GP: Clean versus dirty power plants

[AtomicRod@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/10/02 1:02:17 AM, johnd@beutilityfree.com writes:

>OF course hard to argue with a clean energy source vs. a dirty energy source.
>A dirty energy source causes visual polution also but not to the some extent
>a wind farm does because a wind farm is spread out over many miles where
>a
>coal fired plant or a nuke plant has a small foot print.

I disagree with the final statement. A coal fired power plant can have a huge 
footprint, especially when you include the supply lines. I commute to 
Washington, DC every day and drive south on Kenilworth Ave (which turns into 
I-295). That road is notoriously ugly, part of the reason is that it is 
paralleled by rail lines whose major purpose is to carry coal to the Benning 
Road power station on the Annacostia River. I can generally tell what the 
weather forecast is by the number of coal cars stacked up along the road. If 
there is a cold front or a heat wave in progress, the line of cars can 
stretch as long as 4 miles from the power plant.

In my old home town of Tampa Florida, the Big Bend station is adjacent to its 
ash pile. If I recall the numbers correctly, the pile covered more than a 
square mile of land to a depth of 30 feet as of my last visit in 1997. The 
active coal pile is also rather enormous.

In contrast, nuclear power plants truly have a small footprint. In fact, the 
one I used to operate was completely invisible to anyone other than the 150 
crew members for much of the year. Even land based plants are very small, 
especially if they are on a large body of water and do not need those huge 
mushroom cloud shaped cooling towers required by all thermal power plants 
that do not have a readily available heat sink.

Rod Adams

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