If the following
press release is correct, this news would seem to be a major advance in efforts to reduce pollution by cutting
back on energy use. The question is, will we ever hear about such developments again? Or will the
energy industry make sure it doesn’t
get any further than this?
An electricity meter that sometimes runs backwards is just one of the cool
aspects of Department of Energy near-zero-energy homes.
While low or no electric bills are an obvious benefit, high energy efficiency
homes and businesses also reduce the amount of electricity that needs to be
generated, thus reducing pollution, said Jeff Christian of DOE’s Oak Ridge
National Laboratory.
…
In July, workers completed a fourth Habitat for Humanity DOE Building America
Near-Zero-Energy House. These houses feature airtight envelope construction,
advanced structural insulated panel systems, insulated precast concrete walls, a
heat pump water heater, geothermal systems, grid-connected solar photovoltaic,
adaptive mechanical ventilation, cool roof and wall coatings with infrared
reflective pigments and solar integrated raised metal seam roofs.
Construction of the house, located in Lenoir
City
[Tennessee], was quick and the cost was
less than $100,000.
The case for alternative fuels also gets more relevant with this additional
report stating that the massive Northeast blackouts
of last year cleaned up the skies in power-producing states because of the brief production stoppage.
The massive Northeast blackout of a year ago not only shut off electricity
for 50 million people in the US and Canada, but also shut off the pollution
coming from fossil-fired turbogenerators in the Ohio Valley. In effect, the
power outage was an inadvertent experiment for gauging atmospheric repose with
the grid gone for the better part of the day. And the results were impressive.
On 15 August 2003, only 24 hours after the blackout, air was cleaner by this
amount: SO2 was down 90%, O3 down 50%, and
light-scattering particles down 70% over “normal” conditions in the same area.
The haze reductions were made by University of Maryland scientists scooping air
samples with a light aircraft.
I can’t read the actual article, but I’ve seen reference to it before and if memory serves, this is what they did:
They normally fly in Maryland, so all the old data is from there.
During the blackout, they flew up to upstate PA (forested mountains), and measured much lower pollution.
Anyone else see the problem?
Does the paper have real comparison numbers (same area)? What are they?
.
…a reduction of objects in the sky when the government overreacted and grounded all the airlines right after 9/11?
Experiments like this are the kinds of things that show rather dramatically just how much we’re affecting our planet… but they’re also the very experiments that scientists can’t set up, only take advantage of, if they’re quick.
Like in september 2001 – the temperature change caused by the lack of contrails…