Tag Archives: methane

Food & Drink

Local Efforts Aim to Combat Food Waste in South Florida – NBC 6 South Florida | Instant News


On Wednesday afternoon, we were invited to watch the food rescue in progress. The food comes from Trader Joe’s in Miami Beach which is not worth selling but very tasty and safe to eat.

Instead of letting it end up in the local landfill, it went somewhere much more useful.

“What we do is save unsold and unused food and directly transfer it to the people who need it,” said Ellen Bowen, director of the US Food Rescue website in Miami.

Food Rescue US is a non-profit organization that links food donors such as Trader Joe’s and other grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, event venues – with local social service agencies such as shelters and soup kitchens.

And that is done via the website.

The organization also connects them with local volunteers to pick up and deliver food in person.

“Forty percent of all food is wasted, but one in five people sleep hungry every night,” says Bowen.

This specialty food rescue goes straight to Miami Rescue Mission near Wynwood, where Chef Juan Fernandez and his team will turn it into delicious home-cooked meals for homeless and needy families.

“It was not in vain for them and their reaction to us is gratitude,” said Chef Fernandez.

Although fighting food insecurity is part of the Food Save mission, reducing food waste is another. And that’s a bigger problem than you might think.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, an estimated 63.1 million tonnes of food were wasted in the United States in 2018.

Experts from the University of Miami help us understand the impact this has on our environment.

“If not composted properly, it will end up in landfills,” said Lokesh Ramamoorthi, a lecturer at the UM Faculty of Engineering, where he said the student mindset had shifted to sustainability projects.

Ramamoorthi explains that when food rots, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are related to wasted food.

The Lovvett app, developed by the Coral Gables couple, works to reduce food waste in different ways. This app helps local restaurants sell excess food that may end up in the trash.

“The food is heavily discounted,” said Rafael Garrido, CEO and co-founder of the app. “In the end, whatever food they have on the shelves that they can’t yet sell, they post it on the app to be picked up normally between the last two and three hours of their operation.”

Garrido says this allows restaurants to reduce their waste and, “at the same time, get new customers and increase their bottom line a little.”

Matthieu Cartron owns La Croquantine, a bakery and bistro in Doral.

“It’s really hard to sell everything because you want your showcase to be full,” says Cartron. “We can store some products, but for example, fruit tarts that we can’t sell for the next day.”

Cartron posts those leftover cakes and buns on the Lovvett App. After a difficult pandemic year, he could now benefit from the excess.

“Then we can sell everything for 50%, 60% off,” says Cartron.

Another important thing to remember from the EPA is that when food is wasted, it also wastes important resources such as land, water, labor and energy that is used to grow, store, distribute and prepare that food.

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Switzerland

Switzerland- Studies point to lake methane as a future energy source | Instant News


(MENAFN – Swissinfo) Lakes, a source of 20% of global natural methane emissions, could also be a source of global energy, if handled properly, said the Swiss researcher.

This content is published April 4, 2021 – 18:23 April 4, 2021 – 18:23 Keystone-SDA / dos

In a paper published this week, researchers from Basel and Zurich suggest a way to more efficiently extract the methane that naturally develops when biomass rots in lakes.

Methane, which is 25 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide, is mostly produced by the petroleum industry and agriculture. However, one fifth of all methane emissions are generated naturally in lakes. This “in theory would be sufficient to meet all the world’s energy needs,” said University of Basel scientist Maciej Bartosiewicz.

Bartosiewicz, along with Przemyslaw Rzepka and Moritz Lehmann, claim to have developed a concept – using a filter-like membrane made of a porous mineral called zeolite – to extract this gas more efficiently.

Until recently, the only place in the world where methane was extracted from lakes and used to generate electricity was Lake Kivu, in Central Africa. However, these bodies of water enjoy enormous amounts of methane, 100 times more than in ordinary lakes. Such operations have not been profitable elsewhere, said the University of Basel in its press release.

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Food & Drink

Garbage New Life Food | Instant News


World renowned chef Thomas Keller once said, “Respecting food is respecting life, for who we are and what we do.” But, at the moment 40% of the country’s food is not eaten – over 66 million tons a year – and the results are widespread, from starvation to taxes on the environment and the economy.

Growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of uneaten food in the United States is expensive. Nationally, this translates to an estimated annual price of $ 218 billion, at the cost of a house of four an average of $ 1,800 a year. Apart from that, needy wasted food more than 20% of national landfills, where it produces methane, a greenhouse gas up to 86 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

Now, a team from the University of California, Riverside (UCR), has found a way to keep unused food out of landfills and use it for more beneficial uses.

What the researchers found in their studies Citrus plants, published in the journal Frontier in Sustainable Food Systems, show that fermented food waste can actually increase bacteria which – in addition to increasing plant growth – can make plants more resistant to pathogens and reduce carbon emissions from agriculture.

“The beneficial microbes increase dramatically when we add fermented food waste to plant growth systems,” says UCR microbiologist Deborah Pagliaccia, who led the research. “When there are sufficient numbers of these good bacteria, they produce antimicrobial compounds and metabolites that help plants grow better and faster.”

To help combat some of the environmental damage caused by food waste, the UCR research team set out to find alternative uses other than bins. For their research, they examined the byproducts of two types of waste available in Southern California: beer collision – a byproduct of beer production – and mixed food waste dumped by grocery stores.

After the waste is fermented, it is added to the citrus irrigation system in greenhouses. Within a day, the average population of beneficial bacteria has doubled to two to three times greater than that of untreated plants. This trend continues whenever researchers add treatments.

The end result is the same as optimal production for crops as well as reduced costs for farmers. “If the waste byproducts can increase the carbon to nitrogen ratio in the plant, we can leverage this information to optimize the production system,” says Pagliaccia.

The study suggests the use of the food waste byproducts under study could also complement the use of synthetic chemical additives by manufacturers – in some cases eliminating the use of those additives altogether. Plants will, in turn, become cheaper.

“There is an urgent need to develop new agricultural practices,” said UCR plant pathologist and study co-author Georgios Vidalakis. “California oranges, in particular, face historical challenges such as Huanglongbing’s bacterial disease and limited water availability.”

Pagliaccia also emphasized that new methods must be developed. “We have to transition from a linear ‘take-make-consume-waste’ economy to a circular economy where we use something and then find new purposes for it. This process is critical to protecting our planet from depletion of natural resources and the threat of greenhouse gases. That’s the story of this project. “

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Canada

Canadian Shut-In Oil Production from Coronavirus May Exceed 1.1 Million b / d in Second Quarter | 2020-04-09 | Instant News

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Analysis shows that Canadian oil production appears to be the most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and from the decline in oil demand, with the close expected to rise above 1.1 million b / d between April and June.

Canada’s closed oil output has been at least 325,000 b / d, according to Rystad Energy’s review, followed by Iraq (300,000 b / d), Venezuela (235,000 b / d) and Brazil (200,000 b / d).

The United States is likely to close “hundreds of thousands” of oil barrels but the amount is not yet official and is not included in the Rystad estimate, which was released on Thursday.

“Due to the severe damage to demand in North America in April and May, we estimate that oiland closed and heavy oil restrictions in Western Canada could exceed 1.1 million b / d in the second quarter of 2020, with the added risk of short-term decline,” said Rystad senior analyst Thomas Liles “Our forecast for the rest of the year has increased to 513,000 b / d for the third quarter and 293,000 b / d for the fourth quarter.”

Last month Rystad analysts predicted that Western Canadian crude oil storage would likely be close to maximum capacity by the end of April at current production levels.

“The movement in the benchmark Canadian oil price since April 1 seems to be reinforcing increased pressure on storage capacity in the basin, with Canadian benchmark prices being lighter decoupling” from West Texas Intermediate in recent days.

Based in Calgary Athabasca Oil Corp earlier this month was called the first halt to all Canadian bitumen production sites in response to depressed prices and economic contraction caused by coronavirus. The company carries out a Hangingstone operation, closing at around 9,500 b / d which was tapped by steam injection from a natural gas-fired boiler into an oil deposit and northeastern Alberta mine near Fort McMurray.

Midstream operators have also “underlined the tension in storage capacity and production reductions that have occurred,” noted analysts at Rystad. “The latest communication from upstream players also highlights the storage puzzle and ensures a reduction in the near future.”

“Additional oil and weaknesses” are scenarios where mining projects that have not been upgraded, as well as higher-cost thermal projects, will be taken completely offline.

Rystad’s short-term projections for large thermal projects are not as sharp as mining because of the need to maintain the integrity of the thermal reservoir and “technical ease” that allows mining projects to adjust short-term results. Current company estimates indicate that most short-term restrictions will come from mining projects.

“However, the chronic lack of storage capacity in Western Canada is guaranteed to emerge as a major constraint on upstream volume in a low demand environment,” Liles said. “As with the recent decoupling in light benchmark prices, the experience for Canadian producers will probably remain separated” even if there is a positive thing from a meeting held Thursday (April 9) by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies “or who other “potentially positive news surrounding the development of global short-term supply. “

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