'Million dollar tortoises' shed light on state's environmental laws

[newtothegame]

Source: San Bernadino Sun

A Northern California energy company will pay $25 million to relocate and protect 25 threatened desert tortoises before it can start building a massive solar power plant in the northeast part of the county near the Nevada border.

And while calculating the environmental impact is more complicated than saying "$1 million per tortoise," the case illustrates the tremendous complexity - and high cost - of environmental laws that come into play when building just about anything in California.

Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/breakingnews/ci_14104463

[Pavulon]

1. Should have built a reactor.

we export them to china and they work when it is cloudy. Glad they took care of the tortoises. Unlike people they are not able to move out of a state that has fucked its self with absurd energy planning.

[kristopher]

6. No, nuclear energy is a poor choice to meet our needs.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Pavulon]

11. Good luck with that. AP1000 is smaller and chops less birds

than the pie in the sky stuff out there now. The NY area consumes 130+ gigawatts, nothing other than nuclear or coal can meet that now or in the next decade. Your real power needs will come from coal or nuclear. Choose.

Bio is fine for us but tends to starve the third world. There is a reason China, a massive expanding economy, is importing AP1000 reactors.

Does not take to many reactors to sub out the 100,000 eyesores and single points of failure you have there. Never mind the whole new grid to run them.

[kristopher]

18. Your claims are based on ignorance of the problem and avaiable solutions.

Jacobson's paper covers all available technologies that are ready to deploy and evaluates them in all relevant categories except cost. And if we add costs, then the score against nuclear is even worse.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[NNadir]

15. Wow! Are you gonna site this article another 5,000 times, to show your selective attention?

Are you trying to prove beyond all doubt how blissfully unaware you are of the contents of the scientific literature?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=224212&mesg_id=224221

There are thousands of papers in the scientific literature showing external costs of energy.

There is, in fact, an entire journal devoted to externalities of energy:

http://www.springer.com/environment/journal/11367

You obviously haven't read a word of what's in that journal. That's obviously because you don't know how the scientific literature works, which is by building scientific consensus in the form of debate. Such debate always - and this is healthy - outliers on broad issues, but to take such an outlier - as you do here - and assert it as irrefutable, and to do it over and over and over and over and over weekly, is trash thinking.

The fact is that you have expressed on this website thousands of times that you would cover every square centimeter of the face of this planet with electronic waste to support the car CULTure.

I have thousands of papers in my files on energy, many hundreds on the externalities of energy and I could easily cherry pick among them. For instance, here is a paper from the Elsevier Journal Energy, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V2S-4N7RD34-1&_user=10&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2007&_alid=1151635734&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5710&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=4&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=aa99b30066bb12261fe40f61a3b69079">Energy 32 (2007) 1543–1559 reports as follows:

For LWR GHG emissions during the operational stage of the reactor, relative to cumulative life-cycle emissions, are of secondary importance—ranging between 0.74 and 1.3 gCO2 eq/kW he. Unlike fossil fuel powered technologies the majority of the GHG emissions arise at the upstream stages of the fuel and technology cycle with values roughly ranging between 1.5 and 20 gCO2 eq/kW he. The notable difference in the upstream emissions is mainly due to the enrichment process, with significantly higher emissions for diffusion technology and lower values for centrifuge technology if the associated electricity consumption is of fossil origin, as well as whether the fuel-cycle is ‘oncethrough’ or ‘recycled’...

5.4.1. Photovoltaic Fig. 5 summarises the results from various life-cycle studies for PV systems, which range between 43 and 73 gCO2 eq/kW he. Typically four systems have been assessed: mono-crystalline, polycrystalline, amorphous and CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide). Unlike fossil fuel systems most of the GHG emission occur upstream of the life-cycle with the majority of the emissions arising during the production of the module (between 50% and 80%). Other significant GHG releases in the upstream relate to the balance-of-plant (BoP) and the inverter. Operation, end-of-life and associated transport activities do not result in meaningful cumulative GHG emissions. Of the four systems, mono-crystalline plants, on average, may emit the least GHGs ranging between 43 and 62 gCO2 eq/ kWhe. The other PV systems may emit between 50 and 73 gCO2 eq/kW he over the whole GHG life-cycle.

No note is made of the toxicity issues for solar PV, which were covered by many authors, showing that with its low mass density, poor reliability and short life time, solar power takes as much as 50 years to recover its toxicity compared to dangerous natural gas, which comes in at 550-600 gCO₂, and which is the fall back form of energy for every snake oil salesman hawking the solar industry. (Amory Lovins and Gerhard Schroeder, solar apologists are paid huge amounts of money by gas companies - no suprise there.)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V4S-49MX266-1&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2004&_alid=1151646414&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5766&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=1&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a57b6a50ac4e86e3da2fd2ed847f18d9"> Renewable Energy 29 (2004) 345–355, from two Brazilian photovoltaic scientists reports GHG outputs as for monocrystalline silica cells as ranging depending on latitude of use from 75 - 260 grams CO₂ per kwh, polycrstalline at between 51 and 317, not even counting the gas burned at night.

Paul Denholm, a wind advocate at now at NREL reports inhttp://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es049946p">Environ. Sci. Technol. 2005, 39, 1903-1911 that reliable gas with compressed air storage would come in at between 65-100 gCO2/kwh, whereas nuclear is 10-25 grams CO2/kwh.

I oould do this for hours, but I have limited to time to demonstrate just how little you know about the subject of energy. You are one of the loudest misinformed people I know.

[kristopher]

19. Nuclear is a poor choice.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on
water supply,
land use,
wildlife,
resource availability,
thermal pollution,
water chemical pollution,
nuclear proliferation, and
undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered.

The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[kristopher]

20. I almost missed your daily 'nnaderism...

You attempt to dismiss a valid, objective analysis showing nuclear energy as a poor choice for our energy and climate change needs by first attacking me, then using cherry picked snips of data to try and misrepresent the benefit of nuclear.

Jacobson's analysis speaks for itself - it is comprehensive and well executed; and thoroughly damning for nuclear power.

As to the attack on me, that was my laugh of the day. You attempted to malign my understanding of "science" with this:
"Wow! Are you gonna site this article another 5,000 times, to show your selective attention? Are you trying to prove beyond all doubt how blissfully unaware you are of the contents of the scientific literature?"

Well, speaking of being "blissfully unaware...

Cite, Sight, and Site

By Richard Nordquist, About.com Guide

The verb cite means to mention or quote as an authority or example. The noun sight refers to something that is seen or the power or process of seeing. The noun site means a particular place.
Examples:

* This style guide explains how to cite sources in a term paper.

* "The sight of the stars makes me dream." (Vincent Van Gogh)

* I'm still looking for a good quotations site on the web.

Practice:

(a) The National Palace stands on the _____ of Montezuma’s castle.

(b) Every student in the class _____ the same article.

(c) "Of all the senses, _____ must be the most delightful." (Helen Keller)
http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/citegloss.htm?rd=1

Now, it could just be me, but I have trouble giving you credit for having the working familiarity you claim with the use of scientific journals when you don't know the word /cite/.

Poor little feller just ain't got a clue...

[LouKneeLib]

2. It's the right thing to do.

Plain and simple, it's time we start putting the environment first. I'm sure this evil corporation won't miss the 25 million....chump change for an institutionalized monopoly.

[depakid]

3. Misleading headline (thanks to some sensationalist subeditor)

BrightSource has been asked to buy and make habitable three times as much land as they're using for the plant. With three 4,000-acre tracts, each one able to handle one-third more tortoises than the average, new habitat should be available for all of the tortoises the power plant displaces.

Kessler said it's not yet clear where the 12,000 acres of protected land will be.

The biggest cost associated with the land isn't buying it, Kessler said, but protecting it forever.

The interest from the endowment will be used to pay to protect the land forever.

Kessler said $25 million is a small sum compared to the overall cost of the project.

"We're talking about $25 million compared to $1.5 billion," he said. "It's something like 2 percent of their overall costs."

[WriteDown]

4. Wonder how well the tortoises will do after being relocated....

They probably would be better off in a captive breeding program.

[Ian David]

5. Disney is going to make a new Incredible Journey movie based on the tortoises.

The movie will be three hundred hours long.

[quaker bill]

8. Incorrect.

Tortoises relocate just fine, but they do not captive breed all that well, and it is hardly necessary. They have a fussy diet, and tend to get form of pneumonia when kept in number in close quarters. In a great many places, tortoises were extirpated from suitable habitat by hunting during the great depression where they got the name "Hoover Chickens". (In honor / sarcastic reference to President Hoover and his "chicken in every pot" campaign slogan). In most places it is fairly easy to locate de-populated suitable habitat, and it is fairly easy to enhance the habitat by management that causes the favorite forage plants to thrive.

They are slow moving and easy to hunt. A pitfall trap (bucket buried in the ground) at the entrance to the burrow was all that was needed. When in a hurry for a meal, folks would pour a bit of gasoline down the mouth of the burrow and light it. This would bring the animal to the surface pretty quickly.

I once had the time to watch to male tortoises fight over the rights to a female. It is like elk in the rutt, just alot slower and more gentle. They generally work to flip the opponent over on his back to claim victory.

[WriteDown]

10. Incorrect.

Husbandry practices have come a very long way when it comes to tortoises. Take it fro
someone who has bred several species.

[quaker bill]

17. What can I say

as a conservation biologist who has negotiated similar arrangements to relocate tortoises with regulatory agencies? I have found that it is generally in the interest of species preservation to keep native animals in the wild, whenever possible. Captive breeding programs are generally considered a last ditch effort, when numbers are very low and suitable secure habitat cannot be found. This does not sound like the case with this species.

[izquierdista]

12. Tortises need their space

Twelve thousand acres sounds like a lot, but it won't support a whole lot of tortoises. The money would be better spend improving (removing dangers) from their established habitats, like the Eastern Mojave Preserve. I've stopped on several occasions to move a tortoise off the road before it got squashed, which is not easy in itself. You don't want to startle them so that they empty their bladder and run the risk of getting dehydrated.

[Pavulon]

13. That is a really cool thing. I stop

here for water turtles that cross in the spring and fall. Tortoises can live for a vary long time and the thought of them getting hit on the road is depressing. They really need all the help they can get. I always pull for the underdog and they fit the bill.

I spread the world on turtle rescue!

[bertman]

14. Slow as they are, you'd figure the fuckers would NEVER run into each other even on 1,000 acres.

[depakid]

16. Animals that live 80-100 years

can cover a lot of ground....

Slowly, but surely wins the race.

;)

[jmowreader]

7. Who's the editor of this rag, Neil Boortz?

After reading the post upthread detailing the land they're buying for this, it looks like they're going to spend $8 million buying land, $16 million protecting it and fifty bucks going out and catching these 25 tortoises.

[Lorien]

9. You nailed it

the conservative corporate media strikes again.