Newsletters

October 2008 - Mystery Stones, Coal Gasification, LNG

WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES !
OCTOBER, 2008

“But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.”

-Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Bob Dylan

Mystery Stoned-

Over the past year or so we’ve received many requests for a walk to view the three known “mystery stones” that reside within the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve.

On the morning of our scheduled walk on September 28th it was raining. By our scheduled 10 a.m. departure time it had stopped. With the weather improving, we expected more participants.

Perhaps you’re one of those that saw the early morning rain, rolled over, and stayed in bed? Maybe you were afraid you might melt? Well, whatever the reason, if you weren’t there you missed out …but we are giving you a second chance to view the “mystery stones,” conveniently right here, in this newsletter. (Thanks to Liz …who fears no rain …for the following photos.)





Now that you’ve seen them, what do you think they are?
Professional and amateur archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and others have many opinions, but can't agree on who worked the stones, when or why.

What was their intended purpose? Are they ancient directional markers, remains of pine tar kilns, old property boundary stones, Norse altars,  millstones, cider press stones, grave markers, just more cryptic messages left by Miguel Corte-Real?
 
Okay, it’s your turn. What do you think they are? Email us at info@greenfutures.org and let us know.

Coal Gasification

“There is no reason why we can't invest in technology that captures and stores carbon emissions from coal plants underground.”

-Barack Obama

“We will invest in clean coal technology. We will lower the cost of energy within months, and we will create millions of new jobs.”

-John McCain


Think there’s any difference in these two guys? Seems BIG COAL doesn’t think so.
We’ve been down this road before. What a shame both presidential candidates are willing to squander scarce funds, that should be going towards developing true alternative energy sources, on past flawed technologies that will only profit their politically-connected promoters.
During the nineteenth century coal was first commercially “gasified.” Gas was baked from dirty coal in huge ovens to produce coal gas. Coal gas was piped to customers to burn for illumination, first in street lights and later in homes. The toxic waste from this process is still causing problems today.
Locally, coal waste from gas production in Fall River was dumped in the south end of the city and just over the state line in Tiverton, Rhode Island. Tiverton citizen activists have been relentless in holding those responsible for that pollution accountable.
With the discovery and transport of safer natural gas, coal gas was phased out.
Toward the end of World War II Nazi Germany, running out of resources but with considerable native coal, turned to catalytic conversion of that coal to run its war machinery. It was dirty, nasty, and could not be replicated on a large scale. They lost the war.
Desperate people do desperate things and with the high prices of oil and natural gas there is increased interest in repeating past attempts at turning coal into a gas or liquid. Right now there are hundreds of energy entrepreneurs and dirty coal tycoons chasing our tax dollars for start-up research and development projects attempting to turn coal into gas …and don’t think they’re not paying themselves huge salaries in the process.  
In Somerset, Dominion’s Brayton Point Power Station has teamed up with GreatPoint to attempt catalytic conversion of coal and other feedstocks. Somerset NRG’s facility (former Montaup Electric) is slated to begin attempting to gasify coal and other bio-materials (solid waste?) using plasma torches. Other alternative energy charlatans are dumping coal into pressurized liquefaction units, ceramic gasifiers and artificial lightning chambers.
It is doubtful any of these experimental processes will prove replicable on a large, economically viable scale and even if they should succeed, there is nothing that can be done to eliminate the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) that will be produced by these methods.
CO2 sequestration is proposed by all these dirty coal folks to avoid releasing it into the atmosphere and thus exacerbating global warming. No sequestration projects have confirmed that this can be done on a wide scale.
In 1937 when Soviet coal gasification attempts failed, Stalin had the chief gasification scientists executed. Way to go Joe!
Time to stop the clean coal scam. Time for this country and the rest of the world to invest those “alternative energy” funds, now being wasted on the impossible task of trying to make dirty coal clean, on true alternative energy technologies.

 

LNG

Comments due on LNG project -

The Notice of Project Change (NPC) from Hess/Weaver’s Cove LNG has been submitted to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) Office at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA). Deadline for comments is November 11.
The NPC describes the latest desperate attempt by Hess/Weaver’s Cove to transport and store massive amounts of natural gas in a densely populated urban area.
The planned gas terminal, regasification facility, truck loading terminal for up to 100 LNG tank trucks a day, and send-out pipeline construction west and north of the terminal has not changed.
What has changed is the berthing, unloading and transport of the liquefied natural gas through an almost five mile long insulated pipeline from the unloading dock just over the Massachusetts/Rhode Island line, on the northeasterly end of Mount Hope Bay, up the Taunton River to the massive gas tank at Weaver’s Cove.
Thwarted by the Coast Guard’s refusal to sanction LNG tank ship transit through the old and new Brightman Street Bridges, the scurrilous Hess/Weaver’s Cove principals are now proposing to only bring the giant LNG supertankers twenty miles inland up heavily populated Narragansett Bay to Mount Hope Bay.
Six years of fighting this ill-conceived project shows us that these foolish …and so far fruitless …attempts by this gaseous cabal will not stop. Fueled by the huge profits of energy giant Hess, efforts to change the project, to beat back state and federal objections, will likely continue well into the next decade despite the will of the people.
Those who have commented on past filings should have received a copy of the NPC. You can get your own copy by requesting one from Corinne Snowden at 978-897-7100. Copies of the NPC are also available at the Fall River Public Library, Somerset Public Library, Swansea Public Library, Freetown’s Hathaway Public Library.

Fun and Interesting Stuff-

Most of the leaves have fallen; woodchucks, chipmunks and other autumnal foragers have mostly retired to their bedrooms for a long winter’s nap; summer birds, fish and a few insect species are already frolicking in sunnier climes. Since we’re still here, check our Calendar for delightful late Autumnal things to do.

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