News

Not so fast. The claim that Rock Port is fully wind-powered may be, at best, a bit exaggerated.

The mainstream press has picked up this report from the University of Missouri Extension office (reported by Science Daily) claiming that Rock Port, Missouri is the first 100% wind-powered city. On paper it looks all well and good, but when it comes down to the specifics, it simply isn’t true (emphasis mine):

Rock Port Missouri, with a population of just over 1,300 residents, has announced that it is the first 100% wind powered community in the United States. Four wind turbines supply all the electricity for the small town.

Rock Port’s 100% wind power status is due to four wind turbines located on agricultural lands within the city limits of Rock Port (Atchison County). The city of Rock Port uses approximately 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year. It is predicted that these four turbines will produce 16 million kilowatt hours each year.

While it may be the case that the wind turbines will, over the course of one year, generate as much power as the community will use in one year, it simply isn’t true that the town could go “off the grid” entirely.

Wind turbines generate power on an intermittent basis. When the wind is blowing, the turbines spin and spit out a nice stream of electricity. But on calm days (or wind speeds below a given threshold), the turbines generate little to no electricity. The power output generated by a wind turbine is far from constant, and as such, it simply cannot be utilized as the only source of power for a community. In the current Rock Port setup, when the wind turbines generate power in excess of what the town is utilizing at the time, the excess power is “sold” to the grid:

Excess wind generated electricity not used by Rock Port homes and businesses is expected to be move onto the transmission lines to be purchased by the Missouri Joint Municipal Utilities for use in other areas.

Alternatively, when the wind is calm, the town does not go dark. That connection to the grid is not one way. The 1,300 residents then depend on pulling power from the rest of the grid (power not generated by wind but rather from more traditional sources) to sustain a constant flow of electricity. As such, absent the use of multiple, gigantic, expensive batteries to store the excess electricity generated on windy days to tap when the wind is calm, it cannot be claimed the city is “100% wind powered” under the current scenario.

Furthermore, such development is simply not economically viable in its current state. While funding sources have not been entirely transparent, it has been reported that the wind farm that is powering Rock Port (built by Wind Capital Group) required $90 million dollars in start-up capital. Divided among the 1,300 residents of Rock Port, that would necessitate an up-front investment of nearly $70,000 per resident to say nothing of ongoing maintenance costs.

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For more on the original report:
University of Missouri Extension (2008, July 16). Rock Port, Missouri, First 100 Percent Wind-powered Community In U.S.. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 16, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/07/080715165441.htm

The claims against anthropogenic global warming skeptics are often the same: they’re all shills for big oil or other industry wishing to poke holes in the ‘consensus theory’ of global warming (which isn’t a consensus at all). Under the so-called “politicization of science” program, George Soros’ (the favorite fundraiser of many democrats) has reportedly given as much as $720,000 to Hansen to help package his alarmist claims and get them pushed by the mainstream media (The Soros Threat to Democracy):

How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely “NASA whistleblower” standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros’ Open Society Institute , which gave him “legal and media advice”?

That’s right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros’ flagship “philanthropy,” by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI’s “politicization of science” program.

So he got some big paychecks from Soros - but was there a quid pro quo? The evidence certainly indicates as much:

That may have meant that Hansen had media flacks help him get on the evening news to push his agenda and lawyers pressuring officials to let him spout his supposedly “censored” spiel for weeks in the name of advancing the global warming agenda.

Hansen even succeeded, with public pressure from his nightly news performances, in forcing NASA to change its media policies to his advantage. Had Hansen’s OSI-funding been known, the public might have viewed the whole production differently. The outcome could have been different.

Did Soros’ funding pay off? You be the judge. Do a quick google search on James Hansen to read any of the thousands of mainstream media stories touting Hansen’s claims of censorship by the Bush administration. This wouldn’t be the first time credibility questions have been raised regarding Hansen and his alarmist claims [see “When does 1,400 Media Interviews = Muzzled” (03/20/07)].

[Update 12:51pm CDT]  This document pulled from the George Soros website devoted to his “Open Society Institute” admit his affiliation with James Hansen and his media blitz (see page 15):

…The Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization and OSI grantee, came to Hansen’s defense by providing legal and media advice.

But the alarmist’s favorite poster-boy James Hansen is hardly the only benefactor of Soros’ funding designed to get more media play for politicized topics important to the left - check out the full article for more on the non-disclosure disclosures regarding immigration and other big topics of the day.

This morning’s total lunar eclipse was a spectacular one, as viewed from northeast Kansas. The reddish-copper hues were much more vibrant than during the partial eclipse of 03/03/07.

While I was not able to document the full range of the eclipse from start to finish (it lasted several hours), I was able to grab a few shots during totality. First, an image of the full moon as seen the evening before (08/27/07) around 8:45pm CDT (click image for a larger view):

The moon entered totality around 9:52 UTC (4:52 am local time). The first images I captured were around 10:35 (5:35am CDT) and the best images during totality were shot around 5:44am (click for a larger view):

5:46am:

By5:55am CDT even the western sky was just beginning to brighten as sunrise was looming at my back and the moon threatened to quickly be eclipsed by a neighbor’s roofline (click for a larger view):

By 6am, we were ready to pull the camera in and venture out for our morning 4-mile run. I opted to leave the ipod at home this time and enjoy the serenity of the morning with the eclipsed moon guiding us out as we ventured westward for the start of our run. It actually provided surprisingly little light and was fading fast as it approached the foggy, hazy horizon, quickly losing contrast in the brightening sky.

It was a beautiful sight as the first rays of twilight began to brighten the eastern sky. Sunlight quickly seeped past the Earth, once again finding the moon. The moon quickly began returning it to its familiar bright yellow shades as it emerged from beneath the Earth’s shroud. The top of the moon was first to brighten and the rest quickly followed. As the moon set, it began to look much more like its familiar self, although it did not fully emerge from the eclipse until after it had dropped beneath the horizon in our location (just before 7am).

As was the case with the last eclipse photo shoot, I’m still not satisfied with my ability to manually focus the 300mm IS USM to infinity in low light (auto focus is no good in darnkess). I have since upgraded to a much better tripod (Bogen/Manfrotto Wilderness 3221) which was used this morning, although I haven’t put the cable release to work yet and probably should have. As you can see by the full moon photo, the lens is perfectly capable of a much clearer shot of even an eclipsed moon, but my ability to work the lens into the proper range has been elusive. Fortunately I only need to wait a few months for my next chance.

The calendar is already marked: Total Lunar Eclipse of February 21, 2008. For much more information, including many graphics friendly to even casual observers, check out the NASA Eclipse Page.

Even more spectacular than next year’s lunar eclipse will be the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017. It will be perfectly visible from Northeast Kansas… just ten years from this month. Check out the detailed path and other information regarding the eclipse of 2017 on a great new resource: NASA’s Google Earth Eclipse Mapping Page.

See more images from this event in the Notes In The Margin Gallery (here’s a direct link to the Lunar Eclipse of 08/28/07). For still more images - and many much more spectacular than those shown above, check out the invaluable SpaceWeather.com galleries for the Eclipse of 08/28/07.

Astounding. Click each image for a larger file.

Read much more about the tornado via the Dodge City, KS National Weather Service Office full report that is posted here. It includes diagrams of all of the evening’s tornadoes and a brief summary:

Greensburg Tornado Rated EF-5 (updated May 22)

The First “5″ Rating on the new Enhanced-Fujita Scale
…and the first “5″ classification since May 3, 1999 when an F5 tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma.

This page is not complete…additional information will be available as time permits. Significant tornadoes tracked over the same areas on May 5th and distinguishing tracks from May 4th and May 5th has been difficult…along with the fact that extensive areal flooding has been occurring in the area of some of the tornado tracks. Below is an image from the Dodge City doppler radar velocity data showing the incredible rotational “tornado vortex signature” shortly before changing the town of Greensburg, Kansas forever (click image for more):

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How to help.

Technorati Tags: Greensburg, Tornado

A huge untapped market is now being realized with corporations targeted a new breed of consumer: the guilty global warming alarmist. As recently published by the NYTimes:

A largely unregulated carbon-cutting business has sprung up. In this market, consultants or companies estimate a person’s or company’s output of greenhouse gases. Then, these businesses sell “offsets,” which pay for projects elsewhere that void or sop up an equal amount of emissions — say, by planting trees or, as one new company proposes, fertilizing the ocean so algae can pull the gas out of the air. Recent counts by Business Week magazine and several environmental watchdog groups tally the trade in offsets at more than $100 million a year and growing blazingly fast.

Carbon offsets, while well intentioned, are a scam. But that isn’t stopping them from gaining traction. From standard household offsets, to airlines, to hotels, offsets are being marketed to consumers the world over. But the fact remains: They do not produce a net benefit to the environment, as is claimed by those selling such certificates. An entire industry has quickly sprung up and millions are being spent - and made - by those involved. This ranks right up there with paying a website to name a star for you - it’s a huge fraud.

Planting trees, reducing oil dependency, improving energy efficiency, and a host of other “green” ideas are great in and of themselves - few would disagree. But to do so in the name of offsetting carbon emissions is disingenuous, at best. It gives the perception that one can continue to produce carbon emissions guilt free, as they are undoing them elsewhere. This simply isn’t the case.

Furthermore, even if you buy into the premise that the offset is a legitimate way to neutralize one’s emissions, the math is, as some would say, is “fuzzy”. Unless they find ways to turn carbon dioxide from the atmosphere back into underground oil deposits, the offsets are far from neutralizing the liberated carbon. As CorporateWatch put it (emphasis mine):

‘Carbon neutral’ implies that an exact estimation of both carbon emitted and carbon locked up (or ’sequestered’), is possible and verifiable. It also implies that the carbon sequestered in trees is equivalent to the coal/gas carbon extracted from deep in the earth.

The first of these assumptions is highly contested ; and the second is just plain wrong. Claiming that carbon stored by trees is safely locked away, as it was under the earth, is simply not true. Carbon in trees is part of the active carbon pool, and moves freely between the forests, oceans and air, whereas fossil carbon is from a very inert underground carbon pool and once released cannot return to it for millennia.

They also offer yet another golden analogy:

Cambridge landscape historian Oliver Rackham described the idea of telling people to plant trees as carbon sinks as having all the practical effect of drinking more water to keep down rising sea levels .

This process of offsets gives wealthy individuals and corporations a veil of legitimacy in their continued use of fossil fuels and other carbon-emitting ways.

Even the New York Times, as mentioned previously, has gotten up to speed (Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?):

“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. “Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.”

“This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther,” Mr. Hayes added.

As details of the lack of regulation or transparency has received increasing media scrutiny, some carbon credits companies have shunned any examination of their methods by failing to participate in research, or even more boldly, lobbying against an examination of their methods (MSNBC: Carbon offset market raises questions) (emphasis mine):

When the environmental group Clean Air-Cool Planet commissioned a study on carbon offsets, communications manager Bill Burtis was surprised to find how few groups offered transparent details of their projects or had set up any process of independently verifying their environmental benefits.

“It was pretty startling,” he said.

Some offset retailers did not even return the study’s questionnaire, and one provider, which Burtis wouldn’t identify, actually lobbied against the release of the report.

Clean Air–Cool Planet hired an independent firm to do the study because it has ties to a carbon offset provider called NativeEnergy.

If the industry won’t police itself, it appears as though congress will (Probe carbon offsets, congressmen say):

The burgeoning carbon offset industry needs more oversight, say two members of Congress. In a letter to the Government Accountability Office, Republican Reps. Tom Davis of Virginia and Darrell Issa of California asked for an investigation into emission offset programs. About 60 different companies sell carbon offsets to U.S. consumers but operate under virtually no standards, the congressmen said. They cited reports alleging that some organizations get money for emissions that don’t exist and that others make large profits on cleanups that would have taken place anyway. Those who support offsets say they offer the reward of “carbon neutrality” without a reduced standard of living. To critics, offsets allow guilt-free pollution. Full Story

This carbon offset / carbon credits concept should quickly be lost on any student of science. You simply cannot undo the use of carbon once it is liberated. When engaged in marathon training, it’d be great if I could pay someone else to complete the long runs - those 20-milers are a killer - and yet still benefit from the endurance training toward my eventual goal of running the full 26.2!

Technorati Tags: Global Warming, Climate Change, Carbon Credits, Carbon Offsets, Carbon Neutral