• Login
    • Join
  • Subscribe Free
    • Magazine
    • eNewsletter
    Checkout
    • Magazine
    • News
    • Exclusives
    • Labels & Packaging
    • Markets
    • Technology
    • Equipment
    • Supplies
    • Buyers' Guide
    • Events
    • Jobs
    • More
  • Magazine
  • News
  • Exclusives
  • Labels & Packaging
  • Markets
  • Technology
  • Equipment
  • Supplies
  • Buyers' Guide
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Current / Back Issues
    Features
    Editorial
    Columns
    Digital Edition
    eNewsletter Archive
    Our Team
    Subscribe Now
    Advertise Now
    Top Features
    Pouch Converting

    Metallic Inks

    A COMMON $ENSE APPROACH TO COATING APPLICATIONS

    Print Management Systems

    Narrow Web Profile: Pacific Barcode, Inc.
    Breaking News
    Converter News
    European Label News
    Industry News
    Industry People
    M&A News
    New Products
    Expert's Opinion
    Live From Shows
    Top News
    Meech adds new Pulsed DC Controller to Hyperion range

    Primera announces on-demand RFID label printer

    Five TLMI converter members win World Label Awards

    Lecta launches range of one-side coated papers

    CRON-ECRM to feature HDI Flexo CTP at INFOFLEX
    Beauty & Personal Care Labels
    Beer Labels
    Beverage Labels
    Flexible Packaging
    Folding Carton
    Food Labels
    Glue-Applied
    In-Mold
    Industrial Labels
    Medical Labels
    Pharmaceutical Labels
    Pressure Sensitive
    Prime Labels
    Promotional Labels
    Security Labels
    Shrink
    Smart Labels
    Specialty Labels
    Spirits Labels
    Wine Labels

    Primera announces on-demand RFID label printer

    TLMI's L9 World Label Award winners

    Five TLMI converter members win World Label Awards

    Dscoop examines new opportunities for label converters

    Label Impressions wins World Label Award
    Africa
    Asia
    Australia
    China
    Europe
    India
    Latin America
    Middle East
    North America

    CRON-ECRM to feature HDI Flexo CTP at INFOFLEX

    Bobst expands infrastructure in France

    Mark Andy explores the anatomy of craft spirits labels

    INX International promotes John Hrdlick to president

    Dscoop examines new opportunities for label converters
    Flexography
    Digital Printing
    Prepress
    Finishing
    Sustainability

    'CupCycling' with James Cropper

    Primera announces on-demand RFID label printer

    CRON-ECRM to feature HDI Flexo CTP at INFOFLEX

    Mark Andy explores the anatomy of craft spirits labels

    Dscoop examines new opportunities for label converters
    Digital Printers & Presses
    Flexo Presses
    Label Converting Equipment
    Label Finishing Equipment
    Prepress Equipment

    Meech adds new Pulsed DC Controller to Hyperion range

    Primera announces on-demand RFID label printer

    Label Impressions wins World Label Award

    Preview: Pack Expo East

    X-Rite and Flint Group announce global partnership
    Dies And Tooling
    Flexo Supplies
    Ink & Coatings
    Prepress Supplies
    Pressrooom Supplies
    Substrates

    'CupCycling' with James Cropper

    CRON-ECRM to feature HDI Flexo CTP at INFOFLEX

    INX International promotes John Hrdlick to president

    Esko releases WebCenter 18

    Label Impressions wins World Label Award
    All Companies
    Categories
    Company Profiles
    Label Converters
    Trade Associations
    Add New Company
    International Buyers Guide Companies
    Chase Machine & Engineering Inc.

    Wilson Manufacturing

    Ritrama, Inc.

    Aztech Converting Systems Inc.

    Durst Image Technology US, LLC
    Industry Events
    Webinars
    Live from Show Events
    • Magazine
      • Current & Past Issues
      • Features
      • Editorial
      • Columns
      • Digital Edition
      • eNewsletter Archive
      • Subscribe Now
      • Advertise Now
    • Breaking News
    • Buyers' Guide
      • All Companies
      • Categories
      • Company Profiles
      • Label Converters
      • Trade Associations
      • Add Your Company
    • Labels & Packaging
      • Beauty & Personal Care Labels
      • Beer Labels
      • Beverage Labels
      • Flexible Packaging
      • Folding Carton
      • Food Labels
      • Glue-Applied
      • In-Mold
      • Industrial Labels
      • Medical Labels
      • Pharmaceuticals Labels
      • Pressure Sensitive
      • Prime Labels
      • Promotional Labels
      • Security Labels
      • Shrink
      • Smart Labels
      • Speciality Labels
      • Spirits Labels
      • Wine Tables
    • Markets
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Australia
      • China
      • Europe
      • India
      • Latin America
      • Middle East
      • North America
    • Equipment
      • Digital Printers & Presses
      • Flexo Presses
      • Label Converting Equipment
      • Label Fishing Equipment
    • Supplies
      • Dies And Tooling
      • Flexo Supplies
      • Ink & Coatings
      • Prepress Supplies
      • Pressrooom Supplies
      • Substrates
    • Online Exclusives
    • Slideshows
    • Experts Opinions
    • Videos
    • Podcasts
    • Infographics
    • Whitepapers
    • Events
      • Industry Events
      • Live from Show Events
      • Webinars
    • Jobs
    • Resources
      • Supplier Gallery
      • Literature Showcase
      • Homepage Showcase
    • About Us
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Advertise With Us
      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms of Use
    Letters From The Earth

    Getting it right

    Calvin Frost, Contributing Editor05.31.13
    My comments in this issue are really a sequel to my last column. I know I irritated some readers, particularly Professors Susan Brantley and Anna Meyerdorff. Additionally, I’ve had any number of emails saying I’m all wet and don’t understand the economic benefits of using fossils. I had intended to return to my annual schedule. However, the furor has made me realize that I’m the pea under the mattress and I rather like that. Somebody is reading, maybe not liking, but they’re reading.

    The issues of fracking and using natural resources reminded me of a conversation I had with my RA the other day. This very erudite person gave me several columns from The New Yorker written by Elizabeth Kolbert, the magazine’s environmental guru. I never said anything to my RA but wanted to offer a suggestion to Ms. Kolbert, much like my suggestion to Professors Brantley and Meyerdorff: read Lester Brown. Everything Ms. Kolbert writes and suggests about carbon tax was proposed years ago by Lester. His ideas are so simple. They take the chicken and the egg out of politics. First, and maybe this is me, not Lester, get rid of all lobbyists. Kick ‘em out of Washington. No more subsidies for coal, oil, and gas. After they are gone tax the producer for creating problems when they manufacture unfriendly products. How about lung cancer from cigarette smoke? Tax the cigarette industry! How about emphysema from secondary smoke and carbon monoxide? Tax the car & truck industry! How about waste? So in our industry, and I know you’ve heard this before, if a company manufactures pressure sensitive roll labelstock and waste is generated, the manufacturer is taxed. Unless...the manufacturer agrees to take back the waste or provide a solution to the generator. You see it is so simple. If the manufacturer uses an adhesive that is not, repeat, not compatible with paper or plastic recycling, they pay a tax, a carbon tax based on the amount of waste being generated. You can call this a carbon tax or, the latest phrase, you can call it “extended producer responsibility.” The key is that we’re all playing on an even playing field, without the influence of lobby groups. Life would be so simple. The fact is we don’t live in that world. Environmental issues are not solved by simple equitable resolutions. We live in a political environment. The lobby groups run the politicians and corporate America runs the lobby group and, guess what, corporate America, the shareholder (you and I) normally get what they want. Great, increased share value, greater profits, that’s the rule of the day. To be honest, sometimes they get it right which leads me to an incredible story that I believe supports my position on developing alternative energy instead of spending millions on fracking.

    On April 13th, in Beijing, China, the Reignwood Group of Hong Kong and Lockheed Martin of the United States announced they would co-develop the first commercial Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) off the coast of southern China. Reignwood and Lockheed Martin are, at first glance, unlikely partners. Reignwood is in the resort business and Lockheed Martin is in security and aerospace. However, many of Reignwood’s resorts are in coastal and island locations where energy is extremely expensive and an extensive infrastructure is needed to carry it from the source to the resort. Lockheed Martin, on a closer look, is engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. Also, they’ve been involved with OTEC since the early 70s. After a more careful look, the partnership does make sense. In a nutshell, this technology is practical and eminently doable and ready to go. It combines well established refrigerator and turbine technology into a floating heat pump to generate energy. What’s more, no carbon footprint. Eat your hearts out, Professor Susan Brantley and Professor Anna Meyerdorff.

    The concept for the partners is to develop a 10 megawatt facility off the coast of southern China. In the 70s Lockheed Martin helped build the world’s first successful floating OTEC system that generated renewable net power. In 1990 they were awarded a contract to develop a plant in Hawaii, though the project was cancelled. Now they have teamed up with Reignwood to build this facility that will fuel a resort.

    Get rid of all lobbyists. Kick ‘em out of Washington. No more subsidies for coal, oil, and gas. After they are gone tax the producer for creating problems when they manufacture unfriendly products.

    Darren Quick, who writes about technology and the environment for Gizmag, describes the situation:

    “OTEC uses the natural difference in temperatures between the cool deep water and warm surface water to produce electricity. There are different cycle types of OTEC systems, but the prototype plant is likely to be a closed-cycle system. This sees warm surface seawater pumped through a heat exchange to vaporize a fluid with a low boiling point, such as ammonia. This expanding vapor is used to drive a turbine to generate electricity with cold seawater that is then used to condense the vapor so it can be recycled through the system.

    Tropical regions are considered the only viable locations for OTEC plants due to the greater temperature differential between the shallow and deep water. Unlike wind and solar power, OTEC can produce electricity around the clock, 365 days a year, to supply base load power. OTEC plants also produce cold water as a by-product that can be used for air conditioning and refrigeration at locations near the plant. Despite such advantages, and even though demonstration plants were constructed as far back as the 1880s, there are still no large-scale commercial OTEC plants in operation. This is largely due to the costs associated with locating and maintaining the facility off shore and drawing the cold water from the ocean depths. But the time may finally be right.

    With the shelving of the Hawaii OTEC pilot plant, the 10 MW prototype offshore plant will be the largest planned OTEC project to date. Like the Hawaii project, which was also to be a 10 MW facility, the China OTEC plant is designed to pave the way for higher capacity plants ranging from 10 to 100 MW. The plant is to be build off the coast of southern China to supply 100% of the power needed for a large-scale green resort community being developed by Reignwood Group. The new resort is planned as Reignwood’s first net-zero community, with the company also currently developing two large-scale low-carbon resorts and others planned for key locations in China.

    Lockheed Martin and Reignwood will begin concept design of the sea-based prototype plant this year with construction due to start next year. Once it is up and running, the two companies plant to use the knowledge and experience gained over the course of the project to improve the design of additional commercial-scale plants.

    The companies claim each 100 MW OTEC facility could produce the same amount of energy in a year as 1.3 million barrels of oil and decrease carbon emissions by half a million tons. Assuming oil trading at near US $100 a barrel, they estimate fuel savings from one plant could exceed $130 million a year.”

    This is one example of technology that is so much kinder to our global community. There are others and as I see things here on Earth, we need to use them.

    Another Letter from the Earth.




    Calvin Frost is chairman of Channeled Resources Group, headquartered in Chicago, the parent company of Maratech International and GMC Coating. His email address is cfrost@channeledresources.com.
    Related Searches
    • Pressure sensitive

    Related Letters From The Earth

    • Californication

      Californication

      There’s a wonderful article in Mother Jones called “Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” Mother Jones has always been one of my favorites: liberal, investigative, irreverent, and holds no hostages. In this case, however, Gabriel Kahn was…
      Calvin Frost 04.09.18

    • Taking on a new life

      In my last column I wrote about a study on the incredible growth of the plastics industry and a similar growth in plastics going to the landfill. The study concluded: “Thus without a well-designed and tailor-made management strategy for end…
      Calvin Frost 03.09.18

    • Plastic parallels

      Plastic parallels

      In my last column I mentioned that “the current linear plastics system is broken.” Sadly, like so many other truly important contributors to our society (and let’s not debate the degree of importance), many of our developments since…
      Calvin Frost 01.26.18


    • Poetry, waste and waxworm smoothies

      I think it is more than appropriate to begin my last column of 2017 with a poem by Matthew Olzmann of Dartmouth College. It’s a cry for change and a voice we need to hear and heed. “Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now” fir…
      Calvin Frost 11.17.17

    • Green Chemistry, Continued...

      Green Chemistry, Continued...

      “Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others.”
      Calvin Frost 10.06.17

    • Biology and Balance

      Earlier this year I mentioned that I would write a column on “bio” or green chemistry. It’s complicated and requires a chemistry primer. But, the real key, after you understand the chemistry, is that bio technology helps make life c…
      Calvin Frost 09.11.17


    • Dear Mr. President

      A look at President Trump's position on the Paris Accord.
      Calvin Frost 07.14.17

    • Carbon tax: the political football

      President Sean Decatur of Kenyon College joined the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (i.e., the Paris Accord for colleges and universities) because he wanted his college to “work toward achieving a net zero c…
      Calvin Frost 05.30.17

    • Learn from the twitterpated Tom Clarke

      How many of you know what “twitterpated” means? I’m being serious. Twitterpated means “infatuated or obsessed, in a state of nervous excitement.” Look it up. Of course, you’ll need Frost’s New World Dictionar…
      Calvin Frost 04.07.17


    • Making sense of the future with Sidely

      I have a simple pattern that I follow when trying to write these columns. I sit at my writing desk, which looks out onto our backyard reflecting on the complexity of worldly issues while enjoying the peace and beauty of our gardens and back nature ar…
      Calvin Frost 03.13.17

    • Patagonia’s wetsuit

      Before I tell you the Patagonia story, I need to make a position statement about President-elect Donald Trump’s position on the environment. I won’t write about my view of the man, just that he embraces fossil fuels, has vowed to roll bac…
      Calvin Frost 01.20.17

    • A circular economy, ‘a better future’

      Thomas Jefferson said, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” Anne Gaasbeek of Pré Consultancy in the Netherlands echoes much the same in an article in the Public Affairs section of a FINAT publicati…
      Calvin Frost 11.14.16

    • The answer is blowin’ in the wind

      Since my last column on Lester Brown’s The Great Transition, I’ve had a number of emails from readers reminding me that some of the transitions to renewables have slowed down because of availability of cheap natural gas. They’re abs…
      Calvin Frost 09.07.16

    • In Transition

      In Transition

      As promised in my last column, I wanted to share Lester Brown’s vision on the energy transition, from fossil fuel to renewables, specifically wind and solar. In his most recent book, The Great Transition, he does touch on geothermal and hydropo…
      Calvin Frost 07.15.16

    • Coal’s demise and the mess that’s left

      In my last column I wrote about the opportunities to convert to “green energy,” the demise of the coal industry, and the explosion of the use of wood pellets as feedstock in commercial boilers. I seem to have struck a chord, as I’ve…
      Calvin Frost 05.20.16


    Breaking News
    • Meech adds new Pulsed DC Controller to Hyperion range
    • Prestige-Pak installs PCMC’s Fusion C flexo press
    • Schawk Manchester receives FlexoExpert certification
    • Grafikontrol names new North American sales VP and GM
    • Primera announces on-demand RFID label printer
    View Breaking News >
    CURRENT ISSUE

    April 2018

    • Pouch Converting
    • Metallic Inks
    • A COMMON $ENSE APPROACH TO COATING APPLICATIONS
    • Print Management Systems
    • Narrow Web Profile: Pacific Barcode, Inc.
    • View More >

    Copyright © 2018 Rodman Media. All rights reserved. Use of this constitutes acceptance of our privacy policy The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Rodman Media.