Get the Leach outta here (sorry)

Leach-ate is a problem that isn't talked about much in the environmental conversation (in my nine months of experience). It starts as rainfall, and travels down through the waste that exist in landfills. Along the way, it collects toxic metals that are contained such as cadmium, lead, mercury. This in turn makes its way down into the groundwater, poisoning it and making it undrinkable to all people and unsuitable for fish habitats.

In class, we discussed how many landfills don't meed to the requirements to properly decompose and can be a potential leach-ate producer for decades. This is why most landfills that were constructed in modern times have a layer of clay and plastic along the bottom to stop the infiltration from occurring. Our practice for the AP exams also cover the fact that the leach-ate can be captured and converted into water for other uses like drinking water or plumbing.

A question I have is for you, Mr. Schreer. Do you read all these? I tried all year to make you laugh and I don't even know if you see it. I've enjoyed this class quite a bit, it has been the only science class I've looked forward to coming to, much less get a decent grade in.

Trying to Land on a solution

This weeks articles covered a subject that was extremely interesting and also quite relevant to our class (Quiz on it tomorrow). They discussed how land use is a growing concern for people across the globe. Many forests, marshes, and swamps are being converted into either cities (with impermeable surfaces) or farmland. To get here, the habitats of thousands of plants and animals is destroyed to create a nice and flat surface to construct an Arbies on. This demolishes food webs on a global scale and is causing many ecosystems to collapse or clash with human migrations.

In class, we discuss foresting and the effect it has on nature. If I cut down all the pine trees in my home town to plant coconut trees, all the woodpeckers, owls, squirrels, and insects that lived there have to move somewhere else. The resources in that area will then be strained, which leads to a collapse of the ecosystem due to lack of food, and lots of baby owls trying to figure out where their mom is. Seen here -> https://goo.gl/images/XxHhdm

A question I have relates to mountains. I predict that mountains are the last sort of ecosystem that remains undisturbed by human construction due to their inconvenient terrain. Is this true? I wonder if the populations of mountains have increased due to many species retreating towards them from their demolished homes.

Making the Precision Decision

Cold, shiny, hard, PLASTIC

This week I read about the three plastic islands that exist in the Pacific Ocean. I want to start by saying that this is something out of WALL-E. Are we seriously having to worry about mounds of plastic larger than Texas floating around, disturbing aquatic environments? Very sad and low energy is you ask me. Materials like Styrofoam even absorb other toxic chemicals on their journey to the ocean floor. Then they get ingested by the same fish we buy from the Fresh Market section at HEB. Cool. How do they get there? Well, many ships drop the trash off on accident, but about 80% comes from litter being blown into the ocean. And that crap doesn't even break down either. That bag of sun-chips you were too lazy to stop from blowing away on the beach can kill sea turtles that aren't even born yet.

In class, we watched an episode of VICE that went over a similar situation in the rivers of India. People have no regard for sanitation and bather, dink, and fish in the same river where their shit and trash also visibly inhabits. Not only is that totally disgusting, but it's very deadly. Cholera and other diseases are a major issues in India, especially for children. The fish and other plants existing downstream also get a literal taste of their waste and suffer from it. More toilets and better hygiene education is necessary if we want the people to stop living this disgusting stereotype.

I have a question about crime and liter in the water. Are people charged for what ends up in the ocean? people obviously don't care about the ocean or fish suffocating on bottle openers. How can the legal system better incentive people to not litter on the beach or dump anything in the water? Felony punishment? May see, harsh, but I think I have a right as a human to clean water, and people across the world are infringing on my right.

I think I'm suffering from Groundwater Withdrawals.

The article this week covers an aspect of California's water crisis in the form of groundwater depletion. Cali gets about 60% of all its water needs from the aquifers underground and aren't replenishing them at a nearly quick enough rate. It's another one of those problems that is simply out of sight and out of mind. Even more today, during California's infamous drought it currently suffers, the aquifers are virtually non being filled at all. Once the resource runs dry it will take thousands of ears to fill them back up. It won't take long to use up the water either. Will many aquifers becoming contaminated, the options are becoming more and more limited for people choosing to live in these areas with no natural source of water.

In class we discussed events similar to these in which aquifers either run dry or become contaminated. Once an oil leak or fertilizer dump reaches an aquifer, it will never be pure again. This may not affect wildlife forever but in terms of human consumption it matters a great deal. Naturally fresh water is a finite resource but we treat it like it will be around forever. Even today I'm learning that the average American uses over 500 gallons of water a day. That's almost 100 ties more than a family in Africa has for a week.

A question I have is in regard to Canada. They have the most amount of freshwater (in the form of ice) out of any country in the world. Someday will they be able to sell freshwater as an export? Te resorts will have sand from Costa Rica, trees from Hawaii, and water from Canada. It sounds funny,  but can that be our future?

Putting the "H" is "wow tHis sure is efficient"

In the article today, I read about hydrogen energy storage as means to connect wind and solar farms to "the grid." The reason this technology is seen as fit is due to its decreasing cost, job creation, and high efficiency. The hydrogen cells are being implemented more in more in countries such as the United States and Germany as a clean and cheap form of energy transfer. More American scientists are getting work in developing the technology needed to reach even better cells. To top it all off, it is already nearly 100 percent efficient. Hardly any volts of electricity are wasted in the energy transfer process, it really is the technology of the future.

In class, we discussed these technologies after watching a TED talk about hydrogen cells. It seems to me that more and more people are identifying the stagnant growth of renewable energies is the lack of large enough batteries and energy transfer processes. Once these technologies improve to the point of allowing total transfer of solar and wind energy, we can start to push out coal and oil from the energy landscape.

A question I have is about lobbying. Are there green energy companies that have congressmen and women in their pockets as well? I wouldn't mind having some tried and true un-American persuasion in that area be done. Maybe some money should be send straight into their pockets so we can get this show on the road already!

Suns out, guns out

I chose the article dealing with solar and wind energy, considering I know a bit about hydroelectric and I have no interest in geothermal or biomass based energy. Inside I learned that the Sun gives off 173,000 TW of energy continuously, which is about 10 times what humans need to use today. It was pressed once again in the article that battery technology is what is really holding back a large push towards renewable, considering the fact the batteries are too costly to store all the energy that could be captured from solar radiation. I also learned about wind energy's "high payback time." Apparently building the turbines is very easy and fast with a very short amount of time to wait to start profiting off the energy produced. This is what makes creating an entire farm or just a handful of them so viable, very little risk is associated with it.

In class we had to sit in the hallway due to a tornado warning. This gt me thinking about wind energy and the best locations for it. Assuming no damage is done to the turbines would it make sense to place these farms in areas with large storms in addition to the open and windy fields? The placement of solar panels and wind farms is a key component to convincing more people to switch to renewable energy. If they are put somewhere that makes sense and is somehow out of the way, maybe more people can get over how they look and see the clear benefits.

A question I have is about batteries. How soon is that tech gonna be cheap enough for schmucks like me to afford it? Tesla cars, solar panels, and other such environmentally friendly tech is on my bucket list of things to mess with one day, I just hope I don't have to give up doing other cool things to do so.