about the power plant

juanicoheal · Post by **juanicoheal** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:16 pm

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004 ... 89-cp.html

I know it's not involving the Black Rock area, but YEAH for this small victory!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 12:00 pm

The contradiction in your statement comes from the number of people involved. Assembling such a large group in such a small area is sheepish. I drove the perimenter this year, seven miles around.. so a bit less than two miles on a side, 4 sections, roughly 2400 acres,, with 30,000 people.. The permanent population for 50 miles around is less than a thousand. Many of those people have been there for generations.

The two questions for ya'll is do mind the power plant? And if so, will you work to stop it?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 1:02 pm

Black Rock Ric wrote:sheepish

please, enough with the ovine analogies already. if someone chooses to be a part of a community, that should be their business. at the same time, if someone chooses to live a more solitary lifestyle, that person should also be able to do so as well (and should be able to do so without being labeled, say, "a creepy, kaczynski-esque misanthropic loner").

it should be an individual decision.

Black Rock Ric wrote:The two questions for ya'll is do mind the power plant? And if so, will you work to stop it?

yes. and yes.

so...back on-topic. am doing some digging around to find some good resources where individuals have successfully rallied against projects such as sempra. the first one i've found so far is here:
http://209.196.155.187/tools/env_luse/powerplants.php3
(the "environmental concerns" and "public pressures" sections are about 2/3 of the way down)

that article pointed to these folks
http://www.ccint.org/html/projects.html

if anyone else has any good links/resources on other successful challenges that have been made that we might learn from, this is prolly a good thread for 'em.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 1:13 pm

good article from the salt lake tribune. points out (a) that the wasatch range would likely be significantly affected and, most interestingly, that the "1.5 million homes" that would get the energy from the plant are actually in...los angeles. however they can't put the plant in LA 'cuz the air quality there is already too poor to support it.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/bu ... 108339.htm

Dan D. Lyon · Post by **Dan D. Lyon** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:17 pm

Black Rock Ric wrote:The contradiction in your statement comes from the number of people involved. Assembling such a large group in such a small area is sheepish. I drove the perimenter this year, seven miles around.. so a bit less than two miles on a side, 4 sections, roughly 2400 acres,, with 30,000 people.. The permanent population for 50 miles around is less than a thousand. Many of those people have been there for generations.

The two questions for ya'll is do mind the power plant? And if so, will you work to stop it?

Who died and left this dick as king of the Black Rock?

Look Ric, you're a hypocrite by accusing this community of being sheep while being just as much a member as anyone else here by posting here. If you want to find help for your cause at burningman.com, you might try a humbler approach... for instance dropping Black Rock and going by Sheep Dip Ric... otherwise simply stop posting here.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:15 am

Atascadero used to be a semi cow town, now it has been taken over by LA refugees, one good cafe left at the Templeton stockyard.. You must wander down to Morro Bay sometimes, Can you picture the town without the power plant stuck right in the middle of the picture postcard view? That plant is natural gas, fairly clean burning, which is good for you, since you live down wind. Morro Bay was better looking without the plant and healthier too, wouldn't you think? Now, in your minds eye, lift your head and look beyond the RV's and blue tarps and North Face tents of Black Rock City to the 600 foot stacks with drifts of coal smoke coming from the Sempra plant.. drifting..... over..... you...... A little rain and Black Rock City would be an "Atascadero" complete with coal soot. I am assuming you can translate Atascadero.

Last Real Burner · Post by **Last Real Burner** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 8:22 am

Hey Black Fart Ric, Why are you here? the Greenpeace BBS down?

"Bend over, and let me give you my opinion."

nobody you know,
mr smith

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:22 am

^^^^^^^
unproductive.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:35 am

allanon2 wrote: ohjh well
predictable

Ah yes, the "predictable" again.
We have 2 choices.
1 Rex is omnicient.
2 Rex irritates everyone else in the universe with his heavy handed tactics as much as he irritates us and everyone reacts the same.

Poll anyone?

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:37 am

rodent wrote:ya know, I believe that the community here (on eplaya) wouldn't be as condecending to the sbm folks IF the sbm folks weren't so condecending in their posts.

just noticing patterns.

ya know, I believe that makes you crushable.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:39 am

Allanon03 wrote:A posting time of 11:08 falls in the middle of the school day.

Every minute he's not treating those kids like crap the way he treats us, is a minute he's not inflicting misery on the next generation.
Not that kids don't have perfectly adequate bs detectors and don't find him as pathetic as we do. . .

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:55 am

just a gentle reminder that this thread is about the power plant and things we might be able to do to determine its impact if built, and not about interpersonal bullshit.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 10:37 am

I see there are still fascists,, which is fine, Nevada is full of em, welcome.. Please don't think I am an SBM It is not Burning Man I dislike, it is people and their constructs, especially in natural landscapes. BM is a grouping of a large mass of people and their constructs, like a NASCAR race, a county fair, a town, an army division placed into a natural landscape. Try the Black Rock on its on terms, not yours, not BM's

?the greatest beauty is organic wholeness
the wholeness of life and things.
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that?
RJ.

The point for me is that anything detrimental to wildland should be stopped, by the moral integrity of the users if possible, by other means if necessary. Now, wild land does not mean land empty of people, or people impacts. Historically there as seldom been unused land, but the visibilty of people and the visiblity of their impacts should be minimal. The question you have to ask is do your activities fit that? Do you care about the permant fixture of the power plant? For instance; 90 % of the wall board used in the United States comes from Empire,, there is a huge open pit gypsum mine just to the south of BM,, you have never seen it, heard it or seen the dust. Those folks manage their property very well, yet the dust cloud from BM can be seen rising over a thousand feet in the air from over 15 miles away it is in the air for the entire week of BM, like a distant forest fire.

I know that someone will say that the clean up of BM is phenomenal.. The site is very noticable many months afterward.. No need to argue with me, just drive out there in November.. You will have no trouble finding the site..

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 10:55 am

Now, in your minds eye, lift your head and look beyond the RV's and blue tarps and North Face tents of Black Rock City to the 600 foot stacks with drifts of coal smoke coming from the Sempra plant.

sounds like a cool art installation. Maybe we could set up a 5kw laser system and a banging 4 channel p.a. for a really good raver camp. Play some dark, german, industrial music to round out the theme.

and this

the greatest beauty is organic wholeness
the wholeness of life and things.
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that?

is a matter of opinion

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:01 am

for comparison, some morro bay power plant pix. the morro bay plant is a 1,002 megawatt facility, with 450 foot towers. the proposed granite fox facility would be a 1,500 megawatt facility, with 650+ foot towers.

http://www.plantexpansion.org/stacks.html

"Part of the power plant operations involves cleaning of the stacks where soot is ejected into the atmosphere. This picture shot by a passing boater showing stack 2 and its unit 3 generator ejecting acidic rust on the city of Morro Bay. This process is a regular procedure and will be continued with the new generation units."

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:13 am

n.b. i also believe that the morro bay plant is a gas-fired plant, whereas the granite fox plant would be coal fired...meaning the morro bay plant is considerably cleaner than the granite fox plant would be.

Tancorix · Post by **Tancorix** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:03 pm

Gas plants have their issues too. Right now there are plans to develop a new LNG port somewhere along the West Coast to feed those plants since we're running low on natural gas. Those "tankers" are potential floating bombs, and they emit all kinds of pollutants bringing the gas over here. If anyone doubts this, I can link to a picture clearly showing the ship stack trails along the West Coast.

In any event, gas fired plants are not the answer either. They just suck less than coal on particulate emissions and water usage.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:23 pm

just to be clear...i wasn't implying that gas plants were clean, or anything like that. i was just pointing out that the granite fox plant would likely be even worse than the particulate crap shown in the pictures above.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:39 pm

Tancorix wrote:Right now there are plans to develop a new LNG port somewhere along the West Coast to feed those plants since we're running low on natural gas.

"Somewhere" may = Ventura County.
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/ ... /i4407.htm
I believe that there is also interest in Louisiana facilities.

So the pulverized coal DOESN'T burn significantly cleaner?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:46 pm

theCryptofishist wrote:So the pulverized coal DOESN'T burn significantly cleaner?

a couple of cites in here
http://www.cleanenergy.org/air/newgasplants.pdf

(p. 17, most notably) make that point, but i have not fact-checked their sources.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 2:51 pm

Thanks, Genghis. Not surprized, but I like to have the basics as clear as possible.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 2:52 pm

Poof. Thats Genghis. Sorry.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:31 pm

The particulate output from the Gerlach plant is estimated to be 10,000 tons per annum... That be roughly 143 freight trucks full of ash scattered about the Granite Range, Black Rock Desert and points east each year.

calsur · Post by **calsur** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 1:56 am

Black Rock Ric,

So what is the SO2 and NOX emissions rated output? And what is the breakdown on the particulate emissions as to size? That is what really matters, the size of the particulate. Soot above 1 micron settles to the ground and is basically carbon. Your body can deal with one micron soot and above as the mucus lining of you lungs traps this and you cough it out. Less than one micron soot gets down to the bottom of the lungs and starts to cause all kinds of problems. Maybe you have heard of "Black Lung"? It is not as intense as working in a coal mine but the health effects are there.

Reference : http://www.rec.org/REC/Publications/SO2/chapter21.html

And here is the fun part. Modern pollution controls are designed to reduce the size of the pollution to under 1 micron. Why? So you can not see the big black cloud of smoke!

Now there is some controversy about size of particulates. The Combustion Lab at UC Irvine where I worked for 5 years used 1 micron as a health effect. Most US labs used that in the 1990ies. The European community used 2.5 microns. The consensus is smaller is bad for anything that uses lungs.

And a note to genghis, Try not to use fake pictures to make your point.

Why is it fake? Even on the low res photo the pixels do not match at the top of the smoke stack. And gas fired generator plants do not produce clouds of smoke that black and dense unless the whole plant is on fire.

Sempra is going to eat you idiots up and not even fart.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 9:01 am

calsur wrote:Try not to use fake pictures to make your point.

hey genius...did you even bother to check the source on that pic before you took a shot at me with the flamethrower? it ain't mine.

i think someone needs a nap...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 9:57 am

calsur wrote:The Combustion Lab at UC Irvine where I worked for 5 years...

interesting that

sempra sponsors a scholarship in energy enginerring* at UCI
http://www.honors.uci.edu/scholarships. ... shipid=245

and that UCI's own arthur de vany has done some consulting for sempra as well.
http://aris.ss.uci.edu/econ/personnel/d ... b/Vita.pdf

oh wait. "what kind of consulting?" he asks.

103. Arthur De Vany, “Testimony of Arthur De Vany on behalf of Tatham Offshore, Inc. in the
Matter of the Sable Offshore Energy Project.” National Energy Board Joint Public Review
Panel, Hearing Order GH-6-96 (1998).

104. Arthur De Vany, “Rebuttal Testimony of Arthur S. De Vany on Behalf of Coral Power,
L.L.C. and Sempra Energy Trading Corp.” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Docket
No. EL00-98-063. (2002).

105. Arthur De Vany, “Rebuttal Testimony of Arthur S. De Vany on Behalf of Sellers of Power
and Ancillary Service,” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Docket No. EL00-98-042.
(2002).

hmmm....

* - typo intentional

calsur · Post by **calsur** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 5:28 am

Right back at you. Did you check the source? Maybe the wed site you got the pix you posted here has an ax to grind? Sure looked like that is what it is to me from the photos posted at

http://www.plantexpansion.org/stacks.html

Even on the original post on this site there is a white line running up on the left side of the black cloud coming out of the center stack. Where the pixels do not match up.

And Professor Arthur De Vany is a professor of Economics. How does this match anything on the questions I posted to Black Rock Ric about particulates?

I am sorry that you got caught in the cross fire. I did not mean to "flame thrower" you.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 10:42 am

Those "tankers" are potential floating bombs,

Everything has a potential to be potentially ugly and dangerous if placed in the (in)proper context. Placing tankers in such a negative light to buttress your objection/contempt is a bit Chicken Little-ish especially when the record for said craft don't bear your objection(s) out.

Tancorix · Post by **Tancorix** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 11:08 am

Badger wrote:
Those "tankers" are potential floating bombs,
Everything has a potential to be potentially ugly and dangerous if placed in the (in)proper context. Placing tankers in such a negative light to buttress your objection/contempt is a bit Chicken Little-ish especially when the record for said craft don't bear your objection(s) out.

Cites & Influences behind the statement:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/scng/news/2001/ ... ankers.PDF
http://www.energy.ca.gov/reports/2003-0 ... 03-005.PDF
And a Boston.com article that started the whole thought process on LNG tankers: http://tinyurl.com/yujby

If you take a look at those links, the CNG tankers make a lot of people in particular the Coast Guard and harbormasters a little anxious each time one comes in. I'm no expert on CNG tankers and I know the media spins things. But if I find articles like this that say the CG and harbormasters are a bit anxious each time a CNG tanker pulls in, I have no reason not to believe them.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 11:08 am

calsur wrote:I am sorry that you got caught in the cross fire. I did not mean to "flame thrower" you.

accepted.

so...back to the topic of granite fox, i pose two questions to the group.

Q1) in addition to the black rock desert*, what other rare spots would be affected if this thing gets built? anyone have any experience in being able to predict/project this sort of information? i've seen some initial articles stating that the wasatch range might be affected. anyone have any other data points?

Q2) in addition to burners and locals, who else should know that this is going on? other desert use groups? other groups "downwind?" others?

* - i'm making a leap/assumption that the desert would be affected; have not researched this yet

about the power plant

Score one against the power mongers!

But Gen...

Re: But Gen...

Re: But Gen...

What, no coffee yet?

Somebody left there socks...

The surprising thing is the wide range of BM'er opinion

Plant output