Category Archives: Transportation

First Talk of the Semester! (Spring 2019)

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On March 6, we hosted CleanBay Renewables. They are a sustainable engineering company based in Westover, Maryland, but with a few locations across the area, including in Georgetown, Delaware. It was founded in 2013 by Tom Spangler and is the only business of its kind. CleanBay Renewables uses anaerobic digestion and nutrient removal techniques to fully recycle chicken waste into clean power.

Their technology processes in a fully closed system to avoid waste stream, protecting local ecosystems from harm. This technique not only strengthens the electrical power grid, but it also provides an auxiliary for farmers. Delaware is a national leader in chicken production, so this technology is pivotal for the area.

CleanBay currently has 12 trucks functioning daily and they process 90,000 tons of chicken litter a day- enough to power 9000 homes. annually The digesters they use consume 1.5 million tons of water, but it is sustainably done so that the water returns into the ecosystem after use. Their technology produces biogas and digestate during processing, with the digestate being turned into phosphorus pellets. Given the high phosphorus in the area which hurts aquatic life, these pellets are transported to phosphorus-deficient areas in the nation to help food production.

This new and exciting technology was great to hear about and we would love to see what happens next. For more information, please go to cleanbayrenewables.com or contact us! Check out our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/udgreenliaisons/ for photos from the event!

Ali Mahdi

amahdi@udel.edu

Climate Change Preparedness

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Publicity Photo of Sue McNeil with Civil & Environmental Engineering

On September 23rd, 2016, Green Liaisons hosted UD’s Dr. Sue McNeil, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Public Policy, and Administration. She presented to us on her research that examined the preparations being made by cities and regions for the impacts that climate change is likely to cause on infrastructure.

McNeil described the possible preparations for both mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, particularly in regard to the impacts of increased precipitation and flooding on roads, bridges, and foundations. Cities are taking actions such as building further inland, accommodating for occasional flooding, and elevating infrastructure or building seawalls.

For her research, McNeil surveyed the Mid-Atlantic region to identify the progress of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in making these preparations. She determined that MPOs have difficulty identifying the need for these preparations until a “disaster” (e.g. Hurricane Sandy) occurs, but then once a disaster occurs, communities are so overwhelmed by recovery that they cannot think about future planning. McNeil identified a need for a combination of engineering adaptations and climate change mitigation to produce successful planning.

If you would like to hear McNeil’s entire talk, please check out the video here!

The Newark Bike Project helps you “learn to do-it-yourself” through free repair facilities and community education

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In April, Niki Suto, one of the founders of the Newark Bike Project came in to our Green Liaison Sustainability Lecture Series to share information about the sustainability of biking. The Newark Bike Project is a Newark-housed community program based on the Urban Bike Project of Wilmington. The mission of the program is centered on the three pillars of Community, Education, and Empowerment all housed under the umbrella of Sustainability. The initiative is about more than putting bikes on the road and getting cars off the road;

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