Guest Post by David Middleton
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is out with their latest “Toxic Twenty” list…
The NRDC’s report is standard green claptrap. Kentucky led the Toxic Twenty, “emitting nearly 40.6 million pounds of harmful chemicals” in 2010.
That’s like 20,000 tons in just one year! I guess we better shutter Kentucky’s 72 GWh of electricity generation.
The first thing that crossed my mind was the fact that the “Toxic Twenty” looked a lot like a list of the nation’s top electricity generating States…
In typical “green fashion” the NRDC casually dismisses this fact, noting that “in 2010, these same states accounted for just 62% of electricity generation.” It boggles the mind. 40% of the States generated more than 60% of the electricity.
Here’s a comparison of April 2010 electricity generation for the “Green Thirty” vs. the “Toxic Twenty”…
If you back out hydroelectric generation, the ratio grows to 68% to 32%. Since the NRDC are probably not fond of dams, I doubt they’d really count that as green electricity.
Here in Texas, we have a saying for groups like the NRDC: “Y’all can freeze in the dark for all we care.”
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Back in the day of the first gas crisis in Texas the cowboys would drive around in their big Cadillacs and Lincolns with bumper stickers that said “Drive 90, Freeze A Yankee!”
Or we could do “cap and trade”: pay a poor person to freeze in the dark for you…
Didn’t you get the memo from Al Gore that states that electricity is definitely created in the plug in the wall?
Hmm still begs a lot of questions as to why some states proportionally emit more than others (e.g. Texas generates most electricity, but is not the major emitter – is this due to the nature of the fuel?)
Though less sarcastic for a second… “emitting nearly 40.6 million pounds of harmful chemicals”. Classic. Oh my god! 40.6 million tons! About 20 million kilos! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Classic approach. Throw around big, scary looking numbers.
Those are about 200-odd coal wagons (going by a capacity of 100 tons per wagon, based on a NHYH 120t ‘Bat Girl’ Coal Hopper, which carries 98 tons of coal.) That doesn’t really impress me as “OMG! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”
The first thing I did after reading this was to look at the names of the states. There’s a small correlation, but not a lot. Both have Pennsylvania at number three, but otherwise it’s all over the place.
eg. Number one on the “Toxic Twenty” is number twenty on the top net electricity generation list. Number two on the “Toxic Twenty” is number ten on the other list. The third on both lists is the same, but the fourth and fifth on the “Toxic Twenty” are eleventh and twenty third, respectively on the other list.
Looking the other way around, the top net electricity generating state is tenth on the “Toxic Twenty” list. Second is sixth on the “Toxic Twenty list, the fourth is forty first, and the fifth is sixteenth.
I’m sorry, but while the shape of the graphs may be similar, the “Toxic Twenty” list does not look like a list of the nation’s top electricity generating states.
Lot easier to have low emissions when you don’t have any power significant power generation. Color me unimpressed by the quality of NRDC’s work
The other fave that sprang up in response to a plethora of ” I *Heart* (Love) NY ” bumper stickers was:
. . . ” *Heart* NY ? Take I-30 eastbound ”
No offense NYers …
.
I would like to point on that Wyoming provides 65% of the coal in this country. As a proud Wyomingite I would like to petition the NRDC to let Wyoming join the proud “Toxic Twenty”. They may generate the electricity but we dig up and ship out the cheap, affordable energy source that fuels them.
Here in Texas, we have a saying for groups like the NRDC: “Y’all can freeze in the dark for all we care”
Freeze a Yankee
Freeze a Yankee
Drive seventy five
Let’s freeze em alive
Governor Briscoe promised us
If any Damnyankees raised a fuss
We’d cut off the gas
Cut off the oil
And let em all freeze and boil.
A rather popular song here in Texas during the mid-70s. I forget the singer, I was six years old but remember it well. And yes, ‘damnyankee’ is said that way. My dad, who knew his grandparents who lived through reconstruction, jokes that he was 16 years old before he realized that was atually two words. Not looking to argue The War Between the States, or Reconstruction, just an amusing point. To some.
Mt Tongariro, in the centre of NZ North Island, that erupted last monday was emitting 2100 tonnes per day of sulphur dioxide alone. I havent heard of any health warnings and there havent been any evacuations.
Just getting things in perspective, 10 days at that rate would beat Toxic Kentucky’s yearly production.
Also there is a 25 000km2 raft of pumice floating in the sea off the NZ coast. Thought to be from an under water eruption but no details on toxic gasses.
What are the toxic chemicals. Just glancing at the graphics, one would guess that they are talking about millions of pounds of mercury. Missed the news about people in Kentucky falling over from mercury poisoning. I view this type of reporting with more than a little skepticism. Years ago American Cyanamid Company was the nation’s leader in “toxic” chemical disposal. Top Polluter. The company made this distinction because it was disposing of ammonium sulfate via deepwell injection and accounted for the chemical and the water. AmCy got a Region 6 environmental excellence award for this process. Still they were the biggest polluter. Reports like this are mostly BS
I wonder if those eco nuts realize that their battery powered cars require those plants to recharge.. without them they are nothing but expensive paperweights..
Tez says:
August 12, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Mt Tongariro, in the centre of NZ North Island, that erupted last monday was emitting 2100 tonnes per day of sulphur dioxide alone. I havent heard of any health warnings and there havent been any evacuations.
Just getting things in perspective, 10 days at that rate would beat Toxic Kentucky’s yearly production.
Also there is a 25 000km2 raft of pumice floating in the sea off the NZ coast. Thought to be from an under water eruption but no details on toxic gasses.
______________________________________
its rather interesting how eco nutters refuse to see that natural sources by far out toxify anything that man could do… yet they ignore it.. better yet i want to know how they plan to stop it…:)
What about the toxicity of tallow candles as that is all that we can use if they win..
I do not think skeptics do ourselves any favors by mocking good news of this sort.
Further, such a large decrease in supposedly deadly toxic chemicals now should make it possible to get reliable observational facts on the impact –if any– of their decrease. So, let’s see what develops there.
In the meantime, the above post rather reminds me of donning full armor to attack a hot fudge sundae.
Lets not forget that electricity from nuke plants counts as “green” for these purposes….
Should be a good report for those states generating power and fuels. They could use the report to impose an environmental tax for clean up, financial reserves for decommissioning of the power generating facilities, or for whatever reason on the power and fuels that gets out of their jurisdiction. With lower power cost within their state borders that would encourage more businesses to move in and hence employment while those green states pays a higher price for their fuel and power as they pay the environmental tax collected by the generating states. The more the green states works takes the moral high ground for being green the more they should pay the environmental taxes to the states taking the environmental damage. The dirty 20 or the dirty states should be compensated.
Tez says:
August 12, 2012 at 9:05 pm
… Also there is a 25 000km2 raft of pumice floating in the sea off the NZ coast. Thought to be from an under water eruption but no details on toxic gases.”
I suspect that it’s gonna be a lot like El Hierro. Dissolved in the seawater. El Hierro’s SO2 emission rate is puny compared to most active volcanoes, but one thing they did notice was that a lot of fish turned up dead. Since the only vents were underwater (so far), the subaerial emission of SO2 was small.
I wonder how that affects ocean “de-alkalinization”? The midocean ridges cover a lot of the planet…
I have a “modest suggestion”:
Let the “Toxic 20” cease selling ANY electricity to Washington D.C. Let the folks in the capital depend 100% on wind and solar. Let them serve as a ‘good example’ to the rest of us… Lead the way, D.C.!
Any analysis of pollution levels, electricity generation or whatever needs to be done on a per capita basis to have any meaning whatsoever. And with electricity it makes far more sense to measure consumption per capita rather than generation, given the significant levels of electricity imported by some states. Even if you do it on a per capita basis, what it mostly tells you is which states do the bulk of manufacturing.
Try cross-plotting the data in the histograms…could be more informative.
geo: “Further, such a large decrease in supposedly deadly toxic chemicals …”
Well, ‘supposedly deadly’ is the sole problem. Take Kentucky: Sulfuric and Hyrdochloric acid account for 95.77% of the yearly output. But the EPA itself states that the output of both, from electricity plants alone here, is completely meaningless and non-toxic. Strip just that out and Kentucky is as clean as New Jersey. (The jokes write themselves).
But even that’s meaningless as we’re talking about air dispersal with a region of whatever square kilometers as defined by political boundaries. For example with mercury compounds, Texas tops at 12,505 while Kentucky comes in 9th at 2,287. But when looked at in terms of square miles that’s roughly 55 square kilometers per pound/year for Texas. While it’s 45 square kilometers for Kentucky. (2nd place is Pennsylvania at 3,938 pounds, or 30 square kilometers per pound.)
The whole thing isn’t terribly useful except for the chart porn. Fun stuff to play with though. Simply chase back to the NRDC release and check the appendix for the methodology (Good on’ ya, guys) and a link to the EPA software to fiddle with.
geo says:
August 12, 2012 at 9:33 pm
“I do not think skeptics do ourselves any favors by mocking good news of this sort. ”
So let’s ponder why “geo” thinks this is good news.
The NRDC report is called “Toxic power – How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air And States”.
a) He likes tocix stuff.
b) He loves attempts by green groups to shut down power generation.
c) He’s a marketing guy and thinks that branding states as “The Toxic Twenty” is a great memorable slogan.
Which is it, geo?
On your comparison of the ‘Toxic 20’ and ‘Green 30’, how about including a factor the amount of electric power exported to and imported from out of state?
One of the biggest hypocrisies is the way many ‘green states’ achieve their rating by exporting their pollution, sometimes literally, just across the border.