear power is underway in Germany. They should be careful about thus creating electrical power shortages in the near term, but this also has potential to further the critical need to mitigate CO2 emission in the longer term through the promotion of the development and deployment of renewable energy technology.

Perhaps in a million years, humanity will look back on the Fukushima Daiichi accident as a turning point in our use of technology - the moment when humanity truly realized that technology choices have consequences, and that our choices need to better reflect consideration of our descendents as well as the other species with whom we share the Earth.