Hotter Log Enters the Market

By Teresa Riordan

New York Times

Fake logs made of sawdust and paraffin, invented in the 1950’s, are a popular alternative to real firewood. But ersatz logs have also been fashioned out of cardboard, almond shells, corn cobs, peach pits – and now, recycled coffee grounds.

This month the Java Log will go on sale for the first time in the United States. The log is about 65 percent used coffee grounds, which, said Rod Sprules, who came up with the idea, burn brighter and hotter than sawdust logs while producing 88 percent less carbon monoxide than firewood.

Mr. Sprules, a Canadian engineer living in Ottawa, had the first inkling of the Java Log idea 10 years ago while he was designing a heated suit for search-and-rescue technicians.

When he opened a reference book to look up the energy content of propane, he came across an entry for coffee, discovering to his surprise that coffee grounds release more heat than wood when they are burned.

He wrote this fact down in a notebook he regularly fills with “silly ideas” and then forgot about it. A couple of years later his wife, Joanne Johnson, was offered a contract with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The couple moved to Paris, and Mr. Sprules found himself “a gentleman of leisure.” Mr. Sprules scoured his notebook of silly ideas for one that might be a promising basis for a business and discovered the coffee entry.

Since their apartment in Paris was above a cafe, Mr. Sprules begged some leftover grounds from the proprietor, dried them in an oven, then stuffed them into an old cigar tube. “It burned really well,” Mr. Sprules recalled. “My wife was very excited.”

When they returned to Ottawa in 1998, Mr. Sprules set up shop in the garage next to his house. Planet Coffee, a coffee house in Ottawa, allowed him to scavenge its garbage for used grounds. The experience, he reports, was less than pleasant: “Have you ever seen a wet bagel? It swells to the size of an inner tube. It’s pretty disgusting.”

After much trial and error, he came up with the formula for the Java Log. With money from family and friends, he started Robustion, a company that has been producing and selling the logs at a modest rate in Canada for three years now. So far he has received two patents on the idea in the United States and has others pending both here and in Europe.

Mr. Johnson now buys his grounds from an instant coffee manufacturer (the grounds are a byproduct of freeze-dried coffee). But he is hoping to set up a recycling agreement with a coffee house chain. “We will be approaching Starbucks and Krispy Kreme and Hortons,” he said. According to Mr. Sprules, most used coffee grounds are burned or sent to landfills and are not recycled.

Since the company recently received an infusion of capital from an “angel” investor, Robustion is going after the American fake-firewood market. Mr. Sprules estimated this market in North America to be worth $400 million a year. Two large sawdust-firewood companies sell about 95 percent of all such logs, however. This month the Java Log will be offered for sale in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey at ShopRite, King Kullen, Whole Foods, Food Emporium, Stew Leonard’s, D’Agostino and Stop & Shop.

The Java Log is slightly more expensive than sawdust logs, selling for $3.29 a log and $17.99 for a box of six. But Mr. Sprules said his logs did not produce a chemical smell that many consumers complain about with sawdust logs.

Do the logs smell like coffee? “That’s the first question everyone asks,” Mr. Sprules said with a laugh. “Actually they do have a slight aroma. Most people like it.” But for those who do not, he said, Robustion is developing a nonaromatic variety.

Patents may be viewed on the Web at www.uspto.gov or may be ordered through the mail, by patent number, for $3 from the Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, D.C. 20231.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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States take the lead on global warming

Ten states are set to up the environmental ante, suing administration for tighter energy controls.

By Brad Knickerbocker

Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Confronting climate change – which most scientists now say is real – is a worldwide effort. That’s why it’s called “global warming.”

But as nations continue to argue over the Kyoto agreement and other multinational approaches, and as Congress considers an energy billthat would expand fossil-fuel production, state governments are taking the lead in reducing the greenhouse gases that seem to be sending temperatures upward.

Ten states are about to sue the administration to force the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Fourteen states, including President Bush’s home state of Texas, now require utilities to generate part of their power from renewable sources.

One region – the Northeast – is following its own Kyoto-like path. New England states and five eastern Canadian provinces have set goals to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2010, then reduce them another 10 percent by 2017.

Similarly, governors on the West Coast recently announced a joint strategy to reduce global warming. Included in this effort: using their combined purchasing power to buy fuel-efficient vehicles for official use; developing uniform appliance-efficiency standards; collaborating to measure and report greenhouse-gas emissions; reducing the use of diesel generators on ships in California, Oregon, and Washington State ports.

It’s not just a matter of wanting to enjoy a clearer view of the region’s spectacular mountains and coastlines.

“This is a matter of economic necessity,” says Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D). “Global warming is a real phenomenon, which affects us in many ways, from increasingly costly forest fires to encroaching seas.”

Barry Rabe, who teaches environmental policy and political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, finds that “the current level of state activity surrounding the issue of climate change is striking.”
The climate of change

In a study of state programs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Dr. Rabe found a variety of initiatives around the country – many of them far in advance of what the federal government is doing.

“Measures that have proven controversial at the federal level, such as renewable portfolio standards and mandatory reporting of greenhouse-gas emissions, have been implemented at the state level, often with little dissent,” he says.

For example, says Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew center and former assistant secretary of state in charge of environmental and scientific affairs, Texas and 13 other states now require utilities to generate a specified share of their power from renewable sources.

“Three [states] have established reporting programs for greenhouse-gas emissions, and two of these are mandatory programs,” Ms. Claussen recently told state environmental officials from around the country at a meeting in Salt Lake City. “In addition, two states have overall caps on their emissions, and one state, California, is working on direct controls on emissions from motor vehicles.”

Then there is New York State, she said: Under Republican Gov. George Pataki, New York has created a regional market in which power plants can buy and sell carbon-dioxide credits. Nine of 10 states have told the governor they’re interested in collaborating on emission reductions across the region.

One striking thing about such efforts to stem global warming is that both Republicans and Democrats generally support them.

Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor-elect of California and an enthusiastic owner of a General Motors gas-guzzling Hummer, vowed in his campaign that “Under my administration, the state will lead by example – identifying and permanently retiring those heavily used vehicles that do the greatest harm to our air quality.” Mr. Schwarzenegger also embraced a new state law that requires cars and trucks to emit less carbon dioxide, suggesting that he would retrofit his Hummer (with a gas mileage of 10 to 13 m.p.g.) to run on clean-burning hydrogen.
Greenhouse and statehouse

At issue between states and the Bush administration (and the subject of the lawsuit) is whether to consider carbon dioxide – one of the main greenhouse gases – as a “pollutant” regulated under the federal Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency under Bush says “no”; the states say “yes.”

California officials are particularly concerned that the EPA’s position will make it easier for auto manufacturers to challenge the state’s first-ever law restricting vehicles’ greenhouse-gas emissions. Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont are expected to join the suit.

Rabe at the University of Michigan and other observers see such state efforts as models for federal action. Still, they acknowledge that state programs addressing climate change are no substitute for a nationwide effort directed by Washington.

Whether acting alone or in groups, states also face stiff obstacles.

They are constitutionally limited in what they can do in areas involving international relations. And many are cash-strapped, required to balance state budgets that are as shaky as they’ve been in decades.

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Greater Environmental Awareness on Golf Courses

By Carole Paquette

New York Times

Long Island’s newest golf courses are following practices
of decades ago and creating layouts that require less
irrigation and chemicals than the extensively manicured and
heavily fertilized courses that players have come to expect
in recent years, according to professionals in the
business.

The change is happening nationwide, they say, but it is
especially pronounced on Long Island because of the need to
protect the critical underground water supply and fragile
environment.

“There has been a trend in the golf industry, since the
mid-90’s, to go from standard parklike courses with
tree-lined fairways to the links style, which is more wide
open, similar to the old Scottish golf courses,” said Ray
Holohan, the president of the New York State Golf Course
Owners Association, a nonprofit trade group. “On Long
Island it is even more so because the courses are being
built on wide open properties of farmland that is over our
groundwater.”

There are 130 golf courses on Long Island, said Mr.
Holohan, who is an owner of the 40-year-old Middle Island
Country Club, a public 18-hole course in Middle Island.
Since 1992, 12 new public courses and eight private courses
have opened in Suffolk County, and more are under
construction.

The environmental consultant Jeffrey Seeman, owner of
Coastal Environmental in East Quogue, said that to ensure
town approval, golf course developers are incorporating
environmental components suggested by conservation groups
like Audubon International, a nonprofit group based in
Selkirk, N.Y., which is affiliated with the Audubon Society
of New York State. The group offers guidelines and services
to help new developments protect natural resources. New
Long Island golf courses that are using Audubon plans
include the public North Hempstead Harbor Links and private
Golf at the Bridge in Bridgehampton.

The Audubon plan “is an holistic approach,” Mr. Seeman
said. “It protects the environment” and “economically you
could reduce the operational costs by 30 percent if you
reduce the chemical requirements.”

Mr. Seeman, who has been the consultant for six Long Island
golf courses, said the plans’ components include “no-mow
zones” in wetland areas. Instead of mowing the grass right
up to the banks of a pond, for example, an area is left
natural within a six-foot-wide perimeter. This zone acts as
a sponge and absorbs chemicals that might have run off into
the water.

Another segment features a $30,000 concrete area, where
maintenance equipment is washed and chemical runoff is
collected in a small drain and is treated.

“The newer courses are taking these considerations into the
design,” Mr. Seeman said. “They are making a natural
landscape but with a scientific purpose.”

An important area of a golf course is the out-of-play
areas, like the woods and the high rough, he said. “If it
is more environmentally friendly, this area can combine
wildlife habitat and reduce the amount of turf chemicals
and irrigation required,” he said. “This involves putting
in mixes of fine fescue and wildflowers that don’t require
a lot of nutrients, have good drainage and are good nesting
areas for songbirds.”

An irrigation system would be designed that could be turned
off in those areas once they are established. Then only the
greens and fairways would be irrigated, “not the old
wall-to-wall way that was done not too long ago, or with
those older clubs that have not really begun to make the
changes,” said Mr. Seeman. “This is the old style: build it
in the land that was there,” he added.

MR. SEEMAN planned the program for Old Vines Golf Club,
which is being constructed on 125 acres of a former farm
off Reeves Avenue in Riverhead. Town approval for the
development was based on its using the Audubon plan, Mr.
Seeman said.

The development, which includes 75 housing units, will have
an 18-hole private golf course. A working vineyard will be
created as a satellite operation of a Cutchogue vineyard on
approximately four acres at the entrance to the club,
according to Bruce Barnet, a principal.

While not all builders use a full Audubon program, they are
more conscious of the environment and are taking measures
to preserve the groundwater, said Rick Jurgens, an owner of
the 38-year-old Spring Lake Golf Course, a 27-hole public
course in Middle Island. “There is a trend toward using
organic fertilizers that are free of pesticides,” he said.
“In the long run, being organic is cheaper as well as
healthier.”

Two 18-hole public courses in Riverhead – the Woods at
Cherry Creek, which opened last year, and Cherry Creek Golf
Links, which opened in 1996 – are being managed with
environmental programs, according to Vincent Sasso, the
owner with Charles Jurgens, of both courses.

“We had to be careful,” Mr. Sasso said. “We were only
permitted by the town to take down a certain number of
trees and when we created wetlands, we had to add the
particular plants that grow in them. We are on an organic
program, with mostly organic fertilizers and a little spray
in the woods. It’s hard to be organic at first, it takes a
while to build up. We are about 50 percent organic now,” he
said.

Cherry trees line a part of the road leading to the
clubhouse at Cherry Creek Golf Links, which was built on
166 acres of open land that had been potato and sod farms.

The Woods at Cherry Creek, which has a 4,500-square-foot
$1 million clubhouse with an upscale restaurant, is across
the road on 140 acres that is 80 percent woodland. It was
designed by the Riverhead surveyors Young & Young.

Rates at both courses are $35 for 18 holes on weekdays and
$60 on the weekends, according to Peter Quaresima, the
general manager.

A short distance east, on Main Road in Laurel, the $40
million Laurel Links Country Club, an 18-hole private club
on 226 acres, also opened last year. The developer, David
J. Saland, said that he went directly to the North Fork
Environmental Council, a nonprofit environmental group, and
asked for support before going to Riverhead’s planning
board for permits.

“I had learned my lesson,” he said, explaining that a
project he had proposed back in the 1980’s for 80 homes on
a 160-acre property in Aquebogue was defeated when the
environmental group won a fight to protect the property,
which had a kettle hole – a hollow formed by a melting
glacier.

LAUREL LINKS, which includes 29 building lots, was approved
with restrictions, he said. The number of house lots,
covering about an acre each, was reduced to 29 from 60, and
of the total property only 50 acres could be used for the
golf course. The rest is fescue and 40 acres of woodland,
“for the wildlife,” he said.

Mr. Saland added: “There were many concerns about chemicals
and how much of the woods we would use. We put four test
wells on the property to monitor the underground water. We
use as much organic as possible right now, but occasionally
we have to treat the turf when necessary. If you get a
fungus, you could lose a green in 48 hours if you don’t.”

Kelly Blake Moran, a golf course architect from Reading,
Pa., who builds courses throughout North and South America,
designed the Laurel Links course.

Currently, 13 houses are under construction and four of the
remaining lots are on the market for $440,000 each. The
3,000- to 5,000-square-foot New England-style houses are
priced at $1.2 million to $1.6 million, said Mr. Saland,
who owns Saland Real Estate in Jamesport.

A 14,000-square-foot, wood-shingled clubhouse is under
construction and is expected to be completed by spring.
There will be a restaurant, Olympic-sized outdoor pool and
two tennis courts.

The golf course, which is private, has two types of
membership plans. There are 325 full family memberships,
under which pay a $90,000 initiation fee, of which $70,000
is a bond that will be returned when they leave. “I needed
their money to buy the land,” Mr. Saland said.

Those members also pay an annual $6,000 family fee that
entitles them unlimited use of the golf course and all club
facilities.

With another plan, called a house membership, members pay a
nonrefundable $20,000 initiation fee and have full use of
the clubhouse, pool and tennis courts but limited golf
privileges.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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