SURF Meeting Update

SURF 23:  SURF's next meeting will be held July 23-25, 2013 at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago).  The conference theme is “Societal Perspectives in Sustainable Remediation”.

SURF members are welcome to submit presentation topics for consideration that are consistent with the theme. Please email your proposed presentation title and a brief summary to Mike Rominger by May 24. (Due to schedule limitations, we are only accepting proposals from SURF members at this time.)

Logistical and program information is being posted on the SURF website as it becomes available. Registration information will be posted as details are finalized.

SURF member companies are invited to contribute sponsorships to help offset the costs associated with our venue.  Sponsors will be recognized at SURF.  Contact Mike Rominger for sponsorship opportunities.

SURF 24:  We are starting to plan SURF 24, to be held at Rice University in early November 2013. SURF members are encouraged to join the planning team. Please contact Mike Rominger.

SURF 25:  We are starting to plan SURF 25 for late January or early February 2014. The location is still undecided. SURF members are encouraged to join the planning team. Please contact Mike Rominger.

Microbes as "Live Wires"

via The Scientist
Mohamed Y. El-Naggar and Steven E. Finkel, May 1, 2013

Excerpt below.  Read the complete article here.

Scientists discovered the first metal-reducing bacteria, Shewanella and Geobacter, in the late 1980s. The dissimilatory metal-reducing bacteria (DMRB) metabolism, which couples biological electron transport chains to inorganic materials, gives us a unique opportunity to both study and harness such reduction-oxidation (redox) reactions at synthetic surfaces. In fact, if a synthetic electrode is poised at a favorable redox potential, it is possible to “trick” the metal-reducing bacteria into transferring their electrons to the electrode surface in the absence of any other electron acceptor. This not only provides a quantitative readout to study respiration in real time, it gives researchers precise control of the energetic redox conditions, thereby allowing them to direct the growth of the microbes, and even to culture some bacteria that may be difficult to grow in standard media.

These bacteria are being heavily investigated as practical biological catalysts in renewable energy technologies that now attract millions of dollars annually in government and industry funding. Microbial fuel cells and bacterial batteries, for example, are constructed with microbes that oxidize diverse organic fuels—including waste products such as raw sewage—then route the resulting electrons to fuel-cell anodes, where the flow is converted into electricity. Another emerging technology is microbial electrosynthesis, which essentially runs the process in reverse by supplying microbes with renewable (e.g., solar) electrical energy in order to drive reductive microbial metabolisms for the synthesis of biofuels and other high-value chemicals. Both these technologies—fuel-to-electricity and electricity-to-fuel—rely on the ability of microbes to donate and accept electrons at synthetic surfaces.

This notion of electron transport driving information flow and communication in microbial communities is new, and as yet untested, but it has potentially transformative physiological and technological implications. Compared to the relatively slow diffusion of entire molecules, electron flow is a rapid process, allowing cells to more quickly sense and respond to environmental change. Such an electronic signaling network, in addition to regulating cell-cell interactions on the population level, could even form the backbone of new synthetic microbial networks designed as sensors to detect specific environmental conditions, such as harmful or desirable chemicals, or variations in light or pH. Eventually, researchers may even learn to interface these networks with solid-state microelectronics, using the extracellular electron transport pathways of metal-reducers such as Shewanella to perform functions from bioremediation to energy production. This vision of integrated microbial circuits was unimaginable 10 years ago. But as we unravel the molecular and biophysical basis of long-distance electron transport, these bacteria may one day become essential components of everyday technologies. 

Mohamed Y. El-Naggar is an assistant professor of physics and Steven E. Finkel is an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California.

23rd Annual California Studies Conference

Changing Directions in California: New People, Politics, Cartography

Saturday, April 27, 2013, 8:30 AM to 3 PM
David Brower Center (Tamalpais Room)
2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, California

$20 registration, students with ID free.

For registration information see:  http://californiastudiesassociation.berkeley.edu/conference/

Environmental Economics in the News: New York WWS Energy Policy

Examining the Feasibility of Converting New York State’s All-Purpose Energy Infrastructure to One Using Wind, Water, and Sunlight
Mark Z. Jacobson, Robert W. Howarth, Mark A. Delucchi, Stan R. Scobie, Jannette M. Barth, Michael J. Dvorak, Megan Klevze, Hind Katkhuda, Brian Miranda, Navid A. Chowdhury, Rick Jones, Larson Plano, Anthony R. Ingraffea

A group of scientists and energy analysts has laid out a path under which New York State could, in theory, eliminate its use of fossil fuels and nuclear power — including for transportation — by 2050 with the use of renewable Wind, Water, Solar (WWS) energy.

In gauging the costs and benefits of various energy options, the authors include the costs from illness and death linked to pollution from fossil fuels.

Conversion to a WWS energy infrastructure will reduce air pollution mortality and morbidity, health costs associated with mortality and morbidity, and costs due to global warming. The premature mortality rate in the US due to cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and complications from asthma due to air pollution (e.g., ozone, PM2.5) has been calculated conservatively to be at least 50,000 to 100,000 per year (about 3% of all deaths by some accounts). Using an EPA estimate to value a statistical life at $7.7 million (2007 dollars), and scaling for New York's population as a percentage of the US, 4,000 (1,200 to 7,600) premature mortalities due to air pollution cost New York state roughly $31 ($9 to $59) billion per year.  EPA estimates that non-mortality-related costs add an additional ~7% of the mortality-related costs.

The estimated payback time to convert the state as a whole to WWS, is ~16 years from the mean air pollution cost savings alone.

One of the study's authors makes the following points regarding the economics of paying for this proposed policy:

• Instead of upgrading, maintaining, and replacing deteriorating existing infrastructure, invest in new infrastructure. If we don’t appreciably accelerate retirement, there is no “extra” (early-retirement) cost to consider.
• Retrofit and rebuild for maximum efficiency and minimum environmental impact. The correct basis for evaluating this economically is a full social lifetime cost-benefit analysis with a near-zero discount rate. On this basis, I believe that most improvements will be economical.

Read Andrew Revkin's take in the NY Times blog, Dot Earth.

Read the complete paper here.

Ohio River Redevelopment: Role for Sustainable Remediation?

Waterfront plans across the Ohio River region are plentiful, ranging from hike and bike trails stretching across Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati’s West Side to billion-dollar developments for new residents, businesses, and retailers.

US Census statistics show faster population growth in American cities than its suburbs, good news for Cincinnati projects and those directly across the river from Downtown in Northern Kentucky. Studies also show that younger generations seek walkable communities, connected to the amenities and entertainment they crave.  Grassroots organizers, city planners, and developers hope the strengthening U.S. economy will boost financing, as competition for state and federal grants becomes stiffer.

Riverfronts are becoming popular development sites, as cities across the nation try to clean them up, and communities want to capitalize on the trend. Cincinnati is among the top 10 busiest inland ports in the country, with more than 13 million tons of freight traffic per year.  And as the water quality in the Ohio River improves, so do the tools to build and redevelop on floodplains safely for natural habitats and people.

Challenges lie mainly in funding.  Developers of two billon-dollar projects in Northern Kentucky communities of Dayton and Newport expressed hope that 2010 would be their year, echoing that optimism every year since.  But six years after the state enacted a tax incentive to jump-start the projects, Ovation in Newport and Manhattan Harbour in Dayton remain unbuilt. But with the worst of the recession behind them, they are hoping the projects will be back on track for 2013.

Contamination issues are dragging out plans at the brownfield development MetroWest in Lower Price Hill, rated the top priority of 17 projects funded by the Clean Ohio Council in 2007, earning $3 million for clean up. Environmental remediation usually takes 3 to 5 years for a site that size, but it’s been six so far.  Diana Christy of Cincinnati’s Office of Environmental Quality says that cleanup will be more widespread and extensive than anticipated. "We had to get more money."

Read the complete article at Cincinnati.com, by Carrie Blackmore Smith, March 12, 2013.