01.16.07 |Permalink|Comments Off on Suicide by Coal
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a suicidal act is one that is “dangerous to oneself or to one’s interests; self-destructive or ruinous.” By this standard, the coal boom that is currently sweeping America is the atmospheric equivalent of a swan dive off a very tall building. At precisely the moment that scientists have reached a consensus that we need to drastically cut climate-warming pollution, the electric-power industry is racing to build more than 150 new coal plants across the United States. Coal is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel: If the new plants are built, they will dump hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year for decades to come — virtually guaranteeing that the U.S. will join China in leading civilization’s plunge into a superheated future.
That’s a quote straight from Jeff Goodell contributor to Rolling Stone magazine. Now I know there are technologies (gasification for instance) that can make coal cleaner than it has been, but that’s still orders of magnitude more polluting than renewable options available. What if, instead of doing “the easy thing” of investing in more coal plants we did “the right thing” and rechanneled that money into renewable plants (a mix of geothermal, wind, biomass, and solar?)
Here’s the thing, according to the US Department of Energy, for each 1,000,000 watt hours (1 MWh) of electricity generated by burning coal, 1,000 kg of carbon and around 14 kg of NOx and SOx are released into the atmosphere. Let’s say we make coal 50% less polluting, great. But that would still result in 507 kg of pollutants produced per MWh.
This is a classic case of cross purposes. I don’t think anyone wants to see raptors (Golden Eagles, Hawks, etc.) killed unnecessarily, that’s just silly. The producers took many steps to study and attempt to remedy the problem. But the problem was also blown out of proportion as mobile phone towers and buildings kill more raptors each year by far than these turbines, yet we see no action against mobile phone providers. Regardless, the hypothesis is that the lattice towers were good perches for the birds and that’s what contributed to the higher mortality rate than experienced at other wind farms.
The solution seems pretty straight forward to me, shut down and demolish the 45 problematic turbines and allow the producers to “repower” using larger turbines with tubular towers which would serve to reduce the number of turbines, likely increase the output of the farm, and lower the avian mortality rate. What’s lost in a suit like this is that for each MWh of coal generation displaced by technologies like wind, around 1,000kg of carbon and around 13kg of NOX and SO2 is kept from entering the atmosphere. After all, climate change is likely to kill far more species than all the wind farms on the globe combined.
Given the outcome of the court case, I’d expect the producers to be back in business and hopefully taking steps to further reduce the avian mortality rate at the site.
This entry from A Thrilling Wonder website has it all, wind farm construction, turbine failure, storms, etc. on a HUGE scale. If you want to see a big wind farm, read this. It’s a very informative and interesting read punctuated with nice photos. Highly recommended.
I’m a fan of parody, and I’m a huge fan of smart parody. Few people have been more over, ahem exposed, than Britney and as ripe a target. Most people have heard that Britney Spears has been caught on camera, let’s say, lacking certain undergarments most of us take for granted. A condition also known as “going commando.”
Some people blame Paris Hilton’s influence, some believe it was coordinated by publicists, and some think it was just an accident. (I vote for the publicist angle by the way.) Out of nowhere, this most excellent video appears on YouTube as smart parody of the situation. It deals with adult-oriented subjects, so if that sort of thing offends you, don’t watch it.
Click the image below to watch the internet sensation, “My Box in a Box For You.”
01.13.07 |Permalink|Comments Off on Tsunami System Update
As I wrote about a couple of months ago, NOAA has created an automated tsunami warning system. Last night about 8:45 PST, I got a series of emails about a tsunami warning that went into effect because of a magnitude 8.2 earthquake east of the Kiril Islands east of Russia and north of Japan. Here’s an exercept from the warning:
NWS WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER PALMER AK
833 PM PST FRI JAN 12 2007
…A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT WHICH INCLUDES THE ALASKA
COASTAL AREAS FROM NIKOLSKI ALASKA TO ATTU ALASKA…
…A TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR THE ALASKA COASTAL
AREAS FROM SEWARD ALASKA TO NIKOLSKI ALASKA…
…AT THIS TIME THIS MESSAGE IS ADVISORY ONLY FOR OTHER
AREAS OF CALIFORNIA – OREGON – WASHINGTON – BRITISH
COLUMBIA – AND ALASKA…
A TSUNAMI WARNING MEANS… ALL COASTAL RESIDENTS IN THE WARNING
AREA WHO ARE NEAR THE BEACH OR IN LOW-LYING REGIONS SHOULD MOVE
IMMEDIATELY INLAND TO HIGHER GROUND AND AWAY FROM ALL HARBORS AND
INLETS INCLUDING THOSE SHELTERED DIRECTLY FROM THE SEA. THOSE
FEELING THE EARTH SHAKE… SEEING UNUSUAL WAVE ACTION… OR THE
WATER LEVEL RISING OR RECEDING MAY HAVE ONLY A FEW MINUTES BEFORE
THE TSUNAMI ARRIVAL AND SHOULD EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. HOMES AND
SMALL BUILDINGS ARE NOT DESIGNED TO WITHSTAND TSUNAMI IMPACTS.
DO NOT STAY IN THESE STRUCTURES.
This was followed by several more messages each with more specific information. It was pretty cool really to see all of this unfold and before it was something I would have been blissfully unaware of until reading a news post about it the following day.
The final message gave alot of very specific information about the event, observed wave heights, travel time, earthquake locale, etc. It’s posted below:
…KURIL ISLAND EVENT OBSERVED TSUNAMI HEIGHTS…
THIS BULLETIN IS BEING ISSUED TO PROVIDE SEA LEVEL OBSERVATIONS
PRODUCED BY THE JANUARY 13 0423Z KURIL ISLAND TSUNAMI.
NO – REPEAT NO – WATCH OR WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR ALASKA –
BRITISH COLUMBIA – WASHINGTON – OREGON OR CALIFORNIA.
A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN OBSERVED AT THE FOLLOWING SITES
HANASAKI JAPAN 0.1M/0.3FT
SHEMYA ALASKA 0.32M/1.0FT
ADAK ALASKA 0.04M/0.1FT
DUTCH HARBOR ALASKA 0.06M/0.2FT
MIDWAY I. 0.18M/0.6FT
HILO HAWAII 0.12M/0.4FT
KAHULUI HAWAII 0.17M/0.6FT
NAWILIWILI HAWAII 0.09M/0.3FT
WAKE I. 0.09M/0.3FT
WAVE OBSERVATIONS ARE THE AMPLITUDE ABOVE SEA LEVEL.
EVALUATION
BASED ON THE LOCATION – MAGNITUDE – TSUNAMI MODELS AND OBSERVED
TSUNAMI HEIGHTS THE EARTHQUAKE WAS NOT SUFFICIENT TO GENERATE A
TSUNAMI WHICH WILL INUNDATE COASTAL REGIONS IN CALIFORNIA/ OREGON/
WASHINGTON/ BRITISH COLUMBIA OR ALASKA. HOWEVER A
TSUNAMI CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DANGEROUS CURRENTS AND SURGES IN
HARBORS AND BAYS MAY BE OBSERVED IN SOME AREAS OF THE COAST.
WAVE HEIGHTS AND CURRENTS ARE AMPLITFIED BY IRREGULAR
SHORELINE AND ARE DIFFICULT TO PREDICT. THE INITIAL
WAVE MAY NOT BE THE LARGEST AND THE THREAT MAY CONTINUE FOR
SEVERAL HOURS.
WHEN NO SIGNIFICANT WAVES HAVE BEEN OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS AFTER
THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT OCCURRED
FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE THREAT IS
PASSED.
PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE PARAMETERS
MAGNITUDE – 8.2
TIME – 1924 AKST JAN 12 2007
2024 PST JAN 12 2007
0424 UTC JAN 13 2007
LOCATION – 46.7 NORTH 154.4 EAST
– EAST OF KURIL ISLANDS
DEPTH – 14 MILES/23 KM
SELECTED TSUNAMI ARRIVAL TIMES FOR INFORMATION AND REFERENCE ONLY.
THESE TIMES DO NOT INDICATE A DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI IS EXPECTED.
NEAH BAY-WA 0433 PST JAN 13 TOFINO-BC 0321 AKST JAN 13
CRESCENT CITY-CA 0445 PST JAN 13
SAN FRANCISCO-CA 0531 PST JAN 13
LA JOLLA-CA 0604 PST JAN 13
THIS WILL BE THE FINAL WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER
MESSAGE ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT. REFER TO THE INTERNET
SITE WCATWC.ARH.NOAA.GOV FOR ADDITIONAL OBSERVED WAVE HEIGHTS AND
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL TIMES.
All in all, a very useful system that I’m really happy to see work and work well. Thankfully, this time there was no tangible destruction resulting, but it was very reassuring to know about the event and it’s potential impacts as well as actual impacts. Good job NOAA team!
