Fishing For Energy Creates Fuel
For many years there have been efforts to keep oceans clean and to clean them up and eliminate waste in them if they are not clean. We often think of waste as small items such as trash, soda cans and bottles and other items that end up overboard – accidentally or not.
There is a much larger issue when it comes to waste in our waters and an organization called “Fishing For Energy” is doing something on a large scale to help eliminate the problem.
Fishing For Energy is a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), Covanta Energy in New England, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and Snitzer Steel Industries, Inc. to help communities along the nation’s coastlines eliminate or reduce the amount of abandoned fishing gear in coastal waters.
The way the partnership works is that it collects abandoned fishing gear and debris in cooperation with and with assistance from local fishermen. Gear collected includes abandoned nets, crab pots, poles, and parts, as well as trawl gear. This gear is a threat to marine life, navigation and ecology, so cooperation in eliminating it is essential to the health of the oceans and the coastal communities that depend upon them.
Not only is there cooperation with each town and the fishermen who fish in the coastal waters to remove debris, but there is also a concerted effort to eliminate fishermen from using outdated or abandoned gear that is no longer fit for use by fisheries.
All of the debris is collected and taken to Covanta’s Renewable Waste Energy facilities to be turned into energy that is renewable and environmentally sustainable.
This program is being used in several communities now, with plans to greatly expand and help communities throughout the country and throughout the world. With innovative programs such as this one, it is encouraging to know that we can find environmentally friendly sources of energy and clean up the environment at the same time.
What Fuel Will We Run Out of Next?
With the fuel crisis looming large and causing problems and disruptions in families, businesses and industries around the world, there are many questions floating in the air. Many questions are being asked about whether we will be able to turn the situation around.
Some experts say that it can turn around, but it will take a few years. Others say that things can be better, but not totally turned around without an infusion of money, drilling and more. Still other experts say that the situation can be turned around only if we approach things in a totally different way, not looking to fossil fuels to save us, but looking for viable, effective and efficient alternatives that are environmentally friendly, affordable and will actually work.
As if we don’t have enough to think of and deal with, the question has repeatedly been raised about what might happen to natural gas. Yet more experts are talking about types of alternative fuels, with the main possibilities being natural gas, coal and nuclear energy. As with anything in life, each of these energy sources has a number of advantages along with some problems.
Environmentalists and conservationists are encouraging as much solar and wind power as possible, however, it would take more of those types of power than is possible from those sources to be able to supply the massive amounts of power needed to maintain power demand of cities, counties, states and the majority of the country.
So what is the problem and the worry with natural gas? It would actually be an ideal fuel for many situations, except for the fact that it is also non-renewable, meaning that once it is gone, it is gone. The great part about natural gas is that it is versatile and it is used in making everything from plastics and chemicals to fertilizers, and even to manufacturer and process hydrogen – a fuel source that many countries are looking at as an alternative to gasoline.
Natural gas burns cleaner than fossil fuels, however, it is hard to transport and extremely explosive – often responsible for catastrophic explosions that took days, weeks or months to contain. One more point in favor of using natural gas is that 95% of the natural gas that the U.S. uses is gathered from right here in the U.S. One of the problems, as mentioned earlier, is that natural gas will eventually run out, most likely sooner than we think (just as this fuel crisis has shown), and we need to find a fuel that will be sustainable and renewable.
There are sill many questions to be asked and ideas to be explored to solve the fuel crisis for the long term. In the meantime, we can all do our part to conserve the fuel that we do have now and deal with sensible alternatives today and for the future.