Costing a Green Future

The Vermillion 380 offshore platform, owned by Mariner Energy, has exploded. This disaster is occurring while there is still oil throughout the Gulf of Mexico because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Vermillion 380 platform gets its name from Vermillion Bay, Louisiana which is north of the platform. Although this platform was about 90 miles south of the Louisiana shore, it was in shallow water, so the special hazards and difficulties of working a mile underwater to stop the Deepwater Horizon are not present.

Louisiana officials have responded quickly to this disaster. The Vermilion platform caught on fire on the morning of September 2. Governor Bobby Jindal consulted Coast Guard professionals, as well as other state and federal experts, and held a press conference a few hours later. According to the Louisiana Emergency Website, all 13 of the platform workers were successfully rescued by the Coast Guard. Mariner claims that this platform produced up to 1,800 barrels of oil a day, which is much less than what the Deepwater Horizon could produce.

There have been previous safety accidents related to Vermillion platforms. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, a helicopter which was flying from the Vermillion 408 platform to the Vermillion 369 platform never made it to the second platform. The Coast Guard did not find the missing helicopter or the helicopter pilot, so Coast Guard officials believe that this was a fatal accident.

The federal government does provide grants to assist residents who are affected by disasters in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the United States Department of Commerce, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke provided a grant of $30.7 million dollars to the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration. This grant will allow the agency to rebuild a barrier headland. Although the source talks about this grant with respect to the BP disaster, the actual project this money will fund seems like it will be a lot more useful for protecting Gulf residents from hurricanes, such as Hurricane Katrina.

The Department of the Interior is now working with scientists at government laboratories, as well as universities and companies, to create a scenario modeling tool to make spill recovery efforts more effective. According to the Department of the Interior, the project will model the long term effects of the Deepwater Horizon on the Gulf of Mexico, such as the loss of fishing and shrimping jobs, the loss in tourism and related restaurant and hotel sales declines, and the cost of health care for residents who have physically suffered due to the oil and the toxic dispersants used to clean up spills.

Businesses that produce less carbon emissions than their competitors can use this as a branding advantage. Low carbon restaurants provide food without burning as much fuel to bring it to the table. One of the easiest ways to reduce carbon emissions is to serve vegetarian and vegan food since meat production produces a lot of carbon emissions.

Universities can provide low carbon food in their dining halls. The University of Redlands offered low carbon foods to students at the school. Local foods, such as orange juice produced near Redlands, are a prominent feature. Transportation is a large source of carbon emissions. This event did include some meat dishes, so diners were served tilapia and turkey as an alternative to beef and chicken.

Bon Appetit, which provides the University of Redlands with food as well as many other schools, plans to reduce its carbon footprint. Low carbon meals are also available at the Grove City College, in Pennsylvania. Seafood and pork dishes are available here, as well as vegetarian and vegan options.

Some low carbon restaurants have additional environmental certifications. Founding Farmers has achieved LEED Gold Certification. LEED certifications are available to businesses at various levels such as gold and silver, depending on how much energy the business conserves. The restaurant uses other energy saving techniques, such as recyclable menus printed with soy ink and tables and chairs made from reclaimed wood.

Restaurant utensils can also be selected to conserve carbon. The dining hall at the University of New Hampshire offers compostable cups, forks, and knives, as well as takeout containers. This school also provides reusable cups to its students, as well as offering a discount if the students use the reusable cups to get drinks at the dining hall.

Federal funding is available for climate change research and education projects. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides monetary contribution to states as well as to cities, counties, and other local programs. The goal of ARRA is to support existing initiatives, so many of these projects form partnerships, with more funding provided by existing donor companies and local taxpayers.

The City of Minneapolis has an annual program which awards climate change grants, which was founded in 2007. The Minneapolis program is open to all types of applicants, from individuals to universities and corporations, and the 2010 program awards up to $10,000 per winner. One unique requirement for this grant is that the applicant should help people register for the Minnesota Energy Challenge.

The California Energy Commission awards climate change grants as part of its PIER program. PIER, or Public Interest Energy Research, supports both efficiency in energy use and projects which produce additional clean energy. PIER grants are large, as the California Energy Commission may provide up to $1 million in funding, and the project may also receive additional federal support.

The Department of Agriculture also awards climate change grants. These are some of the largest climate change grants available anywhere, as the USDA can award up to $25 million for a single project. This is even larger than the Department of Energy grants which average around $5 million. The Department of Agriculture is looking for methods which reduce the amounts of energy, water, and nitrogen based fertilizer that farmers require. These grants are also available to anyone, including individuals, and the Department of Agriculture will award smaller grants for projects with less requirements.

California also has a program available that supports small individual projects. The California Energy Commission created the Energy Innovations Small Grant Program, which provides as much as $95,000 for hardware demonstrations and up to $50,000 for projects which model climate change. This program allows small businesses to apply. These projects cover the same topics as the PIER request for proposals, just on a smaller scale.

Vermont also awards climate change grants. According to the Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, 17 projects throughout Vermont received $188,000 in total funding in 2009. Projects included replacing inefficient boilers at schoolhouses, adding efficient insulation to buildings, and replacing inefficient light bulbs such as incandescent bulbs. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources lists the grant conditions, which focus on small scale efficiency and conservation improvements that can easily be implemented in several Vermont communities.

The Tropical Forest Conservation Act is an incentive program that provides less developed countries with debt relief when they protect their forests. According to USAID, this act includes funding from both the United States federal government and private organizations. The Tropical Forest Conservation Act funds protect forests throughout all regions of the world, including Bangladesh, Belize, Jamaica, and Botswana, as well as others.

The Tropical Forest Conservation Act was originally authorized by President Bush in 2001. President Obama has continued funding this program and more nations and sources of funding are added periodically. The University of California, Santa Barbara reports that the debt structure of this program provides several beneficial effects. The program includes terms which allow a debtor to convert loans due in a foreign currency into loans due in its own currency. A debtor pays loans to a Tropical Forest Fund in its own country rather than a bank in another nation which loaned it the money. Additional leverage may be available, since in some cases the US government can purchase a developing country’s bonds for below their face value because foreign bond purchasers previously didn’t expect the developing country to be able to pay off its debt.

Conservation funds available through this program are still much lower than the amount of money necessary to completely protect the world’s tropical forests. The United States has spent $83 million since this program started, according to USAID, and Harvard claims that it will cost $15 to $30 billion a year to defend the tropical forests. A method of continual payment provides a stream of income greater than the income provided by cutting down the forest and setting up farms or industrial sites.

The United Nations has established a program called REDD which assigns a value to protecting these forests. This program is a carbon offset market. Private investors can purchase carbon credits, and sell them to other nations or industries at higher prices if the carbon offset laws become stronger in the future. The money gained from purchasing carbon credits goes to the nation where the tropical forests are located. Harvard claims that this has already provided an incentive for organizations such as banks and multinational corporations to stop development of several tropical forests, because of potential gains in a future carbon credit market.

REDD provides a method for the United States government to find private investors to finance the Tropical Forest Conservation Act. Most of the current partners who are helping the federal government pay for tropical forest protection are nonprofits. The United Nations reports that European countries, including Spain, Norway, and Denmark, are funding tropical forest protection. Norway provided $52 million in funding for 2009 to support the UN’s REDD program. This is still a long way from the $30 billion a year that Harvard claims is necessary to protect the rainforest.

Norway’s oil company, Statoil, is drilling wells in the far north, in the Barents Sea. This offshore drilling project includes many safeguards because of Norway’s relatively strong environmental regulations. According to the University of Alaska, some of the features of this project include reinjecting carbon dioxide into the field, as well as drill cuttings. The Norwegian government does not allow any discharges during normal drilling conditions, whether the discharge is mud, oil, or water.

One interesting feature of the Snohvit, or Snow White, drilling operation is that the drilling equipment is located on the floor of the sea, and engineers on the coast operate the facility remotely. This underwater rig is 89 miles offshore, so it sets a record for operating a drill at a distance. This seems like a very long distance for remotely controlling a complicated system such as a drill. In addition, the natural gas pipeline must also be at least 89 miles long to transport the liquid natural gas to the shore facility. According to Statoil, the shore facility is located in Melkoya in the Hammerfest region.

Snohvit is also located farther north than any other oil field in the world. According to Statoil, the ocean this far north in Alaska is frozen solid, although warmer currents prevent this part of the Barents Sea from freezing. Using an underwater rig is necessary here because of the icy winter storms which would damage a rig above the waves. Underwater temperatures are much warmer than temperatures at the surface of the ocean. The freezing temperatures require additional precautions, such as using electrical heating and antifreeze to keep the pipeline free of ice. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim plans to improve control room technology so that equipment in future oil fields can also be controlled from a long distance.

Pipelines only bring the oil from Snohvit to the shore. The main facility converts this natural gas into liquid natural gas so tankers can deliver it across the ocean to other ports. According to Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, the Snohvit rigs collect gas as well as liquid petroleum compounds, producing a multiphase flow which is complicated to transport to the facility on the shore.

This project is also designed to reduce the use of toxic chemicals. According to Alaska University, the Snohvit operation replaces chemical or petroleum based muds with water based muds. Dope was not used to coat the pipes and casings, so this product which contains petroleum as well as metal particles will not leak into the sea. The decision not to use dope is another unique feature of this project. E and P Magazine reports that the oil company ConocoPhillips is also working on dope free projects in the North Sea, which reduce waste disposal costs and involve less risk to oil rig workers along with their environmental benefits.

A cork, made from a piece of cork oak, traditionally seals wine bottles. Some winemakers are using plastic bottle stoppers or metal caps. There is a tradeoff here. Cork can grow mold and it can be difficult for some people to open the corked bottle, although this is part of the ritual of enjoying wine. A plastic stopper doesn’t have mold problems and petroleum based plastics are cheap, for now, so some winemakers use these as an alternative. A new campaign, reported by Triple Pundit, has started at 100 Percent Cork to convince winemakers to continue corking wine bottles with real cork.

Cork has many environmental advantages. Cork trees, which are a type of oak, produce shade and oxygen while removing carbon dioxide from the air. According to 100 Percent Cork, it is not necessary to chop down a cork tree to produce corks for wine bottles, the cork only uses part of the bark. The cork trees have a long lifespan, several hundred years, even when winemakers harvest their bark. It is also possible to grow the cork trees organically. Organic wines are popular so it would be nice to know that the stopper for the wine bottle is an organic product as well. Cork farmers are also backing this campaign, since they lose their jobs if winemakers switch to plastic. Many of the cork farmers live in Portugal which has been hit very hard by financial turmoil.

One of the Big 4 accounting firms, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, performed a study comparing natural cork to plastic and metal stoppers. Natural cork produces much less carbon emissions by far, with plastics producing 10 times as many emissions and metal producing as much as 24 times greater emissions. This is a complete lifestyle study so it also includes mining expenses, plastic manufacturing, and disposal costs.

Cork also receives some unfair blame for causing wine taint. Researchers at Virginia Tech have found an alternate explanation for the cause of the taint. The chemical tribromophenol, often found in wood cleaners, is used in many wineries since it prevents fires as well as kills fungi. Tribromophenol has similar chemistry to trichloroanisole, which does cause cork related taint problems in wine. Both of these compounds are halogenated benzene rings, so telling them apart without performing chemical tests may be difficult.

Protecting the cork industry helps protect wildlife habitat in Portugal and Spain. According to the Smithsonian Zoogoer, cork trees grow in a region known as the dehesa, where many animals live in a grassland which is the home of many oaks. If winemakers switch to using plastic or metal stoppers, cork farmers will not earn any money and may have to sell the dehesa land to developers. The Smithsonian states that half of the world’s cork is grown in the dehesa in Portugal, and another quarter is grown in the Spanish dehesa.

Sugar cane is well known for its use to create ethanol. Sugar cane is an alternative to corn when creating ethanol to use in a gasoline blend, and Brazil produces a lot of sugar cane for fuel purposes. Researchers are working on methods of creating plastics out of corn since corn is a renewable research. Now, Green Biz reports that Procter and Gamble are offering shampoo, conditioner, and makeup products with sugar cane packaging.

Plastic forks and knives are commonly made using petroleum. Sugar cane plastic can now be found in these disposable items as well. Unlike the plastic forks and knives commonly found at the store, these sugar cane plastic items are biodegradable and may be composted. World Centric offers a Bagasse line of sugar cane tableware. World Centric also mentions that the sugar cane fiber which is used to produce these plastic items was previously incinerated, releasing additional carbon, ash, and other materials into the air.

Takeout containers are commonly made from wax paper, styrofoam, or plastics which do not degrade and cannot be composted. The Portland Tribune reports that StalkMarket now produces takeout containers which are made from sugar cane plastic. In addition, the company can also make coffee cups, lids for containers, and plastic forks and knives as well. This article claims that the sugar cane products must be taken to a commercial composting center, not a home composting center, which isn’t mentioned in the World Centric article. Companies which produce sugar cane tableware may be using manufacturing techniques which are different enough to affect how the products can be recycled.

Proctor and Gamble partnered with the large chemical manufacturer Braskem to produce the new packaging materials. Braskem specializes in thermoplastic products and has created a major initiative to produce polyethylene from renewable sources on a large scale. Green Biz does say that recycling programs may accept these packages, since many communities accept polyethylene products in their recycling programs and Proctor and Gamble plans to label the products accordingly. It may be easier for Braskem to process these items into an easily recyclable form, since it is a much larger company than competitors such as StalkMarket and also has the assistance of Proctor and Gamble’s chemists.

In the world of the Mario Brothers, Toad lived in a giant mushroom. A mushroom was an unusual place to live once, but mushrooms now have a role in green building design. Houses often include insulators, and styrofoam is a well known insulation material. A new green building material made from mushroom roots uses much less energy than styrofoam or other insulators.

Reuters UK reports that building insulation from a mushroom based material requires less than 2.5 percent of the energy used in styrofoam manufacture. The process uses several plant oils, so it does not require the disposal of toxic waste, unlike other building materials. The company which manufactures this insulation is Ecovative Design.

Greensulate is Ecovative’s green building material. The insulation consists of several other plant waste products such as seed hulls. The filamentous roots of the mushrooms bind these other seed hulls together to create a solid but porous material. Heating the mushroom roots stops further growth and binds the other plant materials together, so this process also doesn’t require any glue. Glue is a major concern in green building design, since many glues release volatile organic compounds which are toxic.

The Greensulate insulation is also fire resistant. The Cornell Mushroom Blog explains how the material becomes fire resistant, since dried mushrooms normally will burn. Rice husks, buckweed hulls, and cottonseed hulls contain lots of silica. The mushroom roots apparently grow by consuming the organic material in these husks, leaving behind the silica. The finished Greensulate also absorbs less water than other building materials.

Greensulate has additional advantages, according to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. This mushroom based material requires much less investment than building a factory which can produce styrofoam or other insulators, so it has a cost advantage. Carbon dioxide emissions are not a concern when creating this green building insulation. Mushrooms grow almost anywhere, although the Cornell blog does mention that Ecovative Design uses a specific fungus because of its structural characteristics, such as strength.

After the spill in the Gulf, British Petroleum used Corexit to disperse the oil in the ocean. Corexit is harmful to sea life, so many people protest the use of this compound. BP claims that Corexit is the safest dispersant it can use. So I decided to see if I could find any alternatives to Corexit. There are safer dispersants available, but they do not have EPA approval, although they have approval in Europe.

The IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute provides a list of 25 chemical dispersants which various countries authorize for use cleaning up oil spills. The two dispersants which have seen widespread use in the Gulf of Mexico, Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527, receive approval in several countries, while other dispersants have less widespread authorization. Two other versions of Corexit, Corexit 9550 and Corexit CRX-8, are only approved for use in Canada as of 2001.

Dispersants do vary in toxicity. A list compiled by Cornell University includes a study which compares the toxic effects of several dispersants on corals. The study concludes that Slickgone, which is approved for use in Norway and Great Britain, has the least effect on coral. In ascending toxicity, the other dispersants in the study are Petrotech, Inipol and Bioreico, Emulgel, and Dispolene. Inipol and Dispolene are approved for use in several counries according to the IVL, and the other dispersants are not mentioned on the list.

A visit to Dasic shows that the company is aware of problems with dispersant toxicity and has designed its dispersants to address these issues. Of the two Dasic Slickgones on the IVL list, Dasic claims it did not maintain approval in Britain for Slickgone LTSW, and still has British approval for Slickgone NS. Dasic mentions that it also makes Slickgone EW, a newer product version. Of note, there is also a freshwater version of Dasic Slickgone, which is important in case the oil spreads up the Missisippi. Dasic mentions that freshwater dispersants are less commonly available. According to the Bonn Agreement, Belgium also uses Slickgone NS.

BP does have stocks of Slickgone. According to the Epoch Times, BP has ordered 150 metric tons of Dasic Slickgone, and claims that it hasn’t been delivered yet because it doesn’t have EPA approval. The IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute list does not show that Dasic Slickgone is approved for use in either the USA or Canada. EPA approved dispersants appear on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule, along with surface washing agents and bioremediation agents which the EPA has approved. The Epoch Times article also mentions that Norway does not allow the use of Corexit 9500 in the North Sea because it is considered to be too toxic.

Many skateboards are made from plastic, which is made from petroleum, which is not a renewable resource. There are alternatives made of wood, and I did have a wood longboard at one point. To be truly sustainable, the wood used in the skateboard must be harvested in a sustainable manner. Bamboo grows everywhere and is not endangered, so it is a good choice to purchase a bamboo skateboard.

One of the major manufacturers of sustainable skateboards is Comet Skateboards. Since environmentalism is part of this firm’s brand, they use additional techniques to ensure that their boards do not harm the earth. Comet is a B Corporation. The main types of corporations are C corporations and S corporations. Most well known corporations are C corporations as they have more flexibility when offering shares to the public, although an S corporation has some tax advantages. A B corporation is not a government regulatory classification, so B corporations also register as a C or an S corporation. B corporations are corporations who have made a decision to gain an additional environmental certification.

Another company which produces sustainable skateboards is Super Green. This manufacturer has two main claims. Its boards are made from bamboo, so there are no issues with using rare hardwoods in the rainforest which can’t be farmed. Super Green also produces its skateboards with a special glue. According to the company, it uses a low VOC epoxy. Many wood products, including products made from sawdust, use glues which emit large amounts of volatile organic compounds. Adhesives containing formaldehyde and other substances can produce toxic gases. Super Green mentions that it intends to use soy binders in the future. Soy based glues are a great alternative to many current adhesives.

Many skateboard manufacturers also produce lines of clothing. When a company claims that its boards are environmentally friendly, it is consistent to make sure that the shirts and pants the company sells also include environmental design principles. The Arbor Collective is one company which produces a clothing line. The firm originally produced bamboo skateboards. Now it also produces clothing and fabric made from bamboo. Arbor Collective also mentions that bamboo resists fungi and mold, which is a useful attribute for both skateboards and skater clothing.