NEWS OF THE MONTH FROM THE TARRYTOWN ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL
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OCTOBER 2021
WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT
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This month: Appreciate art in the park, celebrate Vegetarian Month, learn about waste-to-hydrogen, carve those pumpkins, propagate your bulbs, keep stuff working, learn about home energy upgrades, hit the River and join our online meeting Thursday evening, October 7 at 7:00!
LOVE YOUR VILLAGE
PARTICIPATING IN TEAC IS EASY… JUST COME TO A MEETING!

The Tarrytown Environmental Advisory Council (TEAC) relies on volunteers to keep things moving. We're a fun and engaging group of like-minded citizens working to make Tarrytown's air, land, lakes and river healthier and cleaner.

Our next meeting will be held via Zoom at 7pm, Thursday, October 7.

This month, we'll hear from some of our committees: Lakes, Landscaping, Energy and Conservation, and Zero Waste.

If any of these committee topics interest you, please feel free to join us!

Zoom Link: CLICK HERE
IN THE OPEN AIR:
A PLEIN-AIR PAINT-OUT
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The Village of Tarrytown is holding its first Plein Air Paint Out event at Pierson Park on the Hudson, Saturday, October 9, starting at 9 am.  Paintings done that day will be offered to the public at an Auction starting at 4 pm in the Pavilion in the Park.  This is your chance to own a beautiful original piece of art – and meet the artist in the process!

 Artists working in paint media or watercolor will be located around Pierson Park creating the art works which will be auctioned later in the day.  Painting in plein air, in the open air, has long been a treasured artistic tradition.   Visitors to the Park on Saturday will be able to watch as these local masterpieces are being created.

This riverside location, Pierson Park, offers many wonderful opportunities for painters.  

The stunning new Tappan Zee Bridge, nearby marinas, the Hudson River itself with its boat traffic, all in the height of autumn colors, provide ample subject matter for painters.

The Village of Tarrytown itself is the very epicenter of Fall in the Hudson Valley with its Old Dutch Church, the Headless Horseman tradition; Kykuit, the Rockefeller family home and the Union Church of Pocantico Hills with its Chagall and Matisse.

To attract artists to this event, art organizations in Westchester and Rockland have been contacted so they can distribute the information about the event to their members and affiliates.

Contact:  Joyce Lannert, Chair, jlannert@optonline.net
UPDATE ON HYDROGEN:
WASTE PAPER SOLUTION?
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By Dean Gallea

In last month’s Newsletter, I refuted the current claims by the industry on the “greenness” of using hydrogen as a transportation fuel. My analysis was based on my research on current production methods, their impacts on carbon fuel use and greenhouse gas release, and their practicality given today’s constraints on renewable energy production.

Well, times change -- sometimes daily.

An article in a recent Green Car Reports Daily Digest caught my attention, and it just may blow my assumptions out of the H2O: A California company (doesn’t all energy innovation seem to come from California?) has invented a process that uses waste paper as a gasification feedstock for their hydrogen production process.

Waste gasification has interested the Atlantic Council, a NATO-inspired economic group founded in the 60’s, as a way to further the large-scale production of green hydrogen:

“The gasification of biomass is an alternative clean hydrogen production method, sometimes described as ‘green’ along with renewable electrolysis. If biomass waste is used as the fuel source, this pathway can actually generate carbon-negative hydrogen by avoiding methane emissions from that waste. Biomass gasification operates similarly to coal gasification production of hydrogen, which has been deployed at large scale, but without the associated carbon emissions…. The largest-scale biomass-to-hydrogen plant is currently under construction in Lancaster, California; if the project meets its cost and production targets, this pathway could become a critical piece of the US hydrogen economy.”

The company, SG H2 Energy, has claimed that its process will displace 30 tons of CO2 for every ton of hydrogen produced, which it says is at least 13 tons better than with electrolysis. And it claims its process is much cheaper than electrolysis, competitive with coal gasification. The plant, breaking ground in early 2022, will be co-owned by the city of Lancaster, which will supply the feedstock.

So, let’s watch this technology, with an eye to whether it is as effective and green as is claimed. And, as the Green Car Reports article states, “…the California Energy Commission [reports] that hydrogen could reach price parity with gasoline by 2025. Part of the issue includes not just creating the demand, but creating the infrastructure to distribute it.”