Valcent Products will build a super efficient 6,000 square-foot greenhouse in downtown Vancouver.

Valcent has revolutionized vertical farming with their hydroponic VertiCrop growing system. VertiCrop is a series of four-meter-high stacks of growing trays assembled on motorized conveyors. The conveyors move the plants through commercial greenhouses for maximum sun exposure.

The system also makes it easy to harvest. Like other hydroponic systems, VertiCrop is incredibly efficient, providing up to 20 times the yield of field agriculture and using less than a tenth of the water.

The upcoming Vancouver greenhouse will produce hydroponically the equivalent of about 16 acres of California field agriculture and can grow up to 20 different varieties of lettuces. Construction is planned to launch in January 2012 with the first crop harvest projected for April 2012.

Vancouver is striving to become the greenest city in the world by 2020. Utilizing an underused space in the city and growing food locally are important steps to creating a more sustainable city. A bicycle-based food delivery company is being discussed as a market option for the upcoming greenhouse product.

Article by Karen MacKay, appearing courtesy Crisp Green.

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Just when you thought the future was in carbon capture and sequestration (and that’s true), comes more information from the “new EPA” under Administrator Lisa Jackson and President Barack Obama.

The agency, which has already begun the process of regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, is now going after runoff.

It seems the same scrubber technology that’s helping clean up power plant emissions creates toxic residue that’s stored in ponds or flushed to waterways. The target of concern is selenium, which can accumulate in fish tissue like mercury.

Sampling done so far has found selenium levels that meet state discharge criteria, but far exceed federal critieria for selenium levels in freshwater. Elevated levels of selenium can damage fish, along with people who gulp them up, The Washington Post reports.

A public comment period on new criteria for selenium in runoff is expected before the end of the year.

If you haven’t noticed by now, here comes another Clean Tech opportunity. Perhaps the same companies that have developed this technology can develop ways to safely handle the coal ash or sludge left behind. The current system of selenium handling seems to be inadequate, according to the Environmental Integrity Project.

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Is the world warming, cooling or does it matter? Most of us will say it matters, a lot, at least in public anyway. And especially if you are hoping to pay rent or retire one day with a career based around the belief that Amsterdam, New York and Dubai will no longer exist unless we cut greenhouse gases and stop the icecaps from melting. But what has happened now that the earth cooled over the past year? Not to mention former NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson’s claim last year that now that she is “no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding” that she can publicly say that she “remains skeptical.” Recently the name was changed from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ – what is really going on? Or does it matter?

This blog, by the way, is not about proving or disproving global warming, global cooling, or that the earth’s warming and cooling cycles over the past 6 ice ages really were the fault of mankind. This is about the fact that it does not matter what is happening with temperatures but that reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and energy use and creating renewable energy makes complete sense even without climate change political debates.

Republican, democrat, socialist or communist, the following 3 ideas for cutting greenhouse gases without relevance to climate change are hard to argue, but if you can I welcome you to comment below:

1. Releasing black substances that cause cancer into the air in which we breath is not healthy. As if it weren’t obvious enough, the EPA finds greenhouse gases pose a danger to health. That’s for any skeptics out there that think that ‘the solution to pollution is dilution’ and that puffing on a tailpipe is good for your skin. No reference to climate change here.
2. It costs money to put these black cancerous gases into the atmosphere. It is our extreme use of carbon based fuels, oil and coal, for transportation and electricity that our money is going to instead of being used for health care, education, infrastructure and your dividend payout. Who can argue that energy efficient policy and using energy efficient products, therefore, reduces the amount of these black gases that enter the atmosphere while basically paying you to do it. More legitimate reasons with no reference to climate change.
3. Politically and financially we cannot afford to continue to use finite sources of fossil based fuels, that create greenhouse gases, to power our lives. Some believe it is the left’s fear factors that say the earth is running out of oil to push their agenda. Even if true, definitely not the whole picture by any means. Briefly, China and India’s population and need for energy is skyrocketing while oil discovery is steadily declining (left). Therefore the most simple supply/demand curve from your first economics class will explain what that means for our future cost of energy. Renewable energy that does not create pollution nor depend on other nation’s economies and that does not put gases into the air solves more than one problem without the mention of climate change.

Simple enough? So depending on your argument there is a way to curb climate change for some, put money in the pockets of others and finally if neither of those are your flavor, how about not breathing poisonous gases? By using common sense and not trying to pinpoint who is right and wrong, we can appease the masses in one way or another by decreasing energy use and turning to renewable sources of energy. If you are able to think of it, what is a way to argue climate change that does not touch on the topics of health, immediate financial benefits or protecting us from the future cost of energy?

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Courtesy U. of Minnesota

Exit up ahead: A University of Minnesota study has concluded that corn-based ethanol is no better than gasoline.

The Star Tribune says ethanol may even be a bigger polluter, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and particulate matter. Cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass and other plant materials is far better for human health, the scientists say.

But the Renewable Fuels Association claims the study is flawed. Among other things, it assumes that grassland will be taken out of the federal Conservation Reserve Program to make more corn-based ethanol. The RFA says most of the increase in corn production in the U.S. has been through higher yields rather than conversion, and there’s no peer-reviewed evidence for the study’s methods. (see the pdf).

Who to believe? The study has been peer-reviewed and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here’s the full text (also in pdf).

The scientists note that “Our results show that the proposed methods of producing cellulosic ethanol we consider have lower (greenhouse gas) emissions than corn ethanol or gasoline, consistent with published findings.”

As noted by Autobloggreen, “The study calculated the total environmental and health costs of making each type of fuel. A gallon of gasoline was about 71 cents, compared with between 72 cents and $1.45 for corn-based ethanol and 19 to 32 cents for cellulosic ethanol, depending, of course, on the technology and type of plants used.”

The RFA is the major lobbying group for the ethanol industry, now dominated by corn, and its members include Archer Daniels Midland. Deere & Company, DuPont and Monsanto.

The study can take nothing away from corn ethanol. The alternative fuel has had a positive impact on the U.S., proving that foreign oil isn’t the only way to power our world.

But the findings suggest once again that the road to energy independence runs to the highway of cellulosic ethanol and other next-generation biofuels.

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