Shoreline, where Google HQ is, was a garbage dump. All those low hills are garbage. At one time they had a methane collection system driving a small power plant, but there's no longer enough methane for that. Once there was a methane fire at a concert.
Palo Alto and Menlo Park had similar garbage dumps, and their hilly parks along the shore of the bay are also trash.
Pretty weird this long article never mentioned waste-to-energy (other than sucking methane out of landfills, which according to the article is making uncontrolled garbage fires more common). Garbage should burn, in modern incineration plants with strict emission standards. Landfills are unsustainable and should be considered a thing of the past.
The largest landfill in the USA is the Apex Landfill, at about 3 square miles (7.7 km2) with an estimated capacity of ~1000 million tons. The entire country landfills some 150 million tons per year. That is, a single landfill in Nevada could take all of the country's trash for six years.
We could build landfills indefinitely. It is a logistics and political issue.
Incineration produces ash that ends up in landfills. The volume is of course a lot smaller, but I think there will always be a need for landfills. In fact, my city just opened up a new landfill specifically for incineration by-products a couple years ago. And as people are producing more and more trash every year, demand for such facilities will likely continue to increase.
These are "sacrifice zones". See also: every superfund site, Hinkley CA, many spots in WV, Four Corners, most of Houston, Cancer Alley between NOLA and BRLA, and golf courses built on top of toxic fly ash.
This, and Flint MI, is why I have very little trust in many public institutions. At least in the US, there is a recurrent failure to abandon profitable aims even to save human lives. It is very much a reality of every person for themselves that does not square with the material wealth of the US.
The us is a large place with a lot of media so there is a lot of problems - but in proportion things are good, exposeure makes it seem bad but it is not.
if you don't hear about problems the correct assumption is that things are bad and the coverup is working. Assuming things are better elsewhere is bad. Unless you personally check it of course, which you cannot do and live a life
It's interesting that by overdrawing methane (for energy), you introduce oxygen, which makes the compost pile too hot. I wouldn't have thought of that.
Lets build an aerobically bio-heated power station!
Readit News
Palo Alto and Menlo Park had similar garbage dumps, and their hilly parks along the shore of the bay are also trash.
We could build landfills indefinitely. It is a logistics and political issue.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38994374
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984
Better than houses and playgrounds, am i wrong?
Not pristine land, not protected nature sites.
As opposed to...... the private institutions that created most of those problems?
if you don't hear about problems the correct assumption is that things are bad and the coverup is working. Assuming things are better elsewhere is bad. Unless you personally check it of course, which you cannot do and live a life
Lets build an aerobically bio-heated power station!