The Beacon (NY) Free Press ran a story in the 01/01/2014 edition starting with "Now that the Democrats have a strangle-hold on the City Council ...". Using "stranglehold" in this context is insulting and inflammatory, certainly not journalistic. Council members earn respect not because of their party, but because of what they do.
Is there anyone who's against "smart growth"? Anybody not want the Council to be "proactive on future development and planning"? What's smart? What's dumb? We, the people of Beacon, Democrats or Republicans, have to let the Council know. It's their job to listen. And its our fault if they don't.
And it's the job of The Beacon Free Press to report what's going on ... objectively.
Vane Lashua
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
WNYC, Leonard Lopate with Jeremy Shere
Geothermal is the least costly, least polluting means of generating regional electrical power. Period. Too often geo is confused with fracking. Once a geo plant is established, there is no wastewater. Deep steam is used to drive a conventional turbine, a secondary process condenses the steam through a chain of "heat pumps" till it condenses and is re-flowed into the earth.
MIT 2006:
http://geothermal.inel.gov/publicationsfuture_of_geothermal_energy.pdf
http://geo-energy.org/events/Air%20Emissions%20Comparison%20and%20Externality%20Analysis_Publication.pdf
Externalities are those activities required to support a process. Mine/refine, store, transport, store, burn, maintain is a chain of forgotten impacts that cost money AND pollute the environment. Geo has none of these. All energy comes 24/7 from right beneath the plant. Wind and solar - for regional supplies are variable (sun/wind) and require constant, dispersed maintenance & support. Put WWS on the roof ... ok. Put 20,000 train engines with 350 foot props on Washington monuments, and you've got problems.
In Santa Rosa, CA solids are removed from conventional sewage & storm water processing and piped into the several-times boiling deep wells. It's less costly than hauling it to other types of post-treatment plants. And it's cleaned with heat rather than chemistry.
Investment is the issue. The fossil fuel-- or commodities -- industrial complex (CIC), a fuzzy understanding of the potential and necessary integration of alternatives, random political $bones thrown at CIC and "alternatives", and lack of serious, science-based policy research are the major impediments to responsible, CO2-free production of regional electricity over the next few decades.
MIT 2006:
http://geothermal.inel.gov/publicationsfuture_of_geothermal_energy.pdf
http://geo-energy.org/events/Air%20Emissions%20Comparison%20and%20Externality%20Analysis_Publication.pdf
Externalities are those activities required to support a process. Mine/refine, store, transport, store, burn, maintain is a chain of forgotten impacts that cost money AND pollute the environment. Geo has none of these. All energy comes 24/7 from right beneath the plant. Wind and solar - for regional supplies are variable (sun/wind) and require constant, dispersed maintenance & support. Put WWS on the roof ... ok. Put 20,000 train engines with 350 foot props on Washington monuments, and you've got problems.
In Santa Rosa, CA solids are removed from conventional sewage & storm water processing and piped into the several-times boiling deep wells. It's less costly than hauling it to other types of post-treatment plants. And it's cleaned with heat rather than chemistry.
Investment is the issue. The fossil fuel-- or commodities -- industrial complex (CIC), a fuzzy understanding of the potential and necessary integration of alternatives, random political $bones thrown at CIC and "alternatives", and lack of serious, science-based policy research are the major impediments to responsible, CO2-free production of regional electricity over the next few decades.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Letter to NPR re:"Boomers and Tech..." 11/25/2013
68 year old male. Your story on technology and "the elderly" in DC couldn't have been more deprecating to "seniors". Put young people from rural South Africa in the same position and you get the same results as you report for "seniors". New technology is new to those unfamiliar with it. John Kerry is 69 ... why didn't he attend the classes? Why can't young people drive a stick shift?
Just one of millions, I worked in publishing from 1972 till 2000. During that time (and after in other jobs) I led the charge to adopt appropriate technology as it developed -- from Linotype and proof-readers to pcs, macs, networks and websites -- mostly to save money and shorten production cycles. My first email system -- international, by the way -- you've never heard of. "My" "senior" writers and editors were eager to move on because it put them in better control of their product. (Too bad about "my" typesetters, proofers, runners and pasteup people.)
Recently I went to a birthday party followed by a dance club. I danced with a woman I had just met a week before for an hour or so in a crowd rocked by a great, live band. Surprised by her enthusiasm, I finally (and rudely) asked her how old she was. She hesitated just a second, smiled and answered, "I don't know." I only hope that more "senior-aware" seniors answer the same way. I don't know. And then you die.
Just one of millions, I worked in publishing from 1972 till 2000. During that time (and after in other jobs) I led the charge to adopt appropriate technology as it developed -- from Linotype and proof-readers to pcs, macs, networks and websites -- mostly to save money and shorten production cycles. My first email system -- international, by the way -- you've never heard of. "My" "senior" writers and editors were eager to move on because it put them in better control of their product. (Too bad about "my" typesetters, proofers, runners and pasteup people.)
Recently I went to a birthday party followed by a dance club. I danced with a woman I had just met a week before for an hour or so in a crowd rocked by a great, live band. Surprised by her enthusiasm, I finally (and rudely) asked her how old she was. She hesitated just a second, smiled and answered, "I don't know." I only hope that more "senior-aware" seniors answer the same way. I don't know. And then you die.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Scientific? American ... coal emissions sequestration
Scientific American ... comment
"The One-Stop Carbon Solution" (Scientific American, 11/2013) suggests sequestration of coal plant emissions by "soda-streaming" CO2 into brine and injecting the brine into wells. The pressurized brine forced into the substrata in turn forces methane to be released into return wells drilled for the purpose. Anywhere else it would be called fracking -- tapping even more CO2 and the spew from burning methane!
Why go to absurd lengths to support continued environmental terror by the commodities industrial complex? CO2 sequestration is commodities hokus pokus and a waste of good investment and research money. Why produce the CO2 in the first place? Geothermal EGS can tap the heat beneath our feet virtually anywhere on earth -- and within a few decades could replace virtually all commodity/CO2-based (coal, oil, gas, nuclear ...) electricity generation.
Instead of coal plant enhancement, why not adapt generating equipment on-site to geo requirements and feed the grid through the plant's existing connection. Instead of wells for injecting chemicals, drill wells that extract geothermal heat directly. With much less complexity, replace coal-burning with the unlimited heat of the earth. As geothermal power generation becomes feasible, not just on geyser strata or "rings of fire", savings from elimination of commodities-associated externalities* together with long-term operational savings make a practical, long-term financial case with enormous environmental benefit.
_____
*[http://geo-energy.org/events/Air%20Emissions%20Comparison%20and%20Externality%20Analysis_Publication.pdf]
Why go to absurd lengths to support continued environmental terror by the commodities industrial complex? CO2 sequestration is commodities hokus pokus and a waste of good investment and research money. Why produce the CO2 in the first place? Geothermal EGS can tap the heat beneath our feet virtually anywhere on earth -- and within a few decades could replace virtually all commodity/CO2-based (coal, oil, gas, nuclear ...) electricity generation.
Instead of coal plant enhancement, why not adapt generating equipment on-site to geo requirements and feed the grid through the plant's existing connection. Instead of wells for injecting chemicals, drill wells that extract geothermal heat directly. With much less complexity, replace coal-burning with the unlimited heat of the earth. As geothermal power generation becomes feasible, not just on geyser strata or "rings of fire", savings from elimination of commodities-associated externalities* together with long-term operational savings make a practical, long-term financial case with enormous environmental benefit.
_____
*[http://geo-energy.org/events/Air%20Emissions%20Comparison%20and%20Externality%20Analysis_Publication.pdf]
Friday, November 8, 2013
Milky Way
Outdoors on a very clear night, I looked up and saw "the Milky Way". It is obvious, but once more I experienced the wonder that everything I am, see and feel is "the Milky Way". What a view!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Unlimited energy from pipelines less than 10 miles long!
"Jobs", politicians' candy-soma for media and constituents, are one thing. Purposeful jobs are another. The XL pipeline is not about jobs, it's about company profits on commodities that we have plenty of -- without the tar sands. As we replace fossil fuel commodity supply chains rife with GHGs (mine/drill, refine, store, transport, store, burn/spew) with green-house-gas-free alternatives -- NOW and over the next 30 years, creation of jobs IS the alternative energy supply chain (education, invention, skills, reduced cost of energy, environmental restoration).
A real jobs-creating alternative, elimination of all green house gas emissions for supply of regional electricity by 2040, let's figure out how best to supply and use the direct heat of the earth from pipelines less than five or ten miles long -- straight down! -- AND improve energy conservation, on-site solar and wind -- NOW -- instead of giving free passes, risk-free profits, bonuses and subsidies to commodities corporations.
If all you want is jobs, ask your Congressman or mine, Sean Patrick Maloney, to vote for another war. "'Shock Doctrine' Americana: Endless War as the Ultimate Business Model; Disaster Capitalism on the battlefield and in the boardroom."
A real jobs-creating alternative, elimination of all green house gas emissions for supply of regional electricity by 2040, let's figure out how best to supply and use the direct heat of the earth from pipelines less than five or ten miles long -- straight down! -- AND improve energy conservation, on-site solar and wind -- NOW -- instead of giving free passes, risk-free profits, bonuses and subsidies to commodities corporations.
If all you want is jobs, ask your Congressman or mine, Sean Patrick Maloney, to vote for another war. "'Shock Doctrine' Americana: Endless War as the Ultimate Business Model; Disaster Capitalism on the battlefield and in the boardroom."
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Privatization, tolls on highways (Alternet Article)
Forget privatization. All vehicles should pay fuel & use taxes. Those who use & benefit by public thoroughfares (that includes us consumers & commuters) should pay for them directly -- through fuel taxes and/or tolls. That way, embedded/extra transport costs would increase end-product/delivery and personal transportation costs & more closely reflect and offset societal costs (GHGs, environmental & health impact, repair & maintenance, traffic deaths & injuries ... all invisible "externalities" that most of us forget). Single occupant vehicles on inter- and intra-state public roads, unless commercial, should be taxed extra (with an added benefit: big increase in "Real Girl" dummy sales & ... tax revenue!)
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