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To the editor:
I want to express my disappointment that The Salem News would disseminate inaccurate information regarding the Salem Harbor power plant ("Dominion decision good news for Salem, region," Opinion, Monday, July 28).
You erred in saying the plant is one of the cleanest coal plants in the country. Check out the EPA Web site on Salem Harbor and your own article of April 17, 2006 which stated that the power plant in Salem is the second worst polluting power plant in the state and one of the "Filthy Five." That statement was — and still is — true.
Also, if you research it online on a national scale, you'll find that it ranks among the filthiest. It pollutes twice what a modern coal plant does and 10 times what a natural gas facility does.
August 14, 2008 Pollution killing 21,000 Canadians this year
Air pollution this year will kill more than 20,000 Canadians, the Canadian Medical Association said Wednesday in a report.
The research on the human costs of pollution and pollution-related diseases estimated that around 21,000 people in Canada will die from breathing in toxic substances drifting in the air this year.
By 2031, short term exposure to air pollution will claim close to 90,000 lives in Canada, while long-term exposure will kill more than 700,000, the report said.
"Ontario and Quebec residents are the worst hit Canadians, with 70 percent of the premature deaths occurring in Central Canada, even though these two provinces comprise only 62 percent of Canada's population," the report said.
Not all the blame for air pollution falls on Canada, however.
"Canada gets a fair bit of pollution from the American midwest, which drifts north, comes across through Ontario and continues right on through to Quebec," CMA legal advisor Ted Boadway told reporters at the report's presentation.
The national economy, air pollution will top eight billion dollars in 2008, and by 2031 it will go over 250 billion, the report said.
NOTE: This is the entire article.
With heating oil prices rising faster than smoke up the chimney, more residents are turning to wood as a primary source of heat for the winter ahead. While wood may be cheaper for homeowners, the cost in terms of air quality may be high.
No one yet knows the health consequences and the overall environmental toll if many people more people switch from oil and gas to wood. As of 2006, about 25 percent of New Hampshire households had a wood stove.
"It's too soon," said Kathy Brockett, education and outreach coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Services. "We don't know."
But Brockett did say New Hampshire is working with other states in the Northeast to zero in on pollution generated from burning wood. Of particular concern is the environmental impact from fireplaces and outdoor wood boilers, she said.
"With increasing energy prices, we are looking at the potential impact on air quality due to shifting use of fuels," she said. "We don't know what kind of a shift we may get."
T. Boone has re-invented himself as a green wildcatter. Can he finish what Al Gore started?
T. Boone Pickens can't read his lines. Squinting at his teleprompter, he is posing in front of a mile-long ribbon of wind turbines, churning against an endless Texas sky. Pickens is in Sweetwater, a town of 12,000 that bills itself as the nation's wind-energy capital, to shoot a commercial urging Americans to put themselves on a new energy diet: cutting out imported oil—which costs $700 billion a year—in favor of domestically produced sources such as wind and natural gas. "Our dependence on foreign oil means that we are buying from our enemies," he drawls into the camera, veering from the script. At this, the director walks onto the set, frowning his disapproval. "Don't want me to say 'enemies', huh?" Pickens deadpans as he drops his head in mock shame and scuffs his cowboy boot in the dirt. "How 'bout 'Some friends and a few a––holes?' That better?"
With that kind of blunt talk—and an estimated $3 billion fortune to back it up with action—Pickens, who last made headlines for funding the Swift Boat attack ads against John Kerry in 2004, has put himself back in the spotlight in time for the 2008 presidential election. It's an audacious act of rebranding: the flamboyant 80-year-old oilman and onetime corporate raider reborn as green wildcatter and the Web's first senior blog star. Since it was launched a month ago, www.pickensplan.com has cracked the top-1,000 list of most heavily trafficked sites worldwide, according to the Internet marketing firm Quantcast.
August 8, 2008 Green, with envy
Eco-friendly legislation challenges California's leadership, sets agenda for other states to follow
Anyone at the State House for the close of the recent legislative session likely noticed the lanky guy exclaiming: "First in the nation! First in the nation!"
The excitable man wasn't a triumphant lobbyist or an exuberant politician; rather he was Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles.
"I plead guilty. You've got to be enthusiastic about your job," Bowles said of his antics. He was celebrating the passage of five "green" bills, some in the final days and hours of the session. Bowles said the legislation puts Massachusetts at the forefront of energy and environmental policy in the United States, and perhaps even ahead of California, which is known for being environmentally progressive.
"I definitely think that this [legislative] package is so far reaching in breadth that there is no other state that has done as much," Bowles said. "In clean energy, the race is on and Massachusetts has just opened up a commanding lead."
The measures - the Green Communities Act, Oceans Act, Clean Energy Biofuels Act, Global Warming Solu tions Act, and Green Jobs Act - incorporate several "first-in-the-nation" policies, according to supporters. They include:
A gasoline tax exemption for cellulosic biofuel, a nonfood-based substitute for gas usually made out of plant scraps and agricultural waste.
A mandate to blend biodiesel, starting at 2 percent by volume in 2010, into home heating oil.
A "comprehensive" oceans-management plan aimed at spurring investment in and development of wind, wave, and tidal power generation, while also protecting state waters.
FORT IRWIN, California (Reuters) - The U.S. military has a history of fostering change, from racial integration to development of the Internet. Now, Pentagon officials say their green energy efforts will help America fight global warming.
By size alone, the Defence Department can make waves. It accounts for 1.5 percent of U.S. energy consumption.
The military has set a goal that 25 percent of its energy should come from renewable sources by 2025 and aims to create machines and methods to help Main Street America reach similar targets, said Alan Shaffer, a retired Air Force officer who leads the Pentagon's research and engineering arm.
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