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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9570)	9/29/2009 10:13:35 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24213

Cara Peck: Tackling the Energy Crisis at a Grassroots Level Monday, September 28, 2009; 10:22 AM Cara Peck is a young life scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confronting the nation's energy crisis, air quality and ecological balance at the grassroots level. Peck, 28, helped shepherd an EPA pilot project in the San Francisco Bay area to convert 73,000 tons of organic food waste from restaurants into electricity per year, keeping the material out of landfills and limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The project has since been replicated in Sacramento and Santa Monica, and has drawn interest around the country. "My hope is that this concept will grow. It makes so much sense," Peck said. "In 2007, the United States generated 31 million tons of food waste that went into landfills. If that could be converted into electricity, it would power five million homes for a year." Working at an EPA site in San Francisco, Peck conferred with the state of California, cities, composters, utilities and others to get the cutting-edge recycling and renewable energy projects off the ground. She helped make the case for converting the food waste into energy, exploring the financial benefits, addressing permit issues and technological challenges, while working closely with the East Bay Municipal Utility District, a wastewater treatment facility in Oakland that implemented the project. "Cara was an extraordinary catalyst, a bridge builder, and a persuader to advance the technology for the good of the environment," said Eileen Sheehan, an EPA manager who supervised Peck for more than two years. "Cara championed the issue and engaged others. She is enthusiastic, has a great presence and is a great diplomat." Jeff Scott, an EPA regional waste management division director, said Peck latched onto the issue when no one else was focusing on it and then "took the initiative and pursued it." She helped bring along many "risk adverse" executives and "addressed a lot of concerns to move this project along," he said. "What East Bay has done is a drop in the bucket, but it can be replicated and could play a significant role on a large scale," Scott said. Taking advantage of the "green bin" recycling program in San Francisco for food waste, garbage haulers and recyclers pick up and then transport some of the available organic material to the East Bay treatment facility, where it is processed and put through a machine called an anaerobic digester. This process, which is also used to treat wastewater sludge, reduces the volume of the waste and produces a methane and carbon dioxide biogas that East Bay then converts into electricity to help run the treatment facility. At the same time, it limits the amount of waste entering landfills and reduces the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere. Many waste water treatment facilities around the country have the technology to convert food waste to energy, with large scale operations presenting the opportunity for some utilities to sell the energy back to the electrical grid. "There exists today a great disconnect between the limits of our natural environment and the way we live our daily lives, Peck said. "People now understand that a soda can or a bottle has another purpose and can be recycled, but the same message is not out there for food waste. We are creating so much waste, harming the environment and losing all that energy that might be utilized." This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Visit www.ourpublicservice.org for more about the organization's work. washingtonpost.com