Remember, we only have this one planet.

Just a little round-up of ecology, pollution, and clean energy items from this week.

Remember that plant that was supposed to turn Turkey Poop into electricity without polluting? I seem to recall having said it sounded great, if it were really true. Well it turns out it’s a little messier than we were initially told.

In Japan, some folks have started invoking the Kami to prevent illegal dumping. Kami, if I may horribly oversimplify, are sort of a combination of deities and guardian spirits and (sometimes) ghosts of ancestors.

A local interest story! Just outside Las Vegas really is a terrific place for a huge solar energy farm.

Something that should have been a good idea turns into a biofuel boondoggle:

The maneuver begins with a shipload of biodiesel from, say, Malaysia, which pulls into a US port like Houston, says John Baize, an industry consultant in Falls Church, Va. Unlike domestic diesel-biodiesel blends, which typically contain from 1 to 10 percent of biodiesel, the Malaysian fuel starts off as 100 percent biodiesel, typically made from palm oil.

Then, the vessel receives from a dockside diesel supplier a “splash” of US petroleum diesel. It doesn’t take much to turn it into a diesel-biodiesel blend that is eligible for US subsidies.

If the ship holds roughly 9 million gallons, it takes only about 9,000 gallons of traditional diesel (0.1 percent of the total) to make the entire load eligible for the blenders tax credit.

Did you know there’s a giant toxic waste pool under Brooklyn?

The Economist brings us the most comprehensive article on recycling I’ve ever read.

In closing: don’t forget to check out my item yesterday on Central Sanity called Surely there is room for balance; The L.A. Times tells us something we already knew, that healthcare costs are particularly brutal for companies that provide retirement benefits; the tourism industry is worried about new passport rules; John Edwards is not afraid to say “I don’t know,” and “I wish I had an answer”; the amazing disapearing American Center for Voting Rights; an interview with al Sadr; and finally, virtual Rome.