Marine based energy generation

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

6 hours ago, James Regan said:

http://abal.org.br/en/sustainability/recycling/recycling-in-brazil/

Maybe our situation is because I live so close to this city, can't be said for the poorer north where they do have serious garbage heaps polluting river, point taken.

38% isn't bad. Though I wonder if they are fudging numbers like how EU/US does?

For instance EU/US can claim ~60% of current aluminum product comes from recycled.... of course percentage based by production and not total production+imports-exports.  Especially true in EU's case where nearly 100% of their production is China, Norway, Iceland. 

I honestly do not understand greenies.  They should be pushing for massive amounts of aluminum production.  Expensive to create it initially, very easy to recycle even when dirty due to low density, but recycling only requires ~5%-->10% of initial energy/cost.  Steel, etc require 50% of initial.  Maybe that is why over 75% of all aluminum ever produced by this world is still being used..... 😁

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

17 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

Pristine ditches...

I have two long ditches on my pie shaped corner lot, so It would be some advantage but would be more trouble than picking them up since we have a lot of trash bottles  and cans we buy. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

16 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Okay, let’s think this whole recycling thing through. No firm is accepting sorted, recyclable waste out of the goodness of their hearts. Like any business, they are in waste management to make money.

Nowadays, in many cities, suburbs and towns globally, it is mandated that people segregate their waste and place them in dedicated paper, plastic and glass bins. Let’s assume these bins are then placed at the curb for weekly collection.

Now, using common sense, imagine the sheer volume of recyclable waste that is collected by every city, suburb or town on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. It is an unbelievable volume of material!

Now remember, waste management companies are in it for profit, how else could they stay in business? Many are listed on various stock exchanges.

Do you honestly think that these companies could possibly recycle the enormous amount of material delivered to them? Of course not! They sort through our stuff, remove what they can recycle for profit, and guess where the rest goes? To your local landfill, incinerator or other less than green process or location.

People seem to think that once they segregate their garbage, put it into it’s respective bin, and wheel it out to the curb, that it magically disappears when the truck collects it every Tuesday morning!

If we were really serious about this issue we would demand less packaging and packaging which deteriorates in nature. That would be a realistic start. 

 

The refund is exactly that - a refund on your own money; you pay the deposit and if you trash the can you lose 10 cents every beer.

They also charge an "environmental levy" (about $0.01/can)  to pay for the cost of handling the waste and that is not refunded.

Yep, $0.11/can of beer encourages people to recycle....

 

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

39 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

The refund is exactly that - a refund on your own money; you pay the deposit and if you trash the can you lose 10 cents every beer.

They also charge an "environmental levy" (about $0.01/can)  to pay for the cost of handling the waste and that is not refunded.

Yep, $0.11/can of beer encourages people to recycle....

Nearly every state used to have this.  Made good money as a kid picking up cans/bottles.  Now a can is worth ~$0.01.  Yes, if I see a penny in the road, I pick it up, but worthy of my time to search out random pennies?  Hell no, not even for kids who have nothing but time.  😠   One mowed lawn is ~$20-->$100(only if you find a rich sucker) and requires an hour, and you get compost for your garden.... that is 2000 random "pennies" to collect in an hour....  and then you have to spend another two hours, cleaning them, hauling them and you have to give identification that the government tracks and then demands you pay income taxes on which means in effect, you have to collect 3000 "random pennies" instead of mow one single lawn one time......  Uh huh.

200 cans instead of 2000.... That is actually doable quite easily if you go to an outdoor event and stand near garbage can and clean up afterwards.  You get entertainment and you make money while cleaning a place up.  It is how event organizers got kids to work where I grew up.  Kids effectively got double wages and event staff did not have to do the dirty work.  Win-Win. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

So why aren’t they being utilized? Got to be more to it.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

1 hour ago, Enthalpic said:

The refund is exactly that - a refund on your own money; you pay the deposit and if you trash the can you lose 10 cents every beer.

They also charge an "environmental levy" (about $0.01/can)  to pay for the cost of handling the waste and that is not refunded.

Yep, $0.11/can of beer encourages people to recycle....

 

 

@Douglas Buckland has a point... It is not only about the first step of recycling... it is what happens after we have brougth the material to the recycling center... 

Personally I believe that post COVID 19 Europe (and maybe even US) - will subsidize large recycling facilities as these have 2 benefits 

1) they will provide unskilled jobs

2) they will make our societies more self-reliant

 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

On 4/5/2020 at 1:54 AM, markslawson said:

David - I was under the distinct impression that wave and tidal energy capture (is that what you meant by marine?) was the most expensive form of renewable energy, not the cheapest as you seem to be saying. That's what the levelised cost comparisons published now and then say. The generators for this form of energy require considerable capital investment. For that and other reasons it is also the least used. However, I am prepared to be corrected on this.. so where did the stuff in the original post come from? Come to think of it - what new marine system? How come its base load? I don't know of any marine system that dispatchable (what you mean by base load), not even the ones that operate by tide.. 

Mark, 

the problems as I understand it with tidal are

1) they are expensive to build, as they need to be built to take a lot of stress

2) they are expensive to install and maintain for they need to be installed in a tidal area.

# 1 will eventually get resolved. #2 is more difficult, maybe the current crisis in offshore will help, but likely not enough.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

34 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

@Douglas Buckland has a point... It is not only about the first step of recycling... it is what happens after we have brougth the material to the recycling center... 

Personally I believe that post COVID 19 Europe (and maybe even US) - will subsidize large recycling facilities as these have 2 benefits 

1) they will provide unskilled jobs

2) they will make our societies more self-reliant

 

Even if you build 100 recycling facilities, they do nothing to reduce the volume of ‘unprofitable’ waste material!

This stuff does not magically disappear into a black hole! It needs to be addressed at the consumer level.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

1 hour ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Even if you build 100 recycling facilities, they do nothing to reduce the volume of ‘unprofitable’ waste material!

This stuff does not magically disappear into a black hole! It needs to be addressed at the consumer level.

Well, to address this you have to force people to buy in bulk instead of penny packets...  Good luck on that one.  Of course those who are smart buy in bulk as it saves them bucket loads of money.... Of course generally this means that this just means a bulk of penny packets.... 😁

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

6 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Even if you build 100 recycling facilities, they do nothing to reduce the volume of ‘unprofitable’ waste material!

This stuff does not magically disappear into a black hole! It needs to be addressed at the consumer level.

I don't disagree, hence the subsidies. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

13 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Even if you build 100 recycling facilities, they do nothing to reduce the volume of ‘unprofitable’ waste material!

This stuff does not magically disappear into a black hole! It needs to be addressed at the consumer level.

Waste taxes / deposits / levys decrease consumption - less waste throughout the whole chain.

Sin tax aluminum cans, alcohol, smokes, oil...

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

18 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Well, to address this you have to force people to buy in bulk instead of penny packets...  Good luck on that one.  Of course those who are smart buy in bulk as it saves them bucket loads of money.... Of course generally this means that this just means a bulk of penny packets.... 😁

Bullshit! Take a look at just about anything that you buy, how much useless packaging material surrounds it?

This is nothing to do with buying in bulk or not, it has to do with reducing the volume of packaging waste.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

12 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Bullshit! Take a look at just about anything that you buy, how much useless packaging material surrounds it?

This is nothing to do with buying in bulk or not, it has to do with reducing the volume of packaging waste.

Sure there is tons of junk packaging around small products.  Never disagreed with you.  How on earth do you DEMAND this changes?  How could anyone POSSIBLY enforce it?

Sorry, the answer is a real recycling process, not packaging total volume. 

What is the problem with plastic recycling currently?  TOO MANY TYPES of plastics.  It is NOT a volume problem.  Greater volume actually makes life EASIER.  It is a too varied INPUT problem. 

*** Now *** if you wish to argue about the TYPE Of materials mandated when used in packaging, then and ONLY then could you address the problem.  But only in conjunction with a recycle program which can swallow ALL of the smaller types of plastics now allowed.  For instance if you mandated that ALL packaging must use all 'x' plastic and say no one can use HDPE, LDPE.... then we have a solution.

It is not a volume problem.  Sorry, just no. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

On 4/6/2020 at 7:30 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Bullshit! Take a look at just about anything that you buy, how much useless packaging material surrounds it?

This is nothing to do with buying in bulk or not, it has to do with reducing the volume of packaging waste.

Here is a nice solution.  This https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-mutant-bacterial-enzyme-can-break-down-plastic-for-sturdy-recycling-in-just-hours-2020-04-08?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo is a timely article for this discussion.  People have always been talking about better enzymes for chemical processes.... finding them on the other hand... has always been the problem.  . 

[Bob D + 562]

I'm always amazed how harmful to the environment all these green energy sources are!

There's your recycling of wind turbine blades.. 

There's your environmental wind power in action.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Bob D

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

Now that we are generating such large numbers of retired turbine blades it is becoming economic to develop recycling processes: https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2019/03/27/company-expands-wind-turbine-recycling-operation/

The same will happen for electric vehicle batteries as the market grows. All the elements such as lithium that make up a battery are not destroyed by use in the battery. They can be fully extracted, reprocessed and used in new batteries. 

Comparable number of birds die in oil pits but the number one killer of birds, by far, are cats.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

You guys are all missing the point here! If there are not enough end users of the recycled materials, and there are not, for the volume generated, what is done with the surplus recycled material?

Does it magically disappear like a unicorn fart?

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

You guys are all missing the point here! If there are not enough end users of the recycled materials, and there are not, for the volume generated, what is done with the surplus recycled material?

Does it magically disappear like a unicorn fart?

Depending on Type of plastic, recycled is 100% as good as new.  Likewise the average reason for WHY recycled plastic is not acceptable like new is due to contamination of OTHER types of plastic, conditioners, creating odd material properties. 

It all comes down to sorting, cleaning of conditioners. 

Address the sorting, cleaning, and the recycling problem(such as it exists) disappears.  Personally, I would just burn everything that does not get recycled.... all trash.