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Science

Blackout Was Good News, For Pollution 64

Posted by michael from the silver-lining dept.
squidfrog writes "In regard to the August blackout, University of Maryland researchers have announced the results of measurements indicating the level of pollution normally caused by power plants in the region of the blackout, which could be measured for the first time by comparing the idle power plants with those still operational. 'Aircraft sampling in the 24 hours following the blackout found a 90 percent drop in sulfur dioxide and a 50 percent cut in ozone levels, while visibility increased by more than 25 miles.'" MSNBC has a related story.
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Blackout Was Good News, For Pollution More

Blackout Was Good News, For Pollution

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  • NPR Radio Story (Score:5, Informative)

    by bryanp ( 160522 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:37AM (#9406283)
    There was a fairly informative story about this on NPR recently. You can listen to it here [npr.org]

    One of the nice things is that such a quick change bodes well for the effectiveness of improved scrubbers and clean-air standards applied to existing power plants, some of which are supposed to reduce emissions by as much as 50%.

  • Good Science/Bad Science (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:43AM (#9406302) Homepage Journal
    In true /. fashion, I haven't RTFA yet, but I did hear the story a day or two back, on NPR.

    I also heard a related story, about how North Dakota has come up with an alternative pollution formula to allow them to build more power plants, and burn more coal in them, even though the current formula says they're already over the limit. The scientists at the EPA disagreed, but the politicians at the EPA overruled, and approved the EPA formula.

    Meanwhile, here in Vermont, we have strict limits on the local fish we're supposed to eat. (For instance, one Walleye per person per month, and they advise that children or pregnant women probably shouldn't have even that much.) One component of this is mercury, which is largely from powerplant emissions. The North Dakota report cited their 'pristine sky'. Of course it is, it all blows downwind on the prevailing westerlies. As a kid in school in Ohio, they talked about how tall smokestacks got the junk up into the stratosphere, and were the solution to pollution. Right. It got it into the prevailing westerlies, and made it S.E.P. (Somebody Else's Problem)

    No doubt if we took a similar attitude in Vermont, it would blow out to sea, and we'd hear more about dying fisheries. As it is, we have some of the highest power rates in the country. I'll rant no further.

    • Re:Good Science/Bad Science (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12, 2004 @12:14PM (#9407305)
      The MSNBC article also mentions that power plant emissions shorten 23,600 lives a year. Is nuclear really thatdangerous (compared to the environmental damage that you discussed and no-shit deaths caused)? Even the worst (tinfoil hat) estimates of Chernobyl can not even remotely compare with a century of fossil emissions. Another neat figure: 38,200 nonfatal heart attacks and 554,000 asthma attacks. Wow! It's really criminal where the anti-nuke lobby has put us.

  • Proof for the idiots who dont already know it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zarks ( 783916 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:05AM (#9406393)
    This sounds very similar to the stories of the ban of aircraft travel in the few days after 11 sept affecting the climate.

    This just proves how much of a huge differance we are making to the planet. One more reason to take global warming seriously.

    • Re:Proof for the idiots who dont already know it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bryanp ( 160522 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:12AM (#9406406)
      This just proves how much of a huge differance we are making to the planet. One more reason to take global warming seriously.

      I am not disagreeing with you, but it also proves just how transient our influence truly is. Shut them down, problem begins abating immediately and to a remarkable degree. Shutting them down completely is not really an option, but it does show that if we improve the cleanliness of our power systems it will have a effect in a very short period of time.
      • I am not disagreeing with you, but it also proves just how transient our influence truly is. Shut them down, problem begins abating immediately and to a remarkable degree.

        What's kind of scary is how abating the "problem" suddenly probably has unforseen consequences.

        For example, shutting down all air travel means a lot less CO2 generated/O2 used. For a short period of time, oxygen levels rise ever so slightly-which can mean an increase in forest fires and such. Think butterfly-flaps-its-wings kinda dea

    • Did the wolly mamouths in the last Ice Age drive Hummers? Did the grapes growing in scotland 600 years ago die off because of horse manure? Climate changes with or without us.

  • Old news (Score:4, Informative)

    by bigsteve@dstc ( 140392 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:07AM (#9406398)
    It was reported in New Scientist [newscientist.com] 2 week ago.

  • Reducing dependence on utilities (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jaredmauch ( 633928 ) <jared@puck.nether.net> on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:10AM (#9406401) Homepage
    I've been researching over the past year or so in small bursts, how I can become a better enviro-citizen. At my home, I consume a significant amount of power, peaking over 90KwH/day in some cases. I did some rough math on some of my past 18 months of electricity bills (I have no natural gas, only electric, with the exception of my propane grill) and over that 18mo period, i have utilized somewhere around 48MwH.

    My home lost power as a result of this outage, (I was on vacation), but since then, I've had several outages in the past 2 months, ranging from 4 to 6 hours in length. During the longer, I started up a small (1100W) generator and was able to run some of my equipment. Being a work-at-home employee that depends on my utilities (telephone, electricity) to work properly, this does create some dilemas for me.

    Are there people out there that have reduced your dependence on the utilities using "clean" energy (solar/wind)? What i'm looking at is a hybrid system, where I would take input from: Grid, Solar and Wind. As a result, I would need to store some amount of reserve energy, and prioritize my consumption (eg: Well, Smoke Detectors, Fridge, Stove, Hot Water Heater, etc..). My intention is to not completely disconnect from the grid, or even to sell-back, but to reduce my electrical expenses.

    The result would be that I would not depend so much on the outside entities, and see a cost savings after a few years (aside from possible battery replacement costs). I've found some good worksheets online at NW Power [nwpwr.com] (See the calculation help sidebar) and have been using SolarDyne [solardyne.com] as my cost reference.

    Now all I need is some nice blackout curtains that kill the light and output electricity for those days I want to sleep in.

    • Re:Reducing dependence on utilities (Score:5, Interesting)

      by michaelredux ( 627547 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @10:39AM (#9406822)
      What i'm looking at is a hybrid system, where I would take input from: Grid, Solar and Wind. ...to reduce my electrical expenses.

      If you consider the whole system, the best way to reduce your utility costs is almost certainly not by augmenting the supply side with a sexy solar / wind turbine hybrid, but rather looking seriously at the demand side. That's where the really money can be saved. I have no idea how you are using up to 90 KWHrs/day, but you mentioned an electric water heater, for example. Heating water with electricity is like cutting butter with a chainsaw. A solar water heater could pay for itself in the first year, compared to PV panels that might take ten to twenty years to pay off.

      Why not pick the low-hanging fruit first? It may not be the sexy answer, but if you are serious about lowering your utility costs, the real money savings usually turn out to be on the demand side.

      I would need to store some amount of reserve energy

      Because you have access to the grid, it would be a lot cheaper to use the generator to cover for occasional power outages, and use a standard battery-backed UPS for each PC or other other critical use (cordless phone, etc).

      michael.
    • If you really don't want your state to have to build more power plants for a while, campain for LED traffic lights [howstuffworks.com].

      • I haven't seen a non-LED traffic light in quite a while. Maybe it's living on the east coast, but even cars are using them for brake lights around here, and people are using them in flashlights (okay, so only the fancy cars use LED brake lights, and only the uber-geeks use LED flashlights).

        I got an LED flashlight for my roomate, because they were giving them away if you signed up for a credit card.
        • Not to be a wet blanket, but do you guys really think that converting traffic lights and your flashlight to LED will impact the national energy picture? Your grandmum can probably out do all that by switching off her (probly canadian) natural gas heat and going to (probly hi sulfur US coal fired) electircal space heat. It's a nice idea but if we're talking national policy I think maybe a wider perspective is necessary.
    • If your intention is to reduce your electrical expenses you should stick with utilities. They have astounding economies of scale not just in terms of efficiency of generation but also in terms of environmental impact. Unless your 1.1kw is unusual (like say a brand new honda or well maintained propane) it's going to output more pollution per kwh then the national grid. Probably by a good margin. Remember folks, during last summers CA blackouts EPA waived all kinds of pollution rules so utilities could roll t
    • Look into compact fluorescent bulbs and LEDs. I have a distant relative who operates a lighting store. I was surprised to find out that you can buy compact fluorescent bulbs that can be used with a dimmer. You an even buy nearly white LEDs (not worse in color than, say, the greenish standard fluorescents), albeit at ~$50 a piece.

      Here in CA every single municipality that bought its power from a utility that was being ripped off by Enron (e.g., San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica) switched to LED t

  • Duh. (Score:2)

    by sporty ( 27564 )
    If most if not all things that have biproducts that don't help the enivornment, and maybe not hurt it to some degree, gets turned off.. how can you do nothing but help the environment at best?
  • ...Which would cause less environmental damage and human dysfunction, letting these plants continue to run, or replacing them all with nuclear reactors and getting an occasional release or radiation?

    • Re: Now the question is... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CA_Jim ( 786327 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @01:44PM (#9407849)
      I would submit that nuclear reactors have less impact on the environment. What is interesting about coal is that there is cleaner coal deposits in the USA that aren't being used. Federal polution laws mandated removing a percentage of certain particulates from the exhaust. Some western coal has so little of these pollutants, that it is impossible to remove the mandated percentage. Thus, coal with more sulfer is used which ultimately causes more pollution. Nuclear power can be made safe. The wastes from reactors can be handled safely and disposed of. The question is can the required safety and automated shutdown be designed and built at an economical cost? Chernobyl was a disaster caused by poor training and a management system that didn't understand what it was doing. Most nuclear plants are much safer, and safety systems work, and have improved since 1986. We tend to forget that all human activity has associated risks. We humans worry about airplane crashes because they hill a hundred people at once, but overlook automobile accidents. People forget that a fire at your local tire dealership or hardware store (pvc piping) can cause major a major evacuation. When was the last time someone protested a natural gas pipeline, but our civilization depends upon such mundane items. Has anyone noticed the Liquified Natural Gas tanks outside Boston? If someone crashed an airplane there, I suspect a rather massive disaster. I'm not suggesting we build nuclear power plants in downtown NYC or San Francisco. It may not be possible to build a reactor safe enough to every economically generate power. At the same time, nuclear power isn't the end of the world either.
      • I've heard that coal-fired power plants actually send MORE radioactives into the atmosphere than nuclear plants, because there is some Carbon 14 in coal and it's released as CO2 when the coal is burned.

        I've also heard about a reactor design that's currently used in some research reactors but could be adapted for power generation, that uses a proton beam to generate neutrons when they hit a target, rather than using control rods to absorb excess neutrons; such reactors could be shut down by flipping a switc

        • Re: Now the question is... (Score:5, Informative)

          by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @05:16PM (#9408930) Journal
          Carbon-14 is not really a hazard.

          The hazard's from naturally-occuring elements such as Uranium in the coal. Uranium is only present in coal in minute amounts... approximately 1 - 3 parts per million, Thorium is about double that. This seems to be fuck-all, until you burn a 1000 million tons of coal a year (total for the US, year 2000) and end up with a thousand tons of uranium and thorium in your atmosphere and the local surrounds of your power plants.

          An interesting article I just found, by searching for "radioactive coal" is here [ornl.gov]

    • ...how much nuclear waste does a nuclear power plant actually produce? Would it be feasible to fill a big rocket with it every so often and launch it into the sun? We wouldn't have to worry about environmental damage, seeing as how a) it won't be on earth, and b) the sun's not gonna notice a little extra radiation.

      I'm sure the idea's been thought of before, but it sounds good to me and I'm wondering why it's not an option that's considered.
      • It's better to keep it in a nice isolated place than to try and launch it, because it'd create an enormous mess if something happened to the rocket. This may change if we start launching stuff using something other than a large amount of explosives.

        But the fact is, most "nuclear waste" is actually EXTREMELY useful if re-refined, and is being deliberately discarded because the US government is paranoid about having Plutonium in private hands.
    • Have there been any nuclear power plant emergencies in the U.S. since TMI?

    • Coal power plants produce cheaper energy than nuclear power plants.
  • Coming from Buffalo, N.Y., we here are taking most of our power from the Robert Moses Power Plant in Niagara Falls, which runs off of the current of the Niagara River, one of the fastest sustained currents in the world.

    The power actually remained on in my suburb, although small parts of Buffalo did lose power. So that gigantic, collective "Ha! Ha!" you heard last August was Buffalo laughing at New York City.

    Hydroelectric power, especially in the northeast where there is an abundance of water, should b
    • Hydroelectric power can have severe environmental impact. The building of dams can be devestating to the people and animals who lived in the flooded area. Dams and hydroelecric plants kill fish, both from the increased difficulty of migration and from being chewed up in turbines. Dams fail and cause catastraphic floods. Dams cause damage to wetland areas both upstream and downstream of the dam. There are many other bad effects caused by dams depending upon their location. Dams can cause concentration

      • Re:Power On, Pollution Off? (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "Dams can cause concentration of pcb's, mercury and other toxins, dams cause the retention of silt, there are many ways that dams can cause reduction in water quality."

        but, if we die off quicker that'll reduce pollution too, right?

    • Well, although there are some environmental drawbacks to hydro power, the reason we don't use it for everything (it is seriously cheap..) is a simple lack of sites. All the best ones are already used.

  • Power is the suxx0rz!!!!111 It is polluting the planet!!!!!!!!111 We did not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we are borrowing it from our children. Therefore, we must stop all power and fossil fuels, and we must stop chopping down trees! We should live like they did 3000 years ago, when they didn't pollute anything!!!!!!!11111 No global warming!!!!!!!!!!1111 We must live in caves and only eat grains and wheat..... So our children can enjoy a clean Earth....

    Disclaimer: The above does not apply to the e

  • I would have thought that cars accounted for most enviormental pollution, and that the blackout would have forced more to drive, hence more pollution.

    But I guess I was just wrong.

    I would never have thought that power plants accounted for so much of out pollution. Considering then, that the problem is centrallised, shouldn't we be looking into some way of filtering pollution at the plants rather that cleaning up our SUVs.
    • Although there is a huge focus on transport (because perhaps it's the most energy intensive thing we do on a personal basis), IIRC, transport only accounts for around 17% of our energy usage. If we entirely rid ourselves of transport, it wouldn't make that much of a difference to pollution (especially since most of our vehicles burn fuel pretty cleanly already).

      I used to live in Houston. There was always talk about how car usage needed to be reduced and how mandatory smog checks on cars were required in Ha
  • I think the study may be seriously flawed. How do you disentangle the effect of power plant shutdowns from effects of other shutdowns.

    What about affected transportation? A lot of people didn't go to work during the blackout. People would also go to stores a lot less because a lot of stores were closed during the blackout. Here people were even told on the radio to not drive if it's not essential. IIRC there was also a decrease in air traffic in the affected area.

    What about factories? I'm sure a lo

  • This just proves what I got called a troll (by a mod no less) for saying about how we are bad for everything, including ourselves. Indications like this report should move us to smarter use of our resources...

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