SXSW: Zero Waste: The Future of Green

Live from SXSW in Austin, TX, Sunday March 14, 2010

Sol Design Lab

Sol Design Lab has created solar-powered ‘gas pumps’ in the Austin area, which are 50’s gas pumps that have been retrofitted with solar panels on the top, and outlets below.

First electric vehicle 100 years ago got 100 mph, we’re at 30 mph today, there’s a lot of potential here.

One of their key factors is to “make energy visible”, to help people stay within the means of solar energy. They display how much power is coming in from the sun, and how much is being drawn by whatever is plugged into the pump.  This helps have consumers demand things that are more efficient.

DOE did a study to look at forward demand for energy.  Greatest new energy source that DOE sees - 40% - is to reduce energy consumption.

Rechar creates carbon-negative systems

Build off-grid plants that turn biomass into electricity and biochar (like charcoal in BBQ grills) which can be used for power or buried in soil as a fertilizer and improves crop yield up to 200%.  Can sequester 200B tons of CO2 a year this way.

Challenges to scaling Re-Char: collecting biomass from a wide area.  There’s a 100MW plant going up in East Texas now, but there’s not enough biomass in the immediate area, so they have to source biomass from 50-100 miles away, which emits carbon in and of itself.  To be successful, it needs to be small-scale and distributed.

Feedstock is a major challenge of bioplant creation.  Once you get any scale with soybeans or other particular feedstock, the price goes up on those. Rechar creates systems that can take broad variety of biomass: husks, animal waste, etc.

They use a process of oxygen-starved combustion; emissions profile is similar to biodiesel. Best feedstocks for their process are dry.

Moderator: There’s a market for compost - farmers call it ‘black gold’ because it’s very valuable. Composting is a process that you have to manage. Two months to two years for waste to become compost.

Amy - significant other of moderator

‘Dragged into’ the ‘zero waste’ lifestyle by moderator (Steve). Steve said that everything you do is just a bad habit, and she has realized that it’s not all that difficult to make the small changes - switching from paper towels to cloth - hasn’t impacted her in a major way, and has saved them money in the long run. I was caught up in the consumer lifestyle, but only took about 6 months to reengineer and change the lifestyle.

I can eat an apple and cheese, and that’s a meal. Don’t need packaged products, chips, bread, condiments. Eat things that come in containers you can give back to the farmers or recycle.

Conversation

“Supermarkets don’t provide food for you”. “Eat real food” movement is emerging; prior to supermarkets food was three times more potent before supermarkets. We’ve gone into an industrial process for food - they don’t talk about quality, but rather how much you can get for your dollar value.

A 1950s apple would fill you up, today you need three apples to get the same nutrient value. Going to Whole Foods or a farmer’s market is not necessarily more expensive because you are getting more nutrition for the money.

We believe we have to eat three times as much due to advertising.

Q: I want to be able to be in this with other people, so I can see individual or community-level process.  Are there any web services or communities that support this?

A: Start up with Slow Food, which has chapters in most major cities. Non-profit group started in Italy. Leading causes of death are all linked to food. Italian food culture was really upset with fast food movement from America. Also localharvest.com, eatwellguide.com. You can cultivate a sense of community by saying on Facebook or Twitter that you’re off to the Farmer’s Market, drives visibility and excitement, draws people out that aren’t sure how to get involved. Cool Austin just launched, they’re building a calculator for community-vs-community challenges (Austin Energy).

Moderator: There was a lot more environmental information last year at the conference, surprised to see less information this year.

Q: Why’s there so much landfill swag in the conference bags?

A: They have guidelines for what they’ll accept. Do not accept single sheets of paper, has to be something interesting or useful. For SXSW materials, made sure to use paper from approved forestry companies. There are some flier consortium companies that use environmentally-responsible inks and paper, they’ll take back unused flyers and shred and recycle them.