SQUIDFRY: Slurry Flurry

SLURRY FLURRY… Squid has a tongue-like organ inside Squid’s beak, called the radula. It’s covered in tiny razor-sharp teeth, so that when Squid is munching, those miniscule teeth break every morsel down into a slurry that then travels through the brain and into the stomach. So Squid’s curiosity was piqued last week when Squid found out humans are making a food waste slurry of their own.

The Carmel Area Wastewater District voted Aug. 24 to enter into a pilot program with Grind2Energy, a company owned by the world’s largest maker of garbage disposals,Emerson. Now that California is requiring large businesses and institutions like supermarkets, schools and hospitals to divert food waste from landfills, Emerson sees a potential new boom market for its disposal technology. Grind2Eneregy collects food waste and turns it into a slurry using large grinders, which is then turned into methane gas through anaerobic digestion. The gas is converted to power, offsetting electricity costs.

The district will charge Grind2Energy a fee of $0.05 per gallon of slurry, and expects to sell three to five truckloads a week during the year-long pilot program, with revenue of about $1,000 a week. They’ll monitor how much methane gas is produced over the year and then do the math on whether or not it makes sense to keep the program going.

BAKE SALE… While reading the news these days, Squid often finds Squidself rubbing Squid’s large eyes, hoping Squid has stumbled upon fake news, only to find out it’s all too real. There’s Hurricane Harvey wreaking unfathomable devastation in Texas and Louisiana, and a bitter trial beginning in a years-long dispute among heirs of Salinas’ famous son, John Steinbeck, over rights to the author’s works. As The Associated Press writes, “Sour grapes have left some of the classic works of John Steinbeck in a dust bowl.” (Squid would love to see Steven Spielberg make an adaptation of Grapes of Wrath, so Squid hopes it all gets sorted out.)

Then Squid came across the news on NBC that a Pebble Beach couple, Rider and Victoria McDowell, are offering a $10 million reward to anyone who can produce anti-CD47, a drug they believe can cure their 17-year-old son, Errol, who is fighting cancer that’s spread to his brain. The McDowells made their fortune by creating Airborne, the fizzy immune supplements Squid guzzles during flu season, so the McDowells are used to thinking – and going – big. They recently launched a crowdfunding platform, Cancer-A-Gogo, asking every American to donate $1 to support cancer research, which would generate $325 million.

It’s one of those sad stories Squid wishes wasn’t real, but Squid is heartened to see wealth leveraged like this for a good cause.