Current Project

Nature 101: Waste Equals Food¹

 

Program Description

The Clarkson Young Scholars Program is an innovative and challenging summer program at Clarkson University that attracts bright, creative, and motivated students. Working individually and in small groups, students conduct research, provide recommendations, and make a final presentation to community leaders. It is a stimulating program in a real world setting that fosters intellectual development, communication skills, and cooperative problem solving.

Project Description

The Earth has had 4.5 billion years to develop systems for recycling and reuse that make possible a myriad of ecosystems and life forms. Nature wastes nothing --one system's waste is another's raw material-- and the results have been impressive. We modern humans, on the other hand, have learned little from nature about reuse and recycling, believing that nature’s supplies were endless and its sinks too large to ever fill up. Our landfills are filled with comingled toxics that are best kept out of nature’s cycles, and our food and other organic wastes are discarded with little regard for their potential as energy and food sources.

But that is changing. Concerns about energy supplies and climate change have motivated new thinking about transforming bio-waste (food, fibers and animal wastes) into energy, food, and fertilizer.

This year’s Young Scholars will be asked to take a systems approach to designing two anaerobic digestion demonstration models that utilize bio-wastes to create energy and other valuable by-products. The first model will utilize food wastes and be marketed to municipalities and college campuses, for example, which spend millions every year for energy and the disposal of food wastes. The second will utilize animal wastes and be marketed to livestock farmers who are challenged with disposing thousand of tons of animal manure.

Working with three Clarkson professors, students will learn the principles of anaerobic digestion,² its use in producing methane and other byproducts, the environmental and social considerations involved in such a project, and the challenges involved in creating a closed-loop system that mimics nature. Students will create conceptual designs and models that consider the amount of bio-wastes available, the energy created and how it will be used, and the utilization of the waste products at the end of the process.

Students will be responsible for engineering and designing the two systems, building scale models, minimizing environmental and social impacts, assessing the economic costs, and providing a formal, professional presentation. Students will present their design proposals and models at the end of the week to experts and potential users from the Potsdam community.

Program Objectives:

Young Scholars will:

• Experience a college learning environment; 
• Develop their skills in critical thinking, quantitative analysis, teamwork, leadership, research, and presentation; 
• Acquire an introductory understanding of the process used to solve real, open-ended, problems which including interacting engineering design, economic, social and environmental issues; 
• Acquire experience in working effectively under pressure.

Program Expectations

We have an exciting and challenging week ahead of us.  We will perform at our best if we share similar expectations. 

Here’s what you should expect from your instructors:

• Enthusiasm 
• Clear and helpful guidance (but not necessarily answers) 
• Open-ended questions that you will have to answer 
• Plenty of room to set and achieve goals
• A sense of order and structure that will ensure a thoughtful and persuasive presentation at the end of the week.
  
  Here’s what the instructors expect from you:
• Enthusiasm 
• Creativity 
• A focused effort 
• A willingness to take responsibility for the final product, to work cooperatively in teams, and to step up when necessary. 
  
   

¹For more on the Waste Equals Food, see http://www.greenbusinesstimes.com/2008/12/19/waste-equals-food/

² Some good anaerobic digestion sites:  http://www.mrec.org/pubs/Dairy%20Waste%20Handbook.pdf

http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Ostrem_Thesis_final.pdf

http://www.caddet.org/public/uploads/pdfs/Brochure/no66.pdf