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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Geo, we are NOT mocking news, good or otherwise – we are mocking pure propaganda, which is exactly what the NRDC report clearly is… Mocking propaganda is always a healthy thing. In fact, most clear-thinking folks would consider the recognition of propaganda to be a sign of actual intelligence…
As Guest Poster David Middleton would know, geochemists in the 1970-80 era put a lot of effort into ‘mercury sniffers’, looking for mercury release from ground/soil to air that was above usual levels. Mercury is a common indicator element for some types of ore deposits. The point is, there is already natural mercury discharge into the atmosphere. I fail to see the logic of a separate count of mercury coming from the burning of fossil fuels.
Further, there toxicity of mercury varies considerably with its chemical compound form. As a metal, we used to play with pounds of the the stuff in the chem labs. As methyl mercury, it harmed quite a few people by a factory at Minimata, Japan.
…………………………
While on the soapbox, what does all that pumice off New Zealand do to convetional throries of sunlight absorption by oceans? Bit opaque at times, eh? I remember years when there was pumice all over beaches in E Australia. More to be expected than rare.
Sulphur dioxide. Yes, indeed, what does it do to the pH of deep oceans? Why are the deep oceans lass basic than surface waters and has it always been that way?
And vegetation growth? If I was looking for a global agent that changes tree growth rings, I’d be looking at SO2 long before CO2. But that’s not politically correct, so there ……
Edohiguma says:
August 12, 2012 at 7:56 pm
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.
1 Tonf = 1.016 metric Tonnes, to all intents & purposes they’re the same! i.e 40 million tons = 40 million tonnes more or less! I think you’ve slipped your units about a bit!
BTW the poison is always in the dosage!!!
Do Greens and their hangers-on even know what electricity is? That’s a rhetorical question, btw. The answer, of course, is like the urban answer to the food supply, “from the grocery store”. “Electricity cvomes from the wall plug”..
EPA contradicts their own statements. In ‘EPA Energy Star Fact Sheet’, the ‘national average mercury emissions’ by the electric sector is estimated 0.012 mg/kWh. (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf?1a93-2950)
I have made a new calculation with the figures of 2010.
– EPA (see NRCD’s report): Electric Sector Mercury Air Pollution: 68,199 lb, i.e. 30935 kg.
– NEI (Nuclear Energy Institute): Total Electricity Generation 2010 in US: 4,125,059,900 MWh.
So, the national average mercury emissions amount to 0.0075 mg/kWh for the year 2010. The figure of 0.012 is more than outdated.
On this wrong base, EPA told us that CFLs are more environment friendly.
– Mercury emission from electricity use of a CFL 13W: 0.013 kW x 8000 h x 0.012 mg/kWh = 1.2 mg. The mercury content in the lamp is 4 mg. The total mercury emission is 5.2 mg.
– Mercury emission from electricity use of 8 incandescent lamps (a life time of 1000 hours is estimated) of 60W: 0.06kW x 8000 h x 0.012 mg/kWh = 5.76 mg. An incandescent lamp contains no mercury.
I revised the EPA calculation using the recent figure:
– Mercury emission from electricity use of a CFL 13W: 0.013 kW x 8000 h x 0.0075 mg/kWh = 0.78 mg. The mercury content in the lamp is 4 mg. The total mercury emission is 4.78 mg.
– Mercury emission from electricity use of 8 incandescent lamps of 60W: 0.06kW x 8000 h x 0.0075 mg/kWh = 3.6 mg. An incandescent lamp contains no mercury.
I will not enlarge here on other subjects here: CFLs emit dangerous UV radiation, in a recent test (Test-Aankoop Belgium, May 2012) it was observed that no lamp reached half the full intensity of light within 30 seconds, the lifetime of the lamps does not appear to correspond to the promised lifetime on the packaging, the collection of broken bulbs is not always as it should, etc. More information can be found on my website (see my name).
Conclusion: CFLs should be banned immediately. These lamps are polluting more than incandescent lamps. The more the coal fired power plants will adopt the new rules, the more CFLs will become obsolete.
The simplest calculations show that the power sector emissions of US states are not at all directly related to their total generation. Dividing Kentucky’s 40 million lbs figure by the 7,358 million MWh of electricity it generated in May 2012 gives a figure of around 5,500. Doing the same calculation for Texas gives a figure of 295. And for Washington, the figure is 9.
On a scatter plot of pollution vs electricity generation, Kentucky stands out like a sore thumb,
Took your data and calculated pollution per megawatt hour for those 20 states. Seems like Texas is almost the best of them, by that measure. Maybe we should tell the NRDC to focus on the 5 states with 10X as much pollution/mwh as Texas.
P/M Rank State D Rank Pollution E rank MWh P/M
1 Kentucky 1 40,564,585 20 5998 6763.018506
2 Ohio 2 36,405,858 10 9450 3852.471746
3 Delaware 20 2,942,946 47 781 3768.176697
4 West Virginia 5 18,101,675 23 4884 3706.321663
5 Indiana 4 26,234,197 11 8263 3174.899794
6 Virginia 12 9,474,271 30 3722 2545.478506
7 Michigan 7 15,543,430 15 7334 2119.365967
8 Pennsylvania 3 31,482,857 3 15797 1992.964297
9 North Carolina 8 14,634,490 13 7937 1843.831422
10 Tennessee 11 9,640,464 17 6331 1522.739536
11 Georgia 9 13,438,115 9 9745 1378.975372
12 South Carolina 13 9,343,200 16 6904 1353.302433
13 Maryland 19 3,126,022 32 2962 1055.375422
14 Mississippi 17 3,989,857 29 3843 1038.214156
15 Florida 6 16,662,542 2 16,955 982.7509289
16 Missouri 15 5,114,713 19 6267 816.134195
17 Wisconsin 18 3,574,179 25 4448 803.5474371
18 Alabama 14 8,291,061 4 10339 801.9209788
19 Texas 10 10,454,140 1 32572 320.9548078
20 Illinois 16 4,665,396 5 14685 317.6980592
I wonder if visitors from other states are considered. All the snowbirds that come to Florida during the winter would skew the results. On the other hand, we all down here love the money you bring with you. I’m going with money, so com’on down!
The more FF powered generation the better as far as I am concerned.
Duncan – you probably needed <pre> and </pre> HTML commands around your table. “Pre” for pre-formatted. See the bottom of my guide to WUWT for details. http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html
The second thing I did after looking at the “Toxic Twenty” list was to look up the EIA State ranking of electricity generation.
Top Ten April 2012 MWh (“Toxic Twenty” bolded):
Seven of the top ten electricity generators are in the “Toxic Twenty.” If you back out hydroelectric power, Washington and New York drop out of the top ten.
Fourteen of the top twenty generators are in the “Toxic Twenty.”
Conversely, Delaware is the only “Toxic Twenty” State in the ten least productive States. Delaware and Maryland are the only two “Toxic Twenty” States among the twenty lease productive States.
Yes. It would be more informative. It would also have obviated Graeme W’s comment.
Bolding fixed…
The second thing I did after looking at the “Toxic Twenty” list was to look up the EIA State ranking of electricity generation.
Top Ten April 2012 MWh (“Toxic Twenty” bolded):
Seven of the top ten electricity generators are in the “Toxic Twenty.” If you back out hydroelectric power, Washington and New York drop out of the top ten.
Fourteen of the top twenty generators are in the “Toxic Twenty.”
Conversely, Delaware is the only “Toxic Twenty” State in the ten least productive States. Delaware and Maryland are the only two “Toxic Twenty” States among the twenty lease productive States.
Yes. It would be more informative. It would also have obviated Graeme W’s comment.
Coal impurities vary substantially by region/mine.
Installed pollution controls are also all over the lot,
Some our coal fired generating assets are also more then 80 years old.
If I look at coal consumption by state I don’t see any correlation between quantity of coal burned and rankings in NRDC’s list. I.E Texas burns 100 Million tons of coal per year and Kentucky only burns 40 million tons.
http://www.eia.gov/coal/annual/pdf/table26.pdf
The most “blue” most “liberal” most “environmental” precincts around are also far and away the most vulnerable to power disruption. A condition that was normal in our vacation cabin, annoying on the ranch, and manageable in our suburban home — no electricity — can be fatal in the high rise canyons where many of those who don’t like the way power is generated reside. I don’t care how “green” you think you are because you can take mass transit to work….if the sparks stop flyin the cities start diein. A lot of that “nasty, dirty” power is being moved from the generators to the consumers…which is where the pollution should be assigned.
This is what happens to the State and the economy when you outsource your electric production and make super tight regulations . . . broke Cities, Counties and even the State governments.
http://capoliticalnews.com/2012/08/12/grimes-calif-regs-killing-lumber-manufacturers-and-jobs/
Another of those Texas bumper stickers was “Will the last one to leave Michigan please turn off the lights”
It was awful here in the oil patch until those people who migrated here for work became Texans and raised Texas families.
Our oil patch here in Houston is full of people who don’t ever go back where they came from, but stay in Texas instead.
@Keith.: “Freeze A Yankee” was by the Folkel Minority. What a blast from the past.
Why din’t they say “18,000 MegaGrams” ? I sounds MUCH more scarier 😉
Offhand, I’d say those 20 states (40% of 50) generating 62% of the electricity contain far less than 62% of the population.
It’s easy to reduce your emissions if you just move your power stations and factories out of state.
Billions required to split split hairs.
Instead of CO2 levels, EPA regulations should be reduced to 1990 levels.
Just a couple a clarifications:
Many power stations in the west burn low sulfur coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin or local lignite (like in Texas), also low sulfur. That reduces the amounts of acids released in comparison to higher sulfur coals in the east.
Many of the differences in emissions are being averaged out as older coal stations are being shutdown and replaced with natural gas. 2011 had a very large switch over from coal to gas, so all of the “toxic” emissions will be lower in the US in the next report.
And since people are aquainted with statistic here, think about it: You can never win. There will always be a “toxic twenty” to bash industry over the head no matter how much it is reduced by controls. The NRDC will not even be satisfied with zero, they always need a mission to exist.
I am quite disapointed in my home state we made the green thirty I would rather be in the toxic 20 and have lots of electricity to spare.
A dirty little secret that the enviro-lefties and their media lackeys don’t want us to know about is that air quality has been steadily improving for decades in the US. This means that we don’t have to gut our economy to “save the planet”. Even the EPA’s graphs say so:
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/index.html
Omigosh, they are using TRI reports. A majority of the pollutants are based on engineering factors and other swags. I doubt many reports are based on actual “in-stack” measurements for all the listed pollutants. If you have a factor from some source, you plug it in. Some may come from air emissions monitoring data, but these are not done in that depth very often. The TRI reports have always been GIGO and shouldn’t be used for anything.
David, I accept that the top electricity produces are also high in producing pollution, but what I was commenting on was the attempted correlation. If you don’t look at just the lists, but where states appear on the lists, the lists do not strongly correlate. Only Pennsylvania matches. Texas, the top electricity producing state, is way down on the list of pollution producers. In other words, it produces it’s electricity in a low pollution-efficient way. Kentucky, on the other hand, is in the reverse position.
Duncan’s list, showing pollution per mega-Watt, is a much, much better approach to take. And, as expected from the original data, Kentucky tops the list.with a rate that is roughly double the next state on the list.
So I stick by my statement – the lists do not share a strong correlation. If they did, Texas should have been one of the top states for pollution, not way down at tenth place. Out of the top eight electricity producing states, only one is in the top eight pollution producers (not a strong correlation there). It’s only when you include the ninth, tenth and eleventh from both lists do you increase the correlation from one out of eight to four out of eleven – still not a great correlation.
The information is useful to compare, because you’re right that electricity production does mean producing pollution, but the information you’ve provided shows that most of the top electricity generating states produce their electricity in an efficient manner, and that most of the pollution being produced is NOT by those top electricity generating states (apart from Pennsylvania).