# Researchers map out an alternative energy future for New York



## sesmith (Mar 16, 2013)

Interesting study.  Another reason not to frac. 

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/03/researchers-map-out-alternative-energy-future-new-york


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## Augie (Mar 16, 2013)

Study has some serious holes, first to jump out at me was the 3.2 billion climate change costs—such as coastal erosion and extreme weather damage that will be saved, this assumes that there are no factors outside NY that affect the climate inside NY. Same with Air Quality. Prevailing winds are westerlies, until Detroit, Ohio, Indiana and western Pennsylvania clean up there act the 4000 deaths saves and $33 billion are both pipe dreams, oh you will get a fraction of that but not much..... Overly Optimistic study by those wearing rose colored glasses is Overly Optimistic.

These should be pursued not solely,  but in tandem with extracting the current natural resources. IMHO


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 16, 2013)

And where does he plan to put all of these wind turbines? I can't wait until the greenies get all over them going into the migration corridors.  The spots with the birds are the spots with the wind.  Except for the ADK mountains, in which its nearly impossible to put a cell tower up much less a wind farm.


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## sesmith (Mar 17, 2013)

The whole bird thing doesn't hold water.  If someone was really concerned about that, they should start a movement to outlaw cats.  Here's a link with some numbers and their sources;

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-turbine-kill-birds.htm


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 17, 2013)

When has logic mattered to an ubergreenie?


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## woodgeek (Mar 18, 2013)

band recovery map is going to follow both bird pop density AND human pop density (or at least birder/hunter density).  Both ducks and humans like to live near water....seems like turbines are already going to be rural area anyways....don't see the problem here.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 18, 2013)

The bird hunters are going to go where the birds are.  The birds are going to go to where the habitat is.  Most of the bird habitat is not in urban areas.  The ducks were just an example... use warblers, owls, falcons or herons if you want.  Heck, grackels are a protected species.

Let me give you an example. It's a large area of fallow and abandoned fields about an hour and a half north of here.  It would be great for a wind farm, the wind could swoop down and produce lots of power.  It will never happen though.  It's being used by short eared owls and northern harriers as a place to forage during the winter.  http://www.winterraptorfest.com/about-grasslands/ 

The moment he decides to put a wind farm up he's going to be hit with lawsuits from every environmental group in the nation.  He going be doing Environmental Impact Statements for the next 20 years.  So you say fine, lets put them off shore where there are fewer animals for it to affect.  The cry of NIMBY will be deafening.  

I know they are working on tidal turbines in the Hudson already, but are having trouble with the blades being sheared off.  I think the wave devices are a great idea.

While I'd love to see many of the things on that list come to be, I don't believe I'll see any of it.  If the Gov. can't decide if he wants to go after natural gas due to pressure from environmentalists I don't see him taking large scale wind farm action for the same reasons.  

Matt


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## woodgeek (Mar 18, 2013)

I read the plan as a bit of a 'lets pencil out a renewable fueled future', not a plan that we would actually build.  These are the same guys that did a US plan a few years ago in SciAm.  Useful to know that it could be done, figure when it does get done it will look a little different.


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## begreen (Mar 20, 2013)

EatenByLimestone said:


> The bird hunters are going to go where the birds are. The birds are going to go to where the habitat is. Most of the bird habitat is not in urban areas. The ducks were just an example... use warblers, owls, falcons or herons if you want. Heck, grackels are a protected species.
> 
> Let me give you an example. It's a large area of fallow and abandoned fields about an hour and a half north of here. It would be great for a wind farm, the wind could swoop down and produce lots of power. It will never happen though. It's being used by short eared owls and northern harriers as a place to forage during the winter. http://www.winterraptorfest.com/about-grasslands/
> 
> ...


 

Matt, that's not quite right. Waterfowl is going to go where food is plentiful, regardless of whether man is there or not. Of course cities are out for large migrations (no food unless you are a dumpster scavenger), but large lakes, wetlands and water bodies (like Puget Sound) are not, in spite of the proximity of man. One thing that marine biologists are watching closely here is the affects of increased ocean water acidification as it works its way up the food chain. We are seeing huge decreases in waterfowl populations that depend on tiny shrimp and other invertebrates with exoskeltons. With no food there are no birds.


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## begreen (Mar 20, 2013)

EatenByLimestone said:


> And where does he plan to put all of these wind turbines? I can't wait until the greenies get all over them going into the migration corridors. The spots with the birds are the spots with the wind. Except for the ADK mountains, in which its nearly impossible to put a cell tower up much less a wind farm.


 
That correlation is not quite correct. There are major wind corridors to the west of the waterfowl corridors. Birds tend to follow major waterways and food sources.




Take a look at the winds today at this cool real time site:
http://hint.fm/wind/


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## Ashful (Mar 20, 2013)

EatenByLimestone said:


> Let me give you an example. It's a large area of fallow and abandoned fields about an hour and a half north of here. It would be great for a wind farm, the wind could swoop down and produce lots of power. It will never happen though. It's being used by short eared owls and northern harriers as a place to forage during the winter. http://www.winterraptorfest.com/about-grasslands/


 
What I find most amusing about this is that NY city was also once "a large area of fallow and abandoned fields... used by short eared owls and northern harriers."  The guy setting up a wind turbine on your field is no more guilty of stealing habitat than the residents of New York city, he's only the last one to the party.

Sort of similar to the way everyone feels about anyone building in their neighborhood, _after they did._


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## semipro (Mar 23, 2013)

Having been quantified against other threats and put into context (graph below) its seems a bit silly to even bring up birds when discussing wind turbines.
If we really wanted to save some birds we'd start designing buildings and lighting differently.


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## Havendalefarm (Mar 23, 2013)

Well we are right on a flyway and the had no trouble putting up a 300ft cooling tower for the Nuke plant. We could have wind also but same Nuke plant doesn't want it so it will never happen. May happen north of hear but the same folks that can look down the lakeshore and see a huge cooling tower and a 10,000 ft high cloud of steam don't want to look out and see a windmill. I have yet to have a  goose fly into a silo on or farm.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 23, 2013)

And when was this nuke cooling tower put up? The last nuclear power plant to be started in the US was in the 70s.  

I like the idea of wind, tides, solar, nuclear, etc.  I just don't see it happening anytime soon in NY.  Cuomo is waiting for "The Science" to come in before he makes a decision.  Enough "Science" has not come in in the last few years.    

Matt


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## Havendalefarm (Mar 23, 2013)

If I remember right the cooling tower wasn't finished until the mid eighties. Our county has come out against most renewable energy products. They favor more nukes, would bend over forwards to get them here. Shot down a big wind project that was to use existing infrastructure. New Nukes won't happen though, one reason is that the dry cask storage is already leaking tritium, though the economics just won't work either.I am just glad we don't have the threat of fracking in my area.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 24, 2013)

A few years ago I would have put money on the chance new nuke projects would be started.  After the tsunami I don't think there will be any new projects any time soon.  It's a shame.  I believe there are ways to process nuclear waste so it can still be used.


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## youngstr (Mar 24, 2013)

There are wind turbines going up all over the Southern Tier of NYS.  There are wind farms in Cohocton and Howard with many adjacent towns having projects in the planning stages. I believe there is one over by Olean as well.  My father jokes that between the fracking/turbines they won't be able to drink the water and once they go outside he'll get hit with dead bird parts falling from the sky!


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## begreen (Mar 25, 2013)

semipro said:


> Having been quantified against other threats and put into context (graph below) its seems a bit silly to even bring up birds when discussing wind turbines.
> If we really wanted to save some birds we'd start designing buildings and lighting differently.


 
So very true. Our neighbor's house kills about 25 birds a year. It has big north facing windows that are right on a flyway. Great for a view but not for the birds.


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## oldspark (Mar 25, 2013)

The bird thing is over blown, I have been working on turbines for 14 years and the number of birds killed does not amount to a hill of beans, cars kill way more birds than wind turbines.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 25, 2013)

Guys, your're approaching this from the wrong direction.  You are using logic and reason.  They don't apply in an emotional topic.  The people who will be protesting this aren't coming from a logical frame of mind and certainly won't be reasonable.  

Matt


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 27, 2013)

I was told something yesterday that I think you might be interested in.  

A friend was offered a position in Western NY hiding dead animals (birds and bats) on wind farms.  I guess when they do studies on mortality they hide animals on the grounds and see how many are found.  If they hide 7 and only find 2 they know that that they are missing 5 of every 7 animals that are truly killed at the wind farms.  I don't think he's going to take it, but I thought you might find the story interesting.  I never knew that they paid people to hide dead animals, or how they came to the numbers of birds killed at each site but it makes sense.  

Matt


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## oldspark (Mar 27, 2013)

Sounds like BS to me, I know they hire people to LOOK for dead birds.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 27, 2013)

Why would he make that up?

What would he prove by it?  

Matt


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## Ashful (Mar 27, 2013)

Next time I'm unhappy with my job, I'm going to think about the guy who's job it is to run around Schenectady in January hiding dead bird carcasses.


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## oldspark (Mar 27, 2013)

EatenByLimestone said:


> Why would he make that up?
> 
> What would he prove by it?
> 
> Matt


 Dont know, but what I do know is there is not very many birds killed by turbines so why bother trying to hide them.


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## Havendalefarm (Mar 28, 2013)

I am absolutely positive fossil fuel driven energy and our highways kill several times more creatures than wind power ever will.Quite frankly I would propose that the internal combustion engine has altered the globe more in its roughly 100 years of widespread use than everything that came before it combined ,due to the fact of how it changed the scale of what we do and its effects on agriculture. That is one reason I think wind and solar is a more ethical choice for the future. Of course I also feel that a simple common sense sustainable land use plan where folks don't commute long distances to work, allowing also for a more efficient use of housing resources, should be a major part of ANY greener future. Without that the rest is a band aid at best.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 28, 2013)

i'm pretty sure they are trying to figure out how many birds are killed vs how many are actually found.  I'll send him an email since I'll be out of the office the next few days.  Maybe he can shed more light on it.  

Matt


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 28, 2013)

Havendalefarm said:


> I am absolutely positive fossil fuel driven energy and our highways kill several times more creatures than wind power ever will.Quite frankly I would propose that the internal combustion engine has altered the globe more in its roughly 100 years of widespread use than everything that came before it combined ,due to the fact of how it changed the scale of what we do and its effects on agriculture. That is one reason I think wind and solar is a more ethical choice for the future. Of course I also feel that a simple common sense sustainable land use plan where folks don't commute long distances to work, allowing also for a more efficient use of housing resources, should be a major part of ANY greener future. Without that the rest is a band aid at best.


 

That I couldn't tell you anything about.  There are still two big questions that I'm not sure how any scientist can ethically answer with certainty.  First, is global warming occuring?  The second is, If it is, is it due to activities caused by man?  Given the amount of argument over something like evolution, which in theory has been happening since the first single celled organism miraculously appeared, how could they possibly come to a decision on global warming.  Global warming would have only been happening since the industrial revolution.  

Then you bring up the ice caps also disappearing on Mars and the argument starts all over again.  

Politics has gotten in the way of any true answer.  

Matt


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 28, 2013)

Joful said:


> Next time I'm unhappy with my job, I'm going to think about the guy who's job it is to run around Schenectady in January hiding dead bird carcasses.


 

Ha!  It's not my job!  I remap wetlands for the next week or so and then I'll be doing creel surveys.  A friend may be doing this somewhere in Western NY.  The funny thing is the company was based out of NJ and was going to be sending him packages of frozen birds.  I can only imagine getting pulled over with a bunch of (now thawed) bodies of birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.  It might make some interesting explaining.


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## peter01vekselman (Apr 17, 2013)

sesmith said:


> Interesting study. Another reason not to frac.
> 
> http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/03/researchers-map-out-alternative-energy-future-new-york


 
"...a new study finds that it is technically and economically feasible to convert New York's all-purpose energy infrastructure to one powered by wind, water and sunlight (WWS)." Kudos on this.  But how feasible is feasible really?

Great thread by the way.

I'm new here, and I'm looking forward to joining more discussions soon.

Peter Vekselman
https://twitter.com/coach_peter


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## EatenByLimestone (Apr 17, 2013)

Welcome to the forum Peter!

Matt


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## begreen (Apr 20, 2013)

EatenByLimestone said:


> i'm pretty sure they are trying to figure out how many birds are killed vs how many are actually found. I'll send him an email since I'll be out of the office the next few days. Maybe he can shed more light on it.
> 
> Matt


 
While you are checking, find out how many thousands of birds are dying in the tailing ponds of the Alberta tar sands.
http://www.energy-reality.org/action/tailing-pond/


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## EatenByLimestone (Apr 20, 2013)

The company that offered the job was West, Inc.  He was offered a position to deposit dead animals on the sites of wind farms so they can correlate actual mortality.  I had replied to Old Spark in a conversation.    

What do the tar sands have to do with NY? While it's impossible to infer tone from a written post it appears to be in a snippy tone.  Were you aiming for that?  If so, why?

I still don't see the whole state being powered by alternative energy.  I'm betting our Gov.promptly put the paper in a desk drawer where it has been gathering dust.

Matt


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## oldspark (Apr 20, 2013)

I agree not 100%, that would be tough to do, 25% would be huge in that respect.
EatenByLimeston was talking about jobs that I had heard about when we got on the same page.


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## oldspark (Apr 20, 2013)

Is there more power to be gen. by water, new dams some where, I thought we were tapped out on any major elect. produced by water? Smaller projects maybe.


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## begreen (Apr 20, 2013)

EatenByLimestone said:


> The company that offered the job was West, Inc. He was offered a position to deposit dead animals on the sites of wind farms so they can correlate actual mortality. I had replied to Old Spark in a conversation.
> 
> What do the tar sands have to do with NY? While it's impossible to infer tone from a written post it appears to be in a snippy tone. Were you aiming for that? If so, why?
> 
> ...


 
Nothing snippy Matt, more like irony. The question of bird kill from wind turbines came up. Many of the bird kill articles are pushed by the oil industry to smear wind power. The point of bringing up the tar sands is that oil kills a whole lot of birds too, but we don't hear about that.


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## begreen (Apr 20, 2013)

What is not discussed often is geothermal. It is 24/7 energy. With cheap energy we avoid this resource, but entire countries like Iceland are powered by it. Ironically the biggest concern is causing small earthquake caused by injecting large volumes of water horizontally into deep bedrock that can cause fractures as it creates steam. Hmmm, what other process does this and has that stopped widespread use of this process?


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## semipro (Apr 20, 2013)

begreen said:


> What is not discussed often is geothermal. It is 24/7 energy. With cheap energy we avoid this resource, but entire countries like Iceland are powered by it. Ironically the biggest concern is causing small earthquake caused by injecting large volumes of water horizontally into deep bedrock that can cause fractures as it creates steam. Hmmm, what other process does this and has that stopped widespread use of this process?


Yeah, fracking.  I contend that geothermal is not renewable though and as you've noted, tapping it may have heretofore unknown adverse impacts.


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## EatenByLimestone (Apr 20, 2013)

oldspark said:


> Is there more power to be gen. by water, new dams some where, I thought we were tapped out on any major elect. produced by water? Smaller projects maybe.


 

Microhydro is possible on any stream with very little head and/or flow.  It really doesn't have to affect the stream's run either.  I've seen slow turning achimedes screws which trout or any other migrating fish could navigate.


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## EatenByLimestone (Apr 20, 2013)

begreen said:


> Nothing snippy Matt, more like irony. The question of bird kill from wind turbines came up. Many of the bird kill articles are pushed by the oil industry to smear wind power. The point of bringing up the tar sands is that oil kills a whole lot of birds too, but we don't hear about that.


 

Ok, I figured I was reading too much into it.  Sorry.  Maybe we don't hear anything because it happens in another country.  I know Germany tried to do something interesting with using the ground to absorb the heat from, if I remember right, a power plant.  Maybe it was even nuclear.  What they did was bury cooling lines under a farmer's fields.  Their rationale for this was the ground would absorb the heat.  The early heat would make the ground tillable earlier and everybody would be happy.  

The law of unintended consequences dictates that something is going to happen.  It turns out that insects liked the warm grounds also and the farmer had to deal with the damage they caused.  

NPR had a story on something like this early today.  In Copenhagen they are using the old cooling system for a power plant to pump cold sea water into the city.  Buildings along the route can use the cold sea water to cool air as a substitute for traditional air conditioning.  I guess the pipes are over a yard in diameter and the water will be warmed a few degrees by the time it re-enters their harbor.  

Matt


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## woodgeek (Apr 20, 2013)

semipro said:


> Yeah, fracking. I contend that geothermal is not renewable though and as you've noted, tapping it may have heretofore unknown adverse impacts.


 
Agreed.  The 'conventional' geothermal. which requires groundwater/geysers is a remarkable small resource (a significant fraction is already tapped and depleting at a measurable rate).  Enhanced geothermal, where water is injected, aside from the quakes, is also not that large a resource.  If used extensively, we could mine out all the best locations in <100 years IIRC.


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## Ashful (Apr 20, 2013)

semipro said:


> I contend that geothermal is not renewable though and as you've noted, tapping it may have heretofore unknown adverse impacts.


 
Exactly.  Folks re-quoting all the talking points on "climate change" are often pushing geothermal as the alternative, as if we have the power to change the climate, but not affect sub-surface temperatures.  We can only hypothesize at the possible effects.

Our appetite for energy cannot be fueled in large part by any resource, without dramatically affecting that resource, whether it be hydro, solar, geothermal, whatever.


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