The environment thread

[Balta1701]

In case you missed it, one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory just hit the state of Tennessee. A giant retaining pond/dam made out of coal mining and burning residues gave way, creating a monstrous flood of coal ash and dust that poured down the rivers in TN. In terms of volume, it's several times the volume of the Exxon-Valdez spill, and although it's not oil, the stuff it's made of may well be significantly more toxic. Eventually, the material will drain in to waterways that are used for drinking water, and eventually it'll start making its way to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

 

Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.

 

The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards.

 

A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders, said John Moulton, a spokesman for the T.V.A., which owns the electrical generating plant, one of the authority’s largest.

 

Mr. Moulton said Friday that the levels exceeded safety limits for drinking water, but that both metals were filtered out by water treatment processes.

 

Here is some footage of the devastation.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

I read about it. How miserable. Yet another reason to get away from fossil fuels - solar panels and wind turbines don't have anything like this kind of disaster potential.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

So, I don't usually post all the bad news that's constantly out there about what climate change is doing in the negative. There is just too much. But sometimes, something comes out that is big enough to warrant notice from everyone.

 

The boreal forests of Canada represent some 7% of the world's forest cover, and provide a significant percentage of the plant-generated oxygen that we need in our atmosphere. They play an important role in our health, cleaning the air for us. At least, until now.

 

A study is now saying that, taken as a whole, the Canadian boreal forests are now probably a net carbon CONTRIBUTOR, or at best are net neutral. This is due to rising temperatures and drier air stressing the trees, pollution increasing the toxic chemicals the trees "breathe", and infestation and disease taking much more forest due to its weakness from the prior mentioned factors. This situation is a downward spiral - the trees get weaker due to climate change, they scrub less carbon from the atmosphere, the atmosphere gets more carbon, the climate changes further.

 

This is a critical tipping point that more forest areas are now surpassing - not good.

 

[Balta1701]

Another last minute key environmental rule change being undertaken by the Bush Administration. This one will clearly help us solve the problem of the massive housing shortage facing the country right now. More houses = profit!

The shift is technical but with large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads passing through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.

 

But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.

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Scenic western Montana, where Plum Creek owns 1.2 million acres, would be most affected, placing fresh burdens on county governments to provide services, and undoing efforts to cluster housing near towns.

[Balta1701]

Long but excellent piece on how taking some of the stimulus package money and investing it in a substantial upgrade of our freight rail system can turn around and generate major savings in terms of time, money, efficiency, greenhouse gases, and so on, if the money is allocated wisely. I'll excerpt a few useful bits here.

By all rights, America’s dilapidated rail lines ought to be a prime candidate for some of that spending. All over the country there are opportunities like the I-81/Crescent Corridor deal, in which relatively modest amounts of capital could unclog massive traffic bottlenecks, revving up the economy while saving energy and lives. Many of these projects have already begun, like Virginia’s, or are sitting on planners’ shelves and could be up and running quickly. And if we’re willing to think bigger and more long term—and we should be—the potential of a twenty-first-century rail system is truly astonishing. In a study recently presented to the National Academy of Engineering, the Millennium Institute, a nonprofit known for its expertise in energy and environmental modeling, calculated the likely benefits of an expenditure of $250 billion to $500 billion on improved rail infrastructure. It found that such an investment would get 85 percent of all long-haul trucks off the nation’s highways by 2030, while also delivering ample capacity for high-speed passenger rail. If high-traffic rail lines were also electrified and powered in part by renewable energy sources, that investment would reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emission by 38 percent and oil consumption by 22 percent. By moderating the growing cost of logistics, it would also leave the nation’s economy 13 percent larger by 2030 than it would otherwise be.

Why don’t the railroads just build the new tracks, tunnels, switchyards, and other infrastructure they need? America’s major railroad companies are publicly traded companies answerable to often mindless, or predatory, financial Goliaths. While Wall Street was pouring the world’s savings into underwriting credit cards and sub-prime mortgages on overvalued tract houses, America’s railroads were pleading for the financing they needed to increase their capacity. And for the most part, the answer that came back from Wall Street was no, or worse. CSX, one of the nation’s largest railroads, spent much of last year trying to fight off two hedge funds intent on gaining enough control of the company to cut its spending on new track and equipment in order to maximize short-term profits.Why don’t the railroads just build the new tracks, tunnels, switchyards, and other infrastructure they need? America’s major railroad companies are publicly traded companies answerable to often mindless, or predatory, financial Goliaths. While Wall Street was pouring the world’s savings into underwriting credit cards and sub-prime mortgages on overvalued tract houses, America’s railroads were pleading for the financing they needed to increase their capacity. And for the most part, the answer that came back from Wall Street was no, or worse. CSX, one of the nation’s largest railroads, spent much of last year trying to fight off two hedge funds intent on gaining enough control of the company to cut its spending on new track and equipment in order to maximize short-term profits.

The Howard Street Tunnel is the worst of some seventy rail choke points in the mid-Atlantic region alone. According to a study commissioned by the I-95 Corridor Coalition, a group of transportation officials along the highway’s route, fixing these choke points would cost $6.2 billion and return twice that amount in benefits. The returns would include $2.9 billion in reduced freight transportation costs, $6.3 billion in direct savings due to reduced highway congestion for vehicles still on the road, and $3.7 billion in indirect economic benefits generated throughout the economy by these transportation savings. Importantly, rail capacity can often be improved substantially by relatively low-cost measures such as adding signals, occasional switches, and new, computerized train control devices, whereas with rubber wheel interstates the only way to add capacity is to add lanes. This is another reason why the social rate of return on rail investment is much higher than on most highway projects.

 

Another notorious set of choke points is in Chicago, America’s rail capital, which is visited by some 1,200 trains a day. Built in the nineteenth century by noncooperating private companies, lines coming from the East still have no or insufficient connections with those coming from the West. Consequently, thousands of containers on their way elsewhere must be unloaded each day, "rubber-wheeled" across the city’s crowded streets by truck, and reloaded onto other trains. It takes forty-eight hours for a container to travel five miles across Chicago, longer than it does to get there from New York. This entire problem could be fixed for just $1.5 billion, with benefits including not just faster shipping times and attendant economic development, but drastically reduced road traffic, energy use, and pollution.

[southsider2k5]

Long but excellent piece on how taking some of the stimulus package money and investing it in a substantial upgrade of our freight rail system can turn around and generate major savings in terms of time, money, efficiency, greenhouse gases, and so on, if the money is allocated wisely. I'll excerpt a few useful bits here.

 

They have been talking about doing exactly that on the south side of Chicago. The NIMBY's are blocking it all because they are afraid it will generate extra rail traffic, increase wait times at crossings etc.

[StrangeSox]

They have been talking about doing exactly that on the south side of Chicago. The NIMBY's are blocking it all because they are afraid it will generate extra rail traffic, increase wait times at crossings etc.

 

The restisting cities are falling one by one.

Edited January 14, 2009 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

The restisting cities are falling one by one.

They will fall A LOT more rapidly if the federal government comes in and says "We're paying for this chunk".

[southsider2k5]

They will fall A LOT more rapidly if the federal government comes in and says "We're paying for this chunk".

 

Actually in this case two companies are paying for it.

[southsider2k5]

The restisting cities are falling one by one.

 

They are falling because one by one they are rushing to get a better deal by not being the last one to agree to the merger. The local residents are still threatening tons of lawsuits if this ever gets off of the blackboard.

[BigSqwert]

First time I had even heard of this up and coming car company...

 

Aptera Completes First Pre-Production 2e Model

by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 01.22.09

 

 

Electric 2e Rolls Out of the Factory

We already knew that Aptera, after making some design changes, had pushed back production to October 2009. But while we wait to see the final production model, this pre-production 2e (electric version) that just came out of the factory floor should give us an idea of what to expect.

 

 

"The initial pre-production all-electric model from Southern California vehicle manufacturer Aptera Motors had rolled out the door of its Vista, Calif. production facility."

 

Is this a way for the company to claim it met its January deadline? Meh. Not good enough for those who are on the waiting list, I'm sure. More pre-production units will be made and tested for "fit, finish, performance and durability as preparation for full production in October."

 

From Aptera's press release:

The pre-production vehicle i

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equipped with a lithium-ba

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ed battery and feature

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a number of vehicle enhancement

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s

uch a

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front wheel drive, aerodynamic

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ide-mounted mirror

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and wider door opening

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that ma

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e getting in and out of the vehicle much ea

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ier than with previou

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de

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ign

s

. The aerodynamically-in

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pired 2e will go from zero to 60 in under 10

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econd

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, top out at 90 mph and get the equivalent of more than 200 mile

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-per-gallon ba

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ed on a

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tandard EPA driving cycle. Though the vehicle i

s

s

till nine month

s

from completion, Aptera ha

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already received nearly 4,000 depo

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it

s

 

Expected cost: Between $25,000 and $45,000.

 

Driving range: More than 100 miles-per-charge.

 

Initial sales will solely be in California, with plans to distribute the Aptera to the rest of the United States by late 2010.

 

LINK

 

[NorthSideSox72]

First time I had even heard of this up and coming car company...

 

 

 

LINK

A competitor for Tesla. Good.

 

[BigSqwert]

A competitor for Tesla. Good.

At that price range I wouldn't even call them a competitor.

[NorthSideSox72]

At that price range I wouldn't even call them a competitor.

Tesla's Roadster is $100k. But the sedan they are releasing in 2009 is supposed to be around $50 to $60k, and then in 2010 a smaller, cheaper one for $35k. Plus the Tesla cars are more like full-on cars that people are used to. I'd say Tesla still has the upper hand - first to market, more variety, more acceptable design.

 

[BigSqwert]

We'll see if they even last long enough to make the 3rd generation "cheap" car. They have been hit pretty hard by the recession from what I've read.

[NorthSideSox72]

We'll see if they even last long enough to make the 3rd generation "cheap" car. They have been hit pretty hard by the recession from what I've read.

All of them will be. But since Tesla is further along the manufacturing curve, their light at the end of the tunnel is closer. And I have a feeling that all these sorts of companies will get some help from the government, in the form of targeted tax breaks to them and to buyers, etc. But some will fail anyway.

 

Also, this is why Tesla was smarter, starting with the pricier models first. That market is less effected by a bad economy than the more price-sensitive buyers.

 

[mr_genius]

i wonder if you can even get those cars repaired correctly after a slight crash. looks like a small collision completely trash it.

 

still a cool car though.

[Balta1701]

Congressman Genius Waxman is trying to push Utility decoupling as part of the stimulus package. If you don't know what this is...it's the thing that California passed a couple decades back that wound up having California's per capita energy consumption stay constant while the rest of the country's per capita electricity consumption doubled.

[southsider2k5]

Congressman Genius Waxman is trying to push Utility decoupling as part of the stimulus package. If you don't know what this is...it's the thing that California passed a couple decades back that wound up having California's per capita energy consumption stay constant while the rest of the country's per capita electricity consumption doubled.

 

A big assist to Enron on that one.

[BigSqwert]

President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

 

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

 

LINK

[BigSqwert]

Good news for mass transit...

Mass Transit Scores Big Win in House Stimulus

By Elana Schor - January 28, 2009, 3:30PM

 

Great news from the House floor, where members are debating the $825 billion stimulus bill. An amendment from Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and Keith Ellison (D-MN) -- restoring $3 billion in mass transit funding to an initial $10 billion pot that looked distressingly low to many urban-planning folks -- just passed by voice vote.

 

This brings the infrastructure portion of the stimulus a large step closer to the level of investment that has a genuine chance of expanding the nation's green transportation options. Amtrak, Metro, and subway riders, rejoice.

 

Late Victory Lap Update: Nadler just noted that hundreds of millions of dollars of this newly approved cash would go to often under-funded priorities in the crowded urban areas of New York and California. From his statement:

Thi

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amendment i

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crucial for fair di

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tribution of tran

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portation

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pending between urban and non-urban part

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of the county. ... Inve

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tment in tran

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it i

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a major

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tep toward putting American

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to wor

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right away in green job

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, reducing emi

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s

ion

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and improving our tran

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it

s

y

s

tem

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.

[Balta1701]

That's still very measley.

[BigSqwert]

That's still very measley.

Now that I think about it, you're right.

[NorthSideSox72]

That's still very measley.

As a percentage of this bill, it sure is. Actually, as a percentage of what is needed to get the infrastructure upgraded enough to get substantially more people to use it... it is as well.

 

[Balta1701]

As a percentage of this bill, it sure is. Actually, as a percentage of what is needed to get the infrastructure upgraded enough to get substantially more people to use it... it is as well.

Didn't really care about what %age of the bill it was. Would have liked to see it be a factor of 3-4 larger in order to actually have a big enough impact on the infrastructure.