Published: April 17, 2009 12:48 am      

Environmental woes trump self-sufficiency

Most of us make decisions about major purchases (cars, furniture, appliances) for convenience, style or to please ourselves. But it is a different situation when many loudly support governmental policies based on their own sensitivities, disregarding what resources will be left for future generations.

In my previous columns as well as in much media coverage, it is clear that our long term reliance on fossil fuels is unwise. We may have always been able to fuel any vehicle we could afford, heat as big a house as we wanted and go on cruises to exotic places every so often, etc.

But the preceding all rely on consuming a great deal of energy. As huge countries with much larger populations than the United States (such as India and China) start marketing inexpensive cars and building better housing for their people, there will be a squeeze on both energy and mineral resources.

Once these populous Asian countries improve the lives of their people, the developing countries around the world will ask, “What about us?” So rather than relying on overseas resources or resources from even neighboring North American countries (Canada and Mexico), our country needs to use its resources in a sustainable way.

In addition, it is useful if each region provide as much as possible of its own power, food and goods in view of the increasing costs of transportation and transmission. This is being done in Sweden, resulting in smaller scale businesses designed to service local areas. Of course, this way of thinking is what the environmental movement advocates, think local.

In regards to new renewable energy sources, the Dan’s Mountain wind turbine farm is regarded with hostility by both some County and non-County residents. A wind turbine farm is not the equivalent of a coal burning power plant.

The wind doesn’t blow continuously, but when it does blow, the turbines can make electricity without sulfur dioxide and particulates being dumped into the atmosphere. In addition, coal burning power plants produce about 10 percent as much ash as the coal they burn.

So if a medium sized coal burning power plant burns 1,800 tons of coal a day, it will also produce 180 tons of ash each day. This ash can’t be used in making cement in Maryland as in other states; using fly ash in cement would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released in cement making. This ash must be disposed of, so it will not blow around the county. This involves dumping the ash into ponds or stuffing the ash down an abandoned coal mine.

The efficiency of the best coal burning power plants is about 40 percent, so to generate 180 megawatts of electrical power (our local AES plant’s rating), it must make 2.5 times as much thermal energy or 450 megawatts. This excess heat must be discharged into nearby bodies of water.

This is why coal burning power plants need so much coal and water to maintain their power output. For each kilowatt-hour of electrical power from a coal burning power plant, 2.7 pounds of carbon dioxide go into the atmosphere. So a medium sized coal burning power plant would create 11,600 tons of carbon dioxide every day. This is equivalent to 12,000 cars being run continuously 24 hours a day at 20 miles per gallon. (960 pounds of carbon dioxide per car per day).

Why do we need renewable energy sources at all, if coal burning plants can do the job? Short Answer: It is the environmental cost. Longer answer: The petroleum that powers the coal trucks, coal trains and the strip mining machines will steadily increase in price as global demand for petroleum builds back up.

There may come a time decades from now when the cost of getting and transporting the coal will equal the cost of electricity generated by the coal. So there may be plenty of coal left, but large scale coal mining may vanish.

What the objectors to the wind turbines don’t realize is that the wind turbines are just the start of a series of renewable energy sources to appear locally. A better option to wind turbines but not yet economically viable are solar thermal power facilities.

On a mountain’s south sides, curved mirrors would follow the sun, concentrating the sunlight on pipes carrying pressurized oil that would be heated to 400 C. The hot oil could be stored in large holding tanks. Running through these tanks would be water pipes that could convert the water to steam and then be used to generate electricity.

Unlike the wind turbines, the heat from the solar thermal plants could be stored for days and used at night to generate electricity. In addition, local tree plantations could allow biomass to be used as fuel to make electricity (unlike ethanol that requires fossil fuels to be used both fertilize the corn and ferment the mash to make ethanol).

Dawn sights and Mercury

In the 5:45 a.m. dawn, the very bright planet Venus and dimmer Mars can be seen low in the East. On April 22, the crescent moon will appear just to the right of brilliant Venus.

This Friday, the two planets will be closest at 4 degrees apart with the dimmer Mars below. The planet Mercury can now be seen low in the west-northwest about 8:50 p.m. Above Mercury appears the 7 Sisters star cluster.

Continuing at the Frostburg State Planetarium is “Earth from Our Corner of the Galaxy” with presentations at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. today. The Planetarium is in Tawes 302, just off the front lobby (that faces the Compton Science Center).

Call (301) 687-7799 to request a Planetarium bookmark that has a small map showing the Planetarium location and parking. Bob Doyle invites reader’s comments and questions; email him at rdoyle@frostburg.edu .