Community Energy Systems

Censys.org

Community Energy Systems

Category Archives: water pollution

Trump Dumps Oil Down The Pipelines – It is bad, very bad

Posted on by
Reply

Yes, I warned anybody who would listen, that Pres. Trump would finish off this planet and 5 days into he is guaranteeing that some of the dirtiest energy on the planet will be burnt (haha burned). Tar sands for God’s sake. What about leave it in the ground. Nah he wants to toss it up in the air. I am not saying I like McKibben, I do not. I mean on tactics. I think his analysis is right on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/opinion/on-pipelines-donald-trump-looks-backward.html?_r=0

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor

On Pipelines, Donald Trump Looks Backward

By BILL McKIBBEN

IF you’re searching for a lens to understand just how President Trump sees the world, his executive orders on Tuesday reviving the Keystone XL and expediting the Dakota Access pipelines provide a sharply focused glimpse. In a word, he looks backward at all times. We’re beginning to get a better sense of what he means by “again” in “Make America Great Again.”

On questions of jobs and industry, he looks back at least to the 1950s. If something is big and made of steel, then it’s great. Like some Soviet Realist painter, Mr. Trump seems to have an image stuck in his head of brawny men building a nation. Those are real jobs, and all the other innovation in the economy doesn’t amount to much.

In fact (a phrase that suddenly seems politically charged) that’s not how economies work any more: If something is big and steel, it’s probably going to be run by robots. If the Keystone XL Pipeline is ever completed, for instance, it will employ about 35 full-time workers, relying for its operation on a vast network of sensors, drones and the like. The number of workers in our labor-intensive solar industry alone now surpasses those employed extracting coal, gas and oil combined

:}

Just imagine what he can do in 1,400 days. Go there and read.  More next week.

:}

Dallman Power Plant Is A Pain In The Ash – That won’t change soon

Posted on by
Reply

Springfield’s coal fired power plant is not compliant with the Clean Air Act. Apparently it won’t be anytime soon.

http://www.sj-r.com/news/20160727/illinois-epa-seeks-comment-on-cwlp-clean-air-permit

Illinois EPA seeks comment on CWLP clean air permit

By Mary Hansen
Staff Writer

Posted Jul. 27, 2016 at 5:58 PM

Springfield residents can ask questions and comment on proposed updates to an air pollution permit for City Water, Light and Power’s generating station at a public hearing Aug 30.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is holding the 7 p.m. hearing at the University of Illinois Springfield’s Public Affairs Center.

The state agency is gathering comments in its process to update a Clean Air Act permit for CWLP. Under the Clean Air Act, the federal government sets limits for certain pollutants.

The changes to the permit include regulations for CWLP’s newest power plant unit, Dallman 4, which was not covered under the original permit. It also has requirements that were not law when the Illinois EPA issued the permit for Dallman 4, such as emission limits for mercury and other air toxins. The city-owned utility has been required to comply with these standards, but the permit allows the federal and state agencies, as well as the public, to monitor and enforce them.

:}

Go there and read. Google the topic too. More next week.

:}

Springfield Needs Another Lake – Like it needs a hole in the head

Posted on by
Reply

There are so many problems with Hunter Lake, like it would turn into a mudflat during the summer or the need to plant 1000s of tree in Springfield if it was build. The biggest reason not to build is that Springfield doesn’t need it.

http://www.sj-r.com/article/20151012/NEWS/151019864

City of Springfield touts second lake as potential backup for region, including Chatham

By Jamie Munks, Staff Writer

Posted Oct. 12, 2015 at 5:52 PM
Updated Oct 12, 2015 at 10:32 PM

Springfield officials are emphasizing to permitting agencies that the city’s long-proposed backup water supply, Hunter Lake, could serve the entire region during a severe drought.

Mayor Jim Langfelder and other city officials met last week with representatives from the three agencies that Springfield needs permit approval from before the second lake could be built.

“If a drought hit, we’d be a regional source of water,” Langfelder said Monday.

Langfelder and Ted Meckes, City Water, Light and Power’s water division manager, met with representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, following the Springfield City Council’s reaffirmation vote in July of a commitment to move forward with the Hunter Lake projec

 

:}

Go there and THINK. More next week.

:}

Nuke Leak On Purpose – The Company pushed Onofre too hard and it shut down

Posted on by
Reply

This is so outrageous. People in the Nuclear Industry are always saying that their reactors are safe and they are responsible operators. Turns out both of those things are lies.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/19/san-onofre-reactor-leak-redlining/

Report: San Onofre reactor was pushed too far, leak resulted

Mugshot of Jeff McDonald
By Jeff McDonald | 3:56 p.m. July 19, 2016 | Updated, 7:42 p.m

Owners of the failed San Onofre nuclear power plant operated the reactor outside the allowable limits for pressure and temperature, causing the radiation leak that shut down the facility for good in 2012, a new report has found.

Citing documents recently obtained from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, former Southern California Edison engineer Vinod Arora issued a report Tuesday laying blame for the breakdown squarely on Edison.

“Higher primary reactor coolant temperatures and higher steam pressure caused tube-to-tube contact resulting in dangerous and potentially deadly tube ruptures,” he said.

Excessive tube wear inside replacement steam generators forced the shutdown in 2012.

:}

Go there and be very horrified. More next week.

:}

Organized Crime And Pollution – These people will traffic in anything

Posted on by
Reply

I had originally planned on Posting about Obama’s new environmental goals, but I couldn’t find the article. I had been offered a guest blogger’s article about recycling. However I had been wanting to read this article about how industry was using organized crime to dump toxic crap into the environment, so here it is.

http://mosaicscience.com/story/how-mafia-causing-cancer

 

24 June 2016

 

How the mafia is causing cancer

When doctors in rural Italy began to see a surge in cancer cases, they were baffled. Then they made the link with industrial waste being dumped by local crime syndicates. Ian Birrell learns about the tragic consequences.
A few days before I visited the rather scruffy Hospital of Saint Anna and Saint Sebastian in Caserta, a boy aged 11 arrived complaining of headaches. Doctors feared the worst – and sure enough, the case was rapidly diagnosed as another child with brain cancer. Some of these young patients arrive in agonising pain, others mystified by falling over all the time; they do not know lethal tumours are swelling up inside their heads. Yet more turn up with cancer in their blood, their bones, their bladders. There are so many cases not all can be treated in the hospitals of Campania, a largely rural region of southern Italy.It was too early to provide a prognosis for the boy with the brain cancer, let alone to offer real comfort to his distraught family. Yet in a town where doctors used to rarely come across a child with cancer, never mind brain cancer, they now see these traumatic cases crop up almost every month. Too many young patients are ending up dead, some barely out the womb but with bodies riddled with disease. Then there are all the women getting breast cancer unusually early, the men with lung cancer despite never smoking, the children born with Down’s syndrome despite the comparatively young age of their mothers.

So why is this happening in an area north of Naples known as the ‘Triangle of Death’? The answer, locals believe, can almost certainly be found in places such as an old quarry three miles away by the historic town of Maddaloni, which I visited with an energetic 57-year-old youth worker named Enzo Tosti. As we drove there, he told me he was having treatment to counter the high levels of dioxins found in his blood five months earlier. “My wife works for the hospital as a radiologist and she is very concerned,” he said. “I thought about leaving for my health and going to live somewhere else, but where would I go? This is my land.”

:}

Go there and read, read, and read. More next week.

:}

Illinois Senate SB 1585 Is A Bad Bill – It is worse than the original bill

Posted on by
Reply

The original BAD idea behind this bill was that Excelon’s Nukes were not profitable so they needed a subsidy from the State of Illinois or they would have to shut down. That subsidy would come from including the Nukes as part of Illinois’ Clean Energy Portfolio. Yah right, like Nukes are a clean source of energy. But this 2016 version rolls Clean Coal, Renewable Energy and Nuclear Power into the same package. Just how bad is this Bill? There is no such thing as Clean Coal.

http://www.illinoispeoplesaction.org/uploads/1/2/6/2/12620849/update-_kill_sb_1585.pdf

HELP US KILL EXELON’S BAILOUT BILL!
Less than a week ago, Exelon– the owner of Illinois’ nuclear power industry and one of the largest energy companies in the world– introduced a new bill to the Illinois Senate. SB 1585 is disguised as a “new generation” energy plan for our state, but is nothing more than a giant bailout for Exelon.
To make things worse, Exelon is using their energy monopoly to strongarm our lawmakers, threatening to close 2 nuclear power plants if the bill doesn’t pass by May 31st.  SB1585 takes tax dollars out of our
hands, and puts them straight into the pockets of Exelon.
Our tax dollar should not be used to keep dangerous nuclear energy in business. Instead, our tax dollars should be invested in the clean energy future that our state and planet needs!
BEAT BACK THE EXELON SHAKEDOWN!
3 Things YOU can do THIS WEEK!
1. Electronically
Submit a Witness Slip AGAINST this bad bill!

:}

Go there and read. More important, do everything they say and show up at the State Capitol if you can. More next week.

:}

Radioactive Animals And Plants – I did not know how widespread they are

Posted on by
Reply

I am so used to thinking about radiation as dangerous and creepy, that this article comletely caught me off guard. How about you?

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-radioactive-animals-become-tools-pests-and-political-statements

How Radioactive Animals Become Tools, Pests and Political Statements

Far from Chernobyl, turtles, rabbits and cows make nuclear cleanups an educational mess.

by Cara Giaimo

May 11, 2016

In the late 1970s, a worker at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site nuclear reservation peered into a seepage basin and spotted a small, out-of-place turtle. Scooping it out of the nuclear waste, the worker toted his new charge to a nearby ecology lab, where he figured they’d know what to do with it.

As he walked in the lab door, a radioactivity counter began beeping. The lab technician tested the mud on the worker’s shoes, figuring he’d tracked in some of the site’s contaminated muck. When the shoes came up clear, the confused technician tested further. After a few more swipes, the culprit emerged: It was the turtle.

Though this was the first radioactive turtle found at the Savannah River Site, it was far from an anomaly—there or elsewhere. Across the world, such creatures scurry, swim and fly among us. Unlike popular representations might lead us believe, most of them lack grotesque deformities, special abilities, or weird proclivities for pizza. Instead, like that turtle, many of them are totally healthy and happy—living relatively normal lives and, unless we try to eat them, posing little direct threat to humans.

:}

Go there and read. It is fascinating. More next week.

:}

Berta Caceres – She was murdered for the environment

Posted on by
Reply

Sure everybody in power down there says it was a robbery gone bad but she was assassinated. I mean the cops that were suppose to be guarding her were guarding the wrong house blocks away in another neighborhood. Damn those damn dams.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/gunmen-murder-honduran-environmentalist-leader-160303181349473.html

Politics

Honduras: Environmentalist Berta Caceres shot dead

Berta Caceres, who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, has been shot dead at her home in the town of La Esperanza.

| Politics, Human Rights, Environment, Latin America

Honduran environmentalist leader and winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Berta Caceres has been shot dead at her home in the town of La Esperanza.

Caceres was killed early on Thursday by two assailants who broke into her home, a member of her group, the Indian Council of People’s Organizations of Honduras, said.

“Honduras has lost a brave and committed social activist,” fellow activist Tomas Membreno said in a statement.

Caceres, a mother of four, led opposition to a proposed dam on the Gualcarque river, considered sacred by the Lencas.

She had previously complained of receiving death threats from police, soldiers and local landowners because of her work.

Activist Carlos Reyes described the assassination “a political crime by the government”.

:}

Go there read. More next week.

:}

Canada Proposes Lake Huron Nuclear Waste Dump – A very bad idea

Posted on by
Reply

This is an old piece but there is a petition being circulated on line:

http://www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com/

Please go there and sign it. I could not find a newer piece but this should shock your socks off. If it were to ever leak we would have another Fukushima on our hands.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/20/stopping-the-great-lakes-radioactive-dump/

May 20, 2015

Stopping the Great Lakes Radioactive Dump

by John Laforge

Hundreds of environmental and public interest groups, dozens of governmental bodies and thousands of concerned residents across the Great Lakes Basin have joined in rejecting a proposal by the giant utility company Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to bury 200,000 cubic meters of its radioactive waste on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, near its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, in Kincardine, Ontario. The proposed dump is for so-called low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes from the company’s 20 nuclear reactors. The site is 1.2 kilometers from Lake Huron on Bruce Peninsula.

On May 6, Canada’s Joint Review Panel submitted to Canada’s Ministry of Environment — the Honorable Leona Aglukkaq — its formal recommendation to approve the plan. Intervening parties have 120 days to submit comments on the JRP’s “environmental assessment” once its “conditions” have been made public. Aglukkaq will then make a recommendation to Ontario’s Premier, Kathleen Wynne, who will make the final decision about whether the dump should be constructed.

Most of the groups, legislators and cities opposing the so-called Deep Geologic Repository (regular folks call it a hole in the ground) have decided to ignore or to just parody the forthcoming “conditions” regulating the plan. A nit-picking analysis of them, they say, only gives the impression that permanent contamination of the Great Lakes somehow an acceptable risk under certain theoretical, computer-model-derived conditions. As Dr. Gordon Edwards, founder of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, said May 19 over the phone, “We reject any permanent abandonment of radioactive waste deep underground near the Great Lakes. And this project, at this time, under any conditions is absurd.”

:}

Go there and read. More next week.

:}

Coal Is Dead – Solar is the future

Posted on by
Reply

This the first of a tow part report. The first focuses more on the “Coal is dead part”.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/04/11/coal-is-dead-its-time-to-accept-it.aspx

Coal Is Dead: It’s Time to Accept It

The coal industry is on life support, and that’s not changing anytime soon.

Travis Hoium
(TMFFlushDraw)
Apr 11, 2015 at 9:09AM
For years, coal supporters have been saying that a turnaround is just around the corner. China’s demand is about to pick up, domestic environmental regulations will be struck down and we’ll fire up coal plants again, or clean coal is here!

Let’s face it: Coal is dead, and it’s been a long time coming. Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU), Arch Coal (NYSE:ACI), Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR), and others are just barely holding onto survival while reporting hundreds of millions in losses annually. But they’ll eventually be scrapped for parts as the energy industry moves to cheaper forms of energy. Whether you accept it or not, that’s the reality of coal in 2015.

No one wants to build coal power plants
Whether it’s regulations, smog, or cost, there’s no country that wants to build more coal power plants than it absolutely has to. That puts coal producers in a tough position, dealing with falling demand and competitors that are fighting over scraps of the coal market.

:}

Go there and dance on coal’s grave. More next week.

:}