Clean Earth, Inc. Announces Acquisition of Kleen Soil in Moore Haven, Florida

This strikes me as one of those "it's cool that someone is doing this, sad that it has to be done, and troublesome to think of soil being treated as a product that gets recycled".

The announcement below concerns a merger between two companies that recycle soil.  Yes.  Recycle.  Soil.  Two words I hadn't thought to put together as a phrase, but there it is.

What Clean Earth says about themselves is:

As one of the nation's largest and most experienced processors of contaminated soil, dredge sediments and hazardous and non-hazardous waste, Clean Earth maintains a tireless commitment to ensuring that every pound of material we touch is treated and managed properly and responsibly. In fact, approximately 98% of the material we process is beneficially reused.

Their services are:-

• Planning and Logistics - as they say, Cleaning often has to happen FAST and RIGHT AWAY so they'll get right to any job that comes along
• Disposal and Reuse - They "find the right home" for the soil they recycle.  Contaminations are removed and put to good use.  Soils are recycled into "construction fill material" for "land reclamation", brownfield redevelopment, and material for capping landfills
• Treatment technologies include dredging, bioremediation, physical treatment, thermal desorption

Now that we understand the picture let's ponder what this means.

It means that first there is a sufficient quantity of soil contamination that one company (Kleen Soil) has been in this business for 20 years, and that Clean Earth is operating seven soil treatment and recycling centers around the U.S.  Their locations are in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and now Florida.

This sounds to me like a type of new business that's here to stay, and will be operating over the long term rather than just being a short term activity while we do a one-time cleanup of the planet.  In other words these businesses are expecting there will be a continuing series of soil contamination events, and their goal is to provide great service to clean up soil contamination.

This strikes me as bolting the barn door after the horses have fled.  It would obviously be better for the soil to not be contaminated in the first place.

On the other hand accidents happen and it's useful to have experts and equipment ready to go when they do happen.

The next item here is the willy-nilly disregard for the fact that soil is a living organism.  To take soil, load it in trucks, carry it to a far away treatment center, treat it, then reuse it in some completely different other location, shows complete disregard for soil as a living organism.

Okay, great, it's wonderful to have soil get cleaned up.  It would be better if more care were taken in the first place that the service isn't needed.  It would be great for treatment (when needed) to be focused on restoring an existing location to a better condition, rather than ripping out the soil from one location and moving it whole-sale to another location.  That first location will lose it's soil, perhaps to never be replaced, the the uses they describe for recycled soil simply are not natural systems.

In other words their operation is about destroying the soil content in contaminated locations, and reusing the removed soil for non-life-producing purposes.

The function of soil is to sustain the life of all those organisms living upon the planet.  Soil is a precious thing.

 

 

HATBORO, Pa., Nov. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Clean Earth, Inc. announced today the acquisition of privately owned Kleen Soil, located in Moore Haven, Florida. This facility treats non-hazardous petroleum-contaminated soils and will mark Clean Earth's seventh soil treatment and recycling location in the United States.  This acquisition will provide Clean Earth the opportunity to geographically expand soil-recycling services and will be the most southern Clean Earth facility.

Kleen Soil has served the Florida market for over twenty (20) years.

Chris Dods, President & CEO states, "This acquisition has opened new doors.  We have found a strong market, and will be able to recycle 100% of the soil treated at this location. Due to our in-depth experience, we will be able to offer additional services to customers such as project management and environmental support services.  We look forward to working and learning from the talented and experienced Kleen Soil team."

In 2010, Clean Earth recycled over 3 million tons of soil derived from various construction sites throughout the northeast.  These recycled soil volumes are expected to increase in 2012 with the acquisition of Kleen Soil.

To learn more about Clean Earth visit us at www.cleanearthinc.com or call 877.445.DIRT (3478).

Clean Earth, Inc. is one of the nation's largest processors of contaminated soil, dredge sediments and other non-hazardous materials.   Headquartered in Hatboro, Pa., it operates a network of full-service facilities in the eastern United States that handles more than three million tons of soil annually.  Treatment facilities are located in South Kearny, NJ, Carteret, NJ, Jersey City, NJ, Hagerstown, MD, New Castle, DE, Morrisville, PA, and Philadelphia, PA.

Read more at http://blog.cleanearthinc.com/clean-earth-acquires-kleen-soil/

SOURCE  Clean Earth, Inc.
Clean Earth, Inc.
CONTACT: James Hull - Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Clean Earth, Inc., +1-215-734-1400 ext. 244
Web Site: http://www.cleanearthinc.com

Arctic Sea Ice Continues Decline, Hits Second-Lowest Level

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Last month the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low.

The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and shrinks each summer as the sun rises higher in the northern sky. Each year the Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent in September. It hit a record low in 2007.

The near-record ice-melt followed higher-than-average summer temperatures, but without the unusual weather conditions that contributed to the extreme melt of 2007. "Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were not as conducive to ice loss this year, but the melt still neared 2007 levels," said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. "This probably reflects loss of multiyear ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as well as other factors that are making the ice more vulnerable."

Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said the continued low minimum sea ice levels fits into the large-scale decline pattern that scientists have watched unfold over the past three decades.

"The sea ice is not only declining, the pace of the decline is becoming more drastic," Comiso said. "The older, thicker ice is declining faster than the rest, making for a more vulnerable perennial ice cover."

While the sea ice extent did not dip below the 2007 record, the sea ice area as measured by the microwave radiometer on NASA's Aqua satellite did drop slightly lower than 2007 levels for about 10 days in early September, Comiso said. Sea ice "area" differs from extent in that it equals the actual surface area covered by ice, while extent includes any area where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean.

Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 9, the lowest point this year, was 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). This places 2011 as the second lowest ice extent both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average. Ice extent was 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

This summer's low ice extent continued the downward trend seen over the last 30 years, which scientists attribute largely to warming temperatures caused by climate change. Data show that Arctic sea ice has been declining both in extent and thickness. Since 1979, September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 12 percent per decade.

"The oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic continues to decline, especially in the Beaufort Sea and the Canada Basin," NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve said. "This appears to be an important driver for the low sea ice conditions over the past few summers."

Climate models have suggested that the Arctic could lose almost all of its summer ice cover by 2100, but in recent years, ice extent has declined faster than the models predicted.

NASA monitors and studies changing sea ice conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic with a variety of spaceborne and airborne research capabilities. This month NASA resumes Operation IceBridge, a multi-year series of flights over sea ice and ice sheets at both poles. This fall's campaign will be based out of Punta Arenas, Chile, and make flights over Antarctica . NASA also continues work toward launching ICESat-2 in 2016, which will continue its predecessor's crucial laser altimetry observations of ice cover from space.

To see a NASA data visualization of the 2011 Arctic sea ice minimum as measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) on Aqua, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-ice-min.html

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

SOURCE NASA

CONTACT: Steve Cole, Headquarters, Washington, +1-202-358-0918, ; Patrick Lynch, Goddard Space Flight Center, +1-301-286-3854, +1-757-897-2047,

Web Site: http://www.nasa.gov

Copenhagen Update: European Countries Agree to Construct Offshore Wind Supergrid | Sustainability | Fast Company

Nine European countries--Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Ireland--signed the "North Seas' Countries Offshore Grid Initiative," a plan to create an offshore wind power supergrid in the North and North West seas. The plan means interconnection between the power grids in Europe allowing for electricity sales. In this case it's wind power in Ireland being sold to the rest of Europe. The article also mentions Desertec, a plan to put solar panels in North Africa to send electricity to Europe. On one hand this is way cool support for renewable energy. On the other hand Desertec begs the question of why not use North Africa's solar power for their benefit, rather than ship that power to Europe.

Codexis Aims to Bridge Biotech and Carbon Capture

Codexis, a Redwood City, Calif.-based startup with oil giants Shell and Chevron among its backers, is in the business of so-called evolved biocatalysts: It takes a natural microbe or enzyme and tweaks the DNA sequences to create new variants, then searches for the variants best suited to development of new, potentially cheaper drugs (Pfizer used Codexis enzymes to produce Lipitor) and non-ethanol biofuels. This summer, the 7-year-old startup said it was looking for ways to apply this expertise to the emerging market for carbon capture technologies. Now Codexis has found a partner in that effort. Canadian carbon capture company CO2 Solution said late Tuesday afternoon that it’s scored a $2 million investment from Codexis, and that the two companies will work together on enzymatic carbon capture technology. According to the release, Codexis now owns a more than 16 percent stake in the firm. They plan to work on “economic validation” of enzymatic carbon capture technology.

U.S. Energy Secretary Announces $350M for Clean Energy Tech in Developing World

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced an international agreement that will see developed nations give $350 million to developing nations. The Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (REDI), plan will fund technology in the developing world, including solar lanterns, standards and labels for energy efficient appliances, and online clean energy communication tools.
Huh? Is this something the developing world needs? Yes many need better lighting (aka solar lanterns) but standardized labels and standardizations? It's not clear that this is solving any problem.
Also the problem wasn't really caused by the developing world but by the developed world. As the developing world develops their energy and pollution intensity increases so it would be best for them to adopt clean tech from the beginning rather than have to retrofit afterwards like we're doing.

The Energy Collective | NATURE: Sea level rise may exceed worst expectations

A brand new paper released in Nature suggests that the polar ice sheets are more vulnerable to global warming than previously feared. 2 degrees Celsius of global warming could commit us to 6-9 meters (20-30 feet) of long-term sea level rise. The study is based an extensive database of geological indicators for the last interglacial period, roughly 125,000 years ago, when polar temperatures were about 3-5 degrees Celsius warmer than today, as is expected if global warming hits 2-3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The findings reinforce that the developed world needs to be prepared to fund significant adaptation support, particularly for low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

What the Frack? Poisoning our Water in the Name of Energy Profits | Water | AlterNet

One of the promising sources of natural gas is shale formations. There has been many articles recently claiming our energy problems are solved by shale gas. However this Alternet article points out that shale gas extraction involves piping water into the shale formation. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique that releases natural gas trapped in underground shale formations by injecting water, chemicals, and sand to "frack" the rock structures and release the gas. Often, large quantities of groundwater contaminated by chemicals, radioactive elements, or other minerals are produced in the process. Unless great care is taken, this "produced water" mixed with water used for fracturing can flow to the surface or into groundwater systems and contaminate land, drinking water supplies, and natural waterways. In other words, mining shale gas most likely involves widespread poisoning of water systems.