In catching up on some reading this morning, I came across this article: Eight Bio-based Technologies for 2050. (I seem to have been spending the last 40 years catching up on my reading. You ever get that?) The article, from Biofuels Digest via Renewable Energy World, mentions eight “bio-based” technologies (or systems) that have tremendous potential as we wend our way along the path to clean tech.
One of these is waste capture. This section mentions the Kalundborg Symbiosis, a private-public partnership in Denmark that uses the waste products of some industrial processes to serve as feedstock or energy for others. It is, like nature, a closed loop system. I was reminded of not only Bill McDonough’s dictum that “There is no waste, only nutrients.” but of my modest proposal several years back for a system to manage New York City’s 25,000 tons, daily, of municipal solid waste. I called this Urban Gold because of the virtually limitless potential for not only managing the wastes responsibly but for economic development. The Kalundborg Symbiosis does precisely what I’d had in mind: co-locates industries with the waste stream to a provide cheap, readily available and continuous feedstock.
See the video from the Kalundborg folks. The Danes, once again, are doing some smart thinking that the rest of us could, should and must emulate, adopt and refine for local patterns of production and consumption.
