Environmental news from UW-Madison

In recognition of Earth Day, here are some examples of UW–Madison research that focuses on environmentally friendly practices.

• Wisconsin-style recycling: New uses for cow manure
• Environmental study takes a leap into orbit
• Solar power: Renewable energy on the cusp of renewal?
• Keeping an eye on the mercury
• Getting industry waste out of the landfill

Wisconsin-style recycling: New uses for cow manure
Aside from an annual cow chip toss, the world hasn’t stumbled on too many alternative uses for cow manure. But UW–Madison researchers have a couple new ones: water filters and particle board.

The biological systems engineering scientists are using separated and cleaned fibers from cow manure to make high-quality hardboards. Those fibers also have an uncanny ability to filter heavy metals from water. Richard Koegel, a USDA researcher and professor of biological systems engineering, says they use a separating press at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center at Prairie du Sac to separate the manure fibers from liquid waste. The captured material is being used as bedding for farm animals, but researchers are exploring new ideas.

They teamed with a Chicago consultant to make steam pressure-treated hardboard from manure fibers. They are also working with Forest Products Laboratory researcher Jim Han, who specializes in creating biofilters to clean up water pollution. Han has installed a system that will use the manure fibers to filter storm water at Mount Horeb’s Stewart Lake.

Koegel says odor is removed in the separation process. But whether the public ever catches wind of the material might depend on the wood market, where shortages in wood and paper pulp are predicted.

“People should know the research is preliminary,” adds Koegel. “Otherwise, I’ll get phone calls from 500 farmers asking where they can drop off their manure.”

Koegel can be reached at (608) 264-5149, or rgkoegel@facstaff.wisc.edu; Han at (608) 231-9423.

Environmental study takes a leap into orbit
In July of this year, if all goes according to plan, the first of NASA’s Earth Observing Satellites (EOS) will sweep into a polar orbit 900 miles above the Earth. Aboard will be MODIS, the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, a device whose capabilities are now being tested at UW–Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center.

MODIS will enable scientists to study such things as ocean currents, clouds and land formations from space. Measuring clouds and the energy they reflect back into space or help trap in the atmosphere, for example, is an essential element in the study of climate change and global warming. MODIS will provide a new long-term record, in unprecedented detail, of such phenomena.

To learn more about MODIS and the insight it may provide on issues of climate, contact Paul Menzel at (608) 263-4930, or Steve Ackerman at (608) 263-3647.

Solar power: Renewable energy on the cusp of renewal?
Whatever happened to solar power? After a burst of interest in the 1970s, solar energy applications have never reached more than a fraction of their potential in America.

William Beckman, director of UW–Madison’s Solar Energy Laboratory, says the relative cheapness of fossil fuels through the 1980s and ’90s has reduced interest in renewable energy sources. But it shouldn’t: Beckman says that increasing solar usage could have a greater impact on reversing global warming than almost any other remedy.

For example, Beckman says a third of the country uses electricity for home water heaters. If those homes switched to a combination electric-solar water heating source, it would produce more carbon dioxide-reduction than it would to double the gas mileage of every American car.

Beckman says the UW’s Solar Energy Lab, opened in 1954, is the oldest such center in the country. For more information, contact Beckman at (608) 263-1590; or beckman@engr.wisc.edu

Keeping an eye on the mercury
UW–Madison’s Water Chemistry Program is studying why some watersheds are more vulnerable than others to mercury contamination. The research team is comparing notes from two diverse landscapes: Rivers of the Lake Superior Basin and the Florida Everglades.

Program director David Armstrong says researchers are finding that watersheds with a high proportions of wetlands and forest tend to be more vulnerable to mercury moving downstream. In the Everglades, they are studying how management practices affect mercury’s accumulation in the food chain. Mercury pollution, primarily from burning fossil fuels and deposited by air onto the landscape, has been linked to neurological problems and is a frequent culprit in fish advisories.

For more information, contact Armstrong at (608) 262-0768; or colleague James Hurley at (608) 262-1136.

Getting industry waste out of the landfill
Heavy industry generates millions of tons of solid waste every year, and UW–Madison engineers would like to keep it out of already-swelling landfills.

A group of civil engineers has recently created the Beneficial Reuse Program, a research campaign designed to find alternative uses for foundry sand, fly ash, reclaimed pavement, shredded tires and paper sludge – most of which gets entombed in landfills.

Civil engineer Craig Benson says dumping industrial waste in landfills is very costly. But the waste makes good, cheap and abundant materials for the construction and transportation industries. For example, the UW–Madison researchers found that foundry sand makes effective barriers for landfills, embankments and retaining walls for highways, and supplements for asphalt. They are also exploring road construction applications for shredded tires and plastic.

For more information, contact Benson at (608) 262-7242; or doctoral student Tarek Abichou at (608) 262-6281.