Category Archives: old tired advice

Fracking Wildlife In Illinois – IDNR thinks it is a good thing

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Run little doggies, run for the hills, but if you are a fish you are pretty much dead.

 

Today (Saturday, 11/30/13) is Day 16 of the IDNR Comment Period on Fracking.  Thanks for hanging in there with us even on this holiday weekend!

Day 16  USED 11/30/13

Topic:  Definition of “Aquatic Life” is too narrow

  • Click the button: Subpart A: General Provisions
  • In the “Section” dropdown box, click:  245.110 Definitions
  • Submit your comment/s (below)
  • Click “Submit”

Section 245.110 Section 245.110 of the Proposed Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act administrative rules, states: “Aquatic life” means all fish, reptiles, amphibians, crayfish, and mussels.

Problems with this section:

  1. This definition is too narrow and does not include many other species that may be important to an aquatic ecosystem.  Aquatic life cannot be understood apart from the larger aquatic ecosystem which sustains it.
  2. Freshwater ecosystems (limnology) not only include fauna, but also flora (plants), micro/macro invertebrates, oxygen levels and algae, for example.

Why these are problems:

  1. Exclusively focusing on a limited definition of “aquatic life” unnecessarily narrows the impact to the larger ecosystem that sustains it.
  2. By the time a fish kill occurs pollution caused by fracking will have reached a critical stage, causing havoc across the larger ecosystem.
  3. It neglects the biological criteria for the protection of aquatic life.

Revisions Needed:

  1. The definition of “aquatic life” must be broadened to include “aquatic ecosystems”.
  2. Specific scientific standards must be developed to include:  a) Biological standards, b) High quality water resources, c) Modified or limited water resources, and d) Stressor identification.

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Bloomington, IL 61701
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Go there and comment. More tomorrow/

 

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Frackers Must Post Bonds To Drill – Doesn’t that mean they are going to do damage

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Yes and the damage they will do is a lot more than 50,000 $$$ they initially put up.

 

Today (Thursday, 11/28/13) is Day 14 of the 49-day Comment Period on Fracking.  On this Thanksgiving Day, we are thankful for your comments to IDNR.
Topic – Inadequate Bonding Requirements for Fracking Companies
  • Click the button: Subpart B:  Registration and Permitting Procedures
  • In the “Section” dropdown box, click:  245.220 Permit Bonds or Other Collateral Securities
  • Submit your comment/s (below)
  • Click “Submit”
Section 245.220 states, “The bond shall be in the amount of $50,000 per permit or a blanket bond of $500,000 for all permits.” (Section 1-65(a) of the Act)
Comment:  Plugging a well alone costs more than $50,000. In the study “Who Pays the Cost of Fracking?: Weak Bonding Rules for Oil and Gas Drilling Leave the Public At Risk”, PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center reported documented instances in which fracking wells have cost $700,000 or more to plug.  What is the motivation for the operator to not simply forfeit the bond when they shut down?  Furthermore, drilling companies typically frack a string of wells and not just one.  If they are cutting corners, using improper well-casings for example, or not sealing them correctly, the violation is likely to occur at each site.  One $500,000 bond for perhaps as many as 100 -150 well sites is as unacceptable as a $50,000 for one well site.
If the purpose of the bond is to protect the state from expenses incurred from an accident or violation, then the bond must be sufficient to cover those occurrences.  It makes no sense to offer a blanket bond—like some bargain basement “buy 2 pairs of socks and get a third pair free”.  Each well should be bonded individually and in the amount necessary to cover real and imagined damages as outlined by the PennEnvironment study.
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IDNR Cancels Hearing In Effingham – Day 7 of comments released here

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The weather outside is frightful. Especially in Southern Illinois. So now you have all the time in the world to post comments to IDNR’s website.

 

Effingham, December 5, Holiday Inn 6:30 PM – CANCELED
• Decatur, IL December 17, Decatur Civic Center 6:30 PM
• Carbondale, December 19, SIUC Student Center 6:00 PM

Today is Day 7 of the 45 day Comment period on fracking in Illinois.  You’ve made it to the end of your first week.  Thank you for your comments!
Today’s comment is on the lack of provisions to address fracking in a tornado-ridden state.
Here’s what to do to make your comment today:
Comment:  Number of draft regulations proposed by Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources describing safety measures regarding tornado strikes on fracking sites: ZERO.  Number of tornados in Illinois in the last 10 years: 674.
Historically, the number and intensity of tornadoes in IL is very high.  “In fact, Illinois has experienced some of the worst tornados in US history.” Dr. Jim Angel, Illinois State Climatologist.
Every county in Illinois has had multiple tornados as demonstrated by the maps in the following links:
A big swath of Washington IL was flattened by a tornado on Sunday, 11/17/13. What would have happened if this tornado had hit an area of the state covered in fracking sites?  Debris from the tornado has been found over 150 miles away.  Imagine if that debris had included “temporarily” stored flowback water or tanks filled with frack fluid or produced water?
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Is There A Pandemic Building In China – Oh God let’s hope not

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There are many things that environmentalists have said over the years. The 2 most consistently true ones are that there are too many people on this planet and the other is that we will pay a price for befouling our planet. This has led some to talk about the possibility of a human “die back”. Is this what the beginning of one might look like?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/01/is_this_a_pandemic_being_born_china_pigs_virus

 

Is This a Pandemic Being Born?

China’s mysterious pig, duck, and people deaths could be connected. And that should worry us.

BY LAURIE GARRETT | APRIL 1, 2013

Here’s how it would happen. Children playing along an urban river bank would spot hundreds of grotesque, bloated pig carcasses bobbing downstream. Hundreds of miles away, angry citizens would protest the rising stench from piles of dead ducks and swans, their rotting bodies collecting by the thousands along river banks. And three unrelated individuals would stagger into three different hospitals, gasping for air. Two would quickly die of severe pneumonia and the third would lay in critical condition in an intensive care unit for many days. Government officials would announce that a previously unknown virus had sickened three people, at least, and killed two of them. And while the world was left to wonder how the pigs, ducks, swans, and people might be connected, the World Health Organization would release deliberately terse statements, offering little insight.

It reads like a movie plot — I should know, as I was a consultant for Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. But the facts delineated are all true, and have transpired over the last six weeks in China. The events could, indeed, be unrelated, and the new virus, a form of influenza denoted as H7N9, may have already run its course, infecting just three people and killing two.

Or this could be how pandemics begin.

On March 10, residents of China’s powerhouse metropolis, Shanghai, noticed some dead pigs floating among garbage flotsam in the city’s Huangpu River. The vile carcasses appeared in Shanghai’s most important tributary of the mighty Yangtze, a 71-mile river that is edged by the Bund, the city’s main tourist area, and serves as the primary source of drinking water and ferry travel for the 23 million residents of the metropolis and its millions of visitors. The vision of a few dead pigs on the surface of the Huangpu was every bit as jarring for local Chinese as porcine carcasses would be for French strolling the Seine, Londoners along the Thames, or New Yorkers looking from the Brooklyn Bridge down on the East River.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Global Warming Strikes – If its not the home of the sage brush revolution burning

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Then its the ocean rising. More on that tomorrow.

http://news.yahoo.com/vicious-wildfires-spread-colo-tourist-centers-201636170.html

Vicious wildfires spread to Colo. tourist centers

Associated PressBy THOMAS PEIPERT | Associated Press – 1 hr 37 mins ago

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Flames forced thousands of Colorado residents from their homes over the weekend and disrupted vacation plans for countless visitors as smoke shrouded some of the state’s top tourist destinations, including majestic Pike’s Peak and tranquil Estes Park.

Colorado is having its worst wildfire season in a decade, with more than a half dozen forest fires burning across the state’s parched terrain. Some hotels and campgrounds are emptying ahead of the busy Fourth of July holiday.

One of the newest fires, a blaze near Colorado Springs, grew to more than 6 square miles Sunday after erupting just a day earlier and prompting evacuation orders for 11,000 residents and an unknown number of tourists.

The fire sent plumes of gray and white smoke over the area that obscured at times Pikes Peak, the most-summited high-elevation mountain in the nation and inspiration for the song “America The Beautiful.”

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Go there and read. Pretty depressing though. More tomorrow.

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Nice To Have A Nuke In The Basement – Really the article is more hype than anything

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Still it is kind of interesting. I wonder why no one spilled the beans. Was it because the bulk of their workers were blind and totally dependent on Kodak. I do not know but it is an amusing tale nonetheless.

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/so_kodak_about_that_nuclear_reactor_in_your_basement

So, Kodak — about that nuclear reactor in your basement

It seems that, until 2006, Kodak had a basement that housed a nuclear reactor, complete with a cache of weapons-grade uranium. How did the company get away with that?

by May 14, 2012 11:16 AM PDT

Corporate America is a place of many layers.

Though fanciful movies made by drug-addled Hollywood directors sometimes suggest that corporations are behind wars, most believe that CEOs are just too harassed to find the time for that sort of action.

And yet, this morning Gizmodo has turned my head toward the explosive reporting of The Democrat and Chronicle, the local newspaper of the Rochester, N.Y., area — home to Kodak.

This paper reveals that between 1978 and 2006, Kodak had a nuclear reactor. No, not a picture of one. A real one — albeit a small one intended for research — housed in its basement.

Surely, you might think that there’s some exaggeration here. And yet it seems that this nuclear reactor contained three-and-a-half pounds of enriched uranium. Highly enriched uranium, indeed, which some might describe as “weapons-grade.”

I am sure that everyone in Rochester — not to mention, say, North America — will be pleased to hear that nothing ever went wrong with this reactor. No leaks. No strange explosions. It apparently bore no responsibility for Kodak’s own implosion, either.

Given that it was only dismantled in 2006, though, it is remarkable that few locals — or, indeed, Kodak employees — knew anything about this 14×24-foot bunker

 

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Rightwing Rant From A Probable Oil And Gas Stock Holder – Or is it coal

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I normally would not put up a rant against alternative forms of energy which I believe are the energies of the future. But I love how they all make the same mistake. We as a society must use the CHEAPEST forms of energy. Yet we as a society get to SAY what kinds of energy are used and then it is up to businesses to get on with what they do best – steal us blind. Resources are not free to those that just dig them up and they can not be allowed to destroy the world while they are at it. This shouter and denier from Northern Wisconsin is all about preposterous side arguments that are not even true in his political wet dreams.

http://madisle.info/2012/01/30/renewable-green-energy-yields-very-poor-results/#axzz1lLKfgK9z

Renewable “Green” Energy Yields Very Poor Results

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Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re tired of me telling you “I told you so,” but once again, as usual, I am right and you are not.

Why we’re even fiddling around with this green alternative energy crap is beyond me. It doesn’t work for the most part, and what does work is extremely expensive and highly inefficient.

Renewable electric energy from nonhydroelectric sources — chiefly wind and solar — contributed only 3.6 percent of total U.S. generation in 2010 — yet received 53.5 percent of all federal financial support for electric power.

And wind power alone, which provides 2.3 percent of generation, received 42 percent of all support.

Wind and solar renewable energy have failed to thrive despite government support because they face substantial “market impediments,” according to Benjamin Zycher, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

“Energy policies in the United States for decades have pursued energy sources defined in various ways as alternative, unconventional, independent, renewable, and clean in an effort to replace such conventional fuels as oil, coal, and natural gas,” Zycher states on the AEI website, and “renewable electricity receives very large direct and indirect subsidies from the federal and state governments.

“These long-standing efforts have, without exception, yielded poor outcomes.”

 

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Go there and read the rubbish. More tomorrow.

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Fascinating New Photos Inside Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

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I can’t post these photos here because there are 67 of them and they are linked. So I will just post the text. I might add that if you skip down to photo 40 or so you will see the real damage to the power plant itself. Most of the pictures are of the temporary village that houses the workers, the drive to the power plant and and the emergency control room. This is probably because this is where the photographer spent the bulk of his time and was bored. They are real cool for the geeks like me. Thank you Denver Post.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/11/14/inside-japans-fukushima-nuclear-reactor/5085/

Inside Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Station

Posted Nov 14, 2011

Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder, along with other reporters, was allowed inside the Fukushima nuclear power station to witness the devastation, for the first time, caused by Japan’s March 12th earthquake and tsunami.
Eight months later, the plant remains a shambles. Mangled trucks, flipped over by the power of the wave, still clutter its access roads. Rubble remains strewn where it fell. Pools of water cover parts of the once immaculate campus.
Tens of thousands of the plant’s former neighbors may never be able to go home. And just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki become icons of the horrors of nuclear weapons, Fukushima has become the new rallying cry of the global anti-nuclear energy movement.
Yet this picture is one of progress, Japanese officials say. It has taken this long to make the plant stable enough to allow Saturday’s tour, which included representatives of the Japanese and international media — including The Associated Press. Officials expect to complete an early but important step toward cleaning up the accident by the end of the year. (AP)

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Go there and see them. More next week.

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Compare Electricity Rates – Another request for links and guest post

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This is probably something like an advertising/actual content/simple search engine site. I make no claims about the sites CES links with. I got no legitimacy meter. This was not the article they wanted me to use but this one seemed a little more in line with the type of stuff I post. I would add two things to this list if you are capable of them, turn off your water heater and your air condition if it is in the summer and if if it is winter, dial back your heat dramatically.

http://compareelectricityrates.com/blog/2011/10-things-to-turn-off-before-going-on-vacation/

Attributed to:  Katherine Tworsey

Planning a vacation, time to get away from the hustle and bustle of life is fun and exciting, and if you remember to turn off these 10 things before you go on vacation, you will worry less about what’s going “on” at home and really enjoy your vacation!

  1. Lights: It might seem obvious to turn off the lights while you are away, but some people completely forget. You will save a bundle in electricity costs. Do consider, however, one or maybe two lights on a timer switch in a front room or bedroom, so it looks as if the lights are going on and off throughout the evening. Homes are less likely to be broken into if someone is home.
  2. Your coffee pot: don’t just turn off your coffee pot, and other small appliances, but unplug them completely. Many small appliances continue drawing electricity even when not in use. By unplugging them, you will be saving electricity as well as preventing a possible fire.
  3. Computer: Generally speaking, it is not good to have a computer sit idle, but when you are away from home, you must take extra care to protect your computer and files it contains. Unplug it from both the electrical service and disconnect it from the internet. Be sure to back up all your files before you leave either using an online service or external hard drive that is stored away from your computer.
  4. Wall Warts: Those little transformer boxes that charge electronic devices, cell phones, lap-top computers, etc; take a walk around your house and see how many chargers are plugged into electrical outlets with the other end open and waiting for some device to get charged up. Unplug them all before you leave!
  5. Garage door opener: Unplugging the motor of your garage door opener will ensure that no one will find a compatible opener and get your door open. Leave an extra key to the walk-in garage door with a trusted neighbor, so you won’t have any problems getting in when you get home.

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More tomorrow.

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Nuclear Power In The US Is Expensive – It is too much money to meter

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The Finns found this out real quick when they started their new Nuke 5 years ago costs estimates were 4 billion $$$. Right now they are at 7 billion $$$ and the meter is still turning. Even with 8 billion $$$ of backing for the two new reactors at the Vogle site Georgia Power could get no money in the private sector so they are “self financing”. Anybody want to buy a cheap power company someday? But this was the wind blowing through the trees in 2003 (and you should see the 2009 update for a good laugh) when we had a President that couldn’t even pronounce the word nuclear right.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

Introduction

An interdisciplinary MIT faculty group decided to study the future of nuclear power because of a belief that this technology is an important option for the United States and the world to meet future energy needs without emitting carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants. Other options include increased efficiency, renewables, and carbon sequestration, and all may be needed for a successful greenhouse gas management strategy. This study, addressed to government, industry, and academic leaders, discusses the interrelated technical, economic, environmental, and political challenges facing a significant increase in global nuclear power utilization over the next half century and what might be done to overcome those challenges.

This study was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and by MIT’s Office of the Provost and Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.

News Release

MIT RELEASES INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY ON “THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY”

Professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz Chaired Effort to Identify Barriers and Solutions for Nuclear Option in Reducing Greenhouse Gases

July 29, 2003

Washington, D.C. — A distinguished team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard released today what co-chair Dr. John Deutch calls “the most comprehensive, interdisciplinary study ever conducted on the future of nuclear energy.”

The report maintains that “The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power.”

“Fossil fuel-based electricity is projected to account for more than 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020,” said Deutch. “In the U.S. 90% of the carbon emissions from electricity generation come from coal-fired generation, even though this accounts for only 52% of the electricity produced. Taking nuclear power off the table as a viable alternative will prevent the global community from achieving long-term gains in the control of carbon dioxide emissions.”

But the prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited, the report finds, by four unresolved problems: high relative costs; perceived adverse safety, environmental, and health effects; potential security risks stemming from proliferation; and unresolved challenges in long-term management of nuclear wastes.

The study examines a growth scenario where the present deployment of 360 GWe of nuclear capacity worldwide is expanded to 1000 GWe in mid-century, keeping nuclear’s share of the electricity market about constant. Deployment in the U.S. would expand from about 100 GWe today to 300 GWe in mid-century. This scenario is not a prediction, but rather a study case in which nuclear power would make a significant contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.

“There is no question that the up-front costs associated with making nuclear power competitive, are higher than those associated with fossil fuels,” said Dr. Moniz. “But as our study shows, there are many ways to mitigate these costs and, over time, the societal and environmental price of carbon emissions could dramatically improve the competitiveness of nuclear power”

The study offers a number of recommendations for making the nuclear energy option viable, including:

  • Placing increased emphasis on the once-through fuel cycle as best meeting the criteria of low costs and proliferation resistance;
  • Offering a limited production tax-credit to ‘first movers’ – private sector investors who successfully build new nuclear plants. This tax credit is extendable to other carbon-free electricity technologies and is not paid unless the plant operates;
  • Having government more fully develop the capabilities to analyze life-cycle health and safety impacts of fuel cycle facilities;
  • Advancing a U.S. Department of Energy balanced long-term waste management R&D program.
  • Urging DOE to establish a Nuclear System Modeling project that would collect the engineering data and perform the analysis necessary to evaluate alternative reactor concepts and fuel cycles using the criteria of cost, safety, waste, and proliferation resistance. Expensive development projects should be delayed pending the outcome of this multi-year effort.
  • Giving countries that forego proliferation- risky enrichment and reprocessing activities a preferred position to receive nuclear fuel and waste management services from nations that operate the entire fuel cycle.

The authors of the study emphasized that nuclear power is not the only non-carbon option and stated that they believe it should be pursued as a long term option along with other options such as the use of renewable energy sources, increased efficiency, and carbon sequestration..

The members of the study team are: John Deutch (co-chair), Ernest Moniz (co-chair), S. Ansolabehere, Michael Driscoll, Paul Gray, John Holdren (Harvard), Paul Joskow, Richard Lester, and Neil Todreas.

Members of the Advisory Committee included: former U.S. Congressman Phil Sharp (chair), former White House Chiefs of Staff John Podesta and John Sununu, John Ahearne, Tom Cochran, Linn Draper, Ted Greenwood, John MacWilliams, Jessica Mathews, Zack Pate, and Mason Willrich.

This study was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and by MIT’s Office of the Provost and Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.

CONTACTS: David Dreyer / Eric London
PHONE: 202-986-0033

Related Links

MIT ENERGY INITIATIVE (MITei)

DEPARTMENT OF NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (NSE)

CENTER FOR ADVANCED NUCLEAR ENERGY SYSTEMS (CANES)

CENTER FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY RESEARCH (CEEPR)

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Really amazing stuff. More tomorrow.

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