Mercury: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part 4

Mercury: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part 4

To avoid paying for expensive pollution controls, Portland General Electric (PGE) is planning to close the Boardman coal-burning power plant by the year 2020, about twenty years earlier than original plans.

Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recommends that PGE look for more options. The early closure is still on the table, but DEQ thinks there needs to be more discussion, more options, more alternatives.

Ten more years of pollution seems too long.

The Boardman coal-burning power plant is Oregon's largest single source of pollution and acid rain. New federal regulations force Oregon to take a hard stand, confronting PGE about longstanding pollution. Nitrogen oxide emissions must be reduced by 84% and sulfur dioxide by 80%. The cost? About $470,000,000. Rather than upgrade, PGE is planning to close the plant.

The Boardman plant emits 5,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide, 15,000 tons of sulfur/nitrogen dioxide, and 200 pounds of mercury every year.

I'm not comfortable criticizing PGE. I have friends who work there. It's been a supporter of Morrow county and nearby Boardman. But the cost of pollution is too great.

Reference Links:

http://www.oregon.gov/DEQ/

http://www.naturaloregon.org/2010/05/18/deq-lets-take-another-look-at-an-early-shut-down-of-boardman

http://www.naturaloregon.org/2010/05/05/standing-room-only-for-deq-meeting-on-boardman-coal-plant

http://www.naturaloregon.org/2010/05/04/clean-up-or-shut-down-new-pressure-on-the-boardman-coal-plant

http://www.naturaloregon.org/2010/01/17/more-views-on-pges-early-shut-down-of-boardman

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Comments

  1. Milt ReynoldsMay 31, 2010 at 5:29 PM

    Asleep at the switch!

    Alert readers tactfully informed me that my posted photo was NOT that of the Boardman power plant.

    I regret the mistake. Thanks to my readers for setting me right. I've changed the photo to a more generic one. I found several photos of the boardman plant, but I try to use photos that I'm sure are royalty-free.

    Some comments suggested that extreme environmentalism will squash nuclear and wind
    generation of power.

    I'm not sure nuclear is off the table. 18 facilities have applied to the NRC for license, selected specific localities and generation limits. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/reactorcom.html)

    NuScale Power in Corvalis, Oregon is developing small, modular nuclear power generators that promise affordable, safe power. (http://www.nuscalepower.com/index.php)

    Let's consider taking the money saved by early shut down of the Boardman coal-fired power plant and invest in NuScale.

    Readers also report that PGE is investing in their workforce, providing training and support for education as they plan for an early shut down of the plant. That's good!

    Thank you, readers, for supportive, constructive comments!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Connect Trailer Wiring: 2003 Chevy S-10 Pickup

Image
How to Connect Trailer Wiring: 2003 Chevy S-10 Pickup The Plan: Borrow a tent-trailer and go camping The Problem: No hitch and no electrical connection on my pickup The Process: Install a hitch and an electrical connection compatible with the trailer Step One - the easy part: install a hitch. The 2003 Chevy S-10 bumper is completely adequate for hauling a tent-trailer, at least the one I borrowed from a friend. The bumper is labeled with two weight limits: 3500 LBS TRAILER LOAD MAXIMUM 350 LBS TONGUE LOAD MAXIMUM The single-axle Coleman tent-trailer does not exceed these limits. The trailer required a two-inch diameter ball hitch. My bumper was pre-drilled with a half-inch hole. I purchased a ball hitch rated at 3500 pounds, with a half-inch threaded stem. It fit perfectly in the bumper. Step Two - the harder part: install wiring harness. The Chevy S-10 pickup uses a snap connector to join the rear lights wiring with the electrical system. This location is
Read more

Apple Seeds and Cyanide

Image
Apple Seeds and Cyanide I offhandedly posted a comment that I eat apples...cores, seeds, and all . I chew on the stem until it tastes and feels like a used toothpick, and then I spit it out. Several responses to my post have given me cause to examine closely my preferred method of eating apples. I'd heard that apple seeds contain a small amount of cyanide , but I'd also heard that it's harmless unless one were to eat an immoderate amount of apples, much more than a person could stomach in one sitting. But I didn't really have any research to support either position: Are apple seeds poisonous or healthy? . So I went searching. One hour's worth of time spent searching the internet has given some interesting, semi-scientific, good-enough-for-me evidence that eating an apple's worth of seeds a day, or even three or four apple's worth, is not harmful . At worst, it may introduce a tiny amount of cyanide into my body, at a level which my body can eas
Read more

Google Chrome Browser: Remember Window Size & Position

Image
Google Chrome Browser: Remember Window Size & Position Google Chrome would not remember the window size and position , running under Windows 7. Searching the internet offered many solutions, some weird, some confusing, none effective. Not even Google's own help site offered a solution. It must be me. I cannot believe that Google would be so unhelpful. Taking a portion of one user's advice, and adding a bit extra from another user's suggestion, brought relief. Now I can resize my browser window and place it anywhere on the desktop, close the browser, restart, and it reappears where I last had it, correctly sized. Here's what I did: 1. My version of Chrome: 22.0.1229.79 m 2. Click on the settings icon ( a button with three, short horizontal bars, or perhaps yours is an image of a wrench. 3. Click on About Google Chrome (this is where you can also find what version of Chrome you're running) 4. Chrome will quickly check to see if your version i
Read more