Sky Vegetables: A brilliant notion
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 9, 2008 at 1:36 pm
From the Cooking Up a Story website:
One of the big challenges facing our modern industrial food system is the heavy reliance upon fossil fuels for the growing of crops, and the transporting of them long distances to market. An average head of lettuce travels 1500 miles before reaching the supermarket shelf, a longer distance than many of us travel on vacation. But what if our fresh produce could be grown in the supermarket, the same destination point where it eventually would be sold?
One enterprising, 22 year-old University of Wisconsin—Madison business student, Keith Agoda, came up with the idea to grow fruits and vegetables on the rooftops of supermarkets after a trip to Chicago where he witnessed first-hand community gardens feeding local area residents. Thinking back upon an earlier trip to South America where he experienced fresh produce from street vendors throughout Buenes Aires, he began thinking about how to grow food efficiently without the need for land. This led to the idea for Sky Vegetables, the creation of an urban agriculture firm that specializes in the building and managing of rooftop gardens for sale of produce to supermarkets situated directly below.
Working on his business plan for college credits, along with fellow university student Troy Vosseller together they submitted their plan into the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition, an annual competition to choose the best start-up ideas by a panel of four judges.
Sky Vegetables works with hydroponics, 4 times less weight than traditional soil, an important requirement considering that weight is a critical factor for a a greenhouse structure designed to fit on a 40,000 square foot rooftop. Hydroponics, a nutrient rich solution, can be precisely monitored, and kept in balance, to provide upwards of 5 to 15 times the equivalent yield from that of farmlands, and produces significantly less pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Sky Vegetables design also uses recycled rainwater for irrigation, organic nutrients for the hydroponic soils, and solar panels for energy production, allowing for year-round, and sustainable production in most types of climate.
What a great idea! Read the rest of this story from Cooking Up a Story by clicking here. Visit the Sky Vegetables website by clicking here: www.skyvegetables.com
Hat tip to the Aguanomics blog & the Sisweb for this one - which, by the way, if you haven’t checked out both of those websites, you really should!
The ethanol economy: plant will convert green waste to ethanol, using reclaimed water
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 31, 2008 at 5:50 amFrom the Daily Breeze:
Californians are fed up with high fuel prices, but some relief may finally be in sight. The ethanol industry is revving up to boost the supply of its renewable fuel in Los Angeles County. And the technology has advanced to the point that there are really few downsides to moving forward.
The idea is to transform urban green waste headed for landfills into ethanol through a process that generates little pollution. Ethanol can be either blended with regular gasoline as a clean-fuel additive or used to create E85 gas for so-called flex-fueled cars. (E85 is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.)
Irvine-based BlueFire Ethanol has already received a permit to build a $30million ethanol plant near a landfill in Lancaster. Once the plant is operating next year, it will take in green municipal wastes, such as non-recyclable paper, grass clippings, wood chips, construction debris and straw, and process it into ethanol.
Arnold Klann, BlueFire’s chief executive officer, said the plant would process a batch of urban green waste into ethanol in only 18 hours. For each ton of waste that is fed into the plant, 70 gallons of ethanol are produced - at an operational cost of under $1 a gallon. The plant won’t be a strain on drought-plagued Southern California’s water resources either because it will use reclaimed water.
Read more from the Daily Breeze by clicking here.
Renewable energy reaps savings at water district
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 21, 2008 at 5:59 amFrom the O.C. Register:
For the Santa Margarita Water District, being environmentally conscious and fiscally conservative is not a bunch of hot air. Burning hot air has yielded big savings and reduced the District’s carbon footprint.
For seven years, the district has saved more than $410,000 by using a renewable energy source to power its Chiquita Water Reclamation Plant near Ortega Highway. The renewable energy source is methane gas, a greenhouse gas that is the byproduct of the water reclamation process. By utilizing the gas, the district removes it from the atmosphere and generates approximately 17 percent of the power needed to run the 29-acre facility.
Methane – also called digester gas – is burned in microturbines 24 hours a day to provide energy to the plant. This process reduces the facility’s energy consumption by approximately 10 percent each year.
Read more from the O.C. Register by clicking here.
Artificial islands, made from recycled plastic, use pollution-eating microbes to suck up toxins from lakes and oceans
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 8, 2008 at 7:44 am
From Business Green:
Floating Island International has opened a manufacturing plant in California to create floating islands that it hopes will clean up inland water and oceans.
The company uses recycled plastic to create the islands, which can be customized to different buoyancies and are designed to accumulate pollution-eating microbes. The microbes can chew through heavy metals and other toxins that accumulate in fresh water or the ocean, said owner Bruce Kania. He wants them to be used for cleaning up ‘dead zones’ where too many chemical nutrients have depleted oxygen levels in the water making it uninhabitable for wildlife. He would also like to pilot the island projects in areas such as the Canadian tar sands, where oil extraction has left so-called toxic tailings in lakes and killed wildlife.
Over time, the plastic platforms build up natural deposits on top of the biofilm left by the algae microbes, explained Kania. The deposits completely envelop the plastic and continue to grow underneath and on top of the island, he said, adding that this also helps the island to absorb carbon from the environment.
What a great use of recycled plastic! The company has already shipped 3000 units and is currently negotiating with Singapore for a 25,000 square-island. Read more from the Business Green website by clicking here. Visit the website for Floating Islands International by clicking here.
Yucaipa City Council approves $3.6 million for project to provide flood protection, recreation, and aquifer recharge
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 27, 2008 at 8:10 pmFrom the Inland Daily Bulletin:
Yucapia - The City Council approved a contract for about $3.6 million to begin building the Oak Glen Creek Basins Project - a string of three holding ponds that will catch rainwater and improve the area’s flood-drainage system.The primary purpose of the project - near Bryant Street and Oak Glen Road - is to provide flood-control protection for residents near the area. It will also add trails and rest areas for visitors.
Including design work, the cost to build the first phase of the project is estimated at $5.4 million, said Ray Casey, director of public works.
“With this project completed, the Dunlap area should be removed from the (Federal Emergency Management Agency) flood map,” he said. “But the most important thing is it will prevent the flooding in Dunlap.”
The project also provides another purpose - an eventual source of drinking water. The retention basins are designed to collect rainwater runoff in three basins. The water will leach into the ground, flow into the aquifer, and eventually be tapped as a source of drinking water by the Yucaipa Valley Water District, Casey said.
Corona-based KEC Engineering is set to begin construction in mid-April.
Read the rest of this article from the Inland Valley Bulletin by clicking here.
Water district to consider using solar power to run waste water treatment plant
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 30, 2008 at 7:03 amFrom Riverside’s Press-Enterprise:
Rancho California Water District wants to use the sun to power its wastewater-treatment plant, a move expected to save nearly $4 million over time while providing an earth-friendly means of electricity.
A committee of water district board members this morning will discuss a project adding 5,370 solar panels to run the Santa Rosa Water Reclamation Facility in Murrieta. The panels will be installed on 9 acres next to the plant, which is also undergoing an expansion.
The plant processes 2.7 million gallons of wastewater a day, enough to service 10,000 homes. It is the first solar-energy project for the Temecula-based district, which serves more than 120,000 people in Temecula, Murrieta and nearby unincorporated areas.
The cost to install the panels? Merely $225,000, says the article. What a deal! To read the rest of this article from the Press-Enterprise, click here.
Frito-Lay plans an environment-friendly potato chip
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2007 at 7:35 amFrom the International Herald-Tribune:
CASA GRANDE, Arizona: At Frito-Lay’s factory here, more than 500,000 pounds of potatoes arrive every day from New Mexico to be washed, sliced, fried, seasoned and portioned into bags of Lay’s and Ruffles chips. The process devours enormous amounts of energy, and creates vast amounts of waste water, starch and potato peelings.
But Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way this factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the environmentally benign chip.
Its goal is to take the Casa Grande plant off the power grid, or nearly so, and run it almost entirely on renewable fuels and recycled water. Net zero, as the concept is called, has the backing of the highest levels of corporate executives at PepsiCo, the parent company of Frito-Lay.
There are benefits besides the potential energy savings. Like many other large corporations, PepsiCo is striving to establish its green credentials as consumers become more focused on climate change. There are marketing opportunities, too. The company, for example, intends to advertise that its popular SunChips snacks are made using solar energy.
“We don’t know what the complete payoff for net zero is going to be,” said Indra Nooyi, chairman and chief executive of PepsiCo. “If this works even to 50 or 60 percent of its potential, that is fantastic, and it’s so much better than what we already have.”
Just how do they plan to do this?
Over the next several years, Frito-Lay plans to install high-technology filters that would recycle most of the water used to rinse and wash the about 230,000 kilograms of potatoes it receives each day, as well as the corn used to make Doritos and other snacks, and then burn the leftover sludge to create methane gas to run the plant’s boiler.
The company will also build at least 50 acres, or 20 hectares, of solar concentrators behind the plant to generate solar power. A biomass generator, which most likely will burn agricultural waste, is also planned to provide additional renewable fuel.
The retrofit of the Casa Grande factory, scheduled to be completed by 2010, would reduce electricity and water consumption by 90 percent and use of natural gas by 80 percent. Greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by 50 percent to 75 percent, the company said.
To read the rest of this article from the International Herald-Tribune, click here.
Palm Desert: trying to be green in a different way
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 27, 2007 at 11:14 pmHere’s a very interesting article from the San Jose Mercury News that discusses Palm Desert’s efforts to become ‘a model for energy use’:
In a region where temperatures can stick above 110 degrees for days on end, fights erupt in parking lots over the last shaded spot and air conditioning use is so high that summertime utility bills can soar to $2,000 a month. Faced with rising utility costs, the city has been quietly working to cut its electricity consumption and, with the blessing of state energy regulators, recently accelerated those efforts.