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| 11/22 |
| 2008/7/1-14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50440 Activity:nil |
7/01 Awesome, now we can't even do solar power
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html
\_ its just a moratorium of solar projects on public BLM land. Nothin
stopping folks from doing solar power on private land. Still the
vast tracts of cheap desert land under the BLM's control are
probably the best resources for solar plants. A government
concerned about alternate energy wouldn't put up obstacles like
this.
\_ ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
\_ "assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and
Mojave ground squirrel." I hate squrrels. Kill the squirrels!
\_ This is actually pretty funny. The continued carbon emissions
will drive the extinction of far more species than just
these two. Pave the desert!
\_ http://www.012009.com
\_ Or coal: http://preview.tinyurl.com/598vzr [treehugger]
\_ If you believe in clean coal, I have bridge in Brooklyn to
sell you.
\_ I refer you to
http://langmuir.nuc.berkeley.edu/~peterm/COAL_VS_NUCLEAR.html
for a discussion of the side effects of a coal plant.
\_ I'll gladly take nuclear as long as the safety
requirements are not neglected and the industry is
heavily regulated. |
| 11/22 |
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| www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html REFRESH(15 sec): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx= 1214954173-Z8g2t0+SdvavEUJlDsF1cQ IFRAME: http://c5.zedo.com/jsc/c5/ff2.html?n=498;c=39/1;s=102;d=28;w=640;h= 480 |
| www.012009.com Together we can minimize the damage of this administration and ensure that a positive change begins on Bush's Last Day, January 20, 2009. The Bush Record In the past seven years, the decisions George W Bush has made have had a damaging effect on our environment. He has made it clear that the success of big corporations is his top priority, not clean water and air. This administration continues to make war its top priority. |
| preview.tinyurl.com/598vzr -> www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/georgia-judge-blocks-coal-plant-because-ghg-emissions.php US Supreme Court in Massachusetts v Environmental Protection Agency to a proposed power plant project. Without emissions reduction plan in place, Plant will not be approved The court in question is the Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia and the application in question is for the planned Longleaf 1200 MW coal-fired power plant outside of Columbus. This plant was the first coal-fired plant to be proposed in Georgia for over 20 years. The project had been granted approval by an administrative court, but this was overturned by Judge Thelma Wyatt on the grounds that the plant had no plan in place to limit its CO2 emissions. The project permit challenge was brought before the court by the Sierra Club and Friend of the Chattahoochee. that it must tighten the standards it uses to approve air pollution permits for companies seeking to build any more coal-fired plants in the state. Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club continued in praise of the ruling: Coal-fired power plants emit more than 30 percent of our nation's global warming pollution. Thanks to this decision, coal plants across the country will be forced to live up to their clean coal rhetoric. Comments I hope this or a case like it makes it onto the supreme court docket, and I hope it is upheld. The court system appears to be the only government branch not stuck in political molasses- or perhaps tar sands. A ban on new fossil fuel power plans would effectively be the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. It would mean that as old power plants are decommissioned there would be no choice but to replace them with clean energy sources, so that by 2050 or so there would be very little coal left in the grid. Oil and natural gas will almost certainly get too expensive to use for grid power long before then. |
| langmuir.nuc.berkeley.edu/~peterm/COAL_VS_NUCLEAR.html Case Study: The Side Effects of a Coal Plant A 500 megawatt coal plant produces 35 billion kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power a city of about 140,000 people. It burns 1,430,000 tons of coal, uses 22 billion gallons of water and 146,000 tons of limestone. It also puts out, each year: 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide (SOx) is the main cause of acid rain, which damages forests, lakes and buildings. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) is a major cause of smog, and also a cause of acid rain. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas, and is the leading cause of global warming. There are no regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions in the US 500 tons of small particles. Small particulates are a health hazard, causing lung damage. Particulates smaller than 10 microns are not regulated, but may be soon. when they don't burn completely, they are released into the air. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a poisonous gas and contributor to global warming. A scrubber uses powdered limestone and water to remove pollution from the plant's exhaust. Instead of going into the air, the pollution goes into a landfill or into products like concrete and drywall. This ash and sludge consists of coal ash, limestone, and many pollutants, such as toxic metals like lead and mercury. Mercury emissions from coal plants are suspected of contaminating lakes and rivers in northern and northeast states and Canada. In Wisconsin alone, more than 200 lakes and rivers are contaminated with mercury. Health officials warn against eating fish caught in these waters, since mercury can cause birth defects, brain damage and other ailments. Acid rain also causes mercury poisoning by leaching mercury from rocks and making it available in a form that can be taken up by organisms. All but 16 of the 92 naturally occurring elements have been detected in coal, mostly as trace elements below 01 percent (1,000 parts per million, or ppm). A study by DOE's Oak Ridge National Lab found that radioactive emissions from coal combustion are greater than those from nuclear power production. The 22 billion gallons of water it uses for cooling is raised 16 degrees F on average before being discharged into a lake or river. By warming the water year-round it changes the habitat of that body of water. Coal mining creates tons of hazardous and acidic waste which can contaminate ground water. Strip mining also destroys habitat and can affect water tables. Underground mining is a hazard to water quality and to coal miners. In the mid-1970s, the fatality rate for underground miners was 04 per million tons of coal -- one miner would be killed every two years to supply our 500 MW plant. The disabling injury rate was 38 people per million tons -- 106 miners would be disabled every two years to supply this plant. Since coal mining is much more automated now, there are many fewer coal miners, and thus many fewer deaths and injuries. much coal now comes from the coal basins of Wyoming and the West. Injuries from coal transportation (such as at train crossing accidents) are estimated to cause 450 deaths and 6800 injuries per year. Transporting enough coal to supply just this one 500 MW plant requires 14,300 train cars. Polluted ground water is polluted for thousands of years. In Three Mile Island, the US's worst nuclear accident, no one died and very little radiation was released. NUCLEAR PLANTS: Some numbers on a 500MW nuclear plant: 15 tons per year of high-level nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is radioactive for 100k years So Nuke waste is something like 1/100,000 the problem that coal waste is. The only reason we can't dispose of it safely is public relations. We apparently can safely dispose of millions of tons of toxic ash and sludge by burying it. |