Originally Posted by rikki
oml, mount vesuviual microcosmically!
oml, mount vesuviual microcosmically!
Last edited by trancendyce; 12-26-2008 at 11:37 PM. Reason: 2mixitup&addquote
Ok, I got rocks thrown at me on KV for posting this, but the spouse says there are shad kills in local rivers almost every year from extremely cold weather.
He did NOT say that's what caused this fish kill, nor did he mention any species other than shad.
This I just don't get. First it was 3 million cubic yards, then for a couple of days it was 1.7 million. Now it's 5.2? It seems like this should be a relatively easy thing to estimate.
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
Charles Darwin (and skeelsd)
I'm glad I learned about United Mountain Defense today.
Kerosene once saved the whales because we found enough of it to make it cheaper than whale oil for heat and light.
The British began burning coal so they could mass produce clothes. We will use coal to mass produce clothes until we have enough of something else to make that something else cheaper than coal. According to Arnold Toynbee who sold the concept of the industrial revolution to the world: In itself, a market based on competition was neither good nor bad, but like "a stream whose strength and direction have to be observed, that embankments may be thrown up within which it may do its work harmlessly and beneficially".
Coal has obviously overrun these embankments and crapped the bed. If you could build, in Kingston, right now, non-coal electricity production capacity that would supplement (that pile of fly ash varies with consumption - see results of recent initial winter spike, add water) or replace the need to burn coal, how would you do it? You don't have to pick just one; as many as you need to get the job done. If you don't pick, years from now we will be buying the same coal fired electricity which will be more expensive when they have to start burying the carbon emissions. The more expensive coal will make natural gas from the big pipe that goes from Texas through Kingsport cheaper than that coal, but then we'll be messing with the natural gas market. Tennessee depends largely on coal for power generation, with sizable chunks of hydro and nuclear. What would your plan be to reduce coal's slice of that pie without disrupting another market?
TVA has proposed a solution, even though
TVA Vice President Anda Ray said the Tennessee Valley offers less potential than many parts of the country for wind, solar and geothermal production. Agency studies indicate that, even if TVA tried to develop all of the potential solar, wind, methane gas, new hydro and biomass generation that is cost effective in the region, the utility still would generate less than 10 percent of its power from such types of green or renewable power.
TVA still has plans to strive to have at least 50 percent of its generation portfolio be from low-carbon and zero-carbon sources.” by 2020
HOW? YOU are going to stop using so much electricity, that's how:
The goals call for a near 50-percent cut in the growth rate of its electricity demand peaks by promoting more conservation, especially during peak demand periods. Within the next four years, TVA will work with its distributors on new rates, smart meters, education programs and energy audits to reduce the peak demand by 1,400 megawatts, or the equivalent of what a nuclear reactor and a hydro dam combined can generate.
Electricity consumption still is projected to grow but at a more sustainable pace, TVA Director Skila Harris said.
Great plan: you won't let us build another hydro dam or nuclear reactor, so we're going to tell you to not use any more power than you do now. Got it.
Or, we're going to have to pioneer some means of energy production that will be cost effective in the region. Supply and demand. If someone were to listen to you what would you demand? How would you like to power your home tomorrow? What are we going to build to compete with TVA?
Relatively easy if your intent is to tell the truth...
If you said it was one pond that failed when it was really one failing and wrecking another, then you have a lot of spin control to do as your story unravels. And if you said there were no indications of toxicity when all you meant was there were no indications of anything because the tests are still being completed, it will be harder to explain reports of high levels of lead and thallium in the Emory River.
Hearing voices inside my head in Burma-Shaving rhymes
Next question, is TVA checking the rest of their containment ponds, at other plants? They went through the same weather conditions (relatively) of this plant. I haven't seen a report mention that yet and it would seem a logical thing to do.
when taxpayer money is involved, no one gets to be a prima donna.
Thank you for that link, skeelsd!
There is a large number of naturally occurring springs in the area. I bet that before the power plant was built that it was a beautiful place to drink water right from the ground. At least two of these springs were completely damned up by the coal ash spill and were beginning to back up leading to a threat of more flooding of local roads, houses, and farmland. It was horrible to see something as beautiful as a fresh water spring that could possibly be seen as a scourge due to man made damning.
Yes, I drank right straight from the spring spigot many times as a child.
United Mountain Defense report from today. Video taken from a canoe by the steam plant.
http://enclave-nashville.blogspot.co...ournalist.html
Last edited by Tess; 12-27-2008 at 10:44 AM.
The tripling of the "estimated" amount of sludge that was spilled is most troubling. Does this mean that (1) TVA has no idea about how much capacity is (or was) in each holding pond and (2) TVA has no idea of the volume of fly ash that they generate? Ergo, is it any big surprise that the holding pond failed?
The spin control on this story reminds me so much of when the city of Knoxville quietly hired that dump-truck firm in 2001 to move the contaminated Coster Shop debris to the South Knoxville sinkhole. In that debacle the "experts" said that they would have no problem drinking the oil-tainted well water of the impacted households. Also, there were many different sampling efforts, with results that all varied drastically from the "official" detected concentrations of toxic constituents.
According to a story today in the KNS the cost of fixing this disaster is beyond anything in TVA history.
Based on the first estimate there was 2.25 million tons of material to haul away to lined landfills. That estimate was 3.176 times too small. Hence the amount to haul away is actually in the neighborhood of 7,147,058 tons. At $35 a ton, we have a problem.
This is a coverup. It isn't spin, it isn't denial.
"A South Carolina environmental cleanup expert says the TVA Kingston steam plant spill will cost millions of dollars and will take many weeks to clean up.
"They're going to have to do an extensive cleanup, that's for sure," said David Hitchens, CEO and chemist for AEO Advanced Environmental Options Inc. in Spartanburg, S.C. "It could get into the millions. If you've got 400 acres, and they're going to have to clean it up, and dispose it in a landfill, and the landfills charge $30 to $40 a ton, you're looking at approximately 2 (million) to 2.5 million tons."
That's based on TVA's original estimate that 1.7 million cubic yards of ash and water broke through the wall. TVA raised that estimate Thursday to 5.4 million cubic yards."
Channel9 on YouTube, broadcasting the news you don't know
The Chickenpoop Chronicle reporting the news you don't know
Deciderism isn't journalism.
Big Jim is rich. How is that fair?
I dunno. Having worked at TVA for 14 years, I would say that in their case it is true that you should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I asked the spouse how the original estimate could have been so wrong and he said "somebody probably pulled it out of their b*** so they'd have something to tell the public. Obviously, they shouldn't have."
Last edited by binR Bishop; 12-27-2008 at 03:02 PM.
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