Speaking in favor of nuclear at DEQ clean power plan listening session
Yesterday evening, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) hosted one of several clean power plan listening sessions in Roanoke. I attended the meeting.
It was a true listening session; the DEQ representatives did very little talking and a lot of note taking. Each person who signed up to make a comment was given five minutes to speak. One of the three DEQ representatives kept the time and gave a one minute warning when the end of the time was approaching. He was fairly lenient and allowed people to complete a train of thought, but no one tried to push the limits very far.
Approximately 20-30 people attended and perhaps 15-20 people provided a comment.
Nearly everyone in attendance spoke in opposition to the idea of replacing coal with methane (natural gas) because they had determined that it was not much of an improvement from a greenhouse gas emission perspective and because the Roanoke area is on the path of a large proposed natural gas pipeline that is generating substantial local opposition. Two of the speakers, a mother and her teenage son, own, live and work on a farm that is directly in the proposed path of the pipeline.
They have been doing their homework and understand the disruption that construction will entail and the reduction in soil productivity that is the inevitable result of digging a deep trench, burying a pipeline and then refilling the trench. They are also familiar with the environmental impacts of compressor stations and with the documented record of occasional pipeline catastrophic explosions.
Another theme running through the commentary regarding the pipeline projects cutting through the mountains and valleys of Western Virginia is the fact that people along the path of a pipeline experience all of the costs associated with hosting the disruption and the hazards yet get few of the benefits of either producing or consuming the gas. They are just the transit path.
Several of the people who spoke were in the solar installation business and advocated for such rules as net metering (buying and selling panel output at retail prices), renewable portfolio standards (a quota system that would require utilities to invest to meet certain fixed requirements) and carbon credit trading schemes. After the meeting, I overhead one of the solar experts mention that Virginia, on average throughout the year, gets 4.5 sunny hours per day. It’s not the most productive solar area in the country.
There were several people who spoke in favor of getting an increasing share of Virginia’s electricity from “renewable energy sources like wind and solar.” I suspect many of them were a bit stunned by the heart felt comments of a man who grew up in Tehachapi, California. He spoke rather late in the program, after hearing many people express their support for wind and solar. He told us that he was not sure when he arrived whether or not he would speak, but decided that he needed to share his experiences.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons
He was in school in the 1970s when the wind turbines first started being installed. At first, he and his family were supportive of the effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, but as more and more turbines were installed, they began getting more and more concerned about what was happening to their local environment. They experienced sleep disruptions from the audible noise and the below audio vibrations. Their view shed was virtually destroyed; though wind turbines might look pretty from a highway while driving through, they are not so attractive to those who live close by and have to see them in all kinds of weather and states of repair/disrepair.
The man from Tehachapi then shared his current story with regard to an effort to halt a proposed industrial wind development (he refused to label the project as a “wind farm” because he said there was nothing agricultural about it) in Botetourt County, a rural, mountainous county north of Roanoke. He advised the audience and the DEQ to be careful about the promised offered by the wind developers and asked the DEQ to set a strong standard based on some example regulations for setbacks and noise levels from European nations instead of leaving it to local planning boards. He was concerned that the planning boards don’t have the resources to keep up with the science and might be too easily influenced by high pressured sales pitches from developers.
During the meeting, I spoke for five minutes about my experiences as a clean energy professional serving as an engineering officer on nuclear powered submarines. I shared my admiration for the compact nature of the fuel source and got some gasps from the audience as they understood the tiny quantity of byproducts after 14 years of powering a large submarine and providing heat, air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting, entertainment, food preparation, fresh water and even fresh air. I told them about my current efforts to share that information as widely as possible.
I also reminded the DEQ and the audience that Dominion has been pursuing permission to build a new 1400 MWe nuclear power plant at North Anna and that final permission should be given sometime in 2016. I described the 2,000-3,000 jobs associated with plant construction and the 400 – 600 permanent jobs during operation. I also helped them understand that the plant, when completed, should be able to run at full power for 90-95% of the hours each year. I asked them to express their support for the project and to help it reach completion. There were a number of smiles and nodding heads in the audience.
After the meeting, several people asked about Atomic Insights and said they wanted to learn more. The nice lady from the farm invited me to attend an arts and music festival on Saturday Sep 26 in Roanoke to flatline the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Sounds like fun.
Interesting. I don’t suppose there are transcripts of the listening session? I’m particularly interested to hear more from that man who grew up in Tehachapi, California.
Any questions you may have, as a resident of Tehachapi, I would be glad to attempt to honestly answer. If you want , I can arrange for a wind farm employee to answer your questions. He works in the field, not in management. I think he has the integrity to answer questions honestly. He has worked wind farms for years. Also, another friend is a technician, employed by GE. I’m reasonably sure he would be willing to participate. But I would request that they be treated courteously and with respect. In fact, I would ask that I get Rod’s word to that respect.
Absent that, ask me any question, and if I don’t have the answer, I will attempt to find it. Realize, of course, that technical or scientific questions are above my own abilities to answer. But as far as social impact, and community sentiments, I feel I am pretty much up to speed.
Also, Ike, I will take some pictures in the next coupla days, and email them to Rod. If he likes, he can go ahead and forward them, or post them. I hope if Rod is interested in doing neither of those options, he says as much, so I don’t waste my time. Let me know, Ike and Rod, if you are interested in engaging with these wind farm employees, and I will do my best to set it up.
@poa
I’m interested in both photos and discussions with wind farm employees. I will give my word about treating them with respect.
By the way, the guy who was the best man in my wedding and is still one of my best friends worked with GE’s wind energy group for a number of years designing and building control systems. It’s not the wind or the technology I oppose, it is the way it is being marketed and paid for.
Ok…Rod….seems I’m able to access again.
I will speak to the wind farm guys, and see if they can join in. Give me a day or two. I’ll shootbya some pics via email as well, soon as I can put it together.
@Ike Bottema
We were told that the session was being recorded. I plan to contact the DEQ to find out how to obtain a copy. Normally, I make my own recordings, but the sound conditions were not conducive to recording from the audience.
Rod…..
Your photograph of the Tehachapi windfarm is extremely dated. That array has long since been dismantled, and replaced by larger turbines and towers with a far greater separation distance.
And I suspect that ex Tehachapi resident, if bothered by noise, did not live in Tehachapi at all. More likely, he lived in the very sparcely populated areas of Oak Creek, or out towards Willow Springs. You cannot hear the turbines if you live in Tehachapi itself.
There is an ex senator, Phil Wyman, that owns extensive land south of Tehachapi. This land is comprised of mountains the overlook Tehachapi. Pine covered, not chapparel. Wyman wanted to rent the land to the wind companies, and the community blocked it. The hills to the east, that do have towers, are more chapparel and grazing land. Out towards Willow Springs the wind farms share land with an extensive herd of wild horses. The hills to the east of Tehachapi recede through Willow Springs into the Mojave desert, where the wind farm facilities are increasing exponentially. They also extend into an area north of Highway 58 known as “Sky Rivers”. This is an area where it can be argued that the wind farms are truly intruding on pristine natural environment. In an unpopulated locale, and not on the beaten path, these “Sky River” wind facilities are expanding unseen by the public eye. Huge deer are taken in that area, not sure if they’re Blacktails or Mule deer. Also, some record sized black bear come out of that area. BLM land or private? Really don’t know. I’d like to drive back there some time, but gates in are kept locked
POA, as a local, how well do you think windy periods align with high power demand in your area?
Thats a question that I haven’t really done enough observation to answer with any expertise. Honestly, I’m not really sure how much power the town of Tehachapi recieves from our local wind farms. Just because we can see them doesn’t necessarily mean they’re turning our lights on. Hopefully, in the next coupla days, if I can get some wind farm employees to comment, they can better answer questions such as that.
Yesterday we had pretty brisk breezes, and the temps were in the high eighties. Not unusual for this time of year. Tehachapi is high, about 4800 ft, and is between the Mojave desert and the San Joaquin Valley. Because of its geographical position, it is breezy to windy fairly consistently.
Yesterday I took a short detour so I could shoot a coupla pictures of what the wind farms look like from the east end of the Tehachapi Valley. A couple of things came to mind in doing so. First, the most westward turbines are a good three miles from any neighborhoods. The guy that Rod mentioned, if he was truly bothered by blade noise, could not have lived in Tehachapi proper. He would had to have lived on one of about five rural homes on Cameron Canyon or Willow Springs Road. Also, I noticed that the more modern turbines, the huge ones, were almost all turning. Although I did notice an occassional one with its blades feathered, not turning. But the older arrays on the ridges, for whatever reason, had large numbers that were not active. These are smaller turbines, on girder style towers, that are very densely packed together. They are seemingly being fazed out as more and more of the huge modern turbines replace them. I was also struck by the fact that in the act of taking pictures, I had to admit to myself that these wind farms are a bit uglier than I had previously noted. Particularly on the ridge lines, where the older tightly packed arrays have not been replaced by the modern towers and turbines.
I’ve noticed too, that the modern turbines require just a very light breeze to rotate. They are truly huge, one single blade requiring a lowboy style semi trailer, extended, with pilot cars, in order to transport it.
I’ll email the few pics I took to Rod. He can do as he wishes with them. And I should be seeing a couple guys that work for the wind facilities tonight. I’ll see if I can’t get them to offer comments.
I recently made the drive from Eastern Washington down through Portland and to the Oregon coast for a little family vacation. This wasn’t my first time, but for some reason seeing those incredibly ugly wind turbines polluting the beautiful scenery that was created millions of years ago by the great floods seemed to be even more hideous this time. I can only assume the cause of this was the fact not one….NOT ONE of the hundreds of turbines I passed had moving blades. Four days later on the return trip I counted 15 wind turbines (all on the Washington side of the Columbia River) with blades in motion.
Its depressing……not that the turbines were not moving, that they are there in the first place.
You spoke about “the tiny quantity of byproducts after 14 years of powering a large submarine”. Can you elaborate? How tiny?
@Keith Pickering
The reactor core could fit under my office desk.