Smokestacks at Smith Rocks

[jon]

quote:

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Originally posted by RStewbone:

I live here and I'm upset by the comments on this thread. 11 million gallons of water a day when Bend has already shut down most of its canals and will limit growth in five years due to a lack of water? You Washington mold growers don't freaking get it. I get 9 inches of rain annually at my house 6 miles from Sisters and right now annually we have 50 % of average precip and this drouhgt is 2 years old already. Every tiny drop over here is bickered over as it bubbles out of the ground and offers hope to a parched land. Do you all own stock in power companys and sit and pat your fat guts as your administration destroys your world. I hope you owned Enron stock. Stay in Washington and build your powerplant at that shithole called Frenchman Coulee. Thankyou

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So where is your power produced? Do you even know? Do you even care? As long as it's not in your backyard right? Bend is the fastest growing city in Oregon, which means that they are going to need more electricy, more water, sewer treatment facilities, etc. Where is this going to come from? Hopefully I'm not the first to realize this.

[Paul_detrick]

Thank you Jon that was the point I was trying to make, no one wants trees cut, water damed, but they want a house and have lights too. It has to come from somewhere.

[Country_Jake]

Hey maybe we can put some holds all over the smoke stacks and climb on them..... Ha Ha Ha

[chucK]

We should take all these things that nobody wants in theirbackyard and consolidate. Find the place that's not in the backyard of too many people (that matter; i.e. people of power) and then just go nuts. First log the shit out of it. Total clearcut annihilation, then on the cleared land have your big ugly open pit mine. Then when that's tapped out, make it a dump (regular or toxic waste), and put a power plant there with a little supporting community where all released sex offenders can live. Why spread it all out?

[Walter_Burt]

Jon makes some excellent points about the NIMBY syndrome and some of the real issues. I'm a little tired of watching the debate on matters like this being co-opted by extremes. The losers generally are the public and the credibility of all. The winners are attorneys and out-of-town interests. We all use power; we should take responsibility for what we use and pay for the impacts from the use. The decision whether or not to fight the plant should be based on the actual need for the plant relative to the external costs to be borne by the public (air quality, water quality, visual aesthetics, water availability...). You can trust Cogentrix to track internal costs very closely. If it isn't "economic," they won't build it. The fact that they are sinking a lot of money in the permitting at this point suggests that it is economic at current prices, or perhaps they have a crystal ball. By the way, don't confuse the term "economic" with "needed," especially when looked at on a local or even regional scale. A valid question is "what benefit does this plant bring to the immediate area and the region?" Is it needed for base or peak power demands in Central Oregon, or is the power going to California, Seattle, Portland, points east...? The folks in Central Oregon are going to be paying the bulk of the external costs, so they do have a right to ask for and receive a straight answer, and fight the project for that matter.

That said, and assuming that there is a need/demand in the area, are you willing to make sacrifices in your lifestyle to stop the project? This question, of course, assumes that the power market is supply/demand-based (preferably local or regional demand), and hasn't been "cooked" by an Enron. Are you willing to put up with fewer power-sucking gadgets at home? A smaller stereo? No AC in the summer? Compact flourescent bulbs? Fewer Xmas lights in the winter...? I'm on the side of conservation myself inspite of Mr. Cheney's statement last year after convening with Ken Lay to establish energy policy that conservation is ineffective. But that's my bias.

The power track record in the Pacific NW has been to build power generation facilities, lure industry and encourage use based on cheap power availability, then build another facility to keep ahead of the demand. The old "build it and they will come." However, the Pacific NW has gone from an energy-rich region with cheap power for all to energy parity, and we are just starting to factor some of the tradeoffs into the equation like fish, water quality, etc. With the interdependence of the power grid and the energy "trading" from deregulation, it's a little difficult to ascertain true need.

Stepping down a little from my soap box ... I think that the strongest argument against the proposed plant from an impact standpoint is water availability. The Deschutes Basin is closed to most appropriation, particularly groundwater. Deep groundwater resources in volcanic terranes are limited by definition. They might be able to find a 5,500 gpm groundwater resource that is sustainable for the design life of the plant. However, the full impact of that kind of withdrawal may not be known for quite a while and it likely will not be appreciably recharged in our lifetime; in other words, they'll be "mining" the resource. If the aquifer shows significant recharge, it will be because it's in direct connection with surface water, which means they'll be impacting flow in the Crooked River (which already has serious water quality problems). The bottom line is that 5,500 gpm is a lot of water, especially on a constant use basis. It's enough for a community of 40,000 or more. Let's assume the water is available (I'm dubious). Appropriation of 5,500 gpm for plant use either through new water rights or purchase of existing rights will make 5,500 gpm unavailable for other future uses whether they be agriculture, municipal (Redmond, Bend, Madras...), recreational (state park, new resort...), etc. That's another choice to put in the equation.

By the way, when power costs headed up a couple of years ago, an "X" was marked on the map at every location in the western U.S. where a gas pipeline is remotely near a high voltage transmission line. Every "X" became an immediate candidate for power plant development, irrespective of local demand/needs. A number of the projects recently have been cancelled because of economics, or because Enron was involved. Some of them haven't, including Cogentrix and a site in Longview, WA, among others. You can count on the power companies to come back to these sites if power costs head up again. Water availability tends to be the principal fatal flaw to development of these facilities. If you are going to fight the Cogentrix plant or any other power plant, do it based on the facts including a weighing of the costs and needs, and be prepared to put your money where your mouth is.

[Winter]

Walter -

Interesting post, and I agree with a lot of it, especially the water rights issue. But I think you need to be real careful assuming that the state agencies enforcing the env. laws will ensure that Cogentrix will have to internalize costs that would otherwise be externalized. In fact, state agencies often bow to the political powers of companies with lots of cash and either bend or don't enforce the rules that are designed specifically to force internalization.

That is why NIMBYism isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. You need the local folks with the knowledge of their local resources forcing the state and local agencies to enforce the laws in the right way. If that happens across the board, you should theoretically end up with the plant in the most "efficient" location. If people simply discredit local folks because they are trying to protect local resources, you end up with no effective watchdog of the state agencies on a project-by-project basis, and you generally end up with poor enforcement of our env. laws.

[crazyjizzy]

I am neither for nor against this power plant, I do other stuff for a living now, but I am still interested in the "power" of power wheeling.

1) This plant will be a co-generation facility. What this means, is that excess thermal energy developed during the course of buisness will be turned into electricity. Cogens in the NW are typically located in refineries( Texaco, and BP both installed gas turbines in the early ninties), stokerboilers in garbage burners (dead, dead, dead), hog fuel stokerboilers at sawmills and pulpmills(all over the place, including Kimberly Clark in Everett), gas turbines waste heat boilers at lumber kilns (Sumas Energy 1), and gas turbine boilers at large food processors. (Umatilla).

By law (1974), the local grid is required to purchase this power at a very favorable rate. This was not meant to give rise to Enron type monsters, but was meant to fill a electrical power void felt in California from 1974 to 1986. This worked well, until 1999.

2) Although most everyone is rather intellegent, the power buisness has always acted like sheep. In large part, the reason the west has had an excess of electricity until recently was the fact that everyone over-reacted to Californias power short fall in the late seventies. This was the era of WOOPS, cogens out the ass, and coal burners all over Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, etc. Washington didn't need nukes, we wanted to sell the power to CA.

3) First generation cogens, which relied on waste wood from sawing and pulping, are closing all over the west. Several of these are located in the Bend, Redmond, Prinville areas. This netloss should be balanced out.

4) The choice is a lot of little plants or a few BIG ONES.

5) We all use power, unless you have a bicycle power computer.

6) This plant which we are talking, is clearly a co-gen. Wether it is slated to be sighted at a preexisting industial facility, or a new one I don't know.

7) The water fight is a strong one, although it is easy for these plants to buy water rights from a failing sawmill (for example).

8) Alot of the anti propaganda is pure BS. "Next to " Smith Rocks? 1,500' plume? Bullshit!!!

9) I don't care either way, but people should know more of the facts of the power industry. It is not all BIG PLANTS. I have worked on these gas turbine plants that abutted residential areas, and farms with no problems.

[offwidthclimber]

dude, all i got to ask is that during last winter's "horrendous power crisis" in california, what were the chances that if you drove 30 miles around in any mjor metropolitan area that you would see at least 20 car dealerships with many bright lights shinning, or mall parking lots lit up like the 4th of july. what about thousands of water fountains wasting electricity. or how about hundreds or thousands of green, grassy lawns using electrically driven irrigation systems, as well as precious water. my guess is that you'd have seen a ton of this shit, non of which is environmentally friendly, nor favorable to southwest environments, especially in drought situations.

anyway, yes, the US should not use nimby campaigns to push pollution into other countries, but seriously, much of the middle east uses desalinization technology - why can't we use this same technology on the west coast of the US? sure, it costs some money, but probably not as much as it would the government to support water pipelines and irrigation ditches over the years.

and yes, nut up you people and limit your water consumption if you're part of the problem.

peace.

[crazyjizzy]

Offwidth:

The MAIN problem with desalinization, is that it takes ALOT of POWER!

[offwidthclimber]

quote:

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Originally posted by crazyjz:

Offwidth:The MAIN problem with desalinization, is that it takes ALOT of POWER!

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shitty. yeah, now that i think about it, i remember mass quantities of energy being a major component of desalinization.

it still pisses me off that conservation sucks in places like LA, vegas and phoenix when their consumption is clearly the problem. like i said, when a good ol' "energy crisis" comes around, people should not be allowed to light car dealerships and parking lots all night and run their fountains. there should also be zeroscaping ordinances and laws. hell, if it wasn't for mullholland, LA would have never had the water to viably pass what, 50,000 people?

[Walter_Burt]

Winter,

Good points about the value of local activism (the positive spin on NIMBYism!) and the externalization of costs by Cogentrix. I think that it is clear from history that most businesses will externalize as much of their costs as possible, including by browbeating the regulators and public through political influence, threats of economic disaster, etc. We wouldn't have half the environmental problems we have now if this weren't true. The disconnect and distance between communities where facilities are located and the business decision-makers do nothing but exacerbate the situation.

As far as local activism goes: the important questions about costs and benefits (and I'm not talking about just $) often wouldn't be answered without the community getting involved. I think there is an important distinction to be made between NIMBYism and community activism: NIMBYism implies (at least to me) opposition without necessarily enquiring about or considering the costs and benefits, whereas activism means asking the tough questions and forcing a straight dialogue, based on facts. Here is where the common sense test comes in - if the community doesn't get straight answers, or if the project doesn't make sense based on the facts and preferences of the community, then the community has every right to tell them to take a hike. Unfortunately, in my experience many of the folks who are first to take the NIMBY stance are the folks with the most money and are conspicuous consumers of resources; however, they are the first to foist the im pacts of their consumption off on the people less able to fight. I'm not implying that this is true of all people with money, but there does seem to be a correlation.

I'd like to see everyone along the Hwy 97 strip from Madras to Sun River cut their lighting by a third and then tell the plant to go to hell. I don't think there is enough water for a plant of that size. But, I don't think all of the questions about need, etc. have been answered yet either.

[erik]

quote:

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Originally posted by offwidthclimber:

for anyone interested a good read on the matter is "a river lost - the life and death of the columbia" by blaine harden.

peace.

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a book that counters your book is "the organic machine" by i think richard levy(?) he is a uw guy, so i bet he got some local perspective.......

[offwidthclimber]

quote:

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Originally posted by erik:

a book that counters your book is "the organic machine" by i think richard levy(?) he is a uw guy, so i bet he got some local perspective.......

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thanks for the book title. sounds like a good one to look into.

i think harden had a pretty good perspective on the matter as well. he lived in moses lake until 22 years of age, and his father helped build grand coulee dam. as part of harden's various research, he rode a barge down the snake/columbia from lewiston, idaho. now that would be pretty interesting.

peace.