A wide coalition of New England conservation groups is calling on federal regulators for a rigorous review of the potential effects of offshore wind-farms on Gulf of Maine ecosystems and fisheries.
Call for federal review of offshore wind impact on Maine ecosystems
And they want that effort made before specific wind sites are proposed – which the feds did not do when planning wind-lease areas in southern New England.
Some 18 groups from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine signed on to the effort, ranging from the New England Aquarium to the Natural Resources Council of Maine, as well as national organizations like the Audubon Society.
They are calling for a “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” — a comprehensive up-front review of the all the Gulf’s ecosystems, before any consideration of where the best wind- lease sites might be.
“Yes, we need to act expediently, but that doesn’t mean we should act foolishly or rashly or cause harm,” says lvy Frignoca, the Casco Baykeeper, the chief advocate at the Friends of Casco Bay. She says the groups signing the letter do support the development of offshore wind to ‘fight climate change’.
“Let’s really look at the places that should be off the table from the beginning, because they’re going to have too much impact on the environment, important nursery grounds for fisheries or places that maybe heavily fished due to ‘climate change’, and let’s try to site these with the least amount of conflict,” she says.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is convening a Gulf of Maine wind task force in two weeks.
See more here: mainepublic.org
Header image: Robert F. Bukaty
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Carbon Bigfoot
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Herb Rose, Joe Olson & John O got your ears on:
Allegedly the UK is using mine water as a GEOTHERMAL to heat home according to one of our Pennsylvania State Legislators. Using abandon mines when surface water drainage floods and heated by internal subsurface heat and then piped to residences, commercial & industrial??
Are you aware of this boondoggle?
Having put a Tetco Geothermal unit in a home I owned in 1982 using 52 deg. F well water for cooling (more efficient than the heating side) which required back-up electric or fossil to worked well.
This strikes me as jerking off left-handed. as sensible heat is a joke. It is election time so they morons need to attach themselves to any legislation to prove they have done something—an effen’ lawyer.
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&sessYr=2021&sessInd=0&billBody=H&billTyp=R&billNbr=0200&pn=3104
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Herb Rose
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Hi Carbon
Out in Central they had a dump where they burned trash that lit an exposed coal seam on fire. The coal underground has been burning for decades (they abandoned Central) not only heating the water but also melting highways. That’s how politicians fix things. The problem is that the fire and heat keep moving.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb, Carbon, Maine Public, and PSI Readers.
Herb, have no idea what, or where, Central is. And while underground fires to which you refer are maybe more common than supposed, I seriously question your definition of ‘melt’ relative to ‘melting highways”.
Carbon, why to you write “this boondoggle” without giving specific information why you use the word “boondoggle”?
Maine Public, do not ignore that wind turbines are very effective trees over a level surface as the bays surface which is going to reduce any measured previous wind drastically. Hence, the calculated energy production is going to decrease. Maybe not drastically if the wind turbines are ‘socially distance apart’. But any study model should attempt to address, not ignore, this issue. And there could be benefits and negatives all around which need to be considered. And the climatic changes involved may not be limited the local bay involved.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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The name of the town should be Centralia.
.
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Herb:
How does this subterranean fire continue to burn when it seems it would be easy to cut off its oxygen supply? Dirt thrown over it should extinguish any fires immediately.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Mark,
They tried to extinguish it without success and ended up buying all the houses and evacuating the town. In that part of Pennsylvania when they dig cut outs to build highways you can see multiple layers of coal running through the earth. In Centralia the fire got down to seams that were 300 ft deep. There must be natural vents or it may be like a coking operation where the coal is converted to coke (pure carbon) but its been burning since the 60 s.
Herb
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Mark Tapley
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Hi Herb:
Must have been a lot of “dinosaurs” around there.
Whokoo
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The dinosaurs live on the underneath side of the flat earth.
They are dinoherded by aliens who render the excess dinosaurs down and contain the rendered results in megabuckets which they hang over the pipes of oil wells that stick out of the underside of the flat earth.
Mark Tapley
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Hello Whokoo:
Thanks for explaining what is going on. So J.D. Rockefeller was right all along about those fossil fuels? His Rockefeller Foundation also started the great philanthropical Pharmaceutical companies that are providing those wonderful vaccines for the terrible viral plague threatening all the inhabitants of flat Earth.
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Howdy
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Hi Mark and Herb,
have a look here: https://minediit.wordpress.com/2020/07/10/understanding-the-jharias-coal-seam-fire/
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Carbon Bigfoot
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With all due respect to my esteemed colleagues it appears they have a penchant for avoiding the links that I provide so here is a small excerpt of Pennsylvania House Resolution #200:
WHEREAS, In the former coal mines located in the United
Kingdom, abandoned mines which once fueled the Industrial
Revolution are now being retrofitted to utilize new technology;
and
WHEREAS, The objective behind retrofitting abandoned coal
mines is to generate an alternative source of heat in a cost effective
manner to offset rate impacts; and
WHEREAS, Former mining sites often flood and the water must
be subsequently pumped out and cleaned to prevent contamination
of drinking supplies at an eventual cost to consumers or
taxpayers; and
WHEREAS, Through the application of heat pumps, the
floodwater temperature, which is already warmed in the mines
deep underground, could be further increased and piped into
homes and other structures to serve as a constant source of
heat; and
WHEREAS, This process would produce almost no carbon while
harnessing a steady stream of cheap and reliable heating and
minimizing costs; and
WHEREAS, Multiple plans of a similar nature are in
development outside of the United States;
As you see Herb it was not Centralia as I use to travel through the town on my way to Northern PA to my hunting camp in the 60-70s and was aware of this issue many moons ago.
This scheme strikes my as snake oil stuff as sensible heat and distribution piping systems will kill any cost – benefit, Pissing away taxpayers money on unfruitful studies.
As any bloke in the UK aware of this nonsense?
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Herb Rose
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Hi Carbon,
When ever a politician talks about saving people money, hold onto your wallet because it’s a plan to steal more money.
Here in Montgomery County, where I live, they changed the regulations on land fills creating a landfill shortage. They used this crisis to create a trash to steam boondoggle to save money that has cost us millions. They made every municipality and trash hauler take trash to the incinerator (later declared illegal by the courts) raising the cost of trash disposal and taxes, turned biodegradable trash into hazardous ash waste, and never got enough income from selling steam to cover the cost of the debacle. The absolute failure of this plan (there never was a landfill shortage. When you dig stuff out of the earth you need to fill it back up.) must have inspired them to do it all over the state. I believe the current coal mining regulations require for those mines to be collapsed so they don’t leach sulfuric acid onto the water system. You can bet that the political parties are getting their palms greased pn this scam.
Herb
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Carbon Bigfoot
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Herb I know about the politicians. I looking for an answer to the fubar UK Geothermal. John O’Sullivan you what I’m talking about ? UK moderator Anyone?
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Carbon Bigfoot
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Here it is UK Experts:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mine-water-heat
From:
Coal Authority
Published
30 September 2021
As part of our work to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas, we’re exploring opportunities to use mine water to heat and cool homes and businesses.
Water within the mines is warmed by natural processes and can, if sustainably managed, provide a continuous supply of heat. Mine water temperatures are not affected by seasonal variations and, subject to the right support, mine water can provide renewable, secure, low carbon heating for buildings in coalfield areas.
With heating accounting for 40% of energy use in the UK, mine water heat could improve the sustainability of the places where we live and work. Mine water heat could also play a part in the UK’s efforts to tackle climate change and support its net zero future.
The Coal Authority are working with academics, local authorities, central government and others to help realise the potential of mine water heat. We’re supporting the delivery of mine water heat projects and working with others to make them happen.
Coalfield areas in Great Britain
Extensive coalfields exist across Great Britain and it is estimated that 25% of homes and businesses in the UK are located above former coal mines.
To understand the potential for mine water heat, and the Coal Authority and the British Geological Survey (BGS) released an interactive map showing estimated mine water temperatures within British Coalfields in 2020.
Learn more about the interactive map that reveals heat stored in Britain’s abandoned coal mines
Such a Boondoggle. The Greens have got a stranglehold on you Blokes if you don’t address this..
Mark Tapley
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More dumb asses worried about the fake climate change as the Zionist government is about to place massive inefficient eyesores all over their coast line. Won’t be long until these “Green Energy” albatrosses stop working out in the salt environment and these idiots can enjoy their aesthetic appearance. All of this nonsense when large deposits of oil and gas have been discovered right there in New England. It will be another case where people will be starving in the austerity and deprivation of Agenda 21 imposed from the elite criminals at the top, when God’s grace has been poured out abundantly for them. They will reap what they have sown.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Carbon,
At 12:56 pm today, you wrote: “This scheme strikes my as snake oil stuff as sensible heat and distribution piping systems will kill any cost – benefit, Pissing away taxpayers money on unfruitful studies.” Have you done any cost-benefit analysis to support your words??? A great problem is what so many people, themselves, know without having to do any analysis!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
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Carbon Bigfoot
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Jerry my 50 years in Energy/Thermodynamics and Heat Exchange tells me I’m right. If you question my judgment then you do the leg work. You see I have been the responsible party for BILLIONS of ENERGY/PROCESS projects in my professional career. And I drew on that for my conclusion .
My initial inquiry and link, which you and ours did not read, was a request of UK experts??
Anyone familiar so I would have more information to work with. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-maps-reveal-heat-stored-in-britains-abandoned-coal-mines. When you finish reading this perhaps you’ll come to my conclusion. Jerry its wonderful having a brain and experience and as Henry Ford said… “Thinking is the hardest work…that’s why most people don’t engage in it.”
Have a nice day Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Carbon,
Read all of the link you provided. And could not find any cost-benefit report on which to base any opinion as to the financial feasibility of doing what I read the plan is to utilize the new mine mapping information about the abandoned coal mines that are under 25% of UK’s land area.
My experiences upon which I base my knowledge began in the 70’s when in the USA gasoline stations did not have fuel to sell at any price. And in northern Minnesota (very cold place with very long winter temperatures) Minnesota’s department of natural resources again considering the possibility of utilizing the 8 million acres of peat with a depth of more than 8ft which had never been utilized in any significant way.
And private industry was considering to utilizing acres of aspen trees which had maybe lifetime a few decades before they began to rot and fall over. And if one clear cut these aspen forests one did not need to replant as new trees sprung up, a few feet apart, from the shallow roots of these tree which could have grown to be miles long during several generations of these forests. A small portion of this wood was being utilized to make paper and lumber.
I knew there was a small flax straw processing plant near where I had grown up in eastern South Dakota for the fiber on the surface of its ‘woody’ stem which had long, long been used to make linen cloth and was now being used to cigarette paper and very thin opaque paper of books of many pages. And a by-product (waste product) of this fiber extracting plant was a problem. A few partners had constructed a plant utilizing an old grain elevator and used equipment and their venture had failed for what I saw to be obvious reasons.
I had studied this venture for more than 5 years and had a business plan on information provided me even though I had never pelleted one wood pellet. One member of this failed venture had been stuck with a unpaid bank loan so one thanksgiving I got a call that I could have this failed plant for nothing down.
So I grabbed this opportunity and in a little more than a year produced and sold more than $400,000 of fuel pellets whose price delivered was not greater than the wholesale price of natural gas. Except the problem was, which was not expected to happen without a year, or two warning, that the plant producing my raw material shutdown.
And the most important lesson I learned was that the $400,000 fuel I produced was only a drop in the bucket of fuel being consumed to heat the homes and businesses of this community of about 15000 people. We left town with no bills unpaid and with our investments paid for. While we did not ‘make’ any money we had a great experience and it was proved I could do a valid economical analysis and run this manufacturing plant, which I had never done before.
And I conclude this comment with the question (because I do not know the answer): Were you an employee when you were the responsible party for BILLIONS of ENERGY/PROCESS projects or did you have your families total assets invested in these BILLIONS of ENERGY/PROCESS projects??? And a second question: Since I assume that your analysis proved to be positively valid, why do you seem to make negative comments about the analysis of others. A critical fact, it seems to me, is 44% of the energy consumed in the UK is for heating. Which, heating efficiency, is not constrained by the 2nd. Law of thermal dynamics. And if this geothermal energy is not going to be used for heating; what will the cost be, of whatever alternative energy source, that needs to be used for heating??? One; must know this cost to do the cost analysis, so what is this cost of heating in the UK today???
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jacque Millard
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Should we be messing around with ocean currents, aren’t they influenced by wind. I don’t have fancy degrees or what is called higher education but I did take science in school and learned that the oceans and wind patterns have an affect on weather world wide. Climate change (global warming) is a natural and historical part of our planet quit screwing around with the system. It’s not like we have a back up place to live.
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Carbon Bigfoot
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Jacque although you have no post K-12 you have a degree in common sense. I suggest you view this 20 minute video from esteemed colleague Jim Steele who will guide through some pertinent science:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/03/the-big-5-causes-of-natural-climate-change-part-2-jet-streams-and-extreme-weather%ef%bf%bc/, or on his website https://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.com/ where you will also find a transcript of this video.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Jacque,
You wrote: “Climate change (global warming) is a natural and historical part of our planet”. Why did you not write: “Climate change (global warming/COOLING) is a natural and OBSERVED historical part of our planet”???
Have a good day, Jerry
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