“Airspace” is generally defined as the number of cubic yards a landfill has available for waste. The amount of remaining airspace can be used to estimate a landfill’s remaining lifespan in years. Since the United States covers vast, largely unpopulated areas, particularly in the Midwest, it would seem we have limitless capacity for [...]
When a landfill nears the end of its useful life, all the people it affects — its owners, government officials, nearby residents, and developers — need to come together to develop a plan for the future. No homeowner ever chooses to have a landfill in their backyard, and many fight hard to prevent it. [...]
It is all about STORAGE. A simple analogy, coal ash storage is like trying to organize your closet in an endless battle to fit ever more stuff into little space. However, unlike your closet problem utility companies cannot get rid of those unneeded belongings (coal ash), or sign on the dotted line for [...]
The CEO in the corner office of any large organization has a lonely existence. CEOs of utilities may feel even more isolated – but it’s not mandatory. The energy industry is steadily evolving beyond fossil fuels and shifting to more renewable and sustainable sources. This is fantastic news for the planet, but before this transformation [...]
NIMBY, SEBY? Let’s face it: nobody likes landfills. They’re ugly. They smell. They attract seagulls. But until we can devise methods to recycle or eliminate all residential and construction waste and coal ash, landfills have to be a fixture on our landscape for the foreseeable future. According to the EPA, as of 2009 [...]
Innovation is not an abstract concept, but a desirable mindset. You've probably heard the expression, "Thinking outside the box," but how willing are you to put aside all your preconceived notions and actually do it? True innovators make it habit. Their typical modus operandi is to view problems from every angle and brainstorm until [...]
It takes a village to solve the looming CCR storage issue. In all discussions of coal ash disposition — either through beneficial reuse or keeping it intact but contained — the overriding concern is safety. The cap-in-place solution has been solidly debunked from a safety standpoint. The market for beneficial use of coal ash [...]
Maximize Innovation Before Resorting to Traditional Methods In 2008, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s dike containing its coal ash failed, allowing approximately 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash to spread over 300 acres and into the Emory River. Since then, the problem that coal ash represents for the U.S. has only gotten worse. Constant battles [...]
K.I.S.S. Applies to Coal Ash Solutions Imagine a community facing the dual crisis of severely dwindling solid waste disposal capacity at the same time its electric utility has been ordered by a federal judge to excavate and move a hazardous legacy coal ash pond to a lined landfill. Unfortunately, this isn’t fantasy. Nashville, Tennessee, [...]
Life Beyond: Old Dumping Grounds are Ripe for Adaptive Reuse Communities with areas in decline have embraced the concept of adaptive reuse to restore historic buildings and reclaim their decaying or abandoned urban landscape. Such projects involve salvaging as much of the existing building material as possible and repurposing it in new ways to make [...]
