Wisconsin Power Plant Is Called A Setback for the Environment

[phantom power]

Racine, WI - The tall towers of a coal-fired power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan represent a new front in a national struggle over energy technology and the environmental performance of expanding energy companies.

So far, in the view of environmental activists, water and air quality are being cheated.

The battle here concerns a proposal to double the capacity of the Oak Creek power plant, located south of Milwaukee. Opponents say the new twin 600-megawatt generators would use unacceptably old technology, spilling excessive pollution into the air and disturbing aquatic life by sucking billions of gallons of lake water each week into its cooling pipes.

The Oak Creek project could have implications for dozens of future coal-powered plants across the country, according to advocates and legal analysts. If energy companies find they can use older, less expensive designs without government objection, critics say they will be less likely to invest in more healthful and environmentally friendly technology.

"This will be the seventh-largest power plant in the country in an area that already violates federal air quality standards. They will be burning the dirtiest type of fuel and using the dirtiest type of combustion technology," said Bruce Nilles, senior Midwest representative of the Sierra Club. "EPA sat on their hands and did nothing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/28/AR2005052800884_pf.html

[ewagner]

1. I think I heard

on the radio that the last environment clearance has been given....the plant is a GO.

[whistle]

2. To be open and fully operational when?

[ewagner]

4. Don't know

I don't think it was mentioned on the news report.....

[Serial Mom]

3. meanwhile, the beaches in Milwaukee area

it was reported yesterday are some of the worst in bacteria and the Milwaukee Metro Sewer District dumps billions of gallons of waste in Lake Michigan. These plants will also "warm" the lake water, which increases the bacteria production ... hummmmm ...

So dirty air, dirty water, dirty cities are all OK for the sake of "energy"!

Wow, I am not sure I enjoy living around here any more!

[Massacure]

5. Call me stupid but I thought Milwaukee has a state of the art water system

Didn't they spend many millions of dollars upgrading it after many people died as a result of dirty water a decade or so years ago?

In fact I'm pretty sure that they even went so far as to replace chlorine with ozone as a disinfectant.

[lakeguy]

6. you're right, but the beaches are still full of bacteria...

if you want to take a swim in that shit go ahead. same goes for breathing the air. the pukes are taking WI straight down the gutter, no detour.

[Serial Mom]

7. Yeah, the water system if fine, but the WASTE water system

is not. It is the SEWERAGE DISTRICT that dumps - they aren't the only ones in the country that dump raw sewage, but seem to be doing it more often in the past 3-4 years.

When it rains heavily (sometimes as little as 1-2" in a 12 hr period), the MMSD dumps millions of gallons of either raw sewage or partially treated sewage into Lake Michigan.

[jpak]

8. When these plants were grandfathered 3 decades ago

no one envisioned they would still be operating today - let alone be upgraded.

"Real" environmentalists have sought to close this loophole in the Clean Air and Water acts for some time now.

You can blame ChimpCo and their allies in the utility industry for this one...

[NNadir]

9. Real environmentalists regard carbon dioxide as waste.

Real environmentalists propose options that include more than 1 or 2 very pathetic gigawatts at noon, on sunny days, when it isn't raining, when it isn't foggy, when there's no snow on the ground...

[jpak]

10. LOL!!!!

Real environmentalists seek to reduce CO2 emissions through conservation and sustainable energy technologies that can provide services to generations of 'Mericans yet unborn (and not saddle them with "waste" that they did not create and financial burdens they cannot afford).

Nonrenewable uranium doesn't cut it.

ChimpCo-subsidized Gen IV nuke plants don't cut it.

Pie-in-the-sky-nonexistent actinide burners, and pebble bed, molten salt and non-functional breeder reactors don't cut it

Uneconomic spent fuel reprocessing and MOX fuel plants don't cut it.

Exorbitantly expensive Yucca Mountain waste dumps don't cut it either.

Crybaby logic doesn't cut it either...

:)

[NNadir]

11. Yeah right. 1 or 2 gigawatts of solar plants, cut it.

Greenpeace daydreaming is for coal and coal only.

Although Greenpeacers apparently don't define carbon dioxide as "'waste' that they did not create and financial burdens they cannot afford..." it is only because Greenpeace requires an absence of an understanding of chemistry and physics.

What doesn't cut it is ignorance and paranoia.

I always love the doublespeak and hypocricy. Here by the way is the lastest solar pricing from solar buzz:

http://www.solarbuzz.com/Moduleprices.htm

Hmmmm let's see, lets look it up, May, 2005 $5.14/watt, $514 to light one small 100 watt bulb, during the day when the sun is shining brightly and it isn't raining cloudy foggy or smoggy, $5141, per kilowatt during the day when the sun is shining brightly and it isn't raining cloudy foggy or smoggy, $5,141,000/megawatt during the day when the sun is shining brightly and it isn't raining cloudy foggy or smoggy, $5,141,000,000 for one 1000 megawatt plant that works during the day when the sun is shining brightly and it isn't raining cloudy foggy or smoggy.

Imagine that, over 5 billion dollars for a power plant that works only part of the day on some of the days. Now if this were a nuclear plant, one that works 24 hours a day, greepeacers would be screaming "Too expensive! Too expensive!"

Well given that Greenpeace is apparently comprised entirely of rich spoiled children, we can see why they think that feel privledged to lecture on economics. They feel free to make stuff up. As ususual, they can't think, can't read, can't analyze and don't have any knowledge whatsoever of what they are talking about.

"Pie in the sky..."

Let's see, two gigawatts someday as a solution to global climate change today...

11,000 gigawatts running today for the rest of the planet and the atomosphere collapsing today...

http://stone.undp.org/undpweb/seed/wea/pdfs/chapter4.pdf

2/10,000 *100% = 0.02% of humanity served. It's a victory! After all, 0.02% of humanity covers 100% of the rich white twits in Greenpeace.

Well what does it matter? Rich white greenpeacers can always conserve through genocide and impoverishment. After all with their 2 gigawatts of solar power, they seem to feel they at least believe the dumbest 0.02% of the population alive (that would be themselves, one guesses.)

They do have hydrogen hummer boy, the gropenator, to praise, but like him, they're weak minded twits.

Tritiated trees, tritiated wood, unranium-238 is not fissionable and stupidity, hydrogen hummer boy...

The list, though it gets longer, grows more pathetic and somehow weaker. One might wish to laugh, but the purveyors of this ignorance are killing humanity and killing the future through ignorance...Nothing to laugh out loud about at all...criminal...unethical...self serving...hypocritical...paranoid...murderous...genocidal...

Are we sure Greenpeace isn't a unit of the Republican party?

[jpak]

12. Quite a pathetic straw man we have created here

Greenpeace for coal?????

That is a good one.

Real Environmental Groups (and that doesn't include the pro-nucular greenwash Climate Coalition) took the lead in sounding the alarm on Global Warming and have advocated - for decades now - the need for substantial reductions in greenhouse gases.

The statement that Greenpeace is for coal is laughable pathetic psychotic nonsense.

Those of us who inhabit the real world know better.

Now let's take a look at the Nuclear Lobby - and the their political allies - and examine their views on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.

ChimpCo:

According to our pronucular President Cheney "Conservation is a personal virtue". So much for conservation - the cheapest most facile method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions known.

ChimpCo does not believe the "sound science" indicating that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the measured rise in global temperatures since the mid-19th Century - yet when they advocate for new nucular power plants, they are quick to point out (wrongly) that the nucular fuel cycle does not emit any "greenhoush gashes".

They are fucking hypocrites and have the utmost faith in PT Barnum's famous hypothesis.

Nucular Utilities:

The Southern Company has an enormous portfolio of coal-fired power plants (~69% of their generating capacity IIRC) most of them grandfathered under the Clean Air Act.

The Southern Company was a Charter Member of the infamous Climate Coalition - a lobby that spread Monstrous Lies about the science behind Global Warming and the Dire Economic Impact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Southern's CEO recently declared, however, that new nucular power power plants are becoming more "economic" and it might be time to build a new one.

What has changed? Well, the resident of the White House for one. Seems the CEO of Southern is a major FOC (Friend of the Chimp) and a major GOP contributor.

What did he receive from ChimpCo???? Assurance of 50% taxpayer funding of the licensing and construction cost of that new nuclular plant. If all goes as planned, Southern will receive billions in direct taxpayer subsidies to build it.

If they build it, will the Southern Co. cancel any of its currently planned coal-fired plants????

Nope

If they build it, will the Southern Co. close any of its filthy grandfathered coal-fired plants????

Nope.

Will taxpayers - as 50% shareholders in this new plant - get their electricity at half-price????

Nope.

They will pay what the market will bear and what utility regulators allow the Southern Co, to extract from them (cue Howard Stern sound effects).

It's a fucking scam - for the billions the taxpayers will lay out for this Shiny New Toy, they will be NO net reduction in CO2 emissions from the Southern Co's generating portfolio.

If taxpayers are going to be 50% shareholders in this marvelous new nucular power plant, they should DEMAND that Southern Co. retire 500 MW of coal fired generating capacity (roughly the taxpayers share in the marvelous new nucular plant) and DEMAND that it be from a grandfathered coal-fired facility.

But guess what??? It ain't gonna happen.

Entergy

Entergy is one the nation's largest nucular power companies. Entergy is also a major player in the emerging carbon emission trading market and is gaming the system to benefit its bottom line with little net benefit to the environment.

It's latest scheme is to extract 10% of the CO2 emitted from one its Loozeeana coal-fired power plants and use it to enhance oil recovery by oilfield injection.

Entergy uses this scheme as PR to show its "commitment" to the environment, and is using it to gain carbon credits as well.

To repeat myself, what a fucking scam - I would like to see the net carbon balance of this scheme, i.e., how much injected CO2 is sequestered underground vs. CO2 emissions from the oil produced - if there is no net sequestration, they should not be allowed to receive carbon credits from this scam.

And where are the Reactor Vendors on Global Warming and the Environment??? Is Westinghouse lobbying against mountain top coal mining in West Virginia???

Nope - just for taxpayer subsidies for their marvelous and safe new reactor designs.

The Bottom Line is this - the Nuclear Industry could give a Flying Fuck about Global Warming - and anyone who thinks they do is a Damned Fool Idgit...

...and I'll take the "twits" at Greenpeace over these assholes any day

:)