Pollution Engineering - October 2008 - (Page 7)

EDITOR'SDESK Are We Our Own Worst Enemy? America is ﬁnally on board with the race to energy independence, but it remains to be seen whether our lesser qualities can muck this one up. he 18th century scholar Samuel Johnson is believed to have coined the phrase, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Merely intending to do good, without actually doing it, is of no value.” While there is some controversy over the issue of global warming, I do not think anybody thinks windmills put out more pollution than a coal-fired power plant. There may be other problems that our government is aware of, but which has yet to enter the public consciousness. Our electrical grid may not be designed to handle the power from large windmill projects. In fact, a report in the New York Times reveals that power companies in that state have occasionally had to shut off power from the mills because it was likely to overload their grid. Congress was aware of this problem when they passed the 2005 Energy Act. A provision of the act allowed the DOE to step in and allow transmission upgrades if the states refused to act. The department made such a decision in two cases. However, 14 senators signed a letter saying the department was being too aggressive. At the same time, more states are pressing ahead with plans to require larger percentages of power be supplied from alternative sources, be they biofuels, solar cells, hydroelectric generation, wind, or other proposed or future technologies. Power demands from businesses and homes are also increasing. The current power grid system was developed over 100 years ago. The idea when it was developed was to have the capability to share power over distances in case the load increased too much in one area to make sure everybody T “ Congress was aware of this problem when they passed the 2005 Energy Act. had enough. However, each state has authority over allowing upgrades to the system. Larger gear will be needed to handle the increased load. Studies have confirmed the evident frailty of our system, and a blackout over the entire Northeast in 2003 provided the dramatic exemplum. The intention of increasing our power selections may seem like a good idea but the details show that better planning is required. Rather than jockey over who gets to squeeze the most political capital out of the greening of America, governments at all levels need to work together to intelligently implement a better national infrastructure. PE ” Ro Roy Bigham is E Editor of Pollution Engineering. 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Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pollution Engineering - October 2008

Pollution Engineering - October 2008 Contents The Editor’s Desk EnviroNews PE Events Legal Lookout Green Connections Clearing the Air Water for People There’s a New Show in Town Catching Wind for Clean Water Taking the Pressure off Blower Selection Pulsed Plasma Positive Redundancy Product Focus: Municipal Water Treatment Product Focus: Monitoring Equipment PE Products Classified Marketplace Advertisers Index State Rules

Pollution Engineering - October 2008

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