Backyard chickens (credit: Meredith Hall)

The recent salmonella outbreak has led to a recall of half a billion eggs, and has sickened thousands of people. (Check this FDA page to see if the eggs in your fridge are safe to eat.) Many of the contaminated eggs have been traced to two giant farms in Iowa. It is not entirely clear what caused the outbreak—and there may have been multiple sources. But at least some of the contaminated eggs were laid by hens that ate contaminated chicken feed. Rodents carrying salmonella had gotten into the feed. In large-scale egg farms, salmonella can spread easily. Backyard chickens can still be subject to salmonella, but at least if you’re in charge of the coop, you can be sure to take precautions to keep your birds healthy.

These precautions include keeping the habitat clean, making sure the food isn’t contaminated by rodents or other animals (reptiles carry salmonella too), and maybe even vaccinating your chickens. Vaccination is common in the UK and other parts of Europe (though in this country, the FDA has deemed it unnecessary). I have no idea if vaccines are available for backyard birds—but it might be a good idea.

Not being a bird owner myself, I wondered how a first-time chicken raiser could learn about keeping birds healthy. I read Oakland urban farmer Novella Carpenter’s book Farm City, and I couldn’t remember if her mail-order poultry had come with instructions. Then, I found out that the USDA recently started a public education campaign on backyard bird health. And, urban homesteaders swap chicken husbandry tips thanks to internet sites like Meetup. There are whole communities out there, dedicated to raising healthy birds.

Still, I am not ready build a coop on my back porch and fill it with chickens. But the salmonella outbreak and the poultry experts at the Eat Real Festival reminded me that farmers, with their great knowledge of how animals and diseases and the environment are all entwined, are the world’s original ecologists.

To learn more about eggs and the differences between supermarket eggs or farm fresh eggs, watch City Egg, Country Egg on QUEST.

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And old, 19th Century windmill in contrast to wind turbines today.

Last summer I visited the Netherlands, the original home of the windmill. Surprisingly, I saw hardly any of the quaint structures we associate with Dutch wind power. One hundred years ago Holland had about 10,000 wooden windmills dotting its landscape. Today, barely 10% remain. What I saw instead were high tech wind turbines, white and spare and gracefully generating electricity with wind from the North Sea. Many view these modern day towers as an eyesore, but I see them as a sign of hope. Like giant flowers across a landscape, they symbolize for me a clean energy future. But wind power, and solar, have a handicap that fuels claims that renewables will never be more than a small percentage of U.S. power. These energy sources can't be counted on when night falls or the wind subsides. Their inconsistent and therefore unreliable nature poses a problem for a world with an enormous appetite for electricity. If only excess power could be stored on a grand scale, it might solve many of our energy problems.

It isn't that electrical energy isn't currently storable, but as Andrew Tang, Senior Director of PG&E’s Smart Meter program points out, the current generation of batteries can’t store electricity at a price that's cost effective. But both he and Steve Berberich from California System Operators were optimistic about future storage possibilities. Tang described an experimental project that uses a sodium sulfur battery the size of an 18-wheeler trailer. The battery would be located next to a substation, or somewhere in the network, and its stored power would be used during times of peak demand. He also talked about the future of plug-in electric cars whose batteries could both store energy and in theory put it back onto the grid when the car's not in use. Steve Berberich envisioned several possibilities for storing excess power. He proposed converting it to hydrogen, which could be burned in a gas plant or could be used in a fuel cell. And he suggested using power to compress air, which could be injected into the ground and called upon when the wind's not blowing and the sun’s not shining.

Whatever the final solution to storage, you can guarantee it will be a game changer in the renewable power industry. No longer will wind and solar be looked upon as unreliable. Hopefully this missing puzzle piece will go a long way towards helping us detach from our dependence on fossil fuels. But we’ll still be left with the challenge of getting all that clean, green energy onto the power grid. And you can be sure that environmental concerns, zoning, aesthetics, and cost will undoubtedly be cantankerous issues for years to come.

Watch the Climate Watch: Unlocking The Grid television story online.

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