I do not remember why I wrote this piece but I believe it was most likely in response to an essay request put out by the economist. Typically, I wrote and forgot about it for almost three years. Cleaning my hard disk recently I stumbled across it. I'd like to share it with you. I have only edited it to replace my real name with 'Didiscottie
MAKING WASTE WORK!!
A thing or substance may be described as waste if it is no longer serving a purpose, or is being treated or considered to be valueless, or if it may be expended without useful effect.
Indeed the very act of failing to use an object or substance confers on it the status of waste. Waste therefore, is not an intrinsic characteristic of a thing, substance or activity, but a perception. For instance cow dung gathered preciously and used as fuel, (when mixed with straw) or manure by rural dwellers is repulsive to all others.
In the physical world, it remains to be seen if anything may categorically be described as waste. Nature abhors waste. This is borne out by physical laws, discovered lately by Homo sapiens, and encapsulated as the laws of conservation of energy, of matter, of momentum. These state that - matter/energy/momentum can neither be created nor lost.
Nature always finds a way. So should we. Nature calls nothing waste. We should not either.
Ancient processes such as the great physical and biological cycles known as the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and water cycles respectively show natures preference in the re-use of end products. These natural processes – honed over hundreds of millions of years cannot be said to be fads. Waste works over and over again. And if it works, it cannot be waste. We need at this point to redefine waste.
Nature clearly shows that waste on a cosmic time frame does not exist – rather like muoniums (and other short lived but exotically named atomic particles); it is an intermediate phase of existence. More correctly, we may refer to such objects or substances (now referred to as waste), asunused end products.
What then is the concerns (if you will) of the environmentalists and greens considering that nature has shown a great and unstoppable capacity to refine and re-use sundry end products.
Has nature failed? Yes and No.
Yes - in the sense that mans destructiveness was not fully anticipated by nature. Destructiveness is a harsh and uncompromising word but best describes man’s present unnaturalness, or his quest to attain, maintain and even expand the boundaries of this unnaturalness. A quest, which has given rise to prodigious amount of unused end products and by products – far beyond natures ability to cope as it, always had. Quite literally, we are with billions of tons of feckless waste straining her very bowels.
In some cases - as in the burning of fossil fuels, the end products arise as a result of incomplete burning. This itself rather than the mere act of burning appears to be account for a large proportion of the problem.
In others as in radio active or highly toxic industrial wastes, it boggles the mind on how or why certain materials are ever considered as suitable raw materials for any industrial process given that they are eminently unusable except through arcane refinement processes as logical as the alchemists dream. Mankind has thus set the agenda without regard to his environment and it is doubtful if the products of all such industrial processes rank higher than 'nice-to-have' items on the scale of opportunity costs.
Let us consider the burning of coal:
“… During the incomplete burning or conversion of coal, many compounds are produced,
Some of which are carcinogenic. The burning of coal also produces sulphur and nitrogen oxides that react with atmospheric moisture to produce sulphuric and nitric acids--so-called acid rain. In addition, it produces particulate matter (fly ash) that can be transported by winds for many hundreds of kilometres and solids (bottom ash and slag) that must be disposed of. Trace elements originally present in the coal may escape as volatiles (e.g., chlorine and mercury) or be concentrated in the ash (e.g., arsenic and barium)
Or look at man's intrusion into the nitrogen cycle (emphasis & paragraphing mine):
In natural systems, nitrogen lost by denitrification, leaching, erosion, and similar processes is replaced by fixation and other nitrogen sources. Human intrusion in the nitrogen cycle, however, can result in less nitrogen being cycled, or in an overload of the system.
For example, the cultivation of croplands, harvesting of crops, and cutting of forests have all caused a steady decline of nitrogen in the soil.
On the other hand, the leaching of nitrogen from over fertilized croplands, cutover forestland, and animal wastes and sewage has contributed to water pollution by adding too much nitrogen to aquatic ecosystems, resulting in reduced water quality and the stimulation of excessive algal growth.
Where we may ask is the balance?
The balance between responding to our environment by living a natural unspoiled life, and responding to that which has been created by Homo sapiens. From which there seems no alternative rather a resignation to our fate as partakers (albeit reluctantly) of the despoliation of our planet.
On the other hand, has nature failed?
No.
In the sense that nature abhors unnatural processes such as incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and presently works to expunge Homo sapiens us from her its garden. Phenomena like the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming, the emergence/re-emergence of phantom diseases with re-engineered vectors point to the fact that Homo sapiens’s guardian angel – Mother Nature has by omission or commission left his fate to his own hand. He caused the problem. He must solve it.
But how?
By optimising the re-use of end or by-products. Bringing it nearer home, by making waste work.
As part of my submission, I have undertaken to study what I consider to be the most unrelenting, harmful and unnatural source of waste today: the burning of fossil fuels.
Precisely seven years ago, I first gave thought to the all-encompassing wastage associated with automobiles. Their unused potential and kinetic energies, and unused exhaust fumes. I will in the subsequent paragraphs try to give life to my thinking seven years ago which I have long sought an avenue to express.
At that time I sought an immediate solution to the spewing of these dangerous gases. One solution would be the development of alternate technologies such as the electric motorcar. Such cars or hybrid models, which utilise power generated from improved fossil burning and sundry voltaic sources, will no doubt limit environmental damage. But in the meantime, shall we just shrug and wait for that day? Shall we not utilise waste in fighting waste?
Making Automobile associated wastes work:
Because of the burning of fossil fuels, the clearing of forests, and other such practices, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing since the Industrial Revolution. Atmospheric concentrations have risen from an estimated 260 to 300 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times to more than 350 ppm today.
Although such increases have not yet been great enough to cancel out natural climatic variability, projected increases in CO2from the burning of fossil fuels suggest that global temperatures could rise some 2° to 6° C (about 4° to 11° F) by early in the 21stcentury. This increase would be significant enough to alter global climates and thereby affect human welfare.
If all exhaust fumes were suctioned as soon as they are expelled from the vehicle, they no longer have the potential to disturb or unbalance our delicate ecosystem.
If we can have a clearinghouse for this waste so gathered, and if we could utilise the contents of this clearinghouse as the source of raw materialsfor industries, then what do we have to worry about?
Three ‘Ifs’ represent at best a shaky proposition. We must tread carefully.
Let us start with the last two propositions:
If-1: If we can have a clearinghouse for this waste so gathered
Assuming (just assuming) we are able to provide suction - massive enough - such that exhaust fumes escaping from vehicles are carried away from the atmosphere, such a clearinghouse will probably (but not necessarily) be sub-surface. Let us assume it is sub-surface and massive suction fans are able to pass to it, a prodigious volume of gaseous substances – comprising of air (Nitrogen, oxygen) & exhaust fumes.
The function of the clearinghouse will be to:
1. Separate different components of its intake
2. Pass air back to surface.
3. Pass the others to different facilities where they are compressed and stored.
If-2: If we could utilise the contents of this clearinghouse as the source of raw materials.
The contents of the clearing house being the exhaust fumes. Primarily these are: Carbon monoxide – a very important industrial fuel, carbon dioxide – very useful industrially – as fire extinguishers, providing the effervescence in carbonated drinks, and as an industrial reagent in the manufacture of washing soda & baking powder. How do we separate the constituents of the exhaust fumes?
In one word, Gas-Chromatography:
This technique permits separation of mixtures consisting of gas compounds or of substances that can be vaporised by heat. The mixture is carried by an inert gas along a narrow, coiled tube packed with a material through which the components flow at different rates. The separated components are detected at the end of the tube.
The gases received this may then be compressed and stored and transported subsequently, or fed directly to industrial processes.
Power?
How shall we power for these massive suction?
By harnessing the kinetic and potential energies of moving vehicles and converting to electrical power.
How? One method will be to integrate platform on roads – lets call them kinetic pads, very similar in design to speed breakers – different in that they may be gently pushed down - by the wheels of the vehicles travelling on them and are able to quickly recover from this in order to be depressed again – an again.
This reciprocating motion may be converted to useful energy by a variety of means. One of which will be connecting the rubber encapsulated kinetic pad to crankshaft. Such that the motion occasioned by the depressing of the kinetic pad is converted to rotary motion.
We may then connect to the crankshaft via a flexible mechanical coupling a shaft bearing concentrated windings. From experience, I recommend not less than six poles. Around this shall be our multi phase distributed windings. Using synchroscopes, the output of several such generators may be combined.
The generation of power by the motion of automobile on its own could form the basis of an exhaustive treatise on making waste work.
Whereas using the motion of automobiles to generate power for the massive suction motors may help in minimising the amount of pollutants in the air, another idea would be to utilise the potential energy of hundreds of millions of cars all over the world in generating electricity for national grids around the world. What’s more electricity generated by the strategic placements of the so-called kinetic pads may be tied together to form a global electricity superhighway.
Designed from the scratch to be global, short-term benefits will include jobs creation: as tens of thousands of kilometres of copper or aluminium cables will have to be produced. Such an arrangement will require transformers. New techniques and materials will be developed to enable sub sea high power transformers. These high power transformers will have to be modular in design in addition to being installed in ‘Hot stand-by’ mode such that a faulty unit may be unplugged and replaced with minimum manoeuvre or disruption to power supply. A whole new service industry will emerge.
Long-term benefits will be:
One: The abundance of electricity globally – will reduce he use of fire wood, coal and other non-friendly sources of heating /cooking in the developing world,
Two: Reduce the wide proliferation petrol/diesel electricity generators in such countries (where public electricity output is insufficient).
Three: Introduce the possibility for making a prima facie case for legislation on power generation globally.
Four: Utilising the enormous amount of power locked up in the ‘wasted’ motion of automobiles, may lead to the redundancy of all but the cleanest power sources.
By
Didiscottie
21/9/99
[1] "coal" Encyclopædia Britannica Online
"Nitrogen Cycle," Microsoft® Encarta® 99 Encyclopaedia. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
"Carbon Cycle (ecology)," Microsoft® Encarta® 99 Encyclopaedia. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."Chromatography," Microsoft® Encarta® 99 Encyclopaedia. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
