The proposed Frederick incinerator:

This article was submitted by Ellis Burruss...

Waste TO Energy or Waste OF Energy?

The amount of energy produced by so-called WTE incinerator is considerably less than the amount saved by recycling. Here’s why:

1) Paper: Manufacturing a ton of news paper from trees takes 11,699 kilowatt hours (kwh)(1). If that ton of paper is burned, it can produce 1,875 kwh(2) of electricity to sell. That's a loss of 9,824 kwh.
Incinerating paper wastes 9,824 kwh per ton!
If that ton of paper is recycled, a new ton of paper can be made using only 6,442 kwh. That's a saving of 5,257 kwh

4) Plastics: Even plastics such as PET (soda bottles) that have a high heat content as fuel (10,250 btu/pound) produce only 2,403 kwh per ton when burned yet require 9,619 kwh/ton to make. That's another loss of 7,216 kwh/ton.
Incinerating soda bottles wastes 7,216 kwh per ton!
If that ton of plastic is recycled, a new ton of plastic can be made using only 1,222 kwh. That's a saving of 8,397 kwh.

2) Aluminum: It takes 62,512 kwh of power to manufacture a ton of aluminum. Most incinerators do not attempt to recover aluminum from the ash. Beverage cans and other thin aluminum with high surface-to-volume ratios are oxidized to ash. All of the energy invested in making the aluminum is wasted.
Incinerating aluminum cans wastes 62,512 kwh per ton!
If that ton of aluminum is recycled, a new ton can be made using only 4,865 kwh. That's a saving of 57,647 kwh.

3) Food Scraps: To work efficiently a “WTE” incinerator must have fuel with an average heat content of 5000 to 5500 btu/pound. Food scraps have a heat content of only 2600 btu/pound. They actually dilute the fuel of an incinerator.
Food scraps are another resource wasted by incineration!
Food scraps, which make up 13% of our waste, can be composted to make a valuable soil amendment, replacing fertilizers made from fossil fuels.

All the manufactured products that are used as fuel for an incinerator take a lot of energy to make. If they are recycled instead of burned, they save much, much more energy than is produced by an incinerator. Burning usable resources to make a meager amount of electricity is like burning your furniture to heat your house.


1) Figures for process energy for manufacture are from the EPA Solid Waste Management and Greenhouse Gases -- A Life-cycle Assessment of Emissions and Sinks; 3rd Edition, September 2006; Exhibit 2-4 pg 27 and Exhibit 2-6 pg. 29
2) Values for heat content are from The Energy Information Administration (DOE) Methodology for Allocating Municipal Solid Waste to Biogenic and Non-Biogenic Energy; May 2007; pg 10.
Electricity produced from stated heat content assumes a 40% thermal efficiency for a steam-cycle generating plant.


Want to help stop the Frederick incinerator? Join us! www.no-incinerator.org

Take This Country Back - But How Far?

In the, apparently, much hyped 'Mini-Super Tuesday' elections Rand Paul, son of Republican Representative and Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul won his Republican primary bid for the US Senate in Kentucky.

That the election was in Kentucky was really all I needed to hear to believe that this had to be a race between the really conservative and the really, really conservative.

I was right.

Rand has the backing of the so-called Tea Baggers who believe they are a political party, The Tea Bag Party. Well actually they call themselves the Tea Party but I like my version better.

Rand Paul wants to take this country back! I like that; vague but at the same time a bit menacing; forceful sounding yet bordering on the meaningless since those who say that never give any further explanation of what they intend to take exactly.

Rand said in his victory speech at a country club where the Tea Bag Partiers have their headquarters that he wants to take the country back from special interests who use the government as a personal ATM machine.

Just who the heck was he talking about? Since he was giving his speech from a COUNTRY CLUB do you think he could have been talking about the wealthy special interests?

I bet not.

I bet he was talking about you and me; if we collect unemployment when we've been forced out of work by a predatory Capitalist system, or receive our social security when we retire from a life of wage-slavery. Or maybe he is concerned about us using the government ATM to insure we have clean water and air or safer foods and automobiles.

He criticized politicians who come to us, he said with fake checks.

Huh?

I bet he means when a company like Goldman Sachs creates the biggest economic mess ever, the American people are forced to bail them out and save this rotting, stinking economy from the disintegration it deserves.

Or maybe not.

Chances are, if he's a Tea Bagger supporter, he's more concerned about the needy getting help: food, clothing, shelter, that sort of thing. He's probably more worried that politicians are signing checks to help out of work Americans find jobs and job training.

After all, it's the country club member's money those politicians are playing fast-and-loose with, Can't have that.

He says Washington is broken.

You think?

Does he mean that the Capitalist, Republican form of government we are subjects to is irredeemably corrupt and beyond reform?

Does he think that the politicians who are ensnared or enamoured of the system are themselves hopelessly corrupt and beyond help?

If not, what exactly does he mean then by Washington?

He says America is great. Well that's nice; I bet most people around the world think their country is great too. Is America really as great as Rand imagines? Have we as a people really done anything to be proud of since 911?

We have tortured, maimed, murdered, invaded, savaged peoples around the globe. We have spied on, lied to, deceived, and disappeared our own citizens.

Rand doesn't believe we need to apologize for the Industrial Revolution. If we shouldn't, who should? Has the Industrial Revolution really been that great for the trees, tigers, rivers or whales, or people? Who should be responsible for the decimated and scarred landscapes, the poverty, the fouled air and water, the dead soils and seas, the devastation? Is it really American to have no sense of responsibility for the evil one has done?

Can there really be any moral defense of Capitalism left? It - I should say the privileged elite- have proved that Capitalism is a vile, predatory system of greed and exploitation; a system that feeds on and engenders violence, hate, and corruption.

But I believe Rand Paul when he says he wants to take this country back. Indeed, he and the Neanderthals that call themselves Tea Partiers want to take this country back - back to the 19th Century where all that mattered was that you were White, Wealthy, and not a Woman.

President Obama You Scare Me Too

Dear President Obama,

I have lived under the authority of 12 presidents, and like all of them, except maybe Eisenhower, you scare me too.

You scare me because you campaigned that you would restore America's image in the eyes of the world, yet over a year into your reign and you have not moved to have Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of that illegally installed cabinet arrested and put on trial for treason. There is no way on Earth that the United States can have any moral stature in the world while these sociopath murderers remain free. No American can feel safe nor even look at their own neighbor without suspicion until these old, white men pay for their crimes against the U.S. Constitution, the American people, and the world.

You scare me because you have done nothing to restore the rights that ALL people are entitled to under our Constitution; you continue the shameful policy of torture and indeterminate, secret detention, and even murder of people who's only crime is that they are foreign.

You scare me because even though you are black you stand up only for the privileged. You worked as a Community Organizer, helping people, yet now you only help those who own corporations, and primarily only those corporations 'too big to fail'.

You scare me because you grew up in a multi-cultural family and traveled the world yet you appear to have no understanding or compassion for ordinary people either at home or abroad. You should have experienced America through the clearer eyes of ordinary people yet you appear to have no insight into how the policies of this government infuriate those we bully and murder and even less desire to educate the American people so those policies can be changed.

You scare me because, like other presidents and leaders without military experience, you send our youth into war, to kill and to be killed without understanding of the terror, the sacrifice, and the irreparable harm killing does to decent people, both those who do the killing and the victims and their loved ones. You have escalated the immoral and illegal attacks on Afghanistan and continue the illegal occupation of Iraq.

You have never run a company so you should have none of the vicious, cutthroat, profit-driven motives of those who have, yet, you have abdicated economic control of the people's economy to the greedy, self-absorbed, amoral cabal of privileged elites who have no interest in the people.

You scare me because even thought the American people elected you to help lead us into a future free of globalized greed and economic destruction you have consistently refused to help cleanse our nation of the rotting, stinking corpse of Capitalism.

Instead of protecting our Constitutional rights you have continued to allow the wealthy to run our country. Rather than control corporate behavior you have resorted to begging and negotiation with them.

You scare me because even though you are a Democrat, a liberal, and NOT Bush you support the expansion of the use of coal and nuclear power to generate electricity and embrace continued oil exploration.
Another Deepwater Horizon, Mr. President?

You scare me a lot because even though you campaigned on it and overwhelmingly, the people want it, you took single-payer health care out of the equation and opted to give that money to the obscenely wealthy owners of insurance companies.

You scare me because you have not heeded the belated admission by President Clinton that NAFTA was a huge mistake that hurt the people of Haiti rather than helped them. Even with that sad admission you have not called for the United States to withdraw from the World Trade Organization.

And finally you scare me because like all Democrats, while furthering the most greedy, the most violent, and the most racist policies you paint smiley faces on the faces of the hungry, the dispossessed, the violated, and the beaten. And we cannot afford the continuation of such acts for another 4 or 8 years.

The time has come, Mr. Obama for the people to rise up and speak out for democracy, the Constitution, and liberty and justice for all.

It's The Wealthy, Stupid

Louann Livengood's story in the Frederick News Post is indeed heart rending, after all small businesses are a major part of the issues and concerns that Green Party activists are involved with every day.
Now, I don't know why Ms Livengood's unemployment insurance payment increased, but I do know some things. And her reaction concerns me on several levels.
I don know that the incredibly wealthy in this country have just reaped a tremendous profit from the economic disaster that has befallen this nation.
As a result of the greed, immorality, and deceit of the wealthy few, millions of Americans have been forced out of their employment, lost their homes, lost them ability to get medical care, and have been impoverished, or are on the brink.
These heartless thieves have taken working people's savings. This includes the meager profits of hard working small business owners like Ms Livengood.
In an effort to assist the people put out of work by greedy bankers and speculators, states make available unemployment payments to those in need.
I'm sure Ms Livengood supports assistance to those in need.
But who does she blame for her tax increase misfortune? The government.
I hope that Ms Livengood has the ability to see beyond the knee-jerk, ignorant reaction that blames the government for all the nation's problems and see the real culprit.
The wealthy.