Can't say enough about cans

All hail the mighty can

U.S. Can Manufacturers Institute is celebrating the birthday of the can this year – really.

They get a little weird about it, but they seem sincere.

“The history of the can is literally a history of western civilization,” their Web site proclaims.

There is a lot of money involved, Americans use 130 billion cans a year creating an $8 billion industry, according to the institute.

But then they fly away again.

“Because we have come to rely so much on the convenience and easy familiarity of canned products, almost imperceptibly present in every part of life, we are the 'tin can civilization.' ”

Really.

The history is interesting. 1796 Napoleon’s troops were starving so he started a contest, according to the Web site. A Parisian tried for 15 years before preserving food by partially cooking it and sealing it in bottles with cork stoppers using much the same technique as today’s home preservers. He won the prize in 1810.

The same year, an Englishman won a patent for preserving food in a variety of containers, including iron coated with tin to avoid rust and corrosion, according to the Web site.

Go, See, Do Stuff

It's good to be smart and this might help all of us.

The Wildcat Bluff Nature Center will hold two events Saturday.

Leadership in energy and environmental design is the topic Mark Benton will be talking about from 10a.m. to noon. The regular admission to Wildcat Bluff will cover the event too.

It's also good to have fun and this might be just the thing. From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., the center will host its Sunset Seasonal Sausage and Suds Scheindig. Cost is $10.

Both events are open to the public.

For more info, call Wildcat Bluff Nature Center at 352-6007.

Some utilities have all the fun

Well, sorry for my absence. I’ve been distracted by family issues with my father failing despite his hospice care and my mother-in-law trying to find her way after the July 4 death of her husband.

I’m going to do better

Here’ something happy about our region’s power supplier. It would be more happy if they were doing these experiments here, but it’s way happier than getting their bills.

Xcel Energy recently announced the first phase of its SmartGridCity in Boulder, Colo., is up and running. It’s a combination of infrastructure and software engineered to increase reliability, provide energy usage info to customers, allow remote reading of electricity meters and the installation of devices the utility or customer can control remotely to manage usage.

One immediate benefit was the system detected four transformers about to croak, allowing Xcel to replace them before customers were left in the dark for hours. It’s an experiment, but the utility says it’s looking good so far on the way to refining a truly smart grid for the future.

An Xcel partner, Spanish energy company Abengoa Solar, just announced another Colorado test, this time in Grand Junction. Abengoa will install a parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant at Xcel’s coal-powered Cameo plant.

That’s the confusing way of saying a trough of mirrors that move to follow the sun and they focus the light that hits them to heat synthetic oil in a pipe, according to Abengoa. The hot oil moves to the power plant and turns water into steam that spins or helps spin the turbines that generate electricity. That and makes plant run more efficiently, using less coal to make the same amount of electricity. More efficient, less carbon emitted. Don’t ask me the details. I’m still working on finding that out.

But why don’t they try that stuff around here? Not that any emissions stay around long with our gentle breezes – except Hereford’s, Borger’s and Pampa’s, I guess.

Please, hold the surprises

Consistent and predictable, those are bywords for food manufacturers and even produce companies. Notice the words manufacturers and companies. They can be large entities with little ideas.

When I first saw this story about “electronic tongues” my curiosity made me rush into it. Somebody or sombodies had developed technology that “boasts 100 percent accuracy over the full range of natural and artificial sweet substances.” That means a sensor that can accurately taste test a lot of stuff.

Interesting.

But then I started to think about it and got a little depressed. These developers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had no doubt tried to make something to improve processes for manufacturers. You know, make things better. The device is the size of a business card, an improvement over the first electronic tongues, and much more accurate.

But to what end will these be put to use? Making things more the same. From China to Amarillo, the candy you eat or soda you drink will taste even more the same than they do now. Where’s the fun?

Now I don’t ask for something crazy like every Red Bull tasting different from the next, but guaranteeing sameness allows for companies to expand. That expansion can chew up the little guy, erasing the variety that is cooked up in smaller batches. It’s like barbecue or enchilada sauces, when you get one that doesn’t taste like it came out of a mass-produced can, no matter how good that stuff is in the can, that new sauce can be a discovery, a revelation, a diversion.

I know, its somehow comforting to walk into a McDonalds and know that, within a certain margin, everything will taste like the last McDonald product you consumed. But does that mean we should banish the Burger Barrel or Arnold's? Should our goal be to become absolutely consistent and safe? That’s what got us the tomatoes everyone curses at the grocery store. They’re reliable and travel well to make for bigger business.

Yummy.

But I still think the idea of an electronic tongue is kind of cool – as a novelty.

Blinded by science

All the details are beyond me, but think about how cool it would be to be able to paint a solar panel onto almost anything.

Chad Boutin recently reported for the National Institute of Standards and Technology that scientists are developing organic photovoltaics (see, I’m already getting a little confused). The short version is that they would replace rigid silicon cells. They would begin as a kind of ink that you could paint on various surfaces.

One rub is that the best organic photovoltaics currently can only convert less than 6 percent of light to power and don’t last very long.

Scientists at the institute are working on improving that performance and recently made discoveries that should help make progress.

“The 'ink' is a blend of a polymer that absorbs sunlight, enabling it to give up its electrons, and ball-shaped carbon molecules called fullerenes that collect electrons. When the ink is applied to a surface, the blend hardens into a film that contains a haphazard network of polymers intermixed with fullerene channels.”

See, clear as mud. But the important part is that, “By applying X-ray absorption measurements to the film interfaces, the team discovered that by changing the nature of the electrode surface, it will repulse fullerenes (like oil repulses water) while attracting the polymer.”

That means improvements in performance and lifespan because the materials aren't mixed haphazardly. That seems like a good thing to me.

And organic photovoltaics, try typing that fast six times, are a hot topic these days. A quick Google search brought up about 230,000 results. Go there for some light reading.

Slime sublime

The National Biodiesel Board is pushing research to turn slime respectable.


The NBB is supporting scientists in their work to make algae an efficient source of oil to make biodiesel. Research topics include developing a non-destructive oil extraction process. That means there would be a lot fewer algae bodies to dispose of or find a good use for after squishing them to get the oil out. Continuously removing oil from living algae is called, “milking the algae,” according to the NBB.

I get a real fuzzy picture of what that entails, but the potential result sounds good. Besides, you can grow algae in tanks of yucky water on land where crops like corn for ethanol or soybeans for biodiesel can’t grow.

The enthusiasm at a recent summit covering the topic almost sweeps you away.

“Ted Abernathy with the Southern Growth Policies Board captured the as yet unknown potential for algae in his welcome address.,” according to the NBB Web site. "When this started, it seemed interesting," he said. "Now it seems really interesting."

Really or really-really interesting?

Okay, he’s not a motivational speaker but the results could be helpful, especially if algae can be contained and not become an invasive species like kuzu or johnson grass.

The New York Times recently ran a cautionary story about some of the crops under consideration for farmers to grow to make cellulosic ethanol. The story cites giant reed, a scary grass that grows in dense clumps up to 20 feet tall, that researchers want to plant in Florida.

We probably don't have to worry about it here, since it grows in damp spots, but it crowds out native plants, forms a dense root mat that blogs water seeping into the ground, chokes water ways and, oh boy, is easily ignitable.

Giant reed photo courtesy of the National Park Service. Hmmmm.

Funky food fun

Here's a bit of hodge podge from the food world.

First up - British-based Tesco, the third largest retailer in the world, is offering bits of land to grow your own veggies. The company touts the "allotments" as great ways to get exercise, teach children about nature, preserve the environment, reduce shopping bills and curb the use of fertilizer and pesticides.

Of course the stores also sells grow-your-own gardening supplies.

The allotments are small parcels of ground that rent for between $15 and $75.

Tesco is also planning on selling chicks and adult hens to lay eggs and reports the chicken coops it sells are very popular.

Take two - The brat burger could be in your future.

Johnsonville, maker of all things sausage has been rolling out slices of sausage meat for food service customers. Next up is the brat, which is a pre-cooked product that follows Johnsonville's other Ultimate Sausage Slices — Andouille, Italian, and Hot 'N' Spicy.

The company suggests using them for everything from snacks to stir fries. But check out this useage. No wonder one comment on a blog about this subject asked to be reminded why health care costs are so high.

Can't we all just shop together?

My wife laughed, perhaps nervously, when I told her we need to vacation at the Amigo’s supermarket, but I wasn’t laughing.

I just took a tour of the United Supermarket made over to appeal to latino shoppers as well as white bread shoppers. Oh baby. They’ve integrated the Hispanic food into the normal fare so there’s no ghetto where half an aisle has all the good stuff.

The imported candy is with the Hershey’s bars, the exotic shapes of Mexican pasta are with the American Beauty spaghetti. The Mexican Coca-Cola, made with cane sugar, is with the Mountain Dew.

Then there’s the prepared food.

Chicken mole, aguas frescas in six or seven fresh fruit flavors, four kinds of flour tortillas – they’re all made on site. And they're right next to the fried chicken.

Amigo’s COO Sidney Hooper said every effort was made to keep things authentic, not Tex-Mex, and convenient.

The meat market might make the less adventurous a little confused, but how can you beat the whole cow and hog heads for roasting underground in burlap? Well, there’s also five kinds of fajita mixes ready for stir frying, goat meat, rabbit halves, boneless chicken thighs flavored with adobo spices, and yes, hamburger. But there's also cheek meat for barbacoa and whole tongues for lengua. They're really big and look surprisingly like tongues (I've only seen them chopped on my plate).

I’ll have a full story with photos on the Sunday business page. See if you think it’s worth a visit at Interstate 40 and Grand Street.

And Hooper said to ask for a taste if you’re not familiar with something in the prepared food section. Don’t miss the chunky guacamole. Trust me on this.

Five mixes of fajita ingredients ready to go to the stove.

Photo by Stephen Spillman

Chicken? Egg? Wind?

What has to come first to cover our horizon with wind turbines? This photo was taken near Palm Springs and shows part of an installation of 4,000 turbines.

I have mixed feelings about how much wind would be good for the Panhandle - not really at the wild-eyed chamber of commerce level, but not totally against it like the grumpy old man people accuse me of being.

The American Wind Energy Association recently released its second quarter market report, saying wind installations nationally went against expectations, beating the 2008 first half total. The industry installed 4,000 megawatts in 2009 versus 2,900 MW last year.

In another segment of the business, orders for parts are slowing as is the manufacture of turbines.

AWEA's CEO, Denise Bode, says what we need is a stronger push by the federal government via a robust national renewable fuel requirement.

And what can't the federal government make better? Nevertheless, in the shortrun, that probably won't help the Panhandle.

Walt Hornaday, head of Cielo Wind, knows about the wind business here. His company finished the Wildorado Wind Ranch in Oldham County a couple of years ago and has developed numerous other projects in Texas.

While people continue to say "if only the transmission lines would get here to take our power to the neon lights of Dallas, we could start building wind farms," there might be something else hitting the brakes.

According to Hornaday, The financial sector would not step up and fund that building right now. With projects costing about $2 million per megawatt, that's a lot of missing financing when you think about the Wildorado installation being rated at 161 MW capacity.

The AWEA report has some other interesting information, especially if you're a wind geek. For example, Missouri led the country in second quarter growth at 146 MW added while Texas doesn't even make the top 10 with 454 MW added. I know that's because Texas already has a lot of wind farms, so the 454 is a smaller percentage, but it looks weird to get beat by Missouri.

All in the family

The Center for Public Integrity reports Podesta One and Podesta Two are going head on.

Seems John Podesta, formerly known as co-chair of the Obama transition and Clinton chief of staff, is head of the Center for American Progress, and they really don’t like the term “clean coal.” In fact, they accuse the coal industry of using it to mislead in the debate about energy production, greenhouse gases and air pollution.

Then there’s lesser-known but equally well-connected Tony Podesta. The Center for Public Integrity describes him as “one of Washington’s most successful lobbyists." He's also John's brother. One of his clients? The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The coalition paid his Podesta Group lobbying firm $50,000 in the second quarter to make its case during the climate debate in the House.

One of the policy papers by the Center for American Progress lambasts ACCCE as a group of coal and utility companies just stalling on making clean coal mean something. The report says the companies made a combined profit of $57 billion in 2007 but invested only a "paltry" $3.5 billion in clean coal research over several years.

Now I could be wrong, but $3.5 billion isn't extremely paltry in my checkbook, but I get the center's point.

"Meanwhile, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels grow, ice sheets melt, hurricanes become more ferocious, and the day of reckoning for the Earth looms closer," according to the center's paper.

Even the Podestas' gotta make a buck, but there may be a "day of reckoning" in Podestaland if this climate debate thing keeps going.

Amarillo biz to knock NOx

The press to reduce emissions from diesel vehicles continues, and the Pilot Travel Center in East Amarillo on Interstate 40 will be one of the first in the chain to offer diesel exhaust fluid at the pump.

Pilot will initially equip 24 stations, including the Amarillo one, to dispense the fluid, according to a convenience store industry publication.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been phasing in compliance with regulations to reduce all kinds of bad stuff that diesel engines can spew. Ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel is one way refiners and drivers are complying, reducing sulfur by about 90 percent.

The new deadline approaching next year is for smog-producing nitrogen oxide (NOx). There are a couple of ways to cut that, but the diesel exhaust fluid to be sold at Pilot works with selective catalytic reduction where the injection of the fluid into the exhaust of a diesel engine makes nitrogen oxide into nitrogen and water vapor.

I know, 10 years from now we might find out we’re creating a bigger problem, but that’s the plan for now.

The North American SCR Stakeholders Group is pushing for this technology over the other ones on its Web site.

The trade/government group touts SCR for its performance advantage, saying initial test results show that SCR will increase fuel efficiency by about 3-5 percent.
The group claims the reduction of pollutants includes:
• Nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 90%
• Hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions by 50-90%
• Particulate matter (PM) emissions by 30-50%

A green finale

So I’m looking at a story from The Associated Press about a green trend involving coffins made from banana leaves or woven bamboo. They take up to two years to decompose and give you a chance to do one last green thing for the planet.

Then I start to feel a little weird and almost guilty because my father-in-law recently died and my father is under hospice care. But their problems have had me thinking a lot harder about what I want when it’s my problem.

So a little research takes me to a Sierra Club Web page that starts a story with “Recycle yourself.”

A link there takes me to an ad for the Ecopod from the Natural Burial Company, made from “sturdy paper-mache made from recycled newspapers and covered in handmade paper of mulberry leaves and recycled silk.” Each one has its own silkscreened design –doves on the blue one, a Celtic cross on the green one, and my favorite, an Aztec sun on the red one.

They say theirs is the pick when “providing for someone’s Last Style Statement.”

Kent Casket Industries offers solid pine coffins and caskets “sourced from sustainable forests” with no stains or “highly toxic glue.” For some reason they also tout no animal products or used, but I’m not going there.

For ease of storage, they are shipped packed as flat panels with easy-to-follow assembly instructions. And don’t forget the rope handles.

But I’m not sure about the NatureBoard™eco coffins from Ecocoffins. They’re “made from a cardboard which contains at least 90% recycled material so if you are looking for an environmentally-friendly funeral ours are accepted at native woodland burial sites, woodland burial sites and traditional graveyards and crematoria. We only use natural starch based glues in assembly.”

No, not cardboard. I played in enough refrigerator boxes as a kid.

My pal Pickens

Just got a personal note from T. Boone Pickens about his $10 billion wind farm near Pampa.

Well, I guess the note actually went to all his Pickens Army people who promote the Pickens Plan. See any Pickens Pattern here?

He says the wind farm isn’t cancelled, just postponed to 2013 when the transmission lines are due to be completed in the Panhandle for the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones. That's counter to what many news outlets said recently

Oh yeah, and he’s a victim in this.

“This misreporting is no doubt being fueled by those aggressively trying to convince Congress and the American public that wind and solar power can’t contribute significantly to solving our energy problems. They are wrong,” the note says.

And don't forget all the natural gas he wants to sell drivers for their cars since it won't be needed for electricity. That will cut our gasoline use and teach the Saudis and Chavez a lesson.

The 667 turbines he ordered from GE to be delivered in 2011 for the first phase are still coming, apparently. Pickens told a Bloomberg reporter he might use them for smaller farms or just “put’em in the garage.” That would be some garage, but I guess he could afford to build one before his investment fund crashed harder than my 401K.

And then we get all touchy-feely like Boone always does.

“I cannot ever thank you enough for your continued support for the Pickens Plan.”

A lot of bull

The Western Business Roundtable will be offering politicians and the media elite some “cojones” this week.

The business lobbying group will serve Rocky Mountain oysters at its annual Taste of the West event after a hard day of showing off "tomorrow's game-changing technology today." Some kind of clean tech/green tech show and tell.

In a news release, the group calls the bull testicles by prettified names like calf fries, cowboy caviar, and a new one on me, Montana tendergroin. I don't even want to think about that.

But apparently, Capitol Hill staffers love them.

"Although I'm not certain that everyone knows the dish's derivation. A number of Members of Congress from the West come by early just to make sure they can grab some before they are gone," said Jim Sims, President and CEO of the Roundtable. "I can't say that I have seen many news media folks try them, but hope springs eternal in the quest to better educate folks in the Beltway media crowd about life outside the Beltway."

Okay, so what’s the big deal about the media? If the congressional staffers don’t know what they’re eating, how would most members of the media? So if reporters are shying away from the calf fries, and they absolutely shouldn’t, what would be the reason? I think its just the politicians and their helpers hogging the good stuff before anyone else can get some. Would that be hard to imagine?

I really believe we should stay focused on the grand tradition of ridiculing politicians. They’re paid by the public, not Rupert Murdock. And believe me, they make way more than “the media.” And don’t forget, they write and pass the laws that apply to everyone but themselves. So maybe they have a cojones overload and should back away from the table and let somebody else get some.

Making manure green

Not by feeding too much alfalfa.

Dairy cows are big energy users, but a Texas AgriLife researcher will present a paper at the Texas Animal Manure Management Issues forum in Austin that shows they can pay their energy bills and more.

I’m not sure what will be more fun, barhopping on Sixth Street or the conference.

But I digress. Cady Engler, the researcher, looked at electrical, diesel, gasoline and natural gas usage on dairies for milking, waste management, feeding and watering. He didn’t include the energy to grow crops for feed or transporting the milk to market.

He found a wide variation in usage from one type of dairy to another, but the average was about 3.2 kilowatt hours per day per cow.

Turning manure into energy, either with bacteria to make methane or high heat to make hydrogen or both could make up to 25 kilowatt hours per day per cow.

The processes can not only make energy, in the form of heat or electricity, but also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the manure. They also reduce the volume of “nutrients” left to be disposed of. In ag researcher talk that means there’s less poop to spread on farm fields - up to 80 percent less.

And in places where it rains (that leaves most of the Panhandle out) and there's hills (out again) that would mean less threat of said "nutrients" ending up in a creek, then a river, then a lake, then your house. But you already got that.