New York Times food writer Mark Bittman talks about what is wrong with the American diet and how it is wrecking the environment. Basically he says we eat too much meat, junk food, fast food, and don’t eat enough fresh food at home. He briefly discusses the history of how we got here and what we can do to get back on track. He also talks about how the current model of food production is poisoning the planet and wasteful.
It is interesting to think about the past when food was just food and people didn’t worry about carbs, low fat, sugar free and the population was much healthier. Basically advertising has tricked us into thinking the wrong kinds food are what we should be eating to be healthy. This has turned Americans into malnourished fat people.

Check out this article: Less waste, more taste: maximize your produce, to learn more about some great places to get fresh organic produce and how to store it properly. I’d also recommend the docurama: King Corn, which explores our current model of corn production and how it is causing a malnourished, unhealthy population.

Every time I post about rainwater harvesting I get people saying things like “yeah, but it never rains” or “it doesn’t rain enough here,” so I wanted to post up some pictures from earlier this week after we had a freak rain storm that dropped a little over a inch of rain. This is Santa Rosa Wash, it is just down the street from where I live, it flows from the south to the north so whenever Tucson get a lot of rain it floods. This kind of seems like a cruel joke because Tucson could probably use this water more than Phoenix. This flooding subsided within 24 hours of its start, but it is still lightly flowing.

I’ve seen pictures of downtown Maricopa underwater from what I think was a 100 year flood, but I can seem to find any for this post. If you have any of these pictures, send us links in the comments. According to FEMA maps our house is above the flood plain, but I imagine when Maricopa gets another 100 year flood it is going to do some damage nearby. I’m not sure I’d want to live on the banks of this wash when that happens.

It wouldn’t be a proper flooded wash if someone didn’t cross the road block and cross through it. It doesn’t take much water to get stuck, so be careful, that’s why Arizona has the stupid motorist law.

The “Stupid Motorist Law”, which corresponds to section 28-910 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, states that any motorist who drives around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of his/her rescue.

The need for the law came from the lack of storm sewers in the deserts of the Southwestern United States. Desert rains, usually associated with summer monsoons, and the flooding that comes with them tend to be short-lived. Many desert cities and towns don’t use culverts to channel minor washes (also known by the Spanish name arroyos) beneath the roadway. Only major washes and floodplains have bridges over them. Storm drains are spaced quite far apart when they are present at all. Consequently, during rain storms, storm runoff flows over the roadway. During hard, strong rain storms, the washes, underpasses, and areas around large storm drains can flow fast and deep enough to pick up an automobile and carry it downstream. During particularly strong floods, one might see a motorist stuck in the middle of a wash, sitting on the roof of a dead car submerged to the windows.

In such cases, if public emergency services (such as a fire department, or paramedics) are called to rescue the motorist and tow the vehicle out of danger, the cost of those services can be billed to the motorist.

[Wikipedia]

Unless you live on mars you’ve probably noticed the soaring cost of fuel. A recent report from the Energy Information Administration projects that gasoline demand will drop in the U.S., but even so prices are still climbing. Why is it happening and why are diesel prices going up faster then gas? I’ve been looking into some articles to find some answers.

This blog post from Eric Johnson over at Desert Biofuels Initiative sums up what is going on with links to even more information.

According to the Energy Information Administration:

Based on projections of weak economic growth and record high crude oil and product prices, consumption is projected to decline by 190,000 bbl/d in 2008 [...] After accounting for projected increases in ethanol use, U.S. petroleum consumption is projected to fall by 330,000 bbl/d.

So if demand is falling, why are prices rising dramatically?

World oil consumption is projected to grow by 1.2 million bbl/d in 2008. Almost all of the growth in 2008 is expected to come from the non-Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, led by China, Middle East oil producing countries, and Russia, as well as Brazil and India [...]

more than offsetting any decline in demand in the US.

Bummer for us. Of course, it’s also great for us. Fuel prices are starting to more directly affect individual driving decisions, consumer vehicle preferences, and therefore auto manufacturer’s vehicle production. Business Week reports:

Ford Motor (F) is cutting its production of its one-time cash cows, pickups and SUVs, to instead increase production of smaller and more fuel-efficient cars.

And the New York Times reports:

With technical and environmental hurdles overcome — and facing tougher mileage standards that call for a 35 m.p.g. average by 2020 — automakers are rushing in with clean-diesel cars.

Nice.

[Desert Biofuels Initiative]

While it is great we’re going to be seeing new clean diesels on the market soon with higher MPGs than most gasoline cars are they going to be a success? As of this writing Diesel is around a dollar more per gallon than regular unleaded and its price is rising faster than gasoline. Gasoline and diesel are made from the same raw ingredient. So why is this happening? Here’s a good article explaining why from the New York Times.

“U.S. overall petroleum demand, including demand for gasoline, has flattened,” he said. “However, in the U.S., demand for diesel has remained strong.”

He added: “This follows a long-term trend here and around the world. Over the past five years, U.S. demand for highway diesel has been rising at triple the rate of gasoline.”

Part of the American demand for transportation fuel is met by refineries in Europe, a link that usually helps keep prices down. But demand for diesel is rising in Europe as passenger car ownership and use there grow; many of those newly purchased vehicles are diesel-powered, a choice that had been encouraged by tax policy there.

As a result, production at European refineries is geared toward processing crude oil to meet the demand for diesel. That produces surplus gasoline, which the refineries export to the East Coast of the United States, experts said. That does nothing for diesel supply here.

A related problem is that while American demand for gasoline and demand for diesel are fluctuating separately, the supply is linked.

Each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 19 gallons of gasoline, according to the Energy Department, and about 10 gallons of diesel fuel and heating oil combined. (The two are chemically similar.) Refineries can crack the big hydrocarbon molecules found in the heavier part of the crude oil feedstock into diesel, gasoline or other products, and thus have some flexibility, but there are limits to how much the ratios can be adjusted.

Read the full article at [nytimes.com]

Maybe it is time to start home-brewing biodiesel like I suggested in a earlier article on this site, but be sure you have a secure source of free or cheap used oil. It seems that demand for this waste product is on the rise and some home-brewers are stooping low and are stealing it. Check out this article over at msnbc.com about biodiesel pirates stealing used cooking oil.

SAN FRANCISCO – A few years ago, drums of used french fry grease were only of interest to a small network of underground biofuel brewers, who would use the slimy oil to power their souped-up antique Mercedes.

Now, restaurants from Berkeley, Calif., to Sedgwick, Kan., are reporting thefts of old cooking oil worth thousands of dollars by rustlers who are refining it into barrels of biofuel in backyard stills.

“It’s like a war zone going on right now over grease,” said David Levenson, who owns a grease hauling business in San Francisco’s Mission District. “We’re seeing more and more people stealing grease because it lets them stay away from the pump, but it’s hurting our bottom line.”

Full article at [msnbc.com]

Do you think this might end up being good for us? Is it going to drive Americans to conserve and innovate to find a solution? I think it might, and can’t wait to see where we go from here. What do you think? Leave a comment and let us know.

Gasoline is nearly $4 a gallon and isn’t likely to go down anytime soon. Here’s some tips from Ecomodder.com‘s Benjamin Jones on getting more miles per gallon out of the car you already have. Benjamin’s article is currently featured on Popular Mechanic’s site.

10 Quick Fuel Efficiency Tips to Beat the Gas Crunch

The summer season of highway hell has officially arrived—and $4/gallon prices at the pump certainly aren’t making life on the road any easier. As the next generation of hypermilers develops new ways to hack your car’s fuel economy, our guest MPG geek breaks down the vehicle mods, driving habits and common-sense fixes you need to know to max out your tank.

[PopularMechanics.com]

His #1 tip is monitoring your gas milage in real time and suggests doing this with a Scangauge if your car doesn’t already have a MPG gauge. Scangauge is a Mesa Arizona company and makes a great tool to monitor your car’s performance. I’ve had one myself for a couple years and it has done wonders to get me to drive in a way to get more miles per gallon out of my car. When I’m driving and can see my MPGs go down the faster I drive it turns into a real motivator to go the speed limit or even slightly slower. Once I’m driving above 55 the MPGs really start taking a dive and with the price of fuel I really want to get the most out of a tank. Without this tool I might know that my car isn’t getting the most out of a tank when I drive fast, but if I’m not seeing it in real time it is easy not to care as much. Check out article linked above for some other great tips at saving fuel.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind program arm just released a report (PDF, 4 MB) on the prospect of wind power generating 20% of U.S. electricity by the year 2030. News agencies have reported on this result, though typically only by reading the official press release. USA Today did do some additional research and their coverage accurately reflects both the intention and the results of the DOE report. In the following discussion I will suggest that you thumb through the report by highlighting a few items I found interesting. If wind power is going to produce such a significant portion of U.S. electricity, then there is a lot of difficult work to do (and don’t get discouraged if it fails).

The report is not a prediction that wind energy will be our savior. It begins by stating that President Bush motivated an improvement in the nation’s energy diversity. Give the DOE credit for taking the Bush Administration’s Energy Agenda and putting some real numbers behind it. Reading through this 248 page report will get you completely up to date in terms of the steps necessary for wind power to generate as much as 20% of all U.S. electricity by the year 2030. It’s not an easy climb, however, so it is important that the public have realistic expectations to avoid becoming disenchanted with wind power if it ends up costing more than this report suggests.

Points of Interest

Read the rest of this entry »