"Power house mechanic working on steam pump" By Lewis Hine, 1920 (Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration)
Steam plants haven’t been en vogue since Thomas Edison’s day. But now, they’re back in the spotlight thanks to the Obama administration. The Department of Energy just got 106-million dollars worth of stimulus money to fund steam-related projects. Jennifer Guerra takes us back to the future:
Transcript
Steam plants haven’t been en vogue since Thomas Edison’s day. But now, they’re back in the spotlight thanks to the Obama administration. The Department of Energy just got 106-million dollars worth of stimulus money to fund steam-related projects. Jennifer Guerra takes us back to the future:
(sound of steam)
You hear that? That’s the sound of efficiency.
It’s what you get when you combine steam pipes with a giant jet engine.
These steam systems are called combined heat and power, or CHP, and the government wants to see more of them.
Getting energy from coal-burning power plants isn’t very efficient. Most CHP systems, on the other hand, use natural gas and are more than 80% efficient.
The DOE says that’s like taking 45 million cars off the road.
Neal Elliot is with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
“So whether you’re concerned about local air quality or whether you’re talking about global climate change gasses, the more efficient the system, the lower the emissions.”
And if you’re worried about seeing a giant CHP plant pop up in your backyard – don’t worry, most CHP systems are underground.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu says coal will have to be a part of the energy mix in the future, so the government is committing money to clean it up. (Photo courtesy of the USDOE)
President Obama’s Energy Secretary is talking about building a facility to find ways to burn coal more cleanly. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
President Obama’s Energy Secretary is talking about building a facility to find ways to burn coal more cleanly. Lester Graham reports:
Burning coal pollutes – acid rain, toxic mercury, soot. And lately the big concern – carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.
The Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu told Members of Congress, despite the concerns about pollution, we still depend on coal for half of our electricity.
“So, it’s very important that we develop the technology that captures and also that safely sequesters carbon from coal plants.”
The technology does not exist today.
Chu says three-point-four-billion dollars in government stimulus money is now available to find a way to clean up coal.
An experimental plant called Futuregen was supposed to find ways to burn coal more cleanly and do something about carbon dioxide emissions. But the Bush administration killed funding.
Secretary Chu says the Obama administration is now negotiating with Futuregen partners again.
JP Anderson, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park Ranger, at
the start of National Geographic and the National Park Service's 2009
BioBlitz at The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. (Photo by Enrique Pulido)
BioBlitz volunteers turned up two species of fungi that hadn't been
officially identified in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. (Photo courtesy of The Field Museum of Chicago)
The National Park Service has a slightly embarrassing problem. It manages some of the nation’s most
environmentally valuable land – but it doesn’t have a full account of plant and animal species that live in
the parks. One remedy is the BioBlitz. A BioBlitz is a kind of whirlwind count of all the species in a
specific place. The Park Service has been co-sponsoring BioBlitzes with National Geographic. We sent
Shawn Allee to their latest:
Transcript
The National Park Service has a slightly embarrassing problem. It manages some of the nation’s most
environmentally valuable land – but it doesn’t have a full account of plant and animal species that live in
the parks. One remedy is the BioBlitz. A BioBlitz is a kind of whirlwind count of all the species in a
specific place. The Park Service has been co-sponsoring BioBlitzes with National Geographic. We sent
Shawn Allee to their latest:
The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is spread along Lake Michigan’s southern shoreline.
During this BioBlitz, scientists and volunteers fan out in teams to search the sand dunes, woods, and
grassland around here.
At first, the mood’s high, but then it rains kinda hard.
We’re supposed to be counting species for 24 hours, but at first, we can’t even get out of our cars.
(ring of a phone)
“Hello? Yeah. We’re stuck in traffic, here. We came out here and I thought we were going
out in the wrong direction.”
I hitch a ride with Dr. Patrick Leacock. He’s a mycologist, a kind of mushroom expert.
I’m actually lucky to be on his BioBlitz team, because organizers from National Geographic and the National Park Service want people to count all the species
in the park.
And they mean everything – not just plants and animals that are a cinch to find.
Allee: “Are fungi something you feel that the average person doesn’t think about when it comes
to biodiversity?”
Leacock: “Yeah, there’s people, you tell them you study mushrooms, and they talk about their
athlete’s foot, or they think there’s only six different kinds or something like
that.”
Leacock says, in fact, the Indiana Dunes Lakeshore has at least 600 fungi species. He hopes the
BioBlitz team will add to that list.
Leacock: “Here we are.”
Allee: “I’m hunting mushrooms with three trained mycologists and there are six other volunteers on my team here. One of them is Zachary Benes – he’s just 9 years old. But, I gotta say, Dr. Leacock is pretty lucky
to have Zachary on the team – since he’s found the most mushrooms of anyone on the team.”
Benes: “Is it poisonous?”
Leacock: “Nope. A real mushroom.”
Tang: “Yeah.”
Allee: “Looks like you found another one, too. Where’d you find it?”
Benes: “Over there by the wood.”
Leacock: “This is collybia sub-sulphurea. Do you know what sulfur means?”
Benes: “No.”
Leacock: “It’s a kind of a yellow-orange color. So, this might be a new record for the dunes. So that’s a good one. Was it
just the one?”
Benes: “Yeah. Just the one.”
Leacock: “It’s in good shape.”
Along the trail, I chat with Yaya Tang. She’s one of the other mycologists on the team.
Tang says she’s glad to see BioBlitz volunteers search for elusive species of bats, bugs, and fungi.
“I feel like that’s an issue with biodiversity in general. Where people care about things that are cute or
that they see immediately. Like, there’s insects, too, that don’t get a lot of attention.”
Allee: “Dr. Leacock, we’re pretty much finished here. You got this container of many varieties
of fungi we’ve collected within an hour, would you have been able to get this many
yourself? If you had come out here on your own?”
Leacock: “No. The more people you have searching, that helps a lot. Different people will see
different things, too, I think. So we’ve 14 or 15 things right in my box. We have two that might be new
records for the dunes.”
The BioBlitz at The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore lasts another 20 hours.
A few days later, Dr. Leacock writes me.
He tells me volunteers turned up at least one fungi specimen no one had ever seen in the Dunes park.
It’s a small success – enough that National Geographic, the Park Service, and other groups are
planning more BioBlitzes across the country.
North America's largest solar plant, covering 140 acres (Photo courtesy of the Nellis Air Force Base)
President Barack Obama’s visit
to Nellis Air Force Base near
Las Vegas has more to do with
what’s on the ground than it
does the fighter jets in the air.
Lester Graham reports on the base’s
solar energy project:
Transcript
President Barack Obama’s visit
to Nellis Air Force Base near
Las Vegas has more to do with
what’s on the ground than it
does the fighter jets in the air.
Lester Graham reports on the base’s
solar energy project:
Nellis Air Force Base is home to the nation’s largest solar photovoltaic power plant. The system generates enough electricity to power the equivelent of more than 13,000 homes.
The Air Force’s partner in the solar plant is MMA Renewable Ventures. Matt Cheney is CEO.
Cheney says there are lots of advantages, starting with no need for foreign or domestic fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases.
“It gets its energy from the sun. And, by the way, the sun is pretty predictable and effectively the energy we get from it is free.”
That’s not to say solar energy is free. The array at Nellis Air Force Base cost 100-million dollars to build.
The Air Force saves about a million dollars a year. So, it’s going to take a while to break even.
But as the demand for more solar goes up, the technology gets cheaper, in just a few years you might be able to get solar energy for about the same price as from coal-burning power plants.
Badin Mayor Jim Harrison stands on the steps of town hall. Alcoa’s old smelter looms behind. Alcoa once employed half the population of Badin, but the smelter closed in 2002. (Photo by Julie Rose)
Mark Gross and Gene Ellis on a bridge over the Yadkin River at the Narrows Dam. Gross is technical manager for the dam. Ellis is Licensing and Operating Manager for Alcoa Power Generating Inc. (Photo by Julie Rose)
The Narrows Dam holds back the Yadkin River to create Badin Lake. It is the largest of Alcoa’s four hydropower dams on the river. (Photo by Julie Rose)
In the dry American West, folks have been
duking it out over water for centuries.
But water shortages are new to the Southeast.
Many once thought the rivers would flow
forever. Now, North Carolina is emerging
from the worst drought in over a hundred
years. Julie Rose reports on a power
struggle has erupted over one of its
rivers:
Transcript
In the dry American West, folks have been
duking it out over water for centuries.
But water shortages are new to the Southeast.
Many once thought the rivers would flow
forever. Now, North Carolina is emerging
from the worst drought in over a hundred
years. Julie Rose reports on a power
struggle has erupted over one of its
rivers:
(sound of inside a truck)
From a one-lane road way above the Yadkin River, the trees are so thick you can just see
the water. It looks so tranquil that the Narrows Dam is a bit of a shock when you turn the
bend.
Rose: “Whoa, this thing’s huge.”
Ellis: “Yeah.” (chuckles)
(sound of climbing out of the truck)
I’m with Gene Ellis, who’s the head of Alcoa Power Generating.
(sound of water falling.)
For nearly 100 years, the aluminum company has owned and operated four dams on one
of North Carolina’s largest rivers. Now Alcoa is trying to renew that hydropower license
for 50 more years. But the Governor of North Carolina wants Alcoa’s dams for herself –
or rather for the people of North Carolina.
The federal law that governs America’s rivers does allow for a takeover, but it’s never
been done. And Alcoa’s Gene Ellis says it’s something he’d expect of a dictator.
“Alcoa’s only experience with the socialization or the nationalization of a plant was
in Venezuela during the leadership of Hugo Chavez.”
Ellis says the takeover attempt violates Alcoa’s property rights. Trouble is that while
Alcoa owns the dams, the people of North Carolina own the river. Alcoa’s basically a
tenant.
And North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue says it’s time to end the lease.
“We need to be sure that the water sources that we are allowing to be controlled – if
you will – by a private industry, produces something for North Carolina.”
Something like jobs, says Perdue, which is why Alcoa built the dams in the first place.
They used to power an aluminum smelter that was the main employer in the region.
In 2002, Alcoa closed the smelter, but still makes millions off the dams. It sells the
hydropower wholesale. Alcoa continues to pay taxes – and still offers free swimming
and fishing on the lakes – but the Governor says that’s not enough to deserve 50 more
years of control on the river.
Officials from at least seven counties agree. As do many residents, like Roger Dick.
“The state needs to be in control. We do not need to be, as citizens, having to go ask
a global company for how we will use our water.”
Ironically, Alcoa’s biggest support comes from towns on the four lakes it manages.
Especially Badin – where you can see the huge, empty smelter from the steps of the
mayor’s office.
Rose: “Did you work there?”
Harrison “Yes. 30 some years. That was our only industry and we’ve lost our heart
when we lost Alcoa.”
And yet, Badin Mayor Jim Harrison says-
“I would rather trust who I know than who I don’t know. Does the state not run our
highways? Do you really think they have done the best with our highways that can
be done? So, I’m mean, if they do the same job with our dams, what’s that gonna
end up being?”
Not even Governor Perdue can answer that yet. Nor is it clear how the transfer would
work or what the state might have to pay for it. Those decisions are up to the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees thousands of hydropower licenses, but
has yet to take one over.
Talking to Mark Robinson – the commission’s director of energy projects – you can
practically hear him scratching his head through the phone line.
“We really can’t figure out what the idea was there. But I’m sure with the help of a
number of very smart lawyers we would all figure it out.”
Since Alcoa expected a decision on its license this summer, lawyers on both sides are
already working overtime.
People across the country are watching closely, because the outcome will set an
important precedent at a time when water is no longer the endless resource many once
thought.
Under cap-and-trade, if a business can cut emissions faster, you can trade emission credits - for a price - to a business that can’t. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
Congress is debating a cap-and-
trade plan to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. But a recent poll
determined most people don’t know
what cap-and-trade means. Lester
Graham reports:
Transcript
Congress is debating a cap-and-
trade plan to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. But a recent poll
determined most people don’t know
what cap-and-trade means. Lester
Graham reports:
A poll by Rasmussen found 76% of Americans don’t know what cap-and-trade is.
Person 1: “Putting a price cap on something?”
Person 2: “Cap and trade? I have no idea.”
Person 3: “Captain Trade? I never heard of him.”
Here’s the simple version: cap greenhouse gases. The government will lower that cap over time.
Cut emissions faster, you can trade emission credits – for a price – to a business that can’t.
Overall, it’ll make fossil fuels more expensive, clean energy cheaper.
Democratic leaders in the House have agreed on a cap-and-trade plan. Republicans – and some Democrats – hate the plan. They think it’ll cost the economy too much.
The House will likely pass it. But Darren Samuelsohn with GreenWire says President Obama will have to push for it in the Senate.
“He could probably twist some arms and make some votes go his way if he really wanted it.”
And, even then, CAP and TRADE will likely only squeak through.
Several neighbors near Cook County Illinois' Bunker Hill Forest Preserve are concerned about the loss of trees. Bathsheba Burmin is third from the left. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The Cook County Forest Preserve District has been transforming sections of the Somme Forest Preserve into savanna. This is after a small burn. It once had many more trees in the area. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
When somebody says a natural area, does everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
Transcript
When somebody says a natural area, dose everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
If you go to the Bunker Hill Forest Preserve just outside Chicago, you find picnic spaces, bike trails, and woods – acres of woods.
If it’s the wrong day, though, a security guard will turn you back from the woods.
Guard: “Closed off for a while? It’s closed off for a while. They’re doing a controlled burn – they’re burning that field over there.”
Man: “What are you doing exactly? Burning?”
Guard: “Controlled burn.”
Forest preserve workers in sooty, yellow fire suits are burning brush and trees.
They say soil tests show this land was once savanna – a kind of grassland with a few trees mixed in.
They’re trying to restore it to that original landscape.
Volunteers help out with this restoration, but a small number of people want to stop it.
“Everything they burned today is area they’ve cleared over the past two years. We’re opposed to cutting our urban forests.”
Bathsheba Burmin shows me the site – after it’s cooled.
She wants me to see what it takes to turn woods into savanna.
Burmin: “It’s a little muddy, so…”
Allee: “It’s hard not to notice.”
(sounds of walking through mud)
Allee: “This place is being actively transformed.”
Burmin: “Yes.”
Allee: “You can see brush piles moved around, trees have obviously been cut because you can see the stumps, and obviously they burned just today.”
Burmin: “What it does is tell the story of what the restructuring of an ecosystem looks like.”
Burmin and a few of her neighbors have protested the transformation of these woods into savanna.
Some don’t believe this was ever grassy savanna in the first place.
Burmin says, even if it was savanna – it’s not now; it’s woodland – and she regrets losing the trees.
Burmin: “If you’re not familiar with the site and you hear there’s an increase in grassland species you must be doing something wonderful. Nobody talked about what happened to all the woodland species. The reason you have an increase in grassland species, but that’s because you took out all the forest.”
Habitat restoration can be violent.
It can involve poisoning or burning unwanted plants or maybe killing animals like deer that graze on more desirable plants.
Wildlife managers use restoration techniques all the time, but on occasion critics like Burmin ask tough questions about it.
When that happens, people like Stephen Packard rush to its defense.
“Now we’re standing in a place where all the brush was cut last year.”
Packard heads the Chicago chapter of the Audobon Society.
He’s offered to show me some restored savanna, about ten miles north of that Bunker Hill spot.
It looks kinda familiar.
Allee: “There’re stumps and sticks everywhere.”
Packard: “Is this ugly or is it not ugly? Here’s my perspective on it. To me it’s like a bunch of broken eggshells after someone made an omelet. I think this is a beautiful thing to see the first stage of recovery. It is stumps, it is bare ground, but from doing this, I know certain plants will start to come up and keep developing.”
Packard says no one restores savanna because they like chopping trees.
It’s just that some plants need open space and light – like in a savanna. Dense woods create too much shade for them.
He says if we let some natural areas literally run wild, a few aggressive species take over, and the rare ones lose out.
“You lose millions of years of evolution of these thousands of species that may be important to the planet, so why not have some places where we can take care of them?”
Packard says some natural areas are so unhealthy, that for now, we need to protect some parts of nature from others.
And if you don’t buy that – you don’t buy restoration.
Cement kilns produce mercury, which gets into the fish we eat making it unsafe (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
After years of urging, the US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing regulations to cut down on pollution from cement kilns. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
After years of urging the US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing regulations to cut down on pollution from cement kilns. Lester Graham reports:
Cement – the stuff used to make concrete – is made by baking limestone and other ingredients at really high temperatures in huge coal-burning ovens.
Burning the coal and baking the stone both release mercury. The mercury gets into the food chain and contaminates fish.
Mercury is a neuro-toxin, so eating contaminated fish can cause health problems, including IQ loss.
For 20 years Congress and the courts have been telling the EPA to do something about mercury pollution from cement kilns.
Jim Pew is a staff attorney with Earth Justice, an environmental group. It’s sued the EPA over the issue.
“The government response until now has not been to try to get mercury under control, since everybody agrees it’s a problem. The response has been to tell people ‘mercury is out there, so don’t eat the fish.’”
Under the EPA proposal, cement kilns would have to clean up the mercury and other pollution emitted from their smokestacks.
Ships sometimes bring unwanted travelers with them (Photo by Lester Graham)
Invasive species hitchike on foreign cargo ships and end up in US waterways. Lester Graham talked with the author of a new book about why the government has done so little to stop these aquatic invaders that are damaging the environment:
Transcript
Invasive species hitchike on foreign cargo ships and end up in US waterways.
Lester Graham talked with the author of a new book about why the government has done so little to stop these aquatic invaders that are damaging the environment:
Lester Graham: “Maybe you’ve heard about Zebra Mussels. The thumbnail-sized mussels have invaded freshwater lakes, rivers, clogged water intake pipes, and damaged the environment across a good portion of the US – and they’re still spreading. The Zebra Mussel is just one of dozens and dozens of invasive species brought into the US by foreign cargo ships entering the Great Lakes though the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. What happens is ships in Europe or Africa or Asia take on ballast water, sucking up millions of gallons of water from a foreign port. Aquatic life is sucked up with it. Then, as the ships take on cargo in the Great Lakes, the ballast water is discharged, and with it things like Zebra Mussels and other foreign pests. Many of those species have spread from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River system, and then transported by recreational boating in every direction from there. Jeff Alexander has written a book that chronicles not only those invasions, but the utter failure of the government to do anything effective to stop these introductions. Jeff, you make the argument that these invasive species, biological pollution if you will, amount to a more serious environmental disaster than the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska. How’s that?”
Jeff Alexander: “Well the Valdez, there’s no discounting the severity of the Valdez oil spill. But oil spills, over time, can be cleaned up to a certain extent, and the ecosystem can recover. In the Great Lakes, ocean freighters have brought in 57 species, they’ve caused billions of dollars in damage, and they’ve transformed the entire ecosystem.”
Graham: “There are eight states that border the Great Lakes, and members of Congress are aware of this problem, why haven’t they taken action to ensure this problem is dealt with once and for all?”
Alexander: “The shipping lobby has been very effective at keeping regulations at bay, the Coast Guard, which is the lead agency in the US, has just totally dropped the ball on this issue. They’re the ones who’re supposed to be the guardians of the Great Lakes when it comes to ships, and the Coast Guard is very close to the shipping industry. They have social events together every year. A lot of people blame the shipping industry for this problem, but I tend not to. They certainly have fought the regulations but, in the end, the reason that we have regulatory agencies is to protect public health and the environment. And our regulatory agencies haven’t done the job, and our politicians haven’t done the job – no one seems to have the backbone to stand up to the shipping industry and deal with this problem.”
Graham: “Are the foreign ships that bring in this cargo and take away grain or the other things from the Midwest so economically valuable that it is worth this economic and environmental cost?”
Alexander: “There is some debate on that, but the best economic study estimated if we kept these ocean freighters out of the Great Lakes, made them offload their cargo in Montreal and put it on trains and trucks, it would cost us an extra $55 million a year to move that cargo. That’s compared to the estimate of $200 million a year that foreign species are costing us in terms of economic and environmental damage. It’s not a stretch to make the case that the environmental and economic costs have far exceeded the economic benefits.”
Graham: “Jeff Alexander’s new book is ‘Pandora’s Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway’. Thanks, Jeff.”
Alexander: “Thank you.”
Jeff Alexander spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.
It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the size of the state of Massachusetts (Photo courtesy of NASA)
About 40% of the continental U-S drains into the Mississippi River. It sends water – and pollution – from across the country into the Gulf of Mexico. A new study shows just who the worst offenders are. Gabriel Spitzer has the story:
Transcript
About 40% of the continental U-S drains into the Mississippi River. It sends water – and pollution – from across the country into the Gulf of Mexico. A new study shows just who the worst offenders are. Gabriel Spitzer has the story:
All the pollution creates a dead zone in the Gulf nearly the size of New Jersey.
Nitrogen and Phosphorus pour in and fertilize big algae blooms.
When that stuff decays, it sucks oxygen out of the water, and makes it impossible for most fish to live there.
US Geological Survey researchers say most of the problem comes from farm runoff, but the single biggest source is sewage from Chicago.
Albert Ettinger with the Environmental and Law Policy Center says Chicago water managers have to catch up with their neighbors.
“They’re gonna have to look at treatment systems which take nitrogen out of the water, and bring phosphorus down to one milligram per liter. It’s done in Milwaukee, it’s done in Cleveland, it’s done in Detroit.”
Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District say they haven’t had a chance to look closely at the study yet, so they don’t want to comment on it.
"Power house mechanic working on steam pump" By Lewis Hine, 1920 (Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration)
