Word: planting
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...President-elect Barack Obama has been a reliable supporter of biofuels, so it's no surprise that former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, his choice for Agriculture Secretary, has been an even more reliable supporter of biofuels, even chairing a national coalition on ethanol (ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter). "As governor of one of our most abundant farm states, he led with vision," Obama said of Vilsack on Wednesday, "fostering an agricultural economy of the future that not only grows the food we eat but the energy...
...January, I chatted with Vilsack about biofuels after a Hillary Clinton campaign event at a soy-biodiesel plant in Newton, Iowa. The theme of the day was that biofuels produce jobs, and Vilsack was pushing Iowa as "the clean-energy capital of America." But he was clearly aware of the new research suggesting that biofuels in general - and corn ethanol in particular - created more carbon emissions by accelerating deforestation than they saved by replacing fossil fuels. "It's definitely something we need to study," he said. Vilsack suggested that second-generation biofuels like cellulosic ethanol manufactured from switchgrass could solve...
Sometimes you have to plant them and then wait for a while. Years ago, I started saving all those T shirts from soccer league and school plays and breast-cancer walks, even after they no longer fit. They are in a box in the attic, awaiting the day my girls head for college and we patch them into a soft, stretchy quilt made entirely of their adventures and allegiances. Maybe someday we'll do the same for their sons and daughters, make a map of moments on their way to forever...
Orange County water officials decided to solve both problems at the same time. The result is the Groundwater Replenishment System (GRS), a glistening, $480 million facility that sits next to an older sewage-treatment plant. The GRS takes in about 70 million gal. of wastewater a day, puts it through a multistep cleaning process, then discharges the treated water into Orange County's aquifers. About half forms a barrier against seawater, which has been infiltrating groundwater sources as the county has dried up, while the other half slowly filters into the aquifers that supply drinking water for the county...
...visit to the plant shows those fears to be unfounded. Orange County's wastewater undergoes more stringent treatment than almost any water source on the planet. First, the dark beer-colored sewage is pulled through a series of tubes stuffed with thousands of fibers pierced with holes 1/300th the size of a human hair. Anything larger than 0.2 millionth of a meter - which includes suspended solids and bacteria - is left behind. The cleansed water is then forced at high pressure through hundreds of tubes that are filled with tightly wound plastic membranes. Reverse osmosis, as the process is called, stops...