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It lost the ground it was to be built upon. Completely outside the political spectrum, the University of Delaware decided in its own best interest, that the data center was too much of a problem.
It pulled the lease.
The data center can still go forward…. It just now needs another piece of ground…. But for now though, Newark residents will not die an earlier death.
That is something worth celebrating….
It is time to look forward into building a fusion reaction research center in that same spot…. courtesy of everyone’s friend, the Federal Government….
The highest “crude” death rate in Washington State, is in Centralia, home to a 248 MW co-generator fueled by natural gas. At 15.2, it is twice the Washington State average of 7.2, and there next highest locality that comes closest, is a 13.8
is there a correlation between air pollution and death? Why yes, there is. Call up the hospital and ask the on-duty staff if they are aware of any correlation between high peak air pollution days and emergency room heart attack visits. (They are; they joke about it like we joke about a full moon.)
The correlation was documented by a study on mice in 2007.
“The results showed that mice whose lungs were injected with a saline containing particles smaller than 10 micrometres, one tenth of the thickness of a strand of hair, had a shorter bleeding time and shorter plasma clotting times and increased levels of various clotting agents such as fibrinogen and factor X.”
Basically the particles slice and dice up your lungs, causing bleeding which caused both clots and elevated blood pressure from all the elevated levels of clotting agents being dispensed to the site…. One chemical 24 hours later peaked 15 times higher than normal. The excess clotting agents are necessary, they stop the bleeding, a bleeding that is caused by the fine particular matter dispensed out of smokestacks when one burns natural gas. Those micro-clots then go traveling throughout your circulatory system.
Another study correlated air pollution levels geographically with heart attacks, and found a very high correlation. Quite often a hot heart attack spot could be where two interstate highways come together…
Courtesy of Washington State Department of Health
It is apparent that rushing into building a Data Center will create additional death in and around the town of Newark from particulate matter being dumped on houses just feet away from the smokestack…
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Courtesy of Delaware Way
Not even Centralia, Washington had houses right next to a dispersion device. Delaware’s project is a very poorly planned venue; one that hinges on the expectation that those residence in Devon and other close neighborhoods, would just accept their death warrant with no push back.
Make no mistake. If the power plant begins to spew, you will die.
I was done with my shopping at Acme, had picked up a bouquet of flowers, and saw the Blue Crab and ducked in to get some food to go…Heck, I didn’t feel like cooking… I decided to pass upon driving through the new WSFS atm, and instead came straignt out of Suburban Shopping Center, got stuck at the light where the Soviet interference blocks out WDEL, and with the green, pulled straight ahead onto Rt.4 towards the Bob… I go up the rise that is the bridge, squeeze down to one lane, and look to my left at where the new power plant will be. thinking of course it would be way off in the corner by the railroad tracks… As I looked, it slowly dawned that it would be right at the corner, right next to the bridge i was on… Holy Crap.
I would be directly under that smoke stack at least 4 times every day… Why would that concern me? Because concentrations of the heaviest particles are thickest the closer one gets to the stack… My open window or car vent would suck those in, and keep them in my car, for what? maybe a mile, or two? I would be breathing lots of stuff that normally stays deep underground… Like lead. Like cobalt, Like uranium, Like Radon. I know, as do you, that all it takes is one atom to get sucked into my lungs, bond with a cell tissue, and stay there, and I die of lung cancer. Of course it could happen in Ohio, and since atoms never die, get blown from there over to Rehoboth Beach, and be hanging right above the ocean about an inch, right where I come up and gasp for air… and the same thing could happen… Therefore I have to look at probabilities. My probability of dying from cancer is almost infinitely larger when I drive under the stack 4 times every day, or 28 times every week, or 1456 times at the minimum, every year I live in Newark… Just imagine the probability from those living in Devon, less than 200 yards from the belching stack…
Belching, as in burping up lead, cobalt, antimony, uranium, cesium, strontium, radon, Ever had to work with someone who had bad breath? This would be infinitely worse….
Here is where you say… Wait! But Jack Markell and Sam Latham all said that gas was cleaner than coal. How does you headline fit in with your claims that gas is dirtier than coal….
Great question… Let us answer that with an entertaining example…. let us say there is a house up the street, shared by 4 young people, maybe they are in a band even…. But rumor is they smoke pot… Now let us say, you rent one of your rooms out to Justin Beiber, and Lo, come to find out he smokes pot too… but not that much…. Now, which of the two, is going to provide you the greatest opportunity to get high from second hand smoke:. The reggae band 15 houses away, or Justin Beiber who crashes at your house when on breaks from his tour?
It’s the same way with carcinogens in pollution. Coal plants are in Ohio. This 248MW natural gas co-generation power plant, is 200 yard away….
There can be no question. The rate of death will jump in areas surrounding Newark if this power plant goes in. Explaining it is cleaner than coal is irrelevant for there is no coal plant going in… The comparative factor must be against the status quo. Right now, there is nothing polluting the air breathed by the citizens of the town of Newark. Soon there will be… and obviously as a result, more people and animals will die horrible, painful deaths than do now. That is inevitable, and must be recognized, while at the same time, not blown out of perspective.
There are times when the benefits might be worth the risk of dying prematurely. WWII for example. And not everyone will die early. Just those unlucky to breathe in the unlucky molecule, which today, doesn’t exist in Newark but when finished, will soon be belched out 24/7 right there by Route 4’s bridge over Amtrack.. Those in receivership will die, while the rest of us live on… The question stands: is this power plant worth dying for? Is the money being made for its investors, worth the copays our estate will fork over on our own terminal medical bills…
You say yes? or was that a no, I heard?
- Cost is very high
- Less efficient than reciprocating engines at idle speed
- Longer startup than reciprocating engines
- Less responsive to changes in power demand compared with reciprocating engines
- Characteristic whine can be hard to suppress
Translated to a loud jet engine larger than that on planes, sitting on the Chrysler Site running 24/7…. once it gets turned on, it stays on until it breaks down.
Remember those sissy’s who lived in Brandywine Hundred who were always bitchin’ bout those planes coming into Philadelphia International? At least they got breaks between planes…..
It is Newark’s decision.
They do not need to kow tow to the State of Delaware.
They do not need to kow tow to Govrenor Markell.
They do not need to kow tow to Alan Levin.
They do not need to kow tow to the Delaware Chamber of Commerce.
They do not need to kow tow to the University of Delaware.
They do not need to kow tow to the AFL-CIO.
They do not need to kow tow to the DE Building & Construction Trades Council.
They do not need to kow tow to the editorial board of the Wilmington News Journal.
They do not need to kow tow to Al Mascitti on WDEL’s Morning with Al Mascitti.
They do not need to kow tow to Polly Sierer new mayor of Newark.
They do not need to kow tow to Vince D’Anna, head of the mysterious Polly Sierer PAC….
Their responsibility is strictly to those mostly silent residents living within the Newark’s City limits.
Those people who have to put up with outlandish noise.
Those people who have to breathe 64,482,304 Bq’s of radon over today’s 10 Bq’s of radon PER HOUR falling down across their cars, lawns, and pets across the town.
Those people who will die of lung cancer over the next 75 years… because of this decision……
That is who you are responsible to… Them and only them. If the residents of Newark are going to be taking a bullet for someone… at the end of 75 years, do any of the above rate high enough to be granted such an honor?
Over the past year, Delaware has experienced one of the highest increases in electrical power costs to commercial customers. So much so, that to get a new business to even consider moving in, we had to allow them to build their own power plant because our electricity is just “too” expensive.
The sole reason Delaware ranks so high is that our Public Service Commission rolls over and approves everything Delmarva asks, no matter how ridiculous…. The laws of supply and demand, do not apply here.
Currently they are considering a huge increase and Delmarva Power even says its reason, is to stretch their increase in profits over a wider stretch of time. Instead of getting hit with a sudden charge because Delmarva Power desires higher profits at some point in the future, they wish now to stretch that increase over a wider time span. Not that they need to pay for anything already spent. That is done. But they want you to now pay for their profits in advance of what they predict they will have 10-20 years up the road… Is this mad? No, it isn’t when you have a Public Service Commission that rubber stamps everything you ask for.
(If your boss ALWAYS granted every request you made) would you be ticked in the head to ask for a million dollars a year? Of course not. You’d be insane, NOT to do it!
So here is their argument. The customers should pay us all this extra profit now, and that way, the corporate entitiy won’t have to charge you as much for their steep growth in profit over the next 10-20 years….
Yep. That is their sole argument, and to all intents and purposes, the Public Service commission is going to rubber stamp that request and pass the bill to you.
No business will want to invest in a state that penalizes its users of electricity.
The price per kwh to commercial users in Delaware jumped from $9.85 to $10.41 (5.68%).… The price to industrial users in Delaware jumped from $7.70 to $8.46.(9.8%).. For the curious, residential costs actually dropped 13.91 to 13.38 cents per kwh. (-3.8%)
If as a data center business you were to use 200 MWh of power, that percentage of increase alone would have cost you (.56/kwh X 1000 kwh/MWh X 200 MWh = $112,000) of extra money EVERY SINGLE HOUR!. Put bluntly, Delmarva Power’s rate increases are costing Delaware its jobs.
What if you moved to PA? YOUR RATES DROPPED 2 CENTS PER COMMERCIAL AND 19 CENTS INDUSTRIAL. How about expensive New York? YOUR RATES DROPPED 57 CENTS IN COMMERCIAL AND 61 IN COMMERCIAL! Surely New Jersey went up you ask? INSTEAD OF DELAWARE’S CLIMB OF 56 CENTS, NEW JERSEY SQUEAKED UP 1 CENT IN COMMERCIAL AND 29 CENTS IN INDUSTRIAL! To round out the Middle Atlantic, Maryland and Virgina both dropped their commercial rates as well from 2012 to 2013….
Delaware’s costs are the 15th highest in the nation.
If you are paying $112,000 more dollars in Delaware PER HOUR,… there is no tax offset that can come even close to matching that expense.
Which is why Delaware is now ranked at the bottom of job growth and business environment.
In catering to one’s friends within the inner social circle of Wilmington, we have chased away all other new business investors.
PSC is holding a public hearing next Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 7 p.m., at the University of Delaware’s Arsht Hall, 2600 Pennsylvania Ave., Wilmington. This topic will be discussed.
Just curious, would you invest in a state that allows its power to increase costing you $112,000 of extra money per hour?
I would think not. Unless of course you could build your own power plant, and cut out the middle man who uses his monopoly to outlandishly sky-jack his prices…. Then, and only then, does moving into Delaware become commercially feasible….
One should certainly hope the Public Service Commission understands that what it chooses or does not choose to do, creates huge ripples that then race across Delaware’s economy.
We knew this but it is now being published… and so it is in the news.
The world is getting warmer… and we can now predict our climate by looking at map at 300 miles south and guessing what our weather will be from that…
Just as plate tectonics and Darwin’s origin of the species were able to lay the groundwork of reason for explaining puzzling observations, this simplifies what to expect from global warming rather startlingly.
Texas is now what we alway thought of when we considered the weather of Mexico; Oklahoma is now West Texas; Kansas is now Oklahoma; Nebraska is now Kansas; South Dakota is now Nebraska, North Dakota is now South Dakota: Southern Manitoba is now North Dakota…..
If West Texas had 3 days of rain, now Oklahoma is getting 3 days of rain; If it snowed 12 times in South Dakota, it is now doing the same in North Dakota… and so on.
So, to predict our heat, rain, winters, etc, our guide would be North Carolina. Longer growing seasons, some winters with no snow, hot summers…
However due to Global warming, the East Coast has a caveat. An anomaly so to speak and actually some relief from the North Carolina summer heat we would normally expect….
With the unprecedented melting of the Arctic and Greenland icecaps dumping its excess into the Labrador Current, that cold water drops South hugging the East Coast shoreline all the way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it finally becomes neutralized… Therefore even though we have hotter air masses, the colder ocean temperatures creates a buffer against Global warming off the entire northeastern US.
Europe, Japan, and Alaska all experience the same mitigating effect, although with both Greenland and the Arctic Icecaps melting into the Labrador, the US East Coast gets a stronger volume of cold water. Call it our icy shower effect….
Once melting stops and the currents dry up, we return to the North Carolina scenario of the twentieth century….
Chart Courtesy of NOAA
So, we in Delaware really get the best climate on the East Coast. Warm winters, little or no snow, and cool breezy summers….. as well as a longer growing period, and… less dependence on fossil fuels for winter heating.
Gee, global warming isn’t so bad for Delaware after all…. Oh, the rising seas? There you go again… Why did you have to spoil the rosy picture I was painting?
Here is what the EPA says….
Keep in mind that any accident, even a tiny small one of a gallon or two, affects the entire Delaware Bay and its unique biodiverse shoreline.
Now Imagine a tanker taking a hole.
Outlined here are the violations Kinder Morgan got hit with…..
A. The illegal mixing of a RCRA hazardous waste with gasoline, and from failing to sample and test gasoline to ensure compliance with CAA emissions standards.
B. Kinder Morgan failed to comply with a number of sampling and testing requirements of the CAA and fuels regulations to ensure the environmental and quality standards of fuel they produced.
C. KMT failed to notify EPA or the State of Pennsylvania prior to storing the cyclohexane mixture, a hazardous waste, at its Indianola Transmix Facility.
D. KMT failed to perform or obtain a general waste analysis upon receiving its first shipment of the cyclohexane mixture as required
E. KMT accepted the hazardous waste cyclohexane mixture at its Indianola Transmix Facility without first obtaining a RCRA Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facility Permit, and therefore violated the following federal and state hazardous waste requirement…
F. KMT produced gasoline at the Indianola Transmix Facility that was not “substantially similar” to any fuel utilized in the certification of any motor vehicle or engine sold in the United States,
G. KMT failed to collect and analyze representative samples of conventional gasoline that it produced at the Hartford Transmix Facility, in violation of the anti-dumping regulations…
H. KMT failed to collect and analyze representative samples of conventional gasoline that it produced at its Hartford Transmix Facility for the purpose of determining the sulfur content of these batches of gasoline..
Result of Kinder Morgan’s actions?
Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC (Marathon) reimbursed repair costs to owners of many vehicles that sustained damage. EPA understands that KMT reimbursed Marathon for the costs that it incurred in responding to these consumer complaints.
Obviously Kinder Morgan came up with the idea that they would rid themselves of an expensive waste product by burning it off in the cars that used its gas. It was cheap and untraceable. To accomplish this, they went dark on their self testing until the product had passed through their lines…. It would have worked, and they would have gotten away with their little scheme, except…. the fuel filters clogged with the waste product, and the traces began.
So, is this the epitome of ethics we want in Delaware? Of course ethics like this exists in Texas. That’s where they filmed Dallas. But do we need them here in Delaware?
No doubt, Alan Levin was not privy to this information. He is now.
Courtesy of Office of Management and Budget.
The fiscal cliff. We are arguing over more revenue. We are arguing over tax hikes. We are arguing over the age of Social Security and Medicare commencement. We are arguing over defense. We are arguing over education. We are arguing over discretionary cuts….
When in truth, we should be taking the all of the above approach considering the problem….
This is our generation’s WWII… We are in for the fight of our life, and we have to get this right. There is no room for error….
If one takes this analogy between our economy and WWII further, one could say we are in the pre-years of WWII now, the late 30’s. We are making small amendments to our armed services, buying a few planes here and there, and as the crises worsens, we send some of our stuff overseas.
But it takes the loss of our fleet in Pearl Harbor, to WAKE US UP!…. In a matter of days, the entire Pacific was under Japanese control. All of European civilization but for Britain, was under Nazi Germany’s control…. Just like that…
Had we had our battleships in war mode, Pearl Harbor never would have happened. Had we rushed to France’s aid, probably WWII would have stalemated, and who knows what kind of world we would have today….
Bottom line, is that we need to do all of the above right now… Republicans need to give in on taxes, Democrats need to give in on entitlements. Corporations need to start re-investing now, ahead of the curve. The wealthy, need to pay up a lot more. Everyone needs to chip in….
What we don’t need are arguments because “my side” doesn’t feel like it is treated fairly unless “your side” gives up something…
Just everybody give up everything… You going to later, if you don’t do it now, so, … let’s fix it now…. while the price is still low…..
It is more like a thumb, as from this image of the polling across America that was customized by Delaware Liberal., a Florida peninsula jutting between to wide thighs of blue… This state voted for Jimmy Carter over Reagan. This state was one of the few that voted for Dukakis! But since 2000 it has been solidly red…. The reason is coal.. Coal is not just an industry there, it is one’s pride. Coal is who they are…
Al Gore’s anti carbon kick spooked them. Coal provides most of that state’s charity. Coal is a big supporter of the Mountaineers. Coal trains are shown on their TV’s commercials at least 15 times a day… West Virginia IS coal…
Actually the true facts are different. Wyoming, is now the true heart of real coal… West Virginia is drying up…. The only real coal left, is the stuff running through their blood….
Yet more people have died from mining deaths under Bush than died the entire time under Democratic leadership. Now Mitt Romney is saying get rid of all safety regulations…. regulations which are 1) there to protect people, and 2) there to spread coal’s costs evenly.
For example: if you breath coal dust, you get black lung, a form of lung cancer. Pure and simple… Breathe it in, get cancer, and die. Since miners shouldn’t pay out of their own pocket for work related materials, current regulations now require companies to pay for safety equipment and its upkeep…. It is this type regulation, which keeps coal dust out of lungs, is one that is targeted for Mitt Romney to eradicate.
Coal if seeped into a water supply causes premature death. So who should pay? The coal company whose actions caused the seepage, or each person living downstream for hundreds of miles downriver? It is this type of regulation which Mitt Romney will eradicate….
Coal mines are notorious for abusing human capital, (thats a proper name for laborers or real human beings who have kids and say “hi” when they see you.) Here are some examples….
R & H Coal Company (Jewel, VA) was ordered to back pay its miners for cut wages. It had substituted a bonus system contingent on mining over 600 tons a day. The courts decided that even though the pay was consistent to the set average wage if the miners met the quota, the expectations for netting that same money were different. The lesser pay had to be reimbursed to meet acceptable levels.
Paying miners less is what Bain Capital or Romney propose to do for all coal miners… Make them work harder for less. Fewer jobs. Less pay. No Benefits…
Romney says he wants to protect coal companies… Romney’s only real concern is to make the hedge funds that own 51% of these companies far more profitable…
That’s the bad guy. Now the good guy.
Obama wants to protect West Virginia, not the hedge funds. Obama and the Department of Energy see coal production rising, increasing to keep up with world demand. There is no way coal production can possibly decrease when one looks at the macro global future energy needs. The market is just too demanding… This year coal exports were the highest they have been since 1981 and yes, that was under Obama. In 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush campaigned in West Virginia promising that he would increase coal production… It actually decreased, meanwhile oil and gas prices climbed to the highest levels ever recorded… ( he was heavily invested in oil and gas)…
Republicans have always, always, always sold out WV in actuality, … while touting lip service to their cause. Sort of like Romney does today… Much has been made on how coal miners were made to report for a Romney photo op by their employers on their day off, and were not paid for dressing up, getting dirty, then cleaning up again, just for a faked picture to make Romney look like he is the protector of coal…
Romney is the protector of hedge funds… Nothing else. Everything else flows down from that. He protects coal, because he has coal investments… He protects Chinese jobs, because he has investments in Chinese Jobs… He protects hospital’s excessively high payments, because he has investments in hospitals.
President Obama has always felt people are more important than money…. When a person dies, something miraculous and unique, is gone forever. We can print more money every day.
President Obama went to bat for the Auto Workers Union when GM and Chrysler were on Mitt Romney’s chopping block (see this story ). When was the last time since Jimmy Carter, that someone went to bat for those real, genuine human beings, who actually do the work and produce the coal?
When that question gets asked, the room is silent for a long time……
kavips 