The Tarawa atoll in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, which is also at risk from rising sea levels. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP

This week the Guardian has been running a major series on “climate refugees” about the village of Newtok in Alaska, which faces an imminent threat to its existence from erosion.

The term is problematic for a number of reasons. The first being that people who are facing movement do not like the term. The word “refugee” brings to mind a number of (not always accurate) images: tented camps, long lines of people walking, dangerous boat crossings. People facing the prospect moving hope that they will have some choice in the timing and circumstances of their movement and that when they arrive they will find work and become active members of their new communities. Their hope is that they will move with dignity.

President Anote Tong of Kiribati, an island nation in the Pacific, told Australia’s ABC Radio that the people of Kiribati do not want to leave as refugees but as skilled migrants. Similarly, Ursula Rakova, a campaigner from the Carteret Islands is highly critical of the “climate refugee” narrative: “Our plan is one in which we remain as independent and self-sufficient as possible. We wish to maintain our cultural identity and live sustainably wherever we are.”

Apart from people’s own rejection of the “climate refugee” term there are also several other problems. It’s clear that there are connections between climate change and the movement of people, but the connections are not as clear as the “climate refugee” narrative suggests. The phrase conjures images of large numbers of people moving en masse over long distances and crossing international borders and possibly continents. It seems unlikely that climate change will produce this kind of human movement.

What seems more likely is that climate change might reinforce existing trends in short-term, short distance migration. For example, as subsistence farmers find it increasingly difficult to make a living in rural areas they may move to nearby cities to find work. Whole towns or villages will not move together: in fact, families may not even move together. Far more likely is that one or two household members will move, find work elsewhere and send money home to their community. This statement collected by the EACH-FOR research project from a farmer in Hueyotlipan, Mexico gives a sense of this kind of movement: “Times have changed … the rain is coming later now, so we produce less. The only solution is to go away, at least for a while. Each year I’m working for three to five months in Wyoming. That’s my main source of income.”

Another problem is that the phrase implies that it is easy to untangle the different causes of someone’s movement – that we might be able to pick out a group of people who have moved solely because of climate change. This is very misleading. Even when climate change has contributed to someone’s decision to move many other factors are often as, or more, important. This statement from a Somali farmer in a Ugandan refugee camp gives a clear sense of how multiple factors cause someone to move: “And since there was the war, we did not receive any support from the government. Therefore, there are combined factors that made us suffer: droughts and war. If war did not exist, then we might have been able to stay, but now that the land is looted, there is no way for us to claim it.”

The “climate refugee” narrative leads us away from other vital questions about the connection between climate change and migration: the first being how we protect growing cities. As climate change reinforces the factors pushing people out of the countryside, people will move into areas exposed to new climate-related risks in cities. This raises huge questions about urban planning, infrastructure and how cities plan to deal with the effects of climate change. There is also the possibility that climate change, rather than being a driver for new movement might actually prevent people from moving. Moving to find work is one of the key ways people are coping with falling incomes in rural areas. But moving requires resources, and as people become poorer, moving becomes harder. Climate change could in fact trap people in dangerous locations.

We need a new narrative that helps us address these vital questions, and which the people who are actually moving feel positive about. We need a new narrative in which we frame migration as a way for people to adapt to climate. Rather than being seen as a negative consequence of climate change, we need to describe moving in dignity as a way for some people to survive.

Source: Guardian

Related articles

Papua forest communities offer new perspective on climate change

Climate Change: Believing and Seeing Implies Adapting

CC BY 2.0 Threat to Democracy

For the last several years, deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon have been in steady decline, reaching its lowest point on record just last year. But despite this progress the latest figures show that we are not out of the woods yet — in a literal sense of that phrase, however, we are a little closer.

According to the Brazilian forest monitoring agency, IMAZON, which uses satellite imagery to track deforestation in near real-time, the world’s largest rainforest lost of 606 square miles of rainforest between August 2012 and April 2013 — an area equivalent to nearly 300,000 football fields. All told, this latest figure represents an increase of 88 percent over the previous year in which 322 square miles was cleared.

While a troubling turn in light of the steady decline of recent years, the rate recorded in this uptick still pales in comparison to record highs. At its peak in 1995, a total of 9,675 square miles of forest was lost in Brazil, though stepped-up enforcement and improved land management has led to a decline every year since 2004.

Banco de Imágenes Geológicas/CC BY 2.0

It’s unclear what caused the increase in deforestation this year over last, but Mongabay offers several possible explanations, including recent changes to Brazil’s Forest Code which determines the percentage of forest which must be preserved on plantations and ranches. Also, as the Brazilian currency has weakened in this period, the financial incentives to export lumber may have led to an increase in illegal forest harvesting.

Via Mongabay

Source: Treehugger

Related articles

Amazon tribe threatens to declare war amid row over Brazilian dam project

Amazon Deforestation Destroyed UK-Sized Area Between 2000 And 2010, Study Says

Amazonian Head Scratcher: How Deforestation Leads to Reforestation

Statoil' hotel rig Flotel Superior, right, and the Njord A-platform in the Norwgian Sea. (AP Photo/Statoil) NORWAY OUT

The European Union tightened safety rules for offshore oil and natural-gas exploration to curb the risk of a major accident after BP Plc’s 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest in U.S. history.

The European Parliament approved legislation that forces oil and gas companies to submit special hazard reports and emergency-response plans before offshore operations can start. The law also requires operators of offshore platforms to prove their ability to cover potential liabilities and extends the zone in which businesses would be liable for damage to 370 kilometers (230 miles) off the coast from the current 22 kilometers.

“The rules we are currently coming up with can be used as a template at international level,” said Ivo Belet, a Belgian member who steered the legislation through the 27-nation EU assembly today in Strasbourg, France. EU governments have already signaled support for the law, making their final approval a formality in the coming weeks or months.

The tighter regulation marks the EU’s effort to improve safety and bolster the “polluter pays” principle in the energy industry following the Gulf of Mexico spill three years ago. Eleven rig workers died and more than 4.1 million barrels of crude gushed into the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank while drilling BP’s Macondo well off the Louisiana coast.

The EU has almost 1,000 offshore oil installations, including 486 in the U.K., 181 in the Netherlands and 61 in Denmark, the European Commission, the bloc’s regulatory arm in Brussels, said when proposing the new rules in October 2011. The average cost of offshore oil and gas accidents in the EU ranges from 205 million euros ($264 million) to 915 million euros a year, the commission said at the time.

Representatives of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers weren’t immediately reachable by telephone at the group’s London and Brussels offices to comment on the new EU legislation.

Source: Fuelfix

Related articles

Inquiry on Potential Oil Price Manipulation Intensifies

New gasoline rules are good for your lungs and bad for Big Oil

Quake Tied to Oil-Drilling Waste Adds Pressure for Rules

Photo: cache.lego.com

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has completed a study that comes up with two ways to use compressed air technology to store wind energy in underground chambers, the national lab said Monday. The two ways both use data and computer modelling to figure out the best sites that could successfully bank wind energy to be used at a later time.

Compressed air, as its name suggests, makes use of an electrically powered air compressor that sends pressurized air into a storage facility, which can be man-made or an underground reservoir. The pressurized air is let out later to run a turbine and generator to produce electricity. As much as 80 percent of the electricity used to compress air can be recovered when the pressurized air is used to generate energy, the lab said. Power losses are common when converting one form of energy to another.

Power in under ground caves

Utilities in the Northwest have a good reason for taking a look at energy storage technology. Wind power makes up about 13 percent (8.6 GW) of the power supply for the Northwest, the national lab said. Wind power tends to be most plentiful at night, when demand is at the lowest. Storing wind power for use during the day would help utilities meet their customers’ demand and manage their grids, which run smoothly when there is a balance of supply and demand. That prompted the Bonneville Power Administration to work with the lab to look into whether compressed air would be a good fit.

Many U.S. utilities or power producers have done preliminary studies or even pilot projects to check out different types of energy storage technologies, including various types of batteries. Often their regulators require them to gradually increase the amount of renewable energy they supply to their customers. Wind and solar have been popular choices, but they don’t generate a steady supply of electricity around the clock. Here is where energy storage comes in handy to help utilities manage their supply and demand.

The researchers were looking for two suitable underground sites for storing compressed air. They used data from gas exploration in Washington state and a computer model that simulates the flow of fluids underground. The idea is to see how much air a site can hold and how easy it’d be for the air to be harvested for power generation. For the study, an ideal underground storage would be at least 1,500 feet deep and 30 feet thick, and it should be close to transmission lines, the lab said.

Pacific Northwest

They found two locations, a place by the Columbia River, just across from Boardman, Ore., and another one in the Yakima Canyon that is roughly 10 miles north of Selah, Wash.

The scientists then sketched out two different processes for storing and re-using energy. At the Columbia River location, which is close to a natural gas pipeline, a compressed air storage plant can use natural gas to heat the compressed air and in the process boost the amount of electricity that can be produced.

At the Yakima location, the facility can use geothermal heat to run a chiller, which will in turn cool the air compressor to make it run more efficiently. Geothermal energy also can heat up the compressed air when it’s released from storage.

Bonneville will now take the results of the $790,000 study and do a round of cost-and-benefit analysis to figure out if compressed air makes for a good business case.

Source: Washingtonpost

Related articles

Germany set to launch new renewable energy storage initiative

Smart storage algorithms could cut data-center energy use by 20-50%

Supercomputers give oil explorers a sharper view underground

That is the key finding of Power Factor: Institutional Investors’ Policy Priorities Can Bring Energy Efficiency to Scale, a new report issued today by Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR). Based on the input of nearly 30 institutional investors and other experts from the energy, policy and financial sectors, Power Factor cites three areas of policy—utility regulation, demand-generating policies and innovative financing policies—that can take energy efficiency financing to a scale sufficient to attract significant institutional investment.

Investment analysts estimate that climate change could contribute 10 percent of overall risk within institutional investment portfolios. Furthermore, the International Energy Agency estimates that one-third of emissions reductions must come from energy efficiency in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Energy efficiency-related investments thus offer institutional investors an attractive opportunity to manage the risks of climate change while earning returns.

“Energy efficiency offers investors a potent one-two punch: stable returns and an important strategy for mitigating climate-related risks,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of INCR.

“Policymakers and regulators should work to unlock capital from institutional investors for energy efficiency by promoting the policies identified in this report. Many of these policies do not require public funds, and they can put money back into the pockets of homeowners and business leaders around the country,” Lubber explained.

Although institutional investors hold shares in energy services companies, have improved energy use in their real estate investments and have filed dozens of shareholder resolutions encouraging more efficient energy use at corporations within their portfolios, the report argues that the ability to drive the financing of energy efficiency projects—financing retrofit loans through a secondary market—is unavailable to them. Secondary markets are routinely used to bundle loans, such as mortgages and car loans, and repackage them as securities or bonds. Investors can then purchase shares of these products, and sell them as they would a share of stock.

“CalSTRS has made a commitment to energy efficiency. In the last year alone, we’ve engaged nearly 100 of our public equity portfolio companies concerning their energy efficiency efforts. In 2007, 47 percent of buildings in our real estate portfolio received top Energy Star scores; today over 90 percent make that mark,” said Jack Ehnes, CEO of the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS).

“However, while many of the largest investors in the country are taking action on energy efficiency, more is needed. Smart policy fixes can help us go further to both realize the massive energy efficiency investment opportunity that exists and help avoid the worst of climate change and the risks it presents to our portfolios,” said Ehnes.

“Investors are interested in energy efficiency, but we need a strong pipeline of projects and better information to maximize the investment opportunity,” said Ken Locklin, managing director, Impax Asset Management LLC. “The changes we are seeing at the local level, including stronger public utilities regulations and disclosure standards for building energy performance are all encouraging factors.”

Specifically, investors cited several areas of policy that would help to build up a secondary market for energy efficiency retrofit loans:

• Utility Regulations—Public Utilities Commissions and other regulators can move the utility business model from a twentieth century model that rewards increasing energy sales to one that maximizes energy efficiency. At the same time, utilities and their regulators can help make energy efficiency finance programs investment grade through the same protections provided to electricity sales as well as better data sharing and strong contractor and performance standards.

• Demand-Generating Policies—Investors highlighted efficiency-inducing measures including building codes and standards and appliance and equipment efficiency standards set a baseline of efficiency in the marketplace. Building energy disclosure requirements, such as those adopted by cities like Philadelphia, New York City and, most recently, Boston, can provide both an impetus to do energy efficiency retrofits and the transparency to facilitate investments in more efficient buildings.

• Innovative Financing Policies—These policies, including Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) bonds, on-bill repayment, credit enhancement and extending Master Limited Partnerships to combined heat and power projects, can overcome the challenge of paying for the upfront costs of energy efficiency retrofits. In addition, these policies help provide vehicles for loans that can be packaged and sold to institutional investors.

“In order for California to realize the full advantages of energy efficiency, we need to focus on policies that encourage institutional investor participation and job creation. We know from our investment colleagues here and around the country that we’re facing similar challenges and opportunities,” said California State Controller John Chiang.

“This is why I am sponsoring legislation in California that will scale-up commercial sector energy efficiency improvements to a level that would be attractive to institutional investors. As this report indicates, the right policies can overcome barriers to low-cost financing for projects that create jobs and use less energy.”

Source: Ecowatch

Related articles

DOE to invest $29m in solar installation, forecasting projects

Green investment bank to set itself emissions targets

Japan, South Korea Plan Green Investments for Economic Growth

Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, said the console would interact with mobile devices. Stuart Isett for The New York Times

The company on Tuesday introduced the new version of its Xbox video game console. The Xbox has been one of Microsoft’s few undeniable consumer hits of the last decade, a product that was not just a credible entry into the games business but also a sign of the innovation possible at a company that is rarely seen as an inventive thinker.

“I think of Xbox as the accidental success out of Microsoft,” said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, who added that the connection Microsoft has formed with the players of its current Xbox is “much deeper than any relationship Microsoft has ever achieved before.”

The new console, the Xbox One, will enter a market very different from the one its predecessor, the Xbox 360, entered nearly eight years ago, when there was no iPad, smartphones had keyboards and mobile gaming devices were primitive at best.

Today, video games can be played almost anywhere, on any device, with the biggest possible audience of online friends and without the aid of a costly gaming console.

Microsoft’s new game console, shown to the press Tuesday. Stuart Isett for The New York Times

The last year or two has been bumpy for Microsoft’s consumer efforts. The Windows 8 operating system software and the Surface tablet-computing devices got a tepid reception from the public when they went on sale last fall.

The company’s mobile phone efforts have been largely ignored. And even Bing, Microsoft’s Internet search engine, has failed to close a wide gap with Google, the market leader.

Microsoft, though, could see better results with the Xbox. With it, it hopes it can reassert the living room as the place where people can still get the best gaming experience, complete with eye-popping graphics and innovative methods for controlling games. It is also a place where Microsoft’s technology can be at the center of a home entertainment system and the funnel through which people gain access to online video.

Microsoft has sold more than 76 million of the device’s current incarnation, the Xbox 360 worldwide, compared with almost 100 million Wii consoles from Nintendo and more than 70 million PlayStation 3s from Sony.

The company also controls what may be the most valuable asset in console gaming, Xbox Live, a subscription-based online service with 48 million members who use it to play games against one another and watch movies.

“You can do a lot of things on the phone and a lot of things on tablets,” said John Taylor, an analyst at Arcadia Investment. But, he said, “you can’t do the same kinds of things on those devices” that you can on a television screen.

Microsoft plans to develop its own original, live-action television series, which will be accessible through the Xbox. The series will be made in partnership with the director Steven Spielberg and will be based on the popular Halo video game franchise.

The company is also working with the National Football League to develop an app for Xbox that lets players interact with their fantasy football teams while watching a live game.

In an interview, Don A. Mattrick, the president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, said that he recognized the growing appeal of mobile devices for gaming and that Microsoft would aggressively tie smartphones and tablets into the experience of using its console. He became most animated when talking about the possibilities of the new Xbox for providers of video programming.

“We’re going to the take the form from a one-way experience pushed through a straw to where you can communicate back and make it interactive,” Mr. Mattrick said.

Even if it is a wild success, the new Xbox is likely to have a bigger impact on consumer perception than it will on Microsoft’s overall sales. The Xbox remains a small slice of the company’s business, which is still dominated by sales of Windows, Office and other software. The company’s games division represented only 4 percent of its operating profit.

At an event in a carnival tent on its corporate campus, Microsoft did not say how much the new system would cost or how publishing partners would charge for games, which typically start at around $60 for high-end game consoles.

A major feature of the new Xbox, which is expected to hit store shelves in time for the holiday season, will be a new generation of Kinect, the camera-based motion-control sensor introduced several years ago as an Xbox 360 accessory. The new Kinect will come with every Xbox One.

Traditional retail sales of games have come under pressure in recent years as mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad have invaded their turf with free and low-cost games. While many gamers dismiss those offerings as inferior to console games, the games have nevertheless tapped into a huge audience of players who may never have played on an Xbox or Sony’s PlayStation.

The games business could use a jolt. Total United States retail sales of game hardware and software fell 25 percent to $495.2 million in April from $657.5 million a year earlier, according to estimates by NPD Group, a research firm. That figure does not include the sale of downloadable content over the Internet.

Alex St. John, an entrepreneur who worked on Microsoft’s pre-Xbox game efforts, says he is pessimistic about prospects for gaming consoles.

“They’re coming out with the latest and greatest stone tool,” Mr. St. John said. “The new console that trumps the old console is called the Apple iPad. This generation of kids loves mobile games.”

Source: Nytimes

Related articles

Microsoft to go carbon neutral

President Hwang Sang-gyu of SR Korea

In this era of smart phones, Apple and Samsung Electronics are evidently top-ranking companies with high profitability. But we can hardly hide disappointment when news reports are often made on their human rights abuse, suppression of right to work, environmental accidents, unfair trade practices, and involvement with illegalities and corruption. Major background of working out the international standard (ISO26000) for social responsibility in 2010 is intended to systematically examine issues of good governance structure, human rights, labor, environment, consumers, fair management and participation in regional communities of all organizations, including companies, as principles of their operation.

In March this year, Samsung China declared the socially responsible management. At the time when social responsibility of companies is increasingly important, we welcome the policy. In China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences evaluates social responsibility of organizations. Its approach is different from Korea. In Korea, people believe that demand for corporate social responsibility will be burdensome to companies, and fulfillment of social responsibility by companies is a new strategic means of enhancing competitiveness on the standpoint of global standard.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences announces every year social responsibility rankings of major 300 companies in China, including 100 state-run companies, 100 private companies and 100 foreign-funded companies. In 2012, Samsung China ranked 55th place among major 300 companies (fifth place among foreign-funded companies).

For socially responsible management, Samsung China made a new attempt of publishing the ‘Report on socially responsible management of Samsung China’. Through the report, Samsung China publicized its policy of fulfilling social responsibility in 5 segments – priority on human resources, customer satisfaction, law-abiding management, ecosystemic growth, and green development.

We typically think of Apple and Samsung Electronics as representative information technology (IT) companies. In the first quarter of 2013, Samsung Electronics ranked first and fifth in sales and operating profit in the world market, respectively. In this period, Samsung Electronics raised 52.87 trillion won ($47.7 billion) in sales, while Apple ranked second by gaining $43.6 billion in sales. In terms of sales amount, these two are top-ranking companies in the global IT industry.

The competition structure between Apple and Samsung Electronics has a number of affirmative aspects. While Apple is adopting the first mover strategy, Samsung Electronics is outpacing the front-runner with fast follower or fast second strategy. But I sometimes think how it will be nice if these two companies compete in good faith in social responsibility management along with competition in profitability.

The world is entering the ISO26000, or social responsibility, era. In this new era, companies that faithfully fulfill social responsibility will succeed in business by earning deeper trust, while those that fail in doing so will gradually fall behind. It is fortunate and happy news that Samsung China declared socially responsible management, while the Samsung Group in Korea shows reserved attitude toward social responsibility.

As it is widely known, deadly labor environment at Foxconn, a subcontractor of Apple, in Taiwan and China, emerged as an international issue. Samsung Electronics was selected as a ‘bad company’ by an international organization due to issues, such as industrial accidents, occupational diseases, suppression of labor union and involvement with corruption.

It is a serious matter indeed that these problems developed in the course of producing IT devices, such as iPhones and Galaxy series. Apple does not publish the ‘Sustainability report’, though most global companies are publishing them. And it shows failing marks in social responsibility as it does not take part in the carbon disclosure project (CDP), which is being implemented across the world to protect the climate.

Samsung Electronics caused major issues in environmental safety, such as leakage of hydrofluoric acid, and it is needed to revise its policy of non-labor union management because it contradicts with international labor practice. It may raise new issues in fair management practice involved with corruption and subcontract companies.

Consumers around the world already began to evaluate companies whether they are fulfilling social responsibility and ethical duties as they are more important criteria in purchasing products than buying cheaper and better products.

Companies need insight of changing crisis to opportunity while actively accommodating diversified demands of stakeholders.

Fulfillment of social responsibility is a new management strategy that can further enhance reputation, trust and value of companies.

Source: e2news

Peidong Yang (left), Hao Ming Chen and Chong Liu (glove box) have developed the first fully integrated nanoscale artificial photosynthesis system. (Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt)

One hour of global sunlight contains enough energy to meet the demands of every human on the planet for an entire year. And a recent breakthrough by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory could make harnessing this energy for human consumption a reality.

Researchers have developed an “artificial forest” that can convert solar energy into chemical fuels.

In a process that mimics photosynthesis, this artificial forest soaks up light and uses it to generate oxygen and hydrogen, two gases that can be used to power fuel cells.

“To facilitate solar water-splitting in our system, we synthesized tree-like nanowire heterostructures, consisting of silicon trunks and titanium oxide branches,” said Peidong Yang, a chemist at Berkeley Lab’s Materials Science Division and lead scientist for the study. “Visually, arrays of these nanostructures very much resemble an artificial forest.”

Much like trees in a real forest, the nanowire trees are densely-packed to help suppress sunlight reflection and produce more surface area for fuel-producing reactions. They also do a good job of mimicking natural photosynthesis — the process by which sunlight is absorbed by the chloroplast of green plants.

When sunlight is absorbed into a plant, it triggers a chain reaction of electrons, which move from one molecule to the next, helping the plant convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrate sugars and oxygen.

This movement of electrons is called an electron transport train, or “Z-scheme” because the pattern of movement resembles the letter Z. The Berkeley researchers borrowed this Z-scheme for their artificial forest, but instead of relying on the pigment in chloroplast to trigger electron movement they used semiconductors.

One of the light-absorbing semiconductors used was silicon, which generates hydrogen. The other is titanium oxide, which generates oxygen. Together, hydrogen and oxygen can be stored in a fuel cell and used to produce renewable energy.

Previous models for artificial photosynthesis, including artificial leaves, have also been successful at generating hydrogen and oxygen, but Yang and his team believe that their nanoscale system is more efficient- and less expensive- than its predecessors.

Yang said his team’s system can serve as a “conceptual blueprint for better solar-to-fuel conversion efficiencies in the future.”

Right now, the artificial forest only operates at 0.12 percent solar-to-fuel efficiency, a rate that will have to be improved if Yang and his team wish to commercialize the system’s use.

However, Yang said he’s confident that with a little tweaking, researchers can “push the energy conversion efficiency up into single digit percentages.” [See also: How Artificial Leaf Heals Itself]

Source: MNN

Related articles

Super-convincing fake egg is made entirely from plants

Robotic Jellyfish Could Stand Guard Over Oceans

10 brilliant examples of Product Design brought to you by Facebook’s Product Design Blog.
www.facebook.com/ProductDesignBlog

Common coolers face an uncertain end.

A tale of two fridges

After years of quiet, dedicated service in our homes, more than 9.4 million fridges and freezers reach the end of their useful life in the U.S. each year.

Every wonder what happens to these unsung heroes of modern life?

First, we should point out that refrigerators and freezers are unique from other appliances and household items because they contain refrigerants and blowing agents, which are powerful greenhouse gases. They also contain polyurethane foam, another GHG contributor. Depending on the type of refrigerant and blowing agent, a single refrigerator can contain the climate equivalent of driving an SUV for an entire year and up to 8 cubic feet of foam.

In the U.S., most refrigerators take one of two paths once leaving our kitchen or garage. The “common cooler” ends up heading directly to a metal scrapyard where its refrigerant and insulation foam are rarely dealt with properly. Conversely, the “lucky fridges,” like those Triple Pundit profiled last September, are properly de-manufactured in accordance with EPA’s Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) program.

The common cooler

According to EPA, more than 90 percent of fridges and freezers discarded each year in the U.S. are not properly recycled. Once they leave your home, they often end up passing through a labyrinth of handlers focused on extracting value from the scrap metal with little concern for anything else.

Federal regulations require that the refrigerant first be recovered from discarded equipment, but lack of oversight and transparency in the value chain means proper recovery is highly unlikely. “Cutting the line,” i.e., venting the refrigerant before the appliance arrives at the refrigerator recycling facility is, unfortunately, a common practice before your beloved old fridge is crushed for scrap metal. Intentional venting of refrigerant carries steep fines under the Clean Air Act, but the risk of getting caught is slim. In fact, venting is so widespread and enforcement so rare, that there are even instructions on the practice. The result is tens of millions of metric tons of CO2-equivalent is released into the atmosphere annually in the U.S. from common coolers.

A rare enforcement case in Portland, Oregon illustrates the common practice and also the exposure and risk related to supply chain integrity.

In addition, the polyurethane foam insulation is typically shredded along with the rest of the unit, and then landfilled. Approximately 65 million cubic feet of foam are buried in landfills each year in the U.S. alone. For some perspective on that volume, this equates to one Empire State building completely buried beneath ground and a second buried to the 76th floor!

Lucky fridges await recycling at JACO

The lucky ones

Through a combination of utility energy efficiency incentives, technological advances, business and logistics innovations and a government-industry partnership (EPA RAD), over 800,000 discarded refrigerators and freezers encounter a better, more sustainable outcome: complete de-manufacturing into component materials.

With 28 refrigerator recycling centers serving 28 states, JACO Environmental is responsible for the majority of RAD compliant units in the U.S. At JACO, lucky fridges are completely de-manufactured, refrigerants are recovered; and foam and blowing agents are recovered and either destroyed or returned as raw materials to the manufacturing ecosystem. Metal, glass and plastics are also recovered and recycled, resulting in less than a shoebox’s worth of material being sent to the landfill per lucky fridge.

Unfortunately for the planet, common coolers are, indeed, common, and lucky fridges are few and far between. Despite successes under RAD, the 800,000 units moving through the program represent a drop in the bucket compared to more than 9 million appliances discarded each year. So what can be done?

When it’s time to part ways with your trusty refrigerator, consider its next stage of life. Ask your retailer, manufacturer or hauler about their program for refrigerator end-of-life and make sure that they have visibility and control of their supply chain.

Signs of progress

RecycleBank and JACO Environmental, in conjunction with New Jersey Clean Energy Program and Sears, recently piloted a program to engage consumers at the point of purchase regarding the path of their trusty old fridge in its “next life.” The program assures stakeholders of responsible appliance disposal in conformance with, and even exceeding, EPA RAD requirements.

Time for a revolution

Cool change on the horizon

EOS Climate, JACO, Hudson Technologies and other organizations spearheading the Refrigerant Revolution® recognize refrigerants as valuable assets. The approach is changing the way refrigerants are managed throughout their lifecycle, improving operational efficiency, protecting organizations from regulatory and reputational risk, and facilitating the transition to a more sustainable future. For the first time, companies will know the full extent of their environmental impact relative to refrigerant use and be able to take proactive steps to manage these critical inventories like other parts of their supply chain.

Over the last three years, EOS has worked closely with JACO to maximize the rate and efficiency of refrigerant recovery nationwide. In concert with JACO’s managers, Todd English, EOS Climate’s VP of Operations, and EOS co-founder, developed operational procedures and quantification tools for all 28 locations. These efforts have resulted in best-in-class refrigerant recovery preventing significant GHG emissions for appliances at end of life.

The potential impact of this new approach is substantial. Based on data from the U.S. EPA and the California EPA, annual emissions of refrigerants in the U.S. equal approximately 250 million tons of CO2* which is the equivalent emissions from 44 million cars, or from power use by 28 million homes. Solving the problem may start by telling a “new tale” with your old fridge.

“And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done– done, see you! — under that sky there, every day.”

– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Ed Note: TriplePundit’s Nick Aster took a trip to JACO’s facility in Hayward, CA, to learn first hand how refrigerators are recycled. Please enjoy the short video below!

Source: Triplepundit

Related articles

LG Electronics’ ‘DIOS V9100’ Refrigerator Wins ‘Carbon Label’ from the Environment Ministry

Samsung Leads Energy Efficiency Rankings for Refrigerators