Tucson City Council Elections and Going Green

I want to start this blog off with an encounter I had with Ward 2 candidate Rodney Glassman. I was serving Tuesday night at Outback Steakhouse and he came in with a friend of his to eat. It was such a weird coincidence because on Monday I chose the Tucson City Council elections as my Special Project topic for the Cat Scan. He ordered a side salad but went on to tell me that he wanted it in a big bowl. I told him I could do it for him, but he wanted me to make sure it wasn't just the same amount of salad you would get in a small bowl just put into a bigger bowl. I brought out the salad, in the big bowl, and he wanted to test to see if there was indeed more salad. I then brought out a small ball and he proceeded to pour the salad from the big bowl into the small bowl to measure just how much more he was getting (I didn't charge him any extra for it anyway). He was happy because it filled the small bowl much more than normal. Anyway, he talked to me a little about his career, he has received four degrees from the UA, and I explained to him the project I am working on and inquired his ideas about a greener Tucson. He said he was endorsed by the Sierra Club, a green organization that I was embarrassed I had not heard of, and talked about Prop 200. He seemed like a nice guy and one I would consider voting for.

My partner and I decided that we are going to focus our special project around the Green Party candidates Dave Croteau and Ward 1 candidate Beryl Baker. If all goes according to plan, we will each be with the candidates on election night taking video and interviews as the votes come rolling in. Croteau is running for mayor against incumbent Bob Walkup. He is running under the 10 key values of the Green Party, is strongly in favor of sustainability and mentions more than once on his website the harsh realities of global warming and centralization. He, and all Green Party candidates are for Prop 200, which is a tricky propostion to sift through in order to understand exactly what would happen if it passes. Passing the proposition would repeal the $14-a-month garbage fee, but it would limit the use of reclaimed water. The Daily Star breaks down all the parts of the proposition here.

Searching for an alternative fuel vehicle

As my days as an undergrad wind down, I'm beginning to realize that my days in Tucson are probably numbered. Wherever I end up living next year with a new job, I want my first indulgence to be on a vehicle that can run on alternative fuel. While a new Benz might be a little out of reach for an entry-level reporter, an older model would certainly work just as well. Clean Air Choice lists vehicles that can run on E85 and there are certainly quite a few tantalizing choices. A search on eBay Motors will bring up a list of flex fuel cars and trucks ranging from under $1,000 to over $40,000. While the Yukon is quite nice, that Taurus seems like a steal at just $500 right now. It has a V6 that puts out 155 hp, and 185 lbs. of torque. Not too shabby at all. Because E85 is so efficient in engines, it would allow SUV-driving Americans to drive their huge vehicles without feeling so bad about it (I really don't know if they do or don't, actually). This Suburban gets 15/19 mpg while putting out around 300 hp. It's true the thing probably does weigh around 6,000 pounds or more, but it only uses imported petroleum as 15% of it's fuel intake.

While there are not quite as many options for someone looking for an alternative fuel vehicle as opposed to regular, gasoline fueled vehicles, there is probably something for everyone. We covered the SUV and sedan drivers, but for those speed demons, like me, there are BMW's and turbo diesel Volkswagens that can run on biodiesel. Check back to my blog in a couple months and I'll update on what cars have been catching my eye and if any purchase has been made.

Algae ethanol

I read an online article on the New York Times that discussed how ethanol production might harm the water industry. Well, not all ethanol, just corn-based ethanol. The article said that because so many companies are now beginning to jump on the corn bandwagon, my guess is because of the subsidies our government is now paying farmers, it is having negative effects on water in this country. The author wrote that in a report the National Research Council, financed by the EPA and National Science Foundation, claimed that more ethanol-production plants are contaminating ground water at higher levels and using a lot more water that would have been used as "drinking, industry, hydropower, fish habitat and recreation." The author did not explain how or go into any great detail about fertilizers and their impact on ground water contamination, but I checked out the actual report itself to find out. The report says, "corn has the greatest application rates of both fertilizer and pesticides per acre, higher than for soybeans and mixed-species grassland biomass."

The UNH said in report how efficient algae is at producing biodiesel. The report talks about the hurdles that would need to be overcome for algae to work as a mass-produced biofuel, but the author said the problems are already in the process of being solved. The article starts out by talking about how much land is used for corn production in the United States and how we could eventually rid ourselves of our dependency on foreign petroleum. The second section describes algae production and the problems that could arise. What caught my attention first is the fact that we are currently using 450 million acres for crop farming and 550 million for farm animal grazing. The author than says that only 9.5 million acres of algae producing land would satisfy every single persons and cars need for petroleum! 140.8 billion gallons to be exact.

It gets better though. THe author writes, "algae farms could also be constructed to use waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from animal farms) as a food source, which would provide a beautiful way of spreading algae production around the country." He also says that it could create a loop because a high-in-nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer. So by using algae, one can recycle fertilizer as well. And where is a good place to start this wide-spread algae production? The author says none other than the Sonoran Desert. He said it would be a good place due to the amount of sun we get every year. If a plant is built, than he said it could go around the Salton Sea in Southern California.

Financially, there is no question we should embrace this biofuel. He said to produce enough algae (pay employees, run plants, land) to run every car in America, it would cost a total of $46.2 billion per year. We distribute $100-150 billion to foreign countries every year for petroleum. So not only are we no longer harming the environment, we are also creating more jobs at home and all the money is going back into our economy.

The next couple of years could be quite interesting in terms of when and how we realize that we have alternatives to petroleum readily at our disposal and how fast we choose to embrace them.

Tucson Golf Courses and a little bit about Segways

I just got back from a two hour Segway tour guided by the folks down at Segway of Tucson. This was my first experience riding one of these machines but I have to say it was a pretty neat experience. They start you off with about 20 minutes of training on how to turn, go up curbs, go forward and reverse and how not to kill yourself or others during operations. It takes times to get used to the motion system but once you do its pretty easy and fun to maneuver one of these bad boys. The whole thing is controlled by where your center of gravity is. Thus, if you are standing straight up on it, you remain still. But if you lean forward, the Segway picks that up and starts to move forward. The same goes for leaning back. The more you lean in either direction, the faster you will go. Since we were beginners, they started us off with a 6 mph limiter which was later bumped up to 8 mph. The steering is done with by a motorcycle type throttle on the left handle bar. Once you get used to turning and controlling your speed, its pretty fun to operate. However, at $5k a pop, students like myself won't be able to take advantage of such an eco-friendly machine.

Denise, the owner of Segway of Tucson, talked about just how friendly they are. On a full charge a Segway can go about 25 miles. She said, electricity wise, it costs about 10 cents to get a full charge out of the lithium battery. The charge takes about 15 minutes per mile used. Some quick math will tell you that it takes about 6.5 hours to fully charge a Segway. Overall, it was a great experience, even though we probably turned more heads in those two hours than a group of naked coeds running through campus.


The other thing I did this weekend was visit seven or eight golf courses all over Tucson for Ray and my's special project. We found out that a lot of courses are using reclaimed water now. The Forty-Niner course was one of these and they have been using reclaimed water for a year now, if I remember correctly. It took a good amount of time to set up the operationg since they had to build a pipe from the Santa Cruz River all the way to where they are which is a few miles east of Houghton. Pretty intense.


All of the city course, including Randolph, El Rio, Silverbell, are also on reclaimed water. We learned that every year around this time, every course has to reseed every hole. That's why you will see in some of the pictures I took that some course are browning and others are a happy green. Del Lago, one of the courses we visited, is absolutely gorgeous right now. They had just finsihed the reseeding process and used reclaimed water to do so. Check out the pics!