EPA Science Advisor Minimizes Air Pollution Risks

a reply to: tinner07

I know people who live right next to the power plants here and they didn't complain. My daughter lived four blocks from it and she did not notice anything, no smell comes from those plants with their present environmental policies they have now. We are having more complaints about the new recipro engines sending sound through the rock and causing the houses to have all sorts of noises here, it is bothering people about a half mile away on a bluff and the noise is loud, there is no disputing being done by the power company who went and listened themselves. They are trying to correct the problem but are kind of thinking reducing it enough might not be possible.

a reply to: Phage

The US EPA had a political agenda to tar particulates from truck emissions as "unhealthy" and to raise taxes.

Along came a respected scientist, James Enstrom, who upset the apple cart

www.jpands.org...

Scientific Distortions in Fine Particulate
Matter Epidemiology

A U.S. House of Representatives bill called the Secret Science Reform Act was passed in 2014 and 2015 in order “to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, and disseminating regulations or assessments based upon science that is not transparent or reproducible.” The bill was revived in 2017 as the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment (HONEST) Act, labeled H.R. 1430, and was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. American science needs to guard against the heirs of Sinclair Lewis’s protagonist in his 1927 novel Elmer Gantry, an itinerant preacher who is able to sell false religion to gullible people. We have prominent scientists who have successfully sold the notion that inhaling 1 g of invisible particles over an 80-year lifetime can cause premature death.

There is strong evidence from two large national cohorts that PM2.5 does not cause premature deaths in the US. There is strong evidence that this relationship has been falsified by EPA, the Health Effects Institute, and leading researchers for more than 20 years. Better oversight to assure scientific integrity, such as access to data, transparency, and consideration of opposing views, is imperative.

What happened to James Enstrom is well documented.

www.scientificintegrityinstitute.org...

James Enstrom V Powerful Environment Activists

www.jpands.org...

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: rickymouse

Whatever they were suggesting to do it must have cost more than the eighty million bucks or so they paid for those engines and the building. We get bits and pieces of the information from the news here, mandatory changes that cause big expenditures. The cost of those new recipro engines with their life expectancy will mean our electric bills will stay way higher for the future. Thanks Obama, our electric bills were already way too high. 

I have personally worked in two coal fired power plants this year.

It is extremely expensive to operate. The Prairie State energy plant is one of the cleanest coal plants in the world. But it comes at a huge cost. On the flip side it also creates a lot of jobs for engineers, coal miners, and constructions workers. Thousands of jobs.

The other plant I worked on is like a dinosaur. It was built in the 60's and it was upgraded in around 2012 with a scrubber system. That system cost the plant $400,000,000. It is now known and recognized for being one of the cleanest for certain particulates that doesnt get released into the air.

I have to say that it has been an awesome experience working in and around these plants. I believe that we do need to move away from coal but at a pace that doesn't cost to many job losses and local economy crashes all at once.

Also in order to stay profitable, these plants must stay operational 24/7. They go to great lengths to keep them running. When there is a shut down 1,000's of workers benefit from the overtime and hours worked to keep them in optimal running condition.

originally posted by: liejunkie01
a reply to: rickymouse

Whatever they were suggesting to do it must have cost more than the eighty million bucks or so they paid for those engines and the building. We get bits and pieces of the information from the news here, mandatory changes that cause big expenditures. The cost of those new recipro engines with their life expectancy will mean our electric bills will stay way higher for the future. Thanks Obama, our electric bills were already way too high. 

I have personally worked in two coal fired power plants this year.

It is extremely expensive to operate. The Prairie State energy plant is one of the cleanest coal plants in the world. But it comes at a huge cost. On the flip side it also creates a lot of jobs for engineers, coal miners, and constructions workers. Thousands of jobs.

The other plant I worked on is like a dinosaur. It was built in the 60's and it was upgraded in around 2012 with a scrubber system. That system cost the plant $400,000,000. It is now known and recognized for being one of the cleanest for certain particulates that doesnt get released into the air.

I have to say that it has been an awesome experience working in and around these plants. I believe that we do need to move away from coal but at a pace that doesn't cost to many job losses and local economy crashes all at once.

Also in order to stay profitable, these plants must stay operational 24/7. They go to great lengths to keep them running. When there is a shut down 1,000's of workers benefit from the overtime and hours worked to keep them in optimal running condition.

Our coal plants underwent some required environmental upgrades around 2012 but can not afford to meet the upcoming standards that Obama signed into law. No matter what fuel is burned, carbon dioxide is given off, the new very expensive technology, like the ones you mentioned, are not feasable up here. That scrubber actually removes much of the carbon from the smoke if that is what I am thinking it is. The emissions are way less than the gas recipro engines which put out less power with that expensive technology. The thing is that I bet the majority of the cost of that technology used is profits by the owners of the companies making it. China could probably make it and sell it for a quarter of the cost.

In the Green industries, there is a lot of overcharging going on. Many people are putting a hundred grand into their homes to make them green, Eco=friendly means economy friendly. The creation of those new green products probably polutes more over their lifespan than they save ecologically. It is a scam to boost the economy.

Our electric bills got higher because now they have a fund that some of the power companies profits have to go to so people can get expensive versions of LED lights that are approved to be given out by the power companies. These bulbs are four times as expensive as the light bulbs that menards sells, and are no better. I searched and found that the approved companies are few and those companies donate quite a bit to campaigns on both sides. Gee, go figure.

Then some money goes into a fund to help people who are behind on their electric bills, money our social services used to supply for paying those bills on low income people. So where is the money going that the social services used to spend on helping these people, sounds like this is just another hidden tax being charged on our electricity.

I am all for slowing down on polution, the US is presently a lot better than many EU countries on properly getting rid of our wastes except for way too much pesticides and herbicides along with nitrogens are being used. A lot of that nitrogen is coming from gasahol production, so is a lot of the pesticide and herbicide poisoning. So if you evaluate everything about gasahol, it is a stupid move, it is way more eco-unfriendly than burning gas in the car.

The thing is that the whole corn gas was created to make some big farmers who had connections to politicians richer. The funny thing is many of these people actually died from diseases that can be attributed to pesticide and herbicide overuse. So they had to sell out to big corporations who's leaders live far from where the poison is.

Factories spew out way more particulates than the power plants that have met the standards since around 2012