Alternative Energies
EPA and religious groups team up to fight food waste

Quiz time! When it comes to America’s food waste problem, WWJD? Would he: A) “Save” that questionable block of cheese, B) Turn wine back into water, or C) Start an interfaith effort to reduce the amount of food headed to the dump? Who knows? Food waste is a complicated problem. But here’s something that may surprise you: The Environmental Protection Agency is pulling their own version of option C, and it’s called the Food Steward’s Pledge — “an initiative to engage religious groups of all faiths to help redirect the food that ends up in landfills to hungry mouths,” according to NPR. The EPA’s effort to bring religious zeal to our nation’s food squandering problem is one way to approach…

New process provides renewable fuel

Renewable fuels from pyrolysis bio-oil has been created by researchers. Pyrolysis bio-oil is produced by rapidly heating the forest residues in an oxygen-free environment and then rapidly cooling the products formed. By co-gasification with black liquor, a renewable fuel is produced.

Low crude prices aren’t the only reason big oil should worry

This story was originally published in the Toronto Star. By Tyler Hamilton When solar entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett bumped into Suncor Energy boss Steve Williams at the World Economic Forum in 2014, odds were high that tempers would flare. The two men were among about 40 dinner guests – a mix of CEOs, pension fund managers, economists and government leaders. They had gathered in Davos, Switzerland, to talk about “short-termism” in the financial and corporate worlds and how it undermines efforts to tackle climate change. At one point during the dinner, Leggett recalls in his book The Winning of the Carbon War, Williams mentioned the difficulty he had in pushing through a 50-year investment plan for the oil sands. Leggett, who is also non-executive chairman of London-based…