Recent Musings

It's a pretty terrible thing that's happened to Japan recently. It was bad enough that they got hit with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and the giant tsunami it created, and then they had to deal with stabilizing the Fukushima nuclear plant. Apparently the condition at the reactors is still serious but stable. [1] I'm not convinced that this is completely true as the Japanese government has a tendency to downplay crises as it seems they have been doing since the beginning of this catastrophe. However, even with this somewhat good news that the plant is stable, the people of Japan have a lot to worry about. Not only are there economic costs that the tsunami created that will takes probably decades to rebuild, the nuclear radiation that occurred and is still occurring from the Fukushima meltdown must be dealt with soon.

I hadn't really realized how serious the radiation situation is in Japan until two nights ago. Obviously, the cores of the nuclear plant melting  would create a lot of serious problems but once they had stated that it was stabilized, I figured everything would become much better. As I was watching Letterman Monday night, I had found out that the situation was much worse. Letterman's guest for the night was renowned physicist  Michio Kaku. In this interview, Kaku stated that he had family living in Tokyo and that they had to leave the city because everything was contaminated with radiation. This includes everything from their water supply, milk, bread, and other types of food. It's a pretty bad situation when not only are they getting radiation through the air but also the water that they need to survive.

This situation in Japan really allows to contemplate the need for nuclear energy in the US and around the world. Is nuclear energy really worth the risk? What can be done to prevent these nuclear disasters? I think that these questions should really be taken into consideration. It seems that any nuclear plant should not be placed on a fault or in any danger of being affected by nature, but this cannot always be guaranteed. What about existing nuclear plants that are in danger? There is currently a nuclear plant in New York City, Indian Pointe, that lies on two faults I believe. If there was two be a similar earthquake or other natural disaster to hit this plant, it would be devastating to not only New York City but the entire US. Do we need to just shut this facility down? These are a few questions that should be answered relatively quickly in order to avoid another incident like Japan is experiencing.

On a slightly related note, Germany has recently shut down 7 of their oldest nuclear reactors and their solar energy has been producing at an exceptional rate. They have been getting a max power output of 12.1 GW which is more than what the Fukushima plant was producing. [2] It looks like moving forward, that the US will focus even more on renewable energies such as solar and probably abandon the nuclear push that was starting to pick up.

Turnin' Beer into Energy

Wouldn't it be great if beer could solve all of our problems?

Oh wait... it already can, I guess I'll just stop writing for a moment and go grab a cold one.

Ok, now that my problems are solved, it's on to the energy crisis here in the US and the rest of the world. Don't believe me? Well, according to Eric Fitch of Purpose Energy Inc. it's doing just that. Eric Fitch, a mechanical engineer from MIT, has created a device (anaerobic methane digester) that turns the waste from the brewing process into natural gas that's used to fuel the brewing process. This 42 foot structure, which costed $4 million, sits in back of the Magic Hat brewing company in Vermont and extracts energy spent hops, barley, and yeast. By reusing these spent materials directly, the brewing company saves on having to purchase natural gas  and waste disposal. This isn't the first brewery to go green, as many breweries tend to recycle their waste or sell their byproducts from the brewing process, but this methane digester is the first of its kind.

This is a really great solution and one step closer to turning breweries into a self-sustaining system. Although, it doesn't solve the energy crisis alone, little steps like this put less of a strain on the overstrained grid, and also save companies a lot of money.

So I say, "crack open a beer, you're one step closer to saving the planet!"