From Nuclear to Ecological Engineering

A couple of years ago I left a good-paying government job in nonproliferation to first write a book and then pursue a career change. I had a MS in Nuclear Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2007 and worked for almost three years at this government job.

Why did I do this? And why did I go into nuclear engineering in the first place? At the time, I was interested in two areas within the field: 1) nonproliferation and 2) nuclear waste. Nonproliferation seemed interesting to me because I could potentially work in a technical field but related to ethics - to hopefully contribute to a safer world. 2) Nuclear waste is of course one of the biggest issues with nuclear power, and a solution to that would be great.

In graduate school (and this could just be representative of where I happened to be), I didn't find the particularly progressive atmosphere I was hoping for. (Perhaps Berkeley would have been better!!!) Some people were simply gung-ho for nuclear power, with little changing from our current culture's excessive and wasteful energy usage other than what source it comes from. Other people were more into research and other applications of nuclear technology, for which there are many very solidly good uses.

After working in nonproliferation for awhile, I realized I had difficulty keeping up a high level of interest in the affairs of all sorts of different countries pertaining to their programs and speculation about their attention. There was lots of concern about terrorist use of materials - where I worked, not so much nuclear bombs, but just pure radioactive material that could possibly be spread around a city creating a whole mess of a problem, even though there would be few deaths. This is called a dirty bomb. It just didn't fit with me to worry so much about a relatively remote chance of such a terrorist threat, even though it would be scary, and I'm glad overall that other people are doing something about it. It's a pretty nonpartisan topic.

So during this time, I discovered two fascinating books. Joseph Jenkins' "The Humanure Handbook" and Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma". The first opened up to me the world of microorganisms, and an understanding of the resources inherent in our waste. All waste in nature is recycled, yet when we throw away our wastes we not only lose their value, they actually become pollutants and disease carriers because we concentrate them and mix them with all sorts of other stuff. Omnivore's Dilemma had a bit of a sciency feel and it taught me about the complex and beautiful ecology and patterns of nature, and how synergistic agriculture could be far more productive, beautiful, and actually beneficial to nature. I learned about why fertilizers and standard huge-scale agriculture is so damaging, and it was a fun and exciting read packed full of interesting knowledge.

I finally saw that there was plenty of science and engineering in these fields, and a great need for more precision and quantifiable information to counteract the well-meaning but very subjective fluffy trends in the environmental movements. Many schools had Environmental Engineering programs, but they tended to simply solve the symptoms of the problems we create, instead of really look back to the beginning of the system and try to solve them there more holistically. I found an Ecological Engineering program that was focused much more on true sustainability, wary of "greenwash" or misleading green advertising/propaganda, and where I could study things like urban sustainability, microorganisms, and even poo! (This is what's composted in humanure). They have a great Engineers Without Borders group, and in 2010 I went to Haiti to volunteer with a non-profit that does ecological sanitation there.

The composting of human wastes is a simple, beautiful, not as smelly as you'd imagine, and awfully effective way of dealing with human waste, challenges of fertility, and preventing illness due to poor sanitation. It doesn't require expensive plumbing, water for flushing, sewage treatment plants, and it doesn't treat the nutrients in our waste as well...waste! For instance, the function of our urinary tract (how we pee) is to get rid of excess nitrogen in our body. That is the only way we get rid of nitrogen, so wow, it makes sense that our urine is an extremely rich source of nitrogen fertilizer! In fact, Sweden is really into using urine as fertilizer, and in many developing countries it's a really important and free source of fertilizer.

Especially with Haiti's poor soil, erosion, and cholera epidemics, ecological sanitation has promise to literally save tens of thousands of lives, provide people with the dignity of having a place to go to the bathroom without poisoning themselves, and to create high-quality fertilizer to help Haiti be self-sufficient in food.

So these are some of the things I'm excited about, and why I wanted to switch to Ecological Engineering. I'll get to study these things, make cool synergistic systems, learn about biogas (making natural gas from human wastes and food wastes), and so forth. In the urban environment, these also have a lot of potential. If we all got natural gas from our wastes, it would be free and we wouldn't have to do all this shale oil and gas extraction that is more environmentally damaging even than other fossil fuels. Green New Yorkers is leading a CSO trip soon. Think if we got natural gas from our human waste, which then becomes fertilizer, instead of flushing it down the toilets and into the rivers when it rains!

It's about common sense and learning to see and use what's right in front of us. There's nothing weird about the fact that we poo and pee. Every living thing does, or creates waste in some other way, and there's always another living thing that thrives off that waste, breaking it back down into the ingredients of life to keep the cycle going.

I feel fortunate to have found the right field for me, and I can't wait to be around people who know so much more about it all than me!

I remember reading an article in the NY Times about a project to interview elderly people and ask them to reflect on what's most important in their lives. A huge percentage of them said, that after thinking about it, it's so extremely important to have a job that you care about, find important, and have fun with. So although I've had financial and other setbacks, I think it's a good investment for my future, and hopefully the future of the planet!

Hope you enjoyed my post and some of my story. I move to Syracuse this summer to begin a Ph.D. program in Ecological Engineering.

Lean, Mean, and Green: Green Volunteering in NYC

Last year my head exploded.  It was Earth Day 2011, April 22.  I was walking in Central Park with a friend and it was a gorgeous April day.  I remember that I had alot swimming around in my brain: green house gases are causing world climate change to happen faster, the world population is reaching 7 billion, food and oil is becoming more expensive,  fossil fuels continue to pollute, and on and on.  So there I was, walking and talking, barking really, at my friend complaining, “What are we going to do? Who is going to save the planet?” After bloviating for a good 100 yards, my friend turned to me and asked, “Maybe its time you DO something about it rather than complain to me all the time!”  I stopped in my tracks.  Yes, what was I going to do? Keep complaining or do something about it?  Up until this point, I did recycle at home, I did reduce and reuse all that I could including electricity at home. I was not a vegetarian but I did shop at my local farmers market.  I attended local environmental talks.  I signed petitions.  I called myself an environmentalist.  But after considering all that I did, I realized that, for me, it was not enough. 

I suddenly became very excited.  My furrowed brow of worry and alarm smoothed out and my eyes brightened with new possibility.  I had been thinking about volunteering for a long time but just never got around to starting. I wanted to get more involved in my community and now was the time to get going!  So I set out on a journey to learn about how to participate in green initiatives near me and help make change happen right here.  I joined New York Cares (http://newyorkcares.org/), attended their orientation, and began doing volunteer projects in parks and gardens around the city.  If you are interested in volunteering but not sure how to start, then NY Cares is the place to begin.  It is incredibly easy and organized, and I feel like I am part of an army of doers.  It is the best way to explore the 1200+ local organizations that need volunteers on an ongoing basis.  The NY Cares website is fantastic for quickly finding projects that need people to volunteer any day of the week, by neighborhood, by type of project, and even by subway line.  I started doing projects that involved park and community garden clean ups and work.  I do love digging in the dirt.  I have also been having a fun time volunteering with GrowNYC (http://www.grownyc.org/) with their kitchen scrap composting program available at a few greenmarkets around the city.  It is a good program to promote diverting compostable material from the city garbage system and instead sending this rich resource to our local urban farms, gardens, and other places that can use it.

I decided to take my Saturday volunteering to the next level.  In my efforts to become more and more green in my everyday life, I had been thinking of going vegetarian and so started doing “Meatless Mondays” (http://www.meatlessmonday.com/) which is a movement that you are likely aware of.  Even Oprah had done a show about it during her final season.  The idea is to consciously not eat meat on Mondays, and in so doing eating more vegetables and soy to improve diet and health, while also buying and consuming less from the meat industry which is a huge polluter in this country.  Taking a cue from this concept I thought it would be fun and rewarding to do “Green Saturdays” during which I would not use any (or as little as possible) personal electricity each Saturday.  I really got excited.  I decided to start documenting my green Saturdays on twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/greensaturdays).  I like using twitter as an alternative for communication and networking and this form of “micro blogging” seemed right for the job. There are a million things that I can do in this city while not using my electricity and it has been a blast doing them. I look forward to my Saturdays now in a way that I never did before: just finding outdoor or indoor things to do is part of the fun. I also enjoy saving a little coin on my electric bill! The most fun part of my green Saturdays and volunteering is that I have met so many like-minded people here in New York and started some great friendships, an army of greenies and you’d never even know it!

During my nearly 10 months of doing Green Saturdays, I am proud to say that I have learned so much, I have met incredible people, and I have explored this city in new and exciting ways.  Ten months ago I was not sure how New York City was getting green or what organizations were available for people who want to get more involved.  Now, I do.  Green Saturdays brought me to Green New Yorkers and other environmentally friendly groups and people.  I do feel 100 times more conscious about our environmental situation in New York, in the US, and in the world as a whole.  I find myself paying so much more attention and being “plugged in” to our future.  Am I saving the world by not using my electricity once a week?  No. But going from being a complainer to a doer has meant everything this past year to me by getting involved and getting greener. 

Creating Wealth with Nature's Money

Jan 2012 Green Living Food for Thought

Imagine being able to have a business with very low or zero total costs including but not limited to startup investments, raw materials, machinery, energy, labor, and waste disposal. The operation of this business results in environmental benefits for the site, lower costs for the municipality, better health for the customers and the business operators. This business produces products of very high quality and value which are not at risk from competition from business rivals.

Ridiculous? There's more....

Imagine that the business uses nanorobots that operate mostly without supervision - programming, repairing, reproducing, and decommissioning themselves as necesssary. We can have this business in our own neighborhoods without any travel expenses and specifically without any new direct fossil fuel involvement. The business tends to become easier and cheaper to operate as well as more productive as time goes on so that the profit margin approaches 100%!

Are you thinking this is a useless delusional exercise?

Actually, the description of this seemingly miraculous business is simply of a compost-fed home food garden designed around salvaged materials, seed saving, and plant propagation. Compost worms are like nanorobots able to process food waste into top quality potting soil and fertilizer! Edible plants are like nanotech factories powered by sunlight that manufacture food. http://www.meetup.com/GreenNewYorkers/events/21841391/

Mystery solved!

The Wealth Creation in this example is achieved by recognizing the value of resources from Nature that our culture has socialized us to ignore or to discard as waste. However, in Nature there is no concept of waste...every output from a natural system is a valuable resource for another.

Examples of Nature's Money that are typically ignored or discarded include:

$$$ Compostable Food Waste and Yard Waste
$$$ Sunlight, Shade, Gravity, Wind, and Rain
$$$ Edible Weeds (take a look at - http://www.meetup.com/GreenNewYorkers/events/25198421/)

But wait, how economically meaningful can fruits and vegetables from a home garden be? Well, what would it mean to our society if we could reduce the need for food stamps, Medicaid, and Medicare? I can speak with authority from my own experience that my grocery expenses and health care costs are much much lower than the national average as a direct benefit of this type of home garden.

Here is the CHALLENGE to Green New Yorkers....let's look around for examples of Nature's Money mistakenly overlooked or considered refuse and figure out how to convert it into the Wealth that we sorely need. Our food system is just one of a myriad of areas in our lives to examine.

There's no time to lose when there is so much to gain!

December Green Living Food for Thought: Train v. Air

I thought I might do a monthly "Green Living Food for Thought" email. This is something I shared with my colleagues at work earlier this week (we have a "green" group at work). One person already changed their travel plans from flying to train based on the discussion!

So....I have started taking the train instead of flying whenever it is remotely feasible. I originally limited it to traveling the NE corridor but over the summer took the train from NY to Pittsburgh for business travel. I found it to be a much more enjoyable trip and I did some back of the envelope calculations on tradeoffs between rail and flying (though bus is actually the best).

1. CO2 emissions: Rail emits 70-90% LESS CO2 than flying (depending on how you are counting air emissions)
740 miles:
Transport CO2 Emissions
Small Car: 152.4 kg of CO2 per passenger with 1 occupant(s)
Large Car: 306.5 kg of CO2 per passenger with 1 occupant(s)
Train: 63.6 kg of CO2 per passenger
Bus: 35.7 kg of CO2 per passenger
Plane: 204.1 kg or 500 kg of CO2 per passenger, if you account for the fact that emissions from planes have a greater effect because of altitude.

Source: http://www.transportd...

2. Absolute travel time: Flying wins by a factor of 2By air, my door to door trip is 6 hours:
1.5 hours from home to the airport by transit
1.5 hours hanging about at the airport
1.3 hours in flight
1 hour from the airport to the office by transit
Total: 5.3 hours

By train, my door to door trip is 10.6 hours (10 hour train ride, 40 min total to/from train station at each end)
For comparison driving takes 6-7 hours, unless you hit NJ at a bad time. Then it can take the rest of your life.
By bus, its 8.6 hours door to door each way (8 hours drive, 1 hour back and forth to stop), again with the NJ caveat.

*I only take transit to and from airports. If you drive, this will change both trip lengths.

3. Useful work time: train works out better along several dimensionsUnusable/lost hours:
By air, I get to work 1.6 of 5.3 hours -- 40 min on the plane, 1 hour at the airport. I've lost 3.7 hours in travel.
By train, I get to work 9.5 hours on the train. I've lost 1.1 hours in travel

% of travel that is workable (not really fair metric)
By air: 30% of my travel time is workable (1.6/5.3).
By train: 90% of my travel time is workable (9.5/10.6)

% of time that is workable over equivalent time:
By air: 66% of the total window is workable. Lets assume that I worked the the other 5.3 hours outside of travel. 5.3+1.6 = 7 hours of useful work time in the 10.6 hour block.
By train, 90% again.

For comparison, you'd get about 7.5 hours of useful work time on a bus, and 0 in a car.

Note: My work requires 100% computer use. Your experience may be different if you've got other kinds of work.

4. Convenience and comfort: train wins no contest.- No security headaches
- No packing headaches
- No waiting in long lines
- No waiting around at the station/airport
- Much more comfortable seats
- Plenty of room to meander
- Better view
- No sausage toes and other physical side effects of air travel

Basically, I arrived in Pittsburgh feeling fabulous, whereas whenever I get off a flight, I feel like I've been beaten.

5. Cost: train and flights are comparable, bus wins hands downTrain costs $180 round trip
Flights can be more or less
Bus can be as cheap as $5!

6. Schedule: Flying wins hands downThe number of trains along this and other routes are limited, where as there are an infinite number of flight options.

7. Time I spent thinking about this: priceless.

The Green New Yorker Mission: We Want Your Advice!

Green New Yorkers are deeply concerned about the environment, and we're ready to do something about it right now! There are an infinite ways to encourage change, yet we have a limited amount of time and resources (hey, we're busy people!).

What do you believe our priority and mission should be?

We could focus on encouraging Green New Yorker members to be as green as possible (imagine 100 people and 0 incandescent bulbs). We could work with community leaders to make green choices (shut the doors when you're running the AC!). We could work to directly improve environment by planting trees with Million Trees NYC or cleaning up the East River.

A little neurosis to start us off...

Hello world! I've decided to document the adventures of the "No-Impact New Yorkers" Meetup group aimed at nourishing and growing a community of New Yorkers interested in spreading the word about personal responsibility towards the environment by taking personal responsibility for themselves. I'm keeping this blog private for the moment, in case this adventure goes kaput the way my "Hiking the Appalachian Trail" adventure did (3 blog posts, 2 pairs of wool socks, and a sleeping pad, but not one step on the trail itself). On that hopeful note...

It began this past Saturday. Dave and I watched the movie "No Impact Man" -- thank you, Netflix Gods -- and lamented the fact that we don't have a posse of like-minded friends with whom we can be green. Its really hard feeling like we are the most environmentally conscious of our local friends (it may not be true, but we feel that way). Being me, I decided I would not stand for this kind of thing, by golly, and I did several things.

First, I wrote an email to Colin Beavan thanking him for the excellent movie and his efforts.

Second, I started a meetup group called Green New Yorkers and spent 2 hours on the logo. I think I've ripped it off from somewhere, I just can't recall where.

I then spent the next 4 hours hitting "reload" hoping to have one, just one, member. No dice.

Third, I had drinks and dinner at Gobo with Katja and Anden and was wonderfully surprised to learn that they are quite as green as we are! Katja does the same goofy stuff we do about not going to a grocery store unless you have your own bag! How did we not know this?! Anyway, I begged Katja and Anden to be my first meetup group members, and they were wonderful to agree. Spirits raised slightly.

I spent the next two days incessantly hitting "reload", with zero members besides Katja and Anden, and the horrible feeling that, to paraphrase Calvin, my idea would explode in the hangar. After poking around Meetup, I finally realized that the group was not actually in the Meetup directory. Oh sweet relief! It wasn't me, it was them! I wasn't a failure (yet)! I promptly took my frustration out on the poor Meetup developers and let them know how I felt about the hold up. (Good job, Nidhi. Way to get in the spirit of community).

On my way to DC yesterday, I emailed Stephanie and Colin again at the No Impact Project to ask about getting my hands on their manual and about a tool to track sustainable living behaviors. And... Stephanie wrote back asking me if they could talk with me! I flipped out and called Dave right away. I somehow managed to write a sensible reply "Dear Stephanie, it would be a pleasure..."

I also cheated and emailed Kamil last night, the group owner of Vegunks (vegetarian/vegan rock climbers) to see if he would email his group about my group. Despite the email from Stephanie and Colin, I didn't think my ego could take the absence of members much longer.

And, this morning in my hotel in DC, I woke up to a new member! Hooray! Success! I threw myself a mental party, sent her a "Greeting," and continued to monitor my Meetup membership obsessively all morning. I was in meetings from 11AM onward and took the train home immediately after, so I had no chance to check my membership until I got home. On arrival I rushed to the site with bated breath... 18 members at 8PM! I am so excited!! And, its now 10PM, I have 21 members and 7 attendees to my first Meetup! Hooray!

Green living, here I come!