pmaier’s Recent Comments

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  Will ther be any change?

  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will make sure that EPA will be science based, adhere to the laws and will be transparent.
  All this sounds good, but if it ever will happen, EPA first has to admit that it screwed up, when it implemented the Clean Water Act (CWA), by using an essential pollution test incorrectly and consequently ignored all the pollution caused by nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste in municipal sewage and allowing open waters still to be used as giant urinals.www.petermaier.net

  If the Obama administration is going to act like the Clinton Administration, I would not hold my breath to wait for any real change in environmental policies. EPA Administrator Carol Browner in 1995 rejected a petition to include nitrogenous waste in EPA's definition of the required secondary treatment (this automatically would have corrected this essential test) in the CWA, but in stead used her administration's and the Justice Department's legal powers to defend her rejection of the petition in federal court. EPA's basic argument (during the oral arguments) was that Congress solely intended to `treat' organic matter in sewage and that organic matter solely consists out of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. When molecules also have nitrogen atoms (like Protein, DNA, urea, just to name a few) they are not organic and therefore are not required to be treated under the CWA. Two of the three judges agreed with the EPA, while the dissenting judge stated that EPA never even had implemented the CWA. As the local media was not interested, EPA and Justice Lawyers got away solely with a feeling of guilt.
  Statements by politicians sadly do not mean anything, as long as the media is not holding them accountable.

  If fish only could talk!

  On Senate confirms Jackson as EPA chief posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 2 Responses

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  No eggs, but a steep cliff.

  What is happing with global climate change is not a question of scrambling or unscrambling an egg, but more like a situation when you are in the wilderness and walk into a direction to a point where you can see that, if you continue in that direction, you will come to the edge of very deep cliff. The question is do you continue to walk in that direction (only if you like to look at a world you can not reach from there) or do you change directions?

  Making fire undoubtedly was a major reason we as humans are still here, but since we now are burning up all organic matter sequestered over millions of years, shouldn't we change directions and find other ways to satisfy our need for energy and isn't it time we start using all our knowledge we as humans have acquired over all these years?

  Some may say that there is no such solution, but why is it that we refuse to look at how nature of millions of years has flourished, by autotrophic life creating organic matter, by using photosynthesis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, while heterotrophic life takes this organic matter to release the energy it needs and return the oxygen and hydrogen back to water.

  So why nature already has a hydrogen based energy cycle, why can we imitate nature by using our knowledge?  Some will claim that it will take too much energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, as electricity is required. The energy provided by the sun through photosynthesis is already plenty for all autotrophic life on this planet to flourish, but as long as we can not replicate photosynthesize yet on large scale, there are much more ways we can use the huge exchange of energy between the sun and the earth, that are not explored, mainly because we are still acting like the cavemen who found out how to make fire.

  When looking for alternative energy, we should adhere to two criteria:
  1.    It should not have a major impact on our biosphere.
  2.    The source should be stored, so it is only used when we need it.

  If we apply these criteria to what is presently going on, hardly any will meet them and do not represent any major change in direction we are going, although some can be easily adjusted.

  May be we have not reached to point that we all can not see the cliff yet? Or may be the lame who is leading the blind is not seeing the cliff yet or does not want the blind to see it?

  If fish only could talk!

  On Thinking beyond technology to mitigate climate change posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses

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  Response 3

  There are many sources of energy you can use to generate electricity for the electrolysis, which should be done at the same location.
  Geothermal, tidal, wind, sun you name it, all now not economical feasible because the transmission of electricity from such remote location will get lost by the time it reaches a location where it can be used.

  The generated compressed hydrogen can be transported to the nearest point of a gas pipeline, from where it is delivered to the users.

  Although there are already sources available, you will see other systems develop, for example using the temperature differences in oceans or lakes or ground and possible even biological system, as the present energy in biological cells comes from splitting hydrocarbons (glucose) and the electron carrying hydrogen now is neutralized by oxygen and also forms water.

  Who knows somebody may come up with a process to capture the electron carrying hydrogen, before they are neutralized by oxygen.

  Will this ever happen? Not likely as it, like the industrialization process will cause unemployment and you can already see how the coal industries and agriculture are pushing their solutions and are using their influence in Washington to get to the taxpayers wallets.

  Again, we should eliminate the use of air for combustion to generate energy. Imagine what will happen if you would do away with the power companies that now sell electricity?
  On Agriculture interests push ambitious renewable-energy goal posted 3 years, 7 months ago 10 Responses

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  Response 2.

  Google hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen combustion engines and you will find that hydrogen in cells produce electricity and that hydrogen also can be used directly in combustion engines.
  You would be surprised how far this technology has been developed. Electrolysis of water creating hydrogen and oxygen has been known for a long time.
  On Agriculture interests push ambitious renewable-energy goal posted 3 years, 7 months ago 10 Responses

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  reponse

  1.    Tertiary treatment.
  One of the problems in this field of engineering is that expressions are used without a clear definition. Primary treatment is probably the clearest, since it means primary clarification. Secondary treatment, required by Congress to initiate the Clean Water Act is by some called biological treatment and by other, as by EPA, 85% treatment.
  The test EPA used to set its standards was incorrect used and as consequence only measured 40% of the pollution causing oxygen demand.  Sewage treatment was first applied in the 19th century and intended to control odor problems. Only later in the fifties and sixties were regulations enforced, while there actually was very little science behind sewage treatment. Regulations in the seventies used an essential pollution test incorrectly and as consequence ignored not only part of the pollution caused by fecal waste, but also all the pollution caused by nitrogenous waste (urine and protein), hence the fact that rivers still are used as giant urinals.

  Tertiary treatment mostly refers to removal of phosphorus, although some may also include de-nitrification, but then what type of treatment is called nitrification?

  There were much more problems with this incorrect use of the test and although EPA officially acknowledged the problems in 1984, in stead of correcting the test procedure, it allowed an alternative test, which solely measure part of the fecal waste. By administrative rule, EPA not only lowered the goals of the CWA from elimination of all pollution to a measly 35% treatment, but also still did not correct all the problems in the field that still assume that sewage has the same composition as was measured back in 1920, when the specific test was developed.

  It is quite possible that many sewage treatment plants are designed to treat the wrong waste, simple because the raw sewage is not correctly tested. This is also the reason why nobody wants to perform the correct testing, as this may very well show up.

  EPA claims that nitrogenous waste (urine and protein) is not organic and therefore Congress never intended it to be treated. But since bacteria will use ammonia (urine hydrolyses into ammonia) as an energy source and thereby uses oxygen, this is an equal source of oxygen demanding pollution as fecal waste, while it in all its forms also is a nutrient for aquatic plant growth (algae).

  Yes you can design a treatment process that contains bacteria for both carbonaceous food and nitrogenous food (called nitrification) and you can create conditions to force bacteria to use the oxygen in the nitrates to oxidize carbonaceous food (called denitrification), but that is only possible if you also maintain the nitrification process, which is not required.

  The Clean Water Act represents the second largest federally funded public works program and it simply failed because of lack of understanding and a faulty applied pollution test.  Sadly biological treatment processes were already available in the forties which maintained all the processes earlier mentioned at half the cost what communities now have to pay for an odor control facility.

  2.    Hydrogen.

  The highest priority for any energy solution should be NO air combustion as this causes CO2 and more important Nitrous oxides, both causing global warming while the second one causes nutrient enrichment, among others Green rain (rain with fertilizer).
  Global warming is important, but nutrient enrichment of our biosphere is equally detrimental.  We also should look at the usage of oxygen. Even a small car will use as much as 2000 people. One third of the oxygen is presently generated in the oceans by phytoplankton and two third on land by vegetation. Loosing the rain forest will eventually also impacts the production of oxygen and since hydrogen is generated by splitting water, you also will generate oxygen.  This knife cuts on both sides.

  In addition, electricity is very convenient, but also very wasteful, as only part of the electricity generated will be used and the rest results in heat lost in the atmosphere. The company has to deliver electricity for peak demand, which only occurs during a few hours of the day, so most of the electricity generated will be lost in heat.
  How much? Who knows, only the power company can tell you, but they probably won't.

  All and all if you priorities all alternatives, the clear winner is hydrogen, as it is storable (in tanks) and thus can be used in engines to energize cars and other transportation. All by converting hydrogen with oxygen into water. Some will say that energy is required to split the hydrogen from the oxygen in water and that is of course true, BUT now you can use any alternative energy sources (like for example tidal energy) to generate the electricity to split the hydrogen and then transport the hydrogen to the users. N Most tidal locations are so remote from populated areas that by the time the electricity generated arrives at location where it is used, the electricity is gone due to resistance (heating).
  If hydrogen becomes the source of energy you will also see the development of using temperature difference to generate energy, like now done in Iceland using geothermal energy.

  May be our grand children will live in communities, whereby the only utilities they will have will be water & sewage and a hydrogen gas supply line. They will have their own hydrogen cells to generate their own electricity, while hydrogen is also used for heating and cooling.  Cars will run on hydrogen and stations will provide the high pressured hydrogen required to get any distance on a tank load.  We probably can simply use our present natural gas lines and replace the natural gas with hydrogen. Year ago, when natural gas was proposed to replace gasoline in cars, objections were raised that you would be driving around with a bomb in your trunk.  This problem clearly has been resolved and we now have large city busses driving on natural gas.

  There certainly will be problems, but the largest problem will be a political problem as many with a self interest in some form of alternative energy will lobby Congress for funding and use their influence to criticize any real solution.  We clearly are already witnessing this now and as a result are losing important time.
  If you like to contact me personally my email address is pmaier@erda.net.

  You mentioned that we have used biofuel for ages, and we still our bodies still do, but they use a very ingenious form of energy production, but still using oxygen. The process is called biochemical oxidation, similar as how bacteria generate energy and in the process break down organic matter, what we call sewage treatment.On Agriculture interests push ambitious renewable-energy goal posted 3 years, 7 months ago 10 Responses