The U.S. Virgins Islands will be home to 49 MW of waste-to-energy capacity by the end of 2012, the first alternative-energy project for the tourist destination and a solution to its excess waste problems.
Alpine Energy Group just released its plans to develop two waste-to-energy plants on the islands for a cost of $440 million. A 33-MW plant will be built on St. Thomas, serving both that island and St. John. Another 16-MW plant will be built on St. Croix. The plants will dispose of 146,000 tons of solid waste a year, producing steam and electric power.
The plans come at the right time as the territory has faced fines from the EPA for excess solid waste in recent years and is running out of landfill space. Also, it has a five times greater energy consumption per capita than the U.S., and, until now, has depended almost solely on oil-fired generators for their electricity, which has become more expensive with rising fuel costs. It seems that waste-to-energy is the right solution to both of their problems.
Construction is set to begin next May.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Big bucks for CEOs in 2008
Big bucks for CEOs in 2008
Posted Aug 14 2009, 10:15 AM by Kim Peterson Rating: Filed under: Oracle, Kim Peterson
The economy tanked in 2008, but that didn't stop executive pay levels from soaring, according to The Corporate Library, a research firm that studies compensation plans.
The Corporate Library has come out with its list of the 10 highest paid chief executives of last year. And some of these folks made off like bandits even as the financial world came crashing down.
The highest paid executive was Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group (BX). Although Schwarzman's salary on paper was only $175,000, he ended up receiving a total of $702 million. That's because Schwarzman received a massive $4.7 billion equity grant in 2007, and is only now beginning to reap the benefits.
Bing: More about The Blackstone Group
The second spot on the list belongs to Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL), who exercised 36 million stock options for a profit of nearly $550 million, according to The Corporate Library.
Meanwhile, Oracle's stock price fell 21% in 2008. And just in case shareholders get a little too angry, Oracle paid $1.4 million for security personnel for Ellison's home last year.
Nearly everyone else on the list is in the oil industry, according to The Corporate Library. Here are the rest of the CEOs:
Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum (OXY). Total realized compensation: $223 million
John Hess of Hess Corp (HES). Total realized compensation: $160 million
Michael Watford of Ultra Petroleum (UPL). Total realized compensation: $117 million
Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy (CHK). Total realized compensation: $114 million
Bob Simpson of XTO Energy (XTO). Total realized compensation: $103 million
Mark Papa of EOG Resources (EOG). Total realized compensation: $90 million
Eugene Isenberg of Nabors Industries (NBR). Total realized compensation: $79 million
Michael Jeffries of Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). Total realized compensation: $72 million
Posted Aug 14 2009, 10:15 AM by Kim Peterson Rating: Filed under: Oracle, Kim Peterson
The economy tanked in 2008, but that didn't stop executive pay levels from soaring, according to The Corporate Library, a research firm that studies compensation plans.
The Corporate Library has come out with its list of the 10 highest paid chief executives of last year. And some of these folks made off like bandits even as the financial world came crashing down.
The highest paid executive was Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group (BX). Although Schwarzman's salary on paper was only $175,000, he ended up receiving a total of $702 million. That's because Schwarzman received a massive $4.7 billion equity grant in 2007, and is only now beginning to reap the benefits.
Bing: More about The Blackstone Group
The second spot on the list belongs to Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL), who exercised 36 million stock options for a profit of nearly $550 million, according to The Corporate Library.
Meanwhile, Oracle's stock price fell 21% in 2008. And just in case shareholders get a little too angry, Oracle paid $1.4 million for security personnel for Ellison's home last year.
Nearly everyone else on the list is in the oil industry, according to The Corporate Library. Here are the rest of the CEOs:
Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum (OXY). Total realized compensation: $223 million
John Hess of Hess Corp (HES). Total realized compensation: $160 million
Michael Watford of Ultra Petroleum (UPL). Total realized compensation: $117 million
Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy (CHK). Total realized compensation: $114 million
Bob Simpson of XTO Energy (XTO). Total realized compensation: $103 million
Mark Papa of EOG Resources (EOG). Total realized compensation: $90 million
Eugene Isenberg of Nabors Industries (NBR). Total realized compensation: $79 million
Michael Jeffries of Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). Total realized compensation: $72 million
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Water Levels Drop in India
Altaf Qadri / AP
Getty Images Calif. farm areas drying up
California’s farming areas aren’t dust bowls, at least not yet, but a three-year drought and water restrictions have slashed crops and jobs, undermining rural communities.
updated 12:44 p.m. PT, Wed., Aug 12, 2009
NEW DELHI - Excessive irrigation and the unrelenting thirst of 114 million people are causing groundwater levels in northern India to drop dramatically, a problem that could lead to severe water shortages, according to a study released Wednesday.
Levels have dropped as much as a foot a year between 2002 and 2008, for a total of 26cubic miles of water that vanished — enough to fill Lake Mead, the largest manmade reservoir in the United States, three times.
The study comes as India's struggles with water have become a major political issue. The problem reaches across the country's vast class divide, touching everyone from residents of elite neighborhoods where the taps regularly go dry to poor farmers in desperate need of irrigation to grow their crops.
Giving free electricity to farmers — who use that electricity to pump more groundwater — has become a common promise by campaigning politicians. That, though, simply makes the problem worse.
"This issue is of grave importance," said K. Sreelakshmi, a natural resource economist at New Delhi's Energy and Resources Institute, TERI. Sreelakshmi, who was not connected to the study, noted that previous research projects had revealed lowering groundwater, though this one used a new approach by relying on satellite data.
"The question is what do we do about the problem," she said. "How do we recharge" India's dropping water table?
NASA-led study
The study, led by Matthew Rodell of the United States' NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, indicated that groundwater across a swath of India from New Delhi into heavily farmed agricultural belts dropped at an average rate of 1.6 inches per year between August 2002 and October 2008. That decrease in groundwater is more than double the capacity of India's largest reservoir.
"The region has become dependent on irrigation to maximize agricultural productivity," Rodell said in a statement. "If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage,
the consequences for the 114 million residents of the region may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water."
The study noted that the drop in groundwater came in years where there was no shortage of rainfall to cause a natural decline.
Altaf Qadri / AP
Some water wells in northern India, like this one surrounded by bricks near a construction site in Gahroh, have been abandoned after drying out.
The region, though, has seen an enormous increase in water use since the 1960s. Part of that is because of the growing population, though even more resulted from the so-called Green Revolution, which dramatically increased India's agricultural production — in part by exponentially expanding the use of groundwater for irrigation.
"Severe groundwater depletion is occurring as a result of human consumption," the researchers concluded in the study, released online in the journal Nature.
The study was based largely on data provided by GRACE — the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment — a satellite system launched in 2002 by NASA and the German Aerospace Center. GRACE allows scientists to estimate changes in groundwater storage by measuring tiny variations in the Earth's gravitational pull.
Pakistan, Bangladesh cited earlier
Another recent study based on GRACE data, using results from a 1,200-mile swath across eastern Pakistan, northern India and into Bangladesh, showed about 1.9 million cubic feet of groundwater lost per year.
That study, in Geophysical Research Letters, was led by geophysicists Virendra Tiwari of the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India; John Wahr of the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Sean Swenson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
"This is probably the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable-sized region on Earth," that study said.
Getty Images Calif. farm areas drying up
California’s farming areas aren’t dust bowls, at least not yet, but a three-year drought and water restrictions have slashed crops and jobs, undermining rural communities.
updated 12:44 p.m. PT, Wed., Aug 12, 2009
NEW DELHI - Excessive irrigation and the unrelenting thirst of 114 million people are causing groundwater levels in northern India to drop dramatically, a problem that could lead to severe water shortages, according to a study released Wednesday.
Levels have dropped as much as a foot a year between 2002 and 2008, for a total of 26cubic miles of water that vanished — enough to fill Lake Mead, the largest manmade reservoir in the United States, three times.
The study comes as India's struggles with water have become a major political issue. The problem reaches across the country's vast class divide, touching everyone from residents of elite neighborhoods where the taps regularly go dry to poor farmers in desperate need of irrigation to grow their crops.
Giving free electricity to farmers — who use that electricity to pump more groundwater — has become a common promise by campaigning politicians. That, though, simply makes the problem worse.
"This issue is of grave importance," said K. Sreelakshmi, a natural resource economist at New Delhi's Energy and Resources Institute, TERI. Sreelakshmi, who was not connected to the study, noted that previous research projects had revealed lowering groundwater, though this one used a new approach by relying on satellite data.
"The question is what do we do about the problem," she said. "How do we recharge" India's dropping water table?
NASA-led study
The study, led by Matthew Rodell of the United States' NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, indicated that groundwater across a swath of India from New Delhi into heavily farmed agricultural belts dropped at an average rate of 1.6 inches per year between August 2002 and October 2008. That decrease in groundwater is more than double the capacity of India's largest reservoir.
"The region has become dependent on irrigation to maximize agricultural productivity," Rodell said in a statement. "If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage,
the consequences for the 114 million residents of the region may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water."
The study noted that the drop in groundwater came in years where there was no shortage of rainfall to cause a natural decline.
Altaf Qadri / AP
Some water wells in northern India, like this one surrounded by bricks near a construction site in Gahroh, have been abandoned after drying out.
The region, though, has seen an enormous increase in water use since the 1960s. Part of that is because of the growing population, though even more resulted from the so-called Green Revolution, which dramatically increased India's agricultural production — in part by exponentially expanding the use of groundwater for irrigation.
"Severe groundwater depletion is occurring as a result of human consumption," the researchers concluded in the study, released online in the journal Nature.
The study was based largely on data provided by GRACE — the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment — a satellite system launched in 2002 by NASA and the German Aerospace Center. GRACE allows scientists to estimate changes in groundwater storage by measuring tiny variations in the Earth's gravitational pull.
Pakistan, Bangladesh cited earlier
Another recent study based on GRACE data, using results from a 1,200-mile swath across eastern Pakistan, northern India and into Bangladesh, showed about 1.9 million cubic feet of groundwater lost per year.
That study, in Geophysical Research Letters, was led by geophysicists Virendra Tiwari of the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India; John Wahr of the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Sean Swenson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
"This is probably the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable-sized region on Earth," that study said.
Grieving process: Is crying required?
Grieving process: Is crying required?
Crying can be an important part of the grieving process — but not always.
From MayoClinic.com
Find more Complicated grief
Q: My 34-year-old son died last year after a three-year bout with cancer. I miss him terribly, but I haven't cried about his death. Is this normal?
Grief is a universal human experience. Your response to grief may be highly individual, however. Crying is an important part of the grieving process for many people, but a lack of tears doesn't necessarily indicate that the grieving process has gone awry.
Many factors affect the grieving process, including:
The nature of the relationship with the person who died
The quality of the relationship
The time you had to prepare for the loss
Your own personality
It's OK if you don't feel like crying. You may simply need time and space to grieve your son's death in your own way. It's important to make sure that you're dealing with your feelings appropriately, however.
If you're isolating yourself, you're having trouble completing your usual daily activities or you feel like crying but can't, consider seeking the help of a grief counselor or other mental health provider. A counselor may suggest various behavior therapies to help you re-establish a sense of control and direction in your life. You may find comfort through a support group as well. In a few cases, short-term use of antidepressants or other medications may be warranted.
The grieving process commands respect and requires time. However, unresolved grief can lead to depression and other mental health problems. If you're concerned about reaching a healthy resolution to your grief, seek the professional help you deserve.
More on Dealing with Grief on MSN Health & Fitness:
What Are the Stages of Grief?
What is a "Good" Death?
Tips to Help Your Child Deal with a Loss
Bing: Latest Health News
Last Updated: July 18, 2009
©1998-2009 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). All rights reserved. A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.com," "Mayo Clinic Health Information," "Reliable information for a healthier life" and the triple-shield Mayo logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Terms of use.
Crying can be an important part of the grieving process — but not always.
From MayoClinic.com
Find more Complicated grief
Q: My 34-year-old son died last year after a three-year bout with cancer. I miss him terribly, but I haven't cried about his death. Is this normal?
Grief is a universal human experience. Your response to grief may be highly individual, however. Crying is an important part of the grieving process for many people, but a lack of tears doesn't necessarily indicate that the grieving process has gone awry.
Many factors affect the grieving process, including:
The nature of the relationship with the person who died
The quality of the relationship
The time you had to prepare for the loss
Your own personality
It's OK if you don't feel like crying. You may simply need time and space to grieve your son's death in your own way. It's important to make sure that you're dealing with your feelings appropriately, however.
If you're isolating yourself, you're having trouble completing your usual daily activities or you feel like crying but can't, consider seeking the help of a grief counselor or other mental health provider. A counselor may suggest various behavior therapies to help you re-establish a sense of control and direction in your life. You may find comfort through a support group as well. In a few cases, short-term use of antidepressants or other medications may be warranted.
The grieving process commands respect and requires time. However, unresolved grief can lead to depression and other mental health problems. If you're concerned about reaching a healthy resolution to your grief, seek the professional help you deserve.
More on Dealing with Grief on MSN Health & Fitness:
What Are the Stages of Grief?
What is a "Good" Death?
Tips to Help Your Child Deal with a Loss
Bing: Latest Health News
Last Updated: July 18, 2009
©1998-2009 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). All rights reserved. A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.com," "Mayo Clinic Health Information," "Reliable information for a healthier life" and the triple-shield Mayo logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Terms of use.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Recycled Tire Shingles
Now, I’m no Bob Villa, but as a new homeowner who has to replace his roof, I have been looking into environmentally friendly alternatives to either asphalt or “premium” wood. And Enviroshake definitely falls into the first category. Made primarily of reclaimed materials, Enviroshake might just be the answer.
» See also: New Catalyx Landfill Gas Project Makes Nanofibers from Thin Air
» Get CleanTechnica by RSS or sign up by email.
Their cellulosic fibre materials shingles are made out of post industrial plastic(s), recycled rubber elastomers and cellulosic fibre materials. Looking at the photos though, it’s pretty hard to tell that they’re made from former tires.
Other added benefits are that because these shingles are made of reclaimed materials, they don’t require any pretreatment, and once installed they’re maintenance free. According to the manufacturer, they’ll last for decades and can form part of a building’s LEED application.
So what’s the catch? They’re more expensive. Life’s like that sometimes.
How much more expensive would be good to know, so we can make a cost/benefit analysis. Still, another good use of recycled tires. interesting to find that old tires we throw out would be expensive when recycled. The upfront cost must be pretty low. Wonder how the heat and cold affect the sidewalks. How heavy a load can it support?
5 Comments
1
Menk said on July 20th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Me and my girl have to cross a section of rubber sidewalk on the way home from our favorite bar.
It’s become a ritual to say “i hate walking” on the concrete before we reach it, and then yell “I LOVE WALKING” when we step on those awesome, bouncy rubber tiles.
You forgot a couple of other benefits:
1. Shoes last longer
2.COMFORT
3. Great for the very young, very old, or very clumsy - rubber is a lot more forgiving than concrete if you fall.
Why aren’t these everywhere?
2
OlhoNaTV said on July 20th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Cool!
3
John R. Hopper said on July 20th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Just a quick question…any idea about how this product does with the leaching of chemical from the rubber?
4
Bob said on July 20th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
How expensive is this per square foot compared to regular concrete.
What we keep finding out is that these products usually are much more expensive than they should be considering the tires are a waste product now.
» See also: New Catalyx Landfill Gas Project Makes Nanofibers from Thin Air
» Get CleanTechnica by RSS or sign up by email.
Their cellulosic fibre materials shingles are made out of post industrial plastic(s), recycled rubber elastomers and cellulosic fibre materials. Looking at the photos though, it’s pretty hard to tell that they’re made from former tires.
Other added benefits are that because these shingles are made of reclaimed materials, they don’t require any pretreatment, and once installed they’re maintenance free. According to the manufacturer, they’ll last for decades and can form part of a building’s LEED application.
So what’s the catch? They’re more expensive. Life’s like that sometimes.
How much more expensive would be good to know, so we can make a cost/benefit analysis. Still, another good use of recycled tires. interesting to find that old tires we throw out would be expensive when recycled. The upfront cost must be pretty low. Wonder how the heat and cold affect the sidewalks. How heavy a load can it support?
5 Comments
1
Menk said on July 20th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Me and my girl have to cross a section of rubber sidewalk on the way home from our favorite bar.
It’s become a ritual to say “i hate walking” on the concrete before we reach it, and then yell “I LOVE WALKING” when we step on those awesome, bouncy rubber tiles.
You forgot a couple of other benefits:
1. Shoes last longer
2.COMFORT
3. Great for the very young, very old, or very clumsy - rubber is a lot more forgiving than concrete if you fall.
Why aren’t these everywhere?
2
OlhoNaTV said on July 20th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Cool!
3
John R. Hopper said on July 20th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Just a quick question…any idea about how this product does with the leaching of chemical from the rubber?
4
Bob said on July 20th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
How expensive is this per square foot compared to regular concrete.
What we keep finding out is that these products usually are much more expensive than they should be considering the tires are a waste product now.
Rubber Sidewalks In Your Future?
Rubber sidewalks are all grown up. Once perceived mainly as a safe surface for playgrounds, rubber sidewalks have developed into a means of preserving urban trees, reducing stormwater runoff, recycling tires, and curbing greenhouse gas emissions. A company called Rubbersidewalks (what else?) began installing the modular units in 2002, and its rubber sidewalk products now appear in almost 100 cities across the country. Even the U.S. military is getting into the act. Plans are in the works to install rubber sidewalks at Coast Guard Island in Alameda, California, and they’re being promoted by the Pollution Prevention Program at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
» See also: Ride your bike, charge your iPod or cell phone, with PedalPower+ device
» Get CleanTechnica by RSS or sign up by email.
The Benefits of Rubber Sidewalks for Urban Trees
Rubbersidewalks (the company, that is) attributes its core concept to Richard Valeriano, a senior public works inspector for the City of Santa Monica. The original idea behind a rubber sidewalk was to achieve a flexible surface that would reduce cracking around tree roots. In turn, that would reduce the need to cut or drastically trim trees with overgrown roots. Over the course of several years, city workers noticed that the rubber surface seemed to slow the growth of roots while providing the tree with sufficient water and oxygen, helping to mitigate the problem of root overgrowth at the source. The modular installation system also enables workers to remove sections of sidewalk to inspect tree roots, without the need for pavement-breaking equipment that could damage a tree.
The Other Benefits of Rubber Sidewalks
Aside from the potential savings in reduced personal injury lawsuits, the modular rubber surface makes it easier to open and close sections of sidewalk for maintenance or utility work. Seams in the modules enable stormwater to infiltrate into the soil instead of running into gutters. They’re handy to use for temporary sidewalks, and they’re suitable for surfacing urban tree wells. On the sustainability side, Rubbersidewalks’s first-generation product was made from 100% recycled tires. It now offers a second incarnation called Terrewalks, which uses a mix of tires and waste plastic from farm irrigation equipment. As a means of finding a use for the millions of tires disposed every year, rubber sidewalks promise a scale similar to that of recycled tire roof shingles — a big leap over smaller projects like tire shoes and toys.
Rubber Sidewalks and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Walking and biking instead of driving are often cited as effective ways to lower one’s personal greenhouse emissions, but the equation skews when you factor in the greenhouse emissions involved in constructing more sidewalks and bike paths. A good chunk of those emissions have to do with concrete surfaces. Concrete is made from cement, which is a significant source of greenhouse gasses. Worldwide, cement is estimated to account for about 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions from human activity, with concrete accounting for about 8% overall. Though rubber surfaces do involve some greenhouse gas in the manufacturing process, there would seem to be a savings in emissions related to transportation, installation, maintenance, and urban street tree health. If there is any way to have your cake and eat it too, a rubber sidewalk could be it.
» See also: Ride your bike, charge your iPod or cell phone, with PedalPower+ device
» Get CleanTechnica by RSS or sign up by email.
The Benefits of Rubber Sidewalks for Urban Trees
Rubbersidewalks (the company, that is) attributes its core concept to Richard Valeriano, a senior public works inspector for the City of Santa Monica. The original idea behind a rubber sidewalk was to achieve a flexible surface that would reduce cracking around tree roots. In turn, that would reduce the need to cut or drastically trim trees with overgrown roots. Over the course of several years, city workers noticed that the rubber surface seemed to slow the growth of roots while providing the tree with sufficient water and oxygen, helping to mitigate the problem of root overgrowth at the source. The modular installation system also enables workers to remove sections of sidewalk to inspect tree roots, without the need for pavement-breaking equipment that could damage a tree.
The Other Benefits of Rubber Sidewalks
Aside from the potential savings in reduced personal injury lawsuits, the modular rubber surface makes it easier to open and close sections of sidewalk for maintenance or utility work. Seams in the modules enable stormwater to infiltrate into the soil instead of running into gutters. They’re handy to use for temporary sidewalks, and they’re suitable for surfacing urban tree wells. On the sustainability side, Rubbersidewalks’s first-generation product was made from 100% recycled tires. It now offers a second incarnation called Terrewalks, which uses a mix of tires and waste plastic from farm irrigation equipment. As a means of finding a use for the millions of tires disposed every year, rubber sidewalks promise a scale similar to that of recycled tire roof shingles — a big leap over smaller projects like tire shoes and toys.
Rubber Sidewalks and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Walking and biking instead of driving are often cited as effective ways to lower one’s personal greenhouse emissions, but the equation skews when you factor in the greenhouse emissions involved in constructing more sidewalks and bike paths. A good chunk of those emissions have to do with concrete surfaces. Concrete is made from cement, which is a significant source of greenhouse gasses. Worldwide, cement is estimated to account for about 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions from human activity, with concrete accounting for about 8% overall. Though rubber surfaces do involve some greenhouse gas in the manufacturing process, there would seem to be a savings in emissions related to transportation, installation, maintenance, and urban street tree health. If there is any way to have your cake and eat it too, a rubber sidewalk could be it.
Schnitzer Steel Recycles Old Fishing Nets
Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc., which has already made a name for itself by partnering in a Hawaii program that recycles old fishing nets for energy, is at it again. The company has joined in the Fishing for Energy partnership with Covanta Energy, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the NOAA Marine Debris Program. Together, they will collect old or abandoned fishing nets and other gear at the Oregon coastal ports of Garibaldi and Newport, and send it to Covanta’s waste-to-energy plant. The goal: to help prevent oceanborne derelict fishing gear from harming marine life, and to start making a dent in the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Derelict Fishing Gear and Marine Health
NOAA has identified marine debris as a significant problem, contributing to stress on fisheries and even interfering with navigation. The Pacific Garbage patch is only the surface manifestation of a marine debris problem that extends to the ocean floor. The Fishing for Energy Partnership launched in 20008 and in one year has already collected more than 200 tons of fishing gear from ports on the East and West coasts, some of it recovered from the ocean by volunteer fishermen. The rest of the collection consists of old gear deposited in drop-off bins on land. It’s a win-win for the fishing industry. Fishermen get a free and convenient way to dispose of a big chunk of mostly plastic debris from their operations, eliminating any incentive to dump the stuff illegally while relieving fisheries of unnecessary deaths caused by “ghost nets.” Meanwhile, the waste is diverted from local landfills and turned over to waste-to-energy plants. The fishing debris collected at Garibaldi and Newport will be brought to a Covanta facility.
Schnitzer Steel and Fishing Nets
In the Hawaii fishing gear recycling program, Schnitzer Steel’s corporate focus on metals recycling created an ideal platform for shifting into plastics recycling. The company first began partnering with NOAA in 2002 and volunteered to service a free derelict fishing gear collection bin, using its existing trucks and recycling machines to transport the debris and cut it into manageable pieces. In the same way, the creative use of existing resources along with active collaboration between willing partners will be the key to keeping Fishing for Energy in Oregon a cost-effective, long term solution.
Derelict Fishing Gear and Marine Health
NOAA has identified marine debris as a significant problem, contributing to stress on fisheries and even interfering with navigation. The Pacific Garbage patch is only the surface manifestation of a marine debris problem that extends to the ocean floor. The Fishing for Energy Partnership launched in 20008 and in one year has already collected more than 200 tons of fishing gear from ports on the East and West coasts, some of it recovered from the ocean by volunteer fishermen. The rest of the collection consists of old gear deposited in drop-off bins on land. It’s a win-win for the fishing industry. Fishermen get a free and convenient way to dispose of a big chunk of mostly plastic debris from their operations, eliminating any incentive to dump the stuff illegally while relieving fisheries of unnecessary deaths caused by “ghost nets.” Meanwhile, the waste is diverted from local landfills and turned over to waste-to-energy plants. The fishing debris collected at Garibaldi and Newport will be brought to a Covanta facility.
Schnitzer Steel and Fishing Nets
In the Hawaii fishing gear recycling program, Schnitzer Steel’s corporate focus on metals recycling created an ideal platform for shifting into plastics recycling. The company first began partnering with NOAA in 2002 and volunteered to service a free derelict fishing gear collection bin, using its existing trucks and recycling machines to transport the debris and cut it into manageable pieces. In the same way, the creative use of existing resources along with active collaboration between willing partners will be the key to keeping Fishing for Energy in Oregon a cost-effective, long term solution.
46 Energy Frontier Research Centers Funded by DOE
46 Energy Frontier Research Centers Funded by DOE
Written by Yael Borofsky
Published on August 10th, 2009
Posted in alternative energy, technology, wind energy
After a White House announcement last April regarding the provision of $777 million to fund 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC’s) advancing innovation in clean energy technology, the Department of Energy (DOE) recognized the completion of the funding process last Thursday. The investment represents a much-needed show of governmental support for the research and development of the numerous energy breakthroughs necessary to transition the U.S from dirty to clean energy.
Among the list of 46, 31 centers are affiliated with universities, twelve are DOE national laboratories, two are non-profit organizations, and one is a corporate research laboratory. In total, the DOE has awarded $377 million in funding this year, with $277 million coming from the economic stimulus package (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - ARRA) and the additional $100 million provided by the DOE’s FY2009 budget.
» See also: When the Power Goes Out, Renewable Energy Trailer Goes to Work in Michigan
» Get CleanTechnica by RSS or sign up by email.
The full $777 million promised in April will be partially allocated over five years to 30 of the institutions in increments of $2-5 million per institution ($100 million per year) while 16 institutions have received five years of funding up front ($277 million from ARRA).
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who made the announcement last week, drew attention to the need to pursue clean energy innovation and breakthroughs in clean energy technology. Over the five year period, the projects will employ 1,800 people focused on solar energy, biofuels, transportation, energy efficiency, electricity storage and transmission, clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and nuclear energy.
In light of the limited funding available for ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) - which rejected 98% of applicants to its July call for “transformational energy proposals” - and the disappointing bumping of RE-ENERGYSE from the FY2010 energy budget, Chu’s announcement could be a harbinger of at least some promising improvements in the clean tech world.
As the time approaches for the Senate to make a decision on Waxman and Markey’s controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454 - ACES), it remains to be seen whether Congress heeds Chu’s (and others’) call for more aggressive efforts to usher in a revolution in clean energy technology.
Written by Yael Borofsky
Published on August 10th, 2009
Posted in alternative energy, technology, wind energy
After a White House announcement last April regarding the provision of $777 million to fund 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC’s) advancing innovation in clean energy technology, the Department of Energy (DOE) recognized the completion of the funding process last Thursday. The investment represents a much-needed show of governmental support for the research and development of the numerous energy breakthroughs necessary to transition the U.S from dirty to clean energy.
Among the list of 46, 31 centers are affiliated with universities, twelve are DOE national laboratories, two are non-profit organizations, and one is a corporate research laboratory. In total, the DOE has awarded $377 million in funding this year, with $277 million coming from the economic stimulus package (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - ARRA) and the additional $100 million provided by the DOE’s FY2009 budget.
» See also: When the Power Goes Out, Renewable Energy Trailer Goes to Work in Michigan
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The full $777 million promised in April will be partially allocated over five years to 30 of the institutions in increments of $2-5 million per institution ($100 million per year) while 16 institutions have received five years of funding up front ($277 million from ARRA).
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who made the announcement last week, drew attention to the need to pursue clean energy innovation and breakthroughs in clean energy technology. Over the five year period, the projects will employ 1,800 people focused on solar energy, biofuels, transportation, energy efficiency, electricity storage and transmission, clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and nuclear energy.
In light of the limited funding available for ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) - which rejected 98% of applicants to its July call for “transformational energy proposals” - and the disappointing bumping of RE-ENERGYSE from the FY2010 energy budget, Chu’s announcement could be a harbinger of at least some promising improvements in the clean tech world.
As the time approaches for the Senate to make a decision on Waxman and Markey’s controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454 - ACES), it remains to be seen whether Congress heeds Chu’s (and others’) call for more aggressive efforts to usher in a revolution in clean energy technology.
PedalPower
A recent study concluded that it’s dangerous to text while driving.
What about texting while bicycling?
That’s also not advised, but a device from a company called PedalPower+ will charge your Blackberry while you ride. It also will charge your iPod.
The device, similar to the old school dynamo systems used to power headlamps via the back wheel of a bike, also stores generated power in a battery and will charge with solar panels even when you’re not riding, according to a report from the Austrailian Broadcasting Corp.
Gizmag, a technology blog, explains that developers spent three years working on PedalPower+, to work out the kinks of safely regulating current to electronic devices via a spinning bike tire.
As a result, the patented technology will charge a mobile phone from flat to finished in about two hours, the company says.
How much? Right now, the devices are only available Down Under. But the company says it’s setting up distributors in the United States and Europe.
What about texting while bicycling?
That’s also not advised, but a device from a company called PedalPower+ will charge your Blackberry while you ride. It also will charge your iPod.
The device, similar to the old school dynamo systems used to power headlamps via the back wheel of a bike, also stores generated power in a battery and will charge with solar panels even when you’re not riding, according to a report from the Austrailian Broadcasting Corp.
Gizmag, a technology blog, explains that developers spent three years working on PedalPower+, to work out the kinks of safely regulating current to electronic devices via a spinning bike tire.
As a result, the patented technology will charge a mobile phone from flat to finished in about two hours, the company says.
How much? Right now, the devices are only available Down Under. But the company says it’s setting up distributors in the United States and Europe.
Is Healthcare a Right?
John David Lewis, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Duke University
Posted: August 12, 2009 09:29 PM
Read More: Government Health Care, Health, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Health Care Right, Health Insurance, Healthcare, John David Lewis, Medicare, Obama Health Care, Right To Healthcare, Socialized Medicine, Politics News
After fifty years of growing government programs, health care costs continue to rise. The U.S. government now controls nearly half of all health care dollars, and the crisis is becoming acute. The plans we are seeing from Washington are not innovations, but rather extensions of the government interventions we have embraced for three generations.
But rather than assume that more government involvement is the answer, should we not at least consider that the source of the problem may be those very interventions? And, more deeply, should we not even consider that the reason for this decades-long pattern is not economic, but moral: the idea that people have a "right" to medical care?
Historically, the huge rise in health care costs began in the 1960s, when Medicare and other programs threw billions of dollars into the industry. Fiscally, Medicare is approaching monumental insolvency, with liabilities in the range of twenty-trillion dollars. To create another bureaucratic labyrinth now -- which advocates are proud to say will cost only a trillion dollars over ten years -- all but guarantees higher prices, and a greater crisis in the next decade.
But such economic arguments have not stopped the train to further government interventions, and we should ask why.
The reason is that advocates of government medicine are upholding health care as a moral right. The moral goal of a "right" to health care is blinding people to the cause and effect relationship between government actions and rising prices.
But the very idea that health care -- or any good provided by others -- is a "right" is a contradiction. The rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each of these is a right to act, not a right to things. "To secure these rights governments are instituted," which means to secure the rights of each person to exercise his or her liberty in pursuit of his or her own happiness.
By this understanding of rights, no one may force you to act in ways contrary to your own interests, as long as you do not demand that they act contrary to their own interests. There is no right to a good outcome -- no right to food, clothing, shelter, or economic security -- only a right to pursue that outcome, with the voluntary cooperation of others if they wish to offer it.
But consider what a right to a guaranteed outcome would mean. It would require an infringement upon the lives and liberty of those who are forced to provide it. If there is a right to food, there must be farmers to provide it -- or taxpayers forced to pay for it. Government medical plans with unique privileges, such as Medicare, institutionalize force against those who are to provide the claimed "right." And yet, neither the principle nor the consequences are changed if the force is spread out over millions of people in the form of a tax return.
These two concepts of rights -- rights as the right to liberty, versus rights as the rights to things -- cannot coexist in the same respect at the same time. If I claim that my right to life means my right to medicine, then I am demanding the right to force others to produce the values that I need. This ends up being a negation of personal sovereignty, and of individual rights.
To reform our health care industry we should challenge the premises that invited government intervention in the first place. The moral premise is that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no "right" to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. There is no "right" to anything that others must produce, because no one may claim a "right" to force others to provide it. Health care is a service, and we all depend upon thinking professionals for it. To place doctors under hamstringing bureaucratic control is to invite poor results.
The economic premise is that the government can create prosperity by redistributing the wealth of its citizens. This is the road to bankruptcy, not universal prosperity. The truth of this is playing out before our eyes, as medical prices balloon with every new intervention, and we face the largest deficits in human history.
If Congress wants to address health care issues, it can begin with three things: (1) tort reform, to free medical specialists from annual insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars; (2) Medicare reform, to face squarely the program's insolvency; and (3) regulatory reform, to roll-back the onerous rules that force doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies (who produce the care that others then demand as a "right") into satisfying bureaucratic dictates rather than bringing value to their patients.
Posted: August 12, 2009 09:29 PM
Read More: Government Health Care, Health, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Health Care Right, Health Insurance, Healthcare, John David Lewis, Medicare, Obama Health Care, Right To Healthcare, Socialized Medicine, Politics News
After fifty years of growing government programs, health care costs continue to rise. The U.S. government now controls nearly half of all health care dollars, and the crisis is becoming acute. The plans we are seeing from Washington are not innovations, but rather extensions of the government interventions we have embraced for three generations.
But rather than assume that more government involvement is the answer, should we not at least consider that the source of the problem may be those very interventions? And, more deeply, should we not even consider that the reason for this decades-long pattern is not economic, but moral: the idea that people have a "right" to medical care?
Historically, the huge rise in health care costs began in the 1960s, when Medicare and other programs threw billions of dollars into the industry. Fiscally, Medicare is approaching monumental insolvency, with liabilities in the range of twenty-trillion dollars. To create another bureaucratic labyrinth now -- which advocates are proud to say will cost only a trillion dollars over ten years -- all but guarantees higher prices, and a greater crisis in the next decade.
But such economic arguments have not stopped the train to further government interventions, and we should ask why.
The reason is that advocates of government medicine are upholding health care as a moral right. The moral goal of a "right" to health care is blinding people to the cause and effect relationship between government actions and rising prices.
But the very idea that health care -- or any good provided by others -- is a "right" is a contradiction. The rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each of these is a right to act, not a right to things. "To secure these rights governments are instituted," which means to secure the rights of each person to exercise his or her liberty in pursuit of his or her own happiness.
By this understanding of rights, no one may force you to act in ways contrary to your own interests, as long as you do not demand that they act contrary to their own interests. There is no right to a good outcome -- no right to food, clothing, shelter, or economic security -- only a right to pursue that outcome, with the voluntary cooperation of others if they wish to offer it.
But consider what a right to a guaranteed outcome would mean. It would require an infringement upon the lives and liberty of those who are forced to provide it. If there is a right to food, there must be farmers to provide it -- or taxpayers forced to pay for it. Government medical plans with unique privileges, such as Medicare, institutionalize force against those who are to provide the claimed "right." And yet, neither the principle nor the consequences are changed if the force is spread out over millions of people in the form of a tax return.
These two concepts of rights -- rights as the right to liberty, versus rights as the rights to things -- cannot coexist in the same respect at the same time. If I claim that my right to life means my right to medicine, then I am demanding the right to force others to produce the values that I need. This ends up being a negation of personal sovereignty, and of individual rights.
To reform our health care industry we should challenge the premises that invited government intervention in the first place. The moral premise is that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no "right" to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. There is no "right" to anything that others must produce, because no one may claim a "right" to force others to provide it. Health care is a service, and we all depend upon thinking professionals for it. To place doctors under hamstringing bureaucratic control is to invite poor results.
The economic premise is that the government can create prosperity by redistributing the wealth of its citizens. This is the road to bankruptcy, not universal prosperity. The truth of this is playing out before our eyes, as medical prices balloon with every new intervention, and we face the largest deficits in human history.
If Congress wants to address health care issues, it can begin with three things: (1) tort reform, to free medical specialists from annual insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars; (2) Medicare reform, to face squarely the program's insolvency; and (3) regulatory reform, to roll-back the onerous rules that force doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies (who produce the care that others then demand as a "right") into satisfying bureaucratic dictates rather than bringing value to their patients.
Weatherization Stimulus Money Not Being Utilized - page 2
Nonprofits scramble for dollars as they wait
And so, they're waiting for wage rules that are now expected Friday in 15 states. The rest are due at the end of the month. (Of course by then the Summer will be over)
Crisp's group is one of 30 agencies in Michigan given $195 million to weatherize homes, and none of that money has been spent so far on the actual act of weatherization. As in other states, only a small percentage of the money has been spent to buy equipment, perform training and otherwise prepare for the work.
In Nebraska, that amounts to about $1.5 million of $41.6 million in weatherization stimulus money. The community-action programs Zamora oversees in Idaho have spent just $700,000 of that state's $30 million pool, none on actual weatherization work.
Sperling said many states have compensated for the delays by spending money already budgeted for 2009 weatherization more quickly than usual. And the Department of Energy, he said, will have a better grasp of how much stimulus money has been spent when quarterly reports start coming in at the end of August.
But in the places where workers were hired months ago in anticipation of an influx of stimulus money, some nonprofits are running out of cash diverted from other places to make that payroll.
"They've basically been compensating people with money they don't have," Crisp said.
And so, they're waiting for wage rules that are now expected Friday in 15 states. The rest are due at the end of the month. (Of course by then the Summer will be over)
Crisp's group is one of 30 agencies in Michigan given $195 million to weatherize homes, and none of that money has been spent so far on the actual act of weatherization. As in other states, only a small percentage of the money has been spent to buy equipment, perform training and otherwise prepare for the work.
In Nebraska, that amounts to about $1.5 million of $41.6 million in weatherization stimulus money. The community-action programs Zamora oversees in Idaho have spent just $700,000 of that state's $30 million pool, none on actual weatherization work.
Sperling said many states have compensated for the delays by spending money already budgeted for 2009 weatherization more quickly than usual. And the Department of Energy, he said, will have a better grasp of how much stimulus money has been spent when quarterly reports start coming in at the end of August.
But in the places where workers were hired months ago in anticipation of an influx of stimulus money, some nonprofits are running out of cash diverted from other places to make that payroll.
"They've basically been compensating people with money they don't have," Crisp said.
Weatherization Stimulus Money Not Being Utilized
updated 2:50 p.m. PT, Wed., Aug 12, 2009
LINCOLN, Neb. - Jackie Harpst expected a busy summer at her nonprofit housing agency, as work crews backed by Nebraska's share of $5 billion in federal stimulus money headed out to seal windows and spread insulation.
Months after she thought work would begin, not a single window has been caulked. And she's still not sure if her team will be able to get to work adding insulation before the summer heat passes — or even before the winter's chill sets in.
"We've hired people and purchased equipment with the anticipation we'd be able to spend the money soon, and now, as we see it drag on and on, it's just very frustrating," said Harpst, housing director of the Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska.
Harpst is among the state and local officials nationwide who are sitting on millions in stimulus money targeted for weatherization, worried about running afoul of arcane federal rules governing how much workers should be paid for making energy-saving home improvements.
They blame months of mixed signals sent by federal officials, whom they accuse of fumbling the effort to spend money designed to give a languishing economy a boost by lowering utility bills and employing construction workers idled by the housing slump.
"It seems like it's just been one roadblock after another," said Christina Zamora, energy program manager for the Community Action Partnership Association of Idaho.
Officials hold back dollars
More than 40 states have received about half of the $5 billion allotted for weatherization efforts in the $787 billion stimulus package, according to the Department of Energy. Because that money was sent to hundreds of nonprofit groups scattered across the country, there isn't a clear estimate of how much has been spent so far.
But several local and state officials interviewed by The Associated Press said they are holding back. David Bradley, executive director of the National Community Action Foundation, said the "vast majority" of states aren't spending the money. The U.S. Department of Energy official in charge of the weatherization program also acknowledged there has been confusion "across the board."
"We have been told by a number of states and local agencies that they have delayed spending recovery-act money," said the official, Gilbert Sperling.
The $5 billion set aside in the stimulus package is a massive influx of money into an old program aimed at reducing energy costs. For more than 30 years, the federally funded, state-run programs have used a broad range of work, such as spreading insulation and installing new heating and cooling systems, to make the homes of low-income people more energy efficient.
Sperling and others responsible for overseeing the program maintain that as early as March, they clearly said that money for weatherizing should be spent in spite of any uncertainty created by the Davis-Bacon Act. The Depression-era law requires contractors to pay wages equal to those prevailing locally for public works projects, and the stimulus law applied it to weatherization projects for the first time.
"I'm satisfied we have communicated as clearly as we can to the states and the agencies that we want them to move forward spending recovery funds even before (the U.S. Department of Labor) issues new wage determinations," Sperling said.
Lack of clarity
Those who oversee the nonprofit groups and agencies that states have used for years to perform the weatherization work tell a different story, saying that Sperling and others flip-flopped in recent months. Zamora and others said federal officials first said the weatherization work could begin in April, then cautioned in June that the Davis-Bacon Act would apply and the spending should be put on hold.
Federal officials said at a July meeting attended by state and local weatherization workers to go ahead and start the work without the wage rules in place. The same advice came in letters sent July 10 and July 24.
"They go back and forth and it makes me nervous," Zamora said. "There's been a lack of clarity."
Tom Markey, a stimulus coordinator at the U.S. Department of Labor, said there is no reason to wait. The Departments of Energy and Labor said in their July 24 letter to states and nonprofits receiving the money that "state and local agencies should be weatherizing homes now."
"Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates for residential construction exist in just about every part of the country, therefore, any state or community-action agency could have begun work as soon as they received their funds by paying these existing prevailing wage rates," Markey said.
33 metro areas where builders are confident
Several recipients of that letter told the AP said they are wary of following such advice because, they say, federal officials have previously been unclear on whether existing wage levels for other occupations would apply to weatherization work. They also reject the suggestion from federal officials they could simply issue back pay should the weatherization rates eventually be set at a higher wage, saying it could cause an administrative mess.
"They've been saying since April they'd have things straightened out and we'd be able to spend the money. Why we would we go forward now without the rules in place? So far nothing they've said ... has come to fruition," said Jim Crisp, executive director of the Michigan Community Action Agency Association.
NOW is the time to do thid weatherization work, as it will miss the point if its done in the Winter, and will be more difficult to do.
LINCOLN, Neb. - Jackie Harpst expected a busy summer at her nonprofit housing agency, as work crews backed by Nebraska's share of $5 billion in federal stimulus money headed out to seal windows and spread insulation.
Months after she thought work would begin, not a single window has been caulked. And she's still not sure if her team will be able to get to work adding insulation before the summer heat passes — or even before the winter's chill sets in.
"We've hired people and purchased equipment with the anticipation we'd be able to spend the money soon, and now, as we see it drag on and on, it's just very frustrating," said Harpst, housing director of the Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska.
Harpst is among the state and local officials nationwide who are sitting on millions in stimulus money targeted for weatherization, worried about running afoul of arcane federal rules governing how much workers should be paid for making energy-saving home improvements.
They blame months of mixed signals sent by federal officials, whom they accuse of fumbling the effort to spend money designed to give a languishing economy a boost by lowering utility bills and employing construction workers idled by the housing slump.
"It seems like it's just been one roadblock after another," said Christina Zamora, energy program manager for the Community Action Partnership Association of Idaho.
Officials hold back dollars
More than 40 states have received about half of the $5 billion allotted for weatherization efforts in the $787 billion stimulus package, according to the Department of Energy. Because that money was sent to hundreds of nonprofit groups scattered across the country, there isn't a clear estimate of how much has been spent so far.
But several local and state officials interviewed by The Associated Press said they are holding back. David Bradley, executive director of the National Community Action Foundation, said the "vast majority" of states aren't spending the money. The U.S. Department of Energy official in charge of the weatherization program also acknowledged there has been confusion "across the board."
"We have been told by a number of states and local agencies that they have delayed spending recovery-act money," said the official, Gilbert Sperling.
The $5 billion set aside in the stimulus package is a massive influx of money into an old program aimed at reducing energy costs. For more than 30 years, the federally funded, state-run programs have used a broad range of work, such as spreading insulation and installing new heating and cooling systems, to make the homes of low-income people more energy efficient.
Sperling and others responsible for overseeing the program maintain that as early as March, they clearly said that money for weatherizing should be spent in spite of any uncertainty created by the Davis-Bacon Act. The Depression-era law requires contractors to pay wages equal to those prevailing locally for public works projects, and the stimulus law applied it to weatherization projects for the first time.
"I'm satisfied we have communicated as clearly as we can to the states and the agencies that we want them to move forward spending recovery funds even before (the U.S. Department of Labor) issues new wage determinations," Sperling said.
Lack of clarity
Those who oversee the nonprofit groups and agencies that states have used for years to perform the weatherization work tell a different story, saying that Sperling and others flip-flopped in recent months. Zamora and others said federal officials first said the weatherization work could begin in April, then cautioned in June that the Davis-Bacon Act would apply and the spending should be put on hold.
Federal officials said at a July meeting attended by state and local weatherization workers to go ahead and start the work without the wage rules in place. The same advice came in letters sent July 10 and July 24.
"They go back and forth and it makes me nervous," Zamora said. "There's been a lack of clarity."
Tom Markey, a stimulus coordinator at the U.S. Department of Labor, said there is no reason to wait. The Departments of Energy and Labor said in their July 24 letter to states and nonprofits receiving the money that "state and local agencies should be weatherizing homes now."
"Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates for residential construction exist in just about every part of the country, therefore, any state or community-action agency could have begun work as soon as they received their funds by paying these existing prevailing wage rates," Markey said.
33 metro areas where builders are confident
Several recipients of that letter told the AP said they are wary of following such advice because, they say, federal officials have previously been unclear on whether existing wage levels for other occupations would apply to weatherization work. They also reject the suggestion from federal officials they could simply issue back pay should the weatherization rates eventually be set at a higher wage, saying it could cause an administrative mess.
"They've been saying since April they'd have things straightened out and we'd be able to spend the money. Why we would we go forward now without the rules in place? So far nothing they've said ... has come to fruition," said Jim Crisp, executive director of the Michigan Community Action Agency Association.
NOW is the time to do thid weatherization work, as it will miss the point if its done in the Winter, and will be more difficult to do.
Stealing in Childhood Does Not a Criminal Make
Stealing in Childhood Does Not a Criminal Make
Lars Leetaru
By PERRI KLASS, M.D.
Published: August 10, 2009
By the time a worried parent asked me about a child who had stolen something, I had some answers — because I had already been a worried parent and had asked my own pediatrician.
Go to Well » In our house we had gone through the usual process, but I had no idea how usual it was. First the casual inquiry, one parent to another: Did you take any money out of my wallet? Then the little rat’s nest of bills accidentally discovered in the 7-year-old’s room. The worrying, the questioning, the self-doubt: How do we handle this? What does it mean? Does this tell us something we don’t want to know about our child’s character? About ourselves? Is something really wrong?
“Most children will take something sometime,” said Dr. Barbara Howard, cheerfully.
Dr. Howard is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and some years after my own family crisis, I attended an educational talk she gave for pediatricians on behavior and development. Stealing was included matter of factly along with sleep problems, tantrums and all the rest.
A 2-year-old who takes something, she said, is probably going to be described as not being good at sharing, rather than as a thief, at least by a parent with a reasonable sense of child development. I see it, I want it, I take it, it’s mine.
Setting limits is a big part of taking good care of children this age. No, everything you want does not become yours, and sticky-fingered possession (these metaphors become the literal truth with small children) is not even one-tenth of the law.
But what about the somewhat older child, the 5- or 6- or 7-year-old, who clearly knows the rules and takes something from another child, from the classroom or even from a store — the child who makes some effort to hide the ill-gotten gains, and when confronted, perhaps flatly denies the crime?
This turns out, once again, to be extremely common. I had a 6-year-old patient once whose mother cried while spelling out the word shoplift in front of the daughter, who had walked out of a store with, I believe, a hair accessory. I see it, I want it, I take it.
But developmentally, there is something more complex going on.
“The next phase is a testing phase,” Dr. Howard said. “Kids are trying to find out what happens if you get caught, and one of the biggest problems is if you don’t catch them. They’re trying to find out what the rules are, and if nobody catches them and says, ‘That’s wrong, you have to give that back or pay for it,’ they don’t get a sense of being properly supervised.”
Dr. Martin T. Stein, another expert on behavior and development, and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Diego/Rady Children’s Hospital, used a favorite pediatrician’s phrase to talk about those 5- to 8-year-olds who steal: “It’s really a teachable moment,” he said.
It’s your moment as a parent to talk about standards and ethical behavior, and to make those concepts real by requiring that a child apologize and make restitution. “That’s really a great opportunity,” Dr. Stein said, “and it does give the message it’s not proper behavior and it’s not something we condone.”
More worrisome is a child who steals for less obviously acquisitive motives. A hair ornament that she imagines sparkling on her ponytail or another child’s toy that he envies — this kind of stealing, while it needs to be discussed and corrected, is less troubling than so-called symbolic stealing.
An angry child might steal someone else’s treasured possession and destroy it — flush a piece of Mom’s jewelry down the toilet, or incinerate a sibling’s special project. A child who is worried about school performance might steal something from the class superstar.
A child who keeps on taking things is a child with a problem, and as children get older, this all becomes much more serious. If a child in middle school is stealing money, you have to worry, already, about drugs and alcohol and the other influences in that child’s life.
And what about true antisocial behavior? A young child’s stealing is in no way the equivalent of setting fires or torturing animals or any of the other frightening prospects that flash across some parents’ minds in that first did-I-just-see-you-take-something-from-the-store moment. On the other hand, a pattern of stealing without any remorse can mark a serious problem — and that child needs help right away.
But the parents of most young children can be confident that stealing is a pretty routine behavior. “It might be unusual for a child to go through childhood without ever stealing anything, though the parent may not know,” Dr. Stein said.
Once you do know, Dr. Howard says, you shouldn’t do as some parents have, and rush out to organize a “scared straight” tour of the local correctional facilities to show your 7-year-old where a life of crime will lead.
“They need to be stopped, they need to pay it back and they need to apologize,” she said, “but they shouldn’t be taken to the county jail or treated as if they’re bound to be criminals forever.”
So the onus is on us — the parents — to strike the right balance. “Often the parent is embarrassed or humiliated, they don’t want to tell anybody that their child stole,” Dr. Howard said. “Doing too much or doing too little, either is bad.”
So when we found the cache of stolen cash, I did ask my pediatrician, who told me, kindly, that this was strictly routine. Take it seriously, he said, talk about consequences, extract an apology, but don’t act as if you think it means your child is a criminal.
Which is exactly what I said to the first parent who asked me this in the exam room, and to all the parents who came after.
Lars Leetaru
By PERRI KLASS, M.D.
Published: August 10, 2009
By the time a worried parent asked me about a child who had stolen something, I had some answers — because I had already been a worried parent and had asked my own pediatrician.
Go to Well » In our house we had gone through the usual process, but I had no idea how usual it was. First the casual inquiry, one parent to another: Did you take any money out of my wallet? Then the little rat’s nest of bills accidentally discovered in the 7-year-old’s room. The worrying, the questioning, the self-doubt: How do we handle this? What does it mean? Does this tell us something we don’t want to know about our child’s character? About ourselves? Is something really wrong?
“Most children will take something sometime,” said Dr. Barbara Howard, cheerfully.
Dr. Howard is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and some years after my own family crisis, I attended an educational talk she gave for pediatricians on behavior and development. Stealing was included matter of factly along with sleep problems, tantrums and all the rest.
A 2-year-old who takes something, she said, is probably going to be described as not being good at sharing, rather than as a thief, at least by a parent with a reasonable sense of child development. I see it, I want it, I take it, it’s mine.
Setting limits is a big part of taking good care of children this age. No, everything you want does not become yours, and sticky-fingered possession (these metaphors become the literal truth with small children) is not even one-tenth of the law.
But what about the somewhat older child, the 5- or 6- or 7-year-old, who clearly knows the rules and takes something from another child, from the classroom or even from a store — the child who makes some effort to hide the ill-gotten gains, and when confronted, perhaps flatly denies the crime?
This turns out, once again, to be extremely common. I had a 6-year-old patient once whose mother cried while spelling out the word shoplift in front of the daughter, who had walked out of a store with, I believe, a hair accessory. I see it, I want it, I take it.
But developmentally, there is something more complex going on.
“The next phase is a testing phase,” Dr. Howard said. “Kids are trying to find out what happens if you get caught, and one of the biggest problems is if you don’t catch them. They’re trying to find out what the rules are, and if nobody catches them and says, ‘That’s wrong, you have to give that back or pay for it,’ they don’t get a sense of being properly supervised.”
Dr. Martin T. Stein, another expert on behavior and development, and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Diego/Rady Children’s Hospital, used a favorite pediatrician’s phrase to talk about those 5- to 8-year-olds who steal: “It’s really a teachable moment,” he said.
It’s your moment as a parent to talk about standards and ethical behavior, and to make those concepts real by requiring that a child apologize and make restitution. “That’s really a great opportunity,” Dr. Stein said, “and it does give the message it’s not proper behavior and it’s not something we condone.”
More worrisome is a child who steals for less obviously acquisitive motives. A hair ornament that she imagines sparkling on her ponytail or another child’s toy that he envies — this kind of stealing, while it needs to be discussed and corrected, is less troubling than so-called symbolic stealing.
An angry child might steal someone else’s treasured possession and destroy it — flush a piece of Mom’s jewelry down the toilet, or incinerate a sibling’s special project. A child who is worried about school performance might steal something from the class superstar.
A child who keeps on taking things is a child with a problem, and as children get older, this all becomes much more serious. If a child in middle school is stealing money, you have to worry, already, about drugs and alcohol and the other influences in that child’s life.
And what about true antisocial behavior? A young child’s stealing is in no way the equivalent of setting fires or torturing animals or any of the other frightening prospects that flash across some parents’ minds in that first did-I-just-see-you-take-something-from-the-store moment. On the other hand, a pattern of stealing without any remorse can mark a serious problem — and that child needs help right away.
But the parents of most young children can be confident that stealing is a pretty routine behavior. “It might be unusual for a child to go through childhood without ever stealing anything, though the parent may not know,” Dr. Stein said.
Once you do know, Dr. Howard says, you shouldn’t do as some parents have, and rush out to organize a “scared straight” tour of the local correctional facilities to show your 7-year-old where a life of crime will lead.
“They need to be stopped, they need to pay it back and they need to apologize,” she said, “but they shouldn’t be taken to the county jail or treated as if they’re bound to be criminals forever.”
So the onus is on us — the parents — to strike the right balance. “Often the parent is embarrassed or humiliated, they don’t want to tell anybody that their child stole,” Dr. Howard said. “Doing too much or doing too little, either is bad.”
So when we found the cache of stolen cash, I did ask my pediatrician, who told me, kindly, that this was strictly routine. Take it seriously, he said, talk about consequences, extract an apology, but don’t act as if you think it means your child is a criminal.
Which is exactly what I said to the first parent who asked me this in the exam room, and to all the parents who came after.
When a Child Steals
August 10, 2009, 7:51 pm
When a Child Steals
By Tara Parker-Pope
When is stealing a normal childhood behavior, and when is it something to worry about? That’s the issue explored in today’s 18 and Under column by pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass.
By the time a worried parent asked me professionally about a child who had stolen something, I had some answers — because I had already been a worried parent and had asked my own pediatrician.
In our house we had gone through the usual process, but I had no idea how usual it was…. How do we handle this? What does it mean? Does this tell us something we don’t want to know about our child’s character? About ourselves? Is something really wrong?
To learn more, read the full column, “Stealing in Childhood Does Not a Criminal Make,” and then please join the discussion below. Has your child ever stolen something? How did you handle it?
From Well
When the Doctor Struggles With Weight
Talking to Boys About Sex
A Pediatrician’s View of Rude Children
1. August 10, 2009
9:48 pm
Link
Yes my child has stolen. It started at age 6 in the supermarket. I caught him stealing candy in the aisle. I took him to the front desk and explained to the clerk what he had done. I then told the clerk that the child would now like to pay for the candy which he did. The stealing however continued, and he would try to separate himself from me when we got to the store. Finally I had to tell him no more trips to the supermarket.
In 7th grade he was caught stealing a camera from a student’s locker. In 9th grade I found $80 in his wallet which had disappeared from mine. He is going to turn 16 next month. I don’t see anything good in his future.
— bhansen
2. August 10, 2009
10:15 pm
Link
if a child have all he needs to have,and still went inside a mall and stole something without showing it to the mother,it is a very big problem to the family and the community.
— jessica
3. August 10, 2009
10:15 pm
Link
Bhansen, I feel for you and it sounds like you are doing your best. There really seems to be little a parent can do to deal with a child who has poor impulse control and keeps engaging in risky behavior.
My mom (now in her 60s) sometimes seems to think rules don’t apply to her. When I was a kid she told me some impressive lines about how it’s not right to steal, but one time as a teen I was deeply embarrassed when I caught her trying to steal an already-opened pack of gum from a drugstore. I told her to put it back. Recently we went to a restaurant, she asked for a (free) cup of water instead of soda, and then couldn’t figure out where to get water from the soda dispenser… so she felt that her inability to find the water entitled her to a free soda. I felt so frustrated and furious, I yanked the soda out of her hand and threw it away, as if she were a child. How could she teach me that stealing was wrong and then cavalierly try it herself?
I guess trying to get away with something, is a human impulse that we all have from time to time, and we can all act on it. I hope you have a better time with your son in the future.
— Ellen
4. August 10, 2009
10:56 pm
Link
My neighbor and I used to play together all the time when we were little. We’d often bring our toys to each other’s houses, and would usually end up accidentally forgetting at least one of them. The thing is, we’d rarely give them back. It was sort of, oh well, if she forgot it, she must not want it, it’s mine now! And we both did this, and were actually pretty okay with it.
Is that stealing…? haha
— hello
5. August 10, 2009
11:02 pm
Link
When I was in 1st grade, I was at a friend’s house for a birthday party, and stole her brother’s Mickey Mouse watch. My memories of the incident itself are dim. I have a vague recollection that I saw it, wanted it, and took it when I had the opportunity. I’m sure that even at that young age, I knew what I was doing was wrong.
My parents found out and were horrified, of course. I was given a lecture, taken back to my friend’s house, made to confess and apologize. Again, dim memories of being very embarrassed and ashamed.
My parents told me years later that they were worried sick that this was a sign of future anti social behavior. 35 years later: have never stolen anything again, nor broken any laws worse than having an expired car registration!
So parents, don’t worry so much. Just set your kids a good example in your own conduct, each and every day. Anything good or decent I can lay claim to in my own self and life, I owe to the goodness in my mom and dad. Your kids will remember the same of you.
— wwphs
6. August 10, 2009
11:12 pm
Link
Interesting topic. All parents face this issue, and the response for each child and of each child is somewhat different. My older two tried the stealing thing at stores once or twice, but once caught and forced (by me) to face the music it stopped. At home, it took a few more tries before “thou shalt not steal” took hold. My youngest, who had an innate sense of morality, was sorely tempted by the candy at supermarket checkout. She managed it by straightening it out ore re-arranging it while we checked out.
Bhansen, you have my sympathy. As my youngest had that innate sense of morality, it seems your son doesn’t have the desir, or perhaps the ability, to learn to control himself. My son had a few brushes with the law; it made me very aware of how little control we really have over our children. We just have to do our best and pray for them and for us,
— Cathy V
7. August 10, 2009
11:20 pm
Link
i really think it is a head-scratching problen.Frankly speaking, the parents who pay much attention to their children”s mental edvelopment are more anxious and blind about how to handle this problem properly.If they take it as granted,the kids “habit would be more difficult to quit,but it they take it seriously, the kids’ heart would be frightened and a dark shadow would impress on their young heart because they really had not done something wrong ,that is just a process of growth ,a felling of curiosity.
After all, adults may have the desire to get away something they like some time although they don’t really do it .
So the better way to solve it is try to reason and criticise the kids gently and tell them they should buy them instead of getting them for free. Of course,parents should set a good example to the children and communicate with them more often.
— Tina
8. August 11, 2009
12:07 am
Link
Bhansen, your story reminds me of the time when, as a young child, I picked some flowers from a neighbor’s garden. Horrified by my theft, my mother marched me to my neighbor’s door and had me return my ill-gotten goods. It was a lesson that made a strong impression on me.
Another way she impressed upon her kids the wrongheadedness of stealing was to have us give up something of value, if she discovered one child had taken something from another (we were a family with five children, with inevitable conflicts). Helping us to know what it felt like to be the victim of a theft helped us curb our impulses to take things that did not belong to us.
— Janet
9. August 11, 2009
12:16 am
Link
Definitely can empathize with the “anger stealing.” As a child of divorced parents, I can’t tell you how many times I stole and destroyed prized possessions, etc., with the idea that somehow these petty acts of vengeance would set things straight.
This is indeed a harder problem to solve, because it is more a symptom rather than a problem in and of itself.
I’m an adult now, and I don’t steal anymore. I just drink too much, gamble too much, get angry a lot, have poor romantic relationships, etc.
But I don’t steal!
— GLM
10. August 11, 2009
12:36 am
Link
i stole as a child, till i was @ 10 years old.
my mom knew, and kept my secret even though other moms called to say i’d stolen a lucite ring here, some dollhouse furniture there, pretty barrettes, etc.
perhaps she thought this stealing was normal; i don’t think she ever realized that i took these things because i wasn’t bought things like that. nice stuff, but nothing very pretty. certainly, we had the $$ to buy these things, i just don’t think it ever occurred to her that i would want–or, more so, need–these items.
the larger story was that my family loved me very much, but didn’t listen to me tell them what i wanted/needed, so i stopped asking at a very young age. to this day, in my 40s, i remember these incidents. and it’s taken me a long time to get over not being doted on the way the rest of the girls my age were.
— anne
11. August 11, 2009
12:40 am
Link
My closest friend from age 8 on was caught repeatedly stealing during childhood and into junior high. Stealing money from her parents’ coin collection, stealing money from cars at a sport field, and shoplifting. We lived in an upper middle class neighborhood,. At the time, I really could not understand why she stole things. It took my friend many years, in fact until the age of 30, to confide to me that her stepfather was beating her severely from childhood on. I have come to believe that chronic theft by children, when there is not an obvious poverty-starvation condition afoot, calls for a closer look into the child’s home life. In her adulthood, my friend suffered anxiety problems and finally got the therapy she needed. She is a wonderful person who has had to deal with a difficult childhood..
— dm
12. August 11, 2009
12:53 am
Link
My ten year old son has stolen a number of items. I noticed that he stole money from people he wanted more love and attention from. I was horrified. It was hard to stop myself from giving the “this will lead nowhere good and might land you in the state penitentiary” lecture and just stick to the situation at hand. Mostly I managed to keep it in the moment, telling him to return the item, apologize and pay for it. Sometimes I would add consequences like no TV or computer. He consistently stole a neighbor’s Wall Street Journal from the front stoop — I haven’t come up with any explanations for that one.
I worried that he’d become a juvenile delinquent or worse when this was combined with getting into behavior trouble at school. However, he switched schools last year and was much happier at the new one. The stealing has tapered off. I can’t think of anything he’s stolen recently at all, though the hardest thing for him to give up was Wall Street Journal.
— Alexena Bransford
13. August 11, 2009
1:25 am
Link
bhansen - if it’s any consolation, I stole like a fiend at your sons age; anything i could get my hands on. anything. huge amounts of stuff. i got caught one day (on a day when i’d taken very little, thanks]fully) and a store detective scared the hell out of me.
I’ve not stolen in 20 years.
I have another friend who had a similar theft habit; up to and including university - even from the archives of their college. 20 years later and they’re a lawyer - and fastidiously straight down the line.
I hope these might offer you some hope for your son - we take much greater risks when we’re young; at some point as we age the rationalization of the cost/benefit is such that many people stop as a matter of course. It might not be higher morality, but it’s better than nothing..
— annon
14. August 11, 2009
1:27 am
Link
Bhansen, I advise you to seek a therapist for you and your child. The stealing isn’t somehow a purely personal problem of your son without relationship to his family or environment in general.
— odysseus
15. August 11, 2009
1:32 am
Link
One of my children, at age 7, stole so much money (from my purse over several months’ time) that for awhile we actually went into debt. Turns out she was being molested by a neighbor and this was her cry for help.
— outsider
16. August 11, 2009
4:43 am
Link
I was a 9 year old Brooklyn punk, –stole like crazy till I was about 13, (then living in NJ suburbia) stole some makeup from a drug store that I later knew was watching me to catch me in the act as I was getting very brazen. They told me they were going to call the police and I bolted, never stole again.
Years later my daughter stole a lipstick, and was caught by a supermarket camera, the decent man who was the manager, bought me in the store, talked witrh her and I explained how stealing makes us all pay more, etc.– but my sweet daughter was so humiliated that she never did it again– I NEVER told anyone or ever mentioned it to her after we drove home and I told her about myself and all that stopped me from stealing, normal phase for many– 99% stop and move on- don’t make a huge scene about it– love, understanding, honesty and logic…no big power plays as so many parents do, my Mom threatened “reform school” (emotional abuse with this & more unfortunately)– made it worse and prolonged it.
— things change
17. August 11, 2009
7:09 am
Link
I think the advice in the column is excellent; it can be hard to find just the right balance, though.
Peer pressure can help. I remember my father (now about age 80) telling me of a friend of his in junior high school (I think) who stole from a local store, and my dad’s expressing his disapproval. Some time later, the friend told a story of being caught at the store, taken to the manager’s office, left alone while the manager went to call the police, and trying to escape out the window. He said he was caught by the manager, who pulled his leg “just like I’m pulling yours”. His point was that my dad’s (and his other friends’) message had gotten through—he wasn’t stealing anymore.
— Sally G
18. August 11, 2009
8:09 am
Link
I remember lifting three items as a child. One, because I knew my parents wouldn’t let me buy it. The second was on a dare, and the third was an anger theft. All small inexpensive items.
What I most remember about those items was that I did not value them, nor was I able to enjoy them at all. This alone was reason enough to decide not to try it again.
The increasing criminalization of common childhood misbehaviors does present an ethical dilemma for parents. What was once a matter of returning an item and possibly working out an arrangement for restitution can now lead to a day in juvenile court or even criminal court for parents. It requires a different response from parents. Doing the right thing can exact a much higher price than it used to. What to do?
— rjs
19. August 11, 2009
8:57 am
Link
My brother was about 3 when he took a package of gum from the grocery store. My mom found it when we got home, took him back to the store and made him apologize to the owner, a family friend.
This gentleman, as kind as a puppy, was very very tall, wore a bow tie, and had a military flattop haircut and Drew-Carey like black glasses. So he looked a little scarey to small kids.
My mother told him my brother had something to tell him, and Mr. Moore, apparently in on the deal, was very solemn and stern. My blubbering brother confessed, apologized, promised to never do it and handed over the gum. Mr. Moore accepted it and my mother thanked him.
Scared us straight.
I still shop at that neighborhood market, and Mr. Moore’s son, who now owns the store, says he has to do this about once a month. Seems customers in his store still believe in the scared straight method. He says that usually the kids are so cute, he just wants to hug them and say it’s OK, but he knows that’s not the message that he needs to send.
— Kim from Nebraska
20. August 11, 2009
9:45 am
Link
What about teenagers who shoplift? I had a friend who started off shoplifting lip balm. She had a bucket of 100s of them under her bed. She then moved onto clothes. She turned out fine (now has a good job, graduated college, nice husband).
Can Dr. Klass address the issue of shoplifting in the teenager? It seems like a separate topic.
— S
21. August 11, 2009
9:47 am
Link
My son stole comic books when he was 8 or so. I told him that he couldn’t go into a store alone for 3 months. He was relatively horrified at what he had done, goaded by an older friend. They were both poor kids, mothers on welfare. He was relieved at the punishment.
Fast forward 32 years. He is a very productive member of society, at the height of his field, making great money, giving back to the community, volunteering with homeless children, a loving and supportive and connected family member. He doesn’t steal anymore. As far as I know he never stole again.
— eliz
22. August 11, 2009
9:53 am
Link
When my brother and I were little, we were in a music store in our hometown that is famous for it’s collection of guitars and music (on vinyl back then). I was old enough to be walking, but my mother had my brother in a back pack carrier. While she was standing there talking to her friend and the person working at the store, my brother proceeded to take as many guitar picks as he could and stuff them in the backpack. When my mom got home and took him out of the carrier, he had close to 100 guitar picks. He was too young to understand when she took them back and explained, but I was fascinated. It is still a story told often in our family.
— Lisa
23. August 11, 2009
10:00 am
Link
two views on stealing - my husband came from strange parents - his father drank and was very abusive to my husband, their youngest child. Dad was also notoriously cheap and not overly kind, although he used to go to church all the time. Well, my husband’s mother would have her son steal the coins from her husband’s pockets after he passed out, then send my husband down to buy them ice cream. My husband admitted he stole money from his dad, but after growing up kept stealing ’small’ - coins, stuff from the office and would hide money from me. A very wierd dimension in an otherwise good person.
When my son was 6 he was quite twisted up about something and didn’t tell me. He did confide in his father that for the whole school year he’d been stealing classmates’ pencils and had a whole box full and he didn’t know what to do about it and was frightened the teacher would discover his crime. So my husband (the coin stealer above) told him that every day, he should covertly return one pencil to each child until they were where they belonged. My son did and was enormously relieved when it was over. Of course, my husband didn’t tell me about it until it had already happened. Anyway, I noticed my son took money from me occassionally and i confronted him, usually because i didn’t have that much money to spare. But I decided that I wasn’t going to hide money and left it around, especially coins, and told him if he needed any money, it was okay to take some. and after that he never took money anymore. But, it did turn out that during this pencil incident, my son was being molested by an older female child in a babysitting situation and it took a lot of years for him to overcome that horror. This was a major issue that my husband could never deal with and to this day has never discussed with our son. Luckily, my son has grown into a fine young man and I haven’t noticed any wierd stealing habits. My other son I never had any problems with. But I wouldn’t discount such things or be so cavalier as the doctor in this story. I don’t think it’s normal or routine. I wouldn’t freak on the kid, but I would consider it a heads up that you’d better watch over your child a little closer. I never suspected anything like molestation but I look back and there were several signs, pencil stealing just one of them.
— Trudy
24. August 11, 2009
10:00 am
Link
My son stole a grapefruit, some jello and the carton of half and half from the fridge when he was 4. He put it under his bed, which was quite easy to see when you walked in his room. We never did figure out why he did it, but we all laughed when it was discovered. He has not stolen anything since, and is now a fine and upstanding citizen of 27 years. Who knows why he stole from the fridge? Maybe he was thinking he would like a midnight snack?
— Dianne
25. August 11, 2009
10:03 am
When our culture worships objects (ie. cars & barbies) you can expect children and people who have grown up immature to blur the boundary between having and wanting. It is a byproduct of the parenting of children who have been taught to believe that it’s easier to apologize than it is to ask permission. This matrix can be stretched limitlessly to fit over the stealing of financial banks and their pyramid credit operations. Credit has made us into financial imbeciles and as this article expresses… some of us into shoplifters and discredited thieves..
— John Jacobson
1 2 3 4 Next
When a Child Steals
By Tara Parker-Pope
When is stealing a normal childhood behavior, and when is it something to worry about? That’s the issue explored in today’s 18 and Under column by pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass.
By the time a worried parent asked me professionally about a child who had stolen something, I had some answers — because I had already been a worried parent and had asked my own pediatrician.
In our house we had gone through the usual process, but I had no idea how usual it was…. How do we handle this? What does it mean? Does this tell us something we don’t want to know about our child’s character? About ourselves? Is something really wrong?
To learn more, read the full column, “Stealing in Childhood Does Not a Criminal Make,” and then please join the discussion below. Has your child ever stolen something? How did you handle it?
From Well
When the Doctor Struggles With Weight
Talking to Boys About Sex
A Pediatrician’s View of Rude Children
1. August 10, 2009
9:48 pm
Link
Yes my child has stolen. It started at age 6 in the supermarket. I caught him stealing candy in the aisle. I took him to the front desk and explained to the clerk what he had done. I then told the clerk that the child would now like to pay for the candy which he did. The stealing however continued, and he would try to separate himself from me when we got to the store. Finally I had to tell him no more trips to the supermarket.
In 7th grade he was caught stealing a camera from a student’s locker. In 9th grade I found $80 in his wallet which had disappeared from mine. He is going to turn 16 next month. I don’t see anything good in his future.
— bhansen
2. August 10, 2009
10:15 pm
Link
if a child have all he needs to have,and still went inside a mall and stole something without showing it to the mother,it is a very big problem to the family and the community.
— jessica
3. August 10, 2009
10:15 pm
Link
Bhansen, I feel for you and it sounds like you are doing your best. There really seems to be little a parent can do to deal with a child who has poor impulse control and keeps engaging in risky behavior.
My mom (now in her 60s) sometimes seems to think rules don’t apply to her. When I was a kid she told me some impressive lines about how it’s not right to steal, but one time as a teen I was deeply embarrassed when I caught her trying to steal an already-opened pack of gum from a drugstore. I told her to put it back. Recently we went to a restaurant, she asked for a (free) cup of water instead of soda, and then couldn’t figure out where to get water from the soda dispenser… so she felt that her inability to find the water entitled her to a free soda. I felt so frustrated and furious, I yanked the soda out of her hand and threw it away, as if she were a child. How could she teach me that stealing was wrong and then cavalierly try it herself?
I guess trying to get away with something, is a human impulse that we all have from time to time, and we can all act on it. I hope you have a better time with your son in the future.
— Ellen
4. August 10, 2009
10:56 pm
Link
My neighbor and I used to play together all the time when we were little. We’d often bring our toys to each other’s houses, and would usually end up accidentally forgetting at least one of them. The thing is, we’d rarely give them back. It was sort of, oh well, if she forgot it, she must not want it, it’s mine now! And we both did this, and were actually pretty okay with it.
Is that stealing…? haha
— hello
5. August 10, 2009
11:02 pm
Link
When I was in 1st grade, I was at a friend’s house for a birthday party, and stole her brother’s Mickey Mouse watch. My memories of the incident itself are dim. I have a vague recollection that I saw it, wanted it, and took it when I had the opportunity. I’m sure that even at that young age, I knew what I was doing was wrong.
My parents found out and were horrified, of course. I was given a lecture, taken back to my friend’s house, made to confess and apologize. Again, dim memories of being very embarrassed and ashamed.
My parents told me years later that they were worried sick that this was a sign of future anti social behavior. 35 years later: have never stolen anything again, nor broken any laws worse than having an expired car registration!
So parents, don’t worry so much. Just set your kids a good example in your own conduct, each and every day. Anything good or decent I can lay claim to in my own self and life, I owe to the goodness in my mom and dad. Your kids will remember the same of you.
— wwphs
6. August 10, 2009
11:12 pm
Link
Interesting topic. All parents face this issue, and the response for each child and of each child is somewhat different. My older two tried the stealing thing at stores once or twice, but once caught and forced (by me) to face the music it stopped. At home, it took a few more tries before “thou shalt not steal” took hold. My youngest, who had an innate sense of morality, was sorely tempted by the candy at supermarket checkout. She managed it by straightening it out ore re-arranging it while we checked out.
Bhansen, you have my sympathy. As my youngest had that innate sense of morality, it seems your son doesn’t have the desir, or perhaps the ability, to learn to control himself. My son had a few brushes with the law; it made me very aware of how little control we really have over our children. We just have to do our best and pray for them and for us,
— Cathy V
7. August 10, 2009
11:20 pm
Link
i really think it is a head-scratching problen.Frankly speaking, the parents who pay much attention to their children”s mental edvelopment are more anxious and blind about how to handle this problem properly.If they take it as granted,the kids “habit would be more difficult to quit,but it they take it seriously, the kids’ heart would be frightened and a dark shadow would impress on their young heart because they really had not done something wrong ,that is just a process of growth ,a felling of curiosity.
After all, adults may have the desire to get away something they like some time although they don’t really do it .
So the better way to solve it is try to reason and criticise the kids gently and tell them they should buy them instead of getting them for free. Of course,parents should set a good example to the children and communicate with them more often.
— Tina
8. August 11, 2009
12:07 am
Link
Bhansen, your story reminds me of the time when, as a young child, I picked some flowers from a neighbor’s garden. Horrified by my theft, my mother marched me to my neighbor’s door and had me return my ill-gotten goods. It was a lesson that made a strong impression on me.
Another way she impressed upon her kids the wrongheadedness of stealing was to have us give up something of value, if she discovered one child had taken something from another (we were a family with five children, with inevitable conflicts). Helping us to know what it felt like to be the victim of a theft helped us curb our impulses to take things that did not belong to us.
— Janet
9. August 11, 2009
12:16 am
Link
Definitely can empathize with the “anger stealing.” As a child of divorced parents, I can’t tell you how many times I stole and destroyed prized possessions, etc., with the idea that somehow these petty acts of vengeance would set things straight.
This is indeed a harder problem to solve, because it is more a symptom rather than a problem in and of itself.
I’m an adult now, and I don’t steal anymore. I just drink too much, gamble too much, get angry a lot, have poor romantic relationships, etc.
But I don’t steal!
— GLM
10. August 11, 2009
12:36 am
Link
i stole as a child, till i was @ 10 years old.
my mom knew, and kept my secret even though other moms called to say i’d stolen a lucite ring here, some dollhouse furniture there, pretty barrettes, etc.
perhaps she thought this stealing was normal; i don’t think she ever realized that i took these things because i wasn’t bought things like that. nice stuff, but nothing very pretty. certainly, we had the $$ to buy these things, i just don’t think it ever occurred to her that i would want–or, more so, need–these items.
the larger story was that my family loved me very much, but didn’t listen to me tell them what i wanted/needed, so i stopped asking at a very young age. to this day, in my 40s, i remember these incidents. and it’s taken me a long time to get over not being doted on the way the rest of the girls my age were.
— anne
11. August 11, 2009
12:40 am
Link
My closest friend from age 8 on was caught repeatedly stealing during childhood and into junior high. Stealing money from her parents’ coin collection, stealing money from cars at a sport field, and shoplifting. We lived in an upper middle class neighborhood,. At the time, I really could not understand why she stole things. It took my friend many years, in fact until the age of 30, to confide to me that her stepfather was beating her severely from childhood on. I have come to believe that chronic theft by children, when there is not an obvious poverty-starvation condition afoot, calls for a closer look into the child’s home life. In her adulthood, my friend suffered anxiety problems and finally got the therapy she needed. She is a wonderful person who has had to deal with a difficult childhood..
— dm
12. August 11, 2009
12:53 am
Link
My ten year old son has stolen a number of items. I noticed that he stole money from people he wanted more love and attention from. I was horrified. It was hard to stop myself from giving the “this will lead nowhere good and might land you in the state penitentiary” lecture and just stick to the situation at hand. Mostly I managed to keep it in the moment, telling him to return the item, apologize and pay for it. Sometimes I would add consequences like no TV or computer. He consistently stole a neighbor’s Wall Street Journal from the front stoop — I haven’t come up with any explanations for that one.
I worried that he’d become a juvenile delinquent or worse when this was combined with getting into behavior trouble at school. However, he switched schools last year and was much happier at the new one. The stealing has tapered off. I can’t think of anything he’s stolen recently at all, though the hardest thing for him to give up was Wall Street Journal.
— Alexena Bransford
13. August 11, 2009
1:25 am
Link
bhansen - if it’s any consolation, I stole like a fiend at your sons age; anything i could get my hands on. anything. huge amounts of stuff. i got caught one day (on a day when i’d taken very little, thanks]fully) and a store detective scared the hell out of me.
I’ve not stolen in 20 years.
I have another friend who had a similar theft habit; up to and including university - even from the archives of their college. 20 years later and they’re a lawyer - and fastidiously straight down the line.
I hope these might offer you some hope for your son - we take much greater risks when we’re young; at some point as we age the rationalization of the cost/benefit is such that many people stop as a matter of course. It might not be higher morality, but it’s better than nothing..
— annon
14. August 11, 2009
1:27 am
Link
Bhansen, I advise you to seek a therapist for you and your child. The stealing isn’t somehow a purely personal problem of your son without relationship to his family or environment in general.
— odysseus
15. August 11, 2009
1:32 am
Link
One of my children, at age 7, stole so much money (from my purse over several months’ time) that for awhile we actually went into debt. Turns out she was being molested by a neighbor and this was her cry for help.
— outsider
16. August 11, 2009
4:43 am
Link
I was a 9 year old Brooklyn punk, –stole like crazy till I was about 13, (then living in NJ suburbia) stole some makeup from a drug store that I later knew was watching me to catch me in the act as I was getting very brazen. They told me they were going to call the police and I bolted, never stole again.
Years later my daughter stole a lipstick, and was caught by a supermarket camera, the decent man who was the manager, bought me in the store, talked witrh her and I explained how stealing makes us all pay more, etc.– but my sweet daughter was so humiliated that she never did it again– I NEVER told anyone or ever mentioned it to her after we drove home and I told her about myself and all that stopped me from stealing, normal phase for many– 99% stop and move on- don’t make a huge scene about it– love, understanding, honesty and logic…no big power plays as so many parents do, my Mom threatened “reform school” (emotional abuse with this & more unfortunately)– made it worse and prolonged it.
— things change
17. August 11, 2009
7:09 am
Link
I think the advice in the column is excellent; it can be hard to find just the right balance, though.
Peer pressure can help. I remember my father (now about age 80) telling me of a friend of his in junior high school (I think) who stole from a local store, and my dad’s expressing his disapproval. Some time later, the friend told a story of being caught at the store, taken to the manager’s office, left alone while the manager went to call the police, and trying to escape out the window. He said he was caught by the manager, who pulled his leg “just like I’m pulling yours”. His point was that my dad’s (and his other friends’) message had gotten through—he wasn’t stealing anymore.
— Sally G
18. August 11, 2009
8:09 am
Link
I remember lifting three items as a child. One, because I knew my parents wouldn’t let me buy it. The second was on a dare, and the third was an anger theft. All small inexpensive items.
What I most remember about those items was that I did not value them, nor was I able to enjoy them at all. This alone was reason enough to decide not to try it again.
The increasing criminalization of common childhood misbehaviors does present an ethical dilemma for parents. What was once a matter of returning an item and possibly working out an arrangement for restitution can now lead to a day in juvenile court or even criminal court for parents. It requires a different response from parents. Doing the right thing can exact a much higher price than it used to. What to do?
— rjs
19. August 11, 2009
8:57 am
Link
My brother was about 3 when he took a package of gum from the grocery store. My mom found it when we got home, took him back to the store and made him apologize to the owner, a family friend.
This gentleman, as kind as a puppy, was very very tall, wore a bow tie, and had a military flattop haircut and Drew-Carey like black glasses. So he looked a little scarey to small kids.
My mother told him my brother had something to tell him, and Mr. Moore, apparently in on the deal, was very solemn and stern. My blubbering brother confessed, apologized, promised to never do it and handed over the gum. Mr. Moore accepted it and my mother thanked him.
Scared us straight.
I still shop at that neighborhood market, and Mr. Moore’s son, who now owns the store, says he has to do this about once a month. Seems customers in his store still believe in the scared straight method. He says that usually the kids are so cute, he just wants to hug them and say it’s OK, but he knows that’s not the message that he needs to send.
— Kim from Nebraska
20. August 11, 2009
9:45 am
Link
What about teenagers who shoplift? I had a friend who started off shoplifting lip balm. She had a bucket of 100s of them under her bed. She then moved onto clothes. She turned out fine (now has a good job, graduated college, nice husband).
Can Dr. Klass address the issue of shoplifting in the teenager? It seems like a separate topic.
— S
21. August 11, 2009
9:47 am
Link
My son stole comic books when he was 8 or so. I told him that he couldn’t go into a store alone for 3 months. He was relatively horrified at what he had done, goaded by an older friend. They were both poor kids, mothers on welfare. He was relieved at the punishment.
Fast forward 32 years. He is a very productive member of society, at the height of his field, making great money, giving back to the community, volunteering with homeless children, a loving and supportive and connected family member. He doesn’t steal anymore. As far as I know he never stole again.
— eliz
22. August 11, 2009
9:53 am
Link
When my brother and I were little, we were in a music store in our hometown that is famous for it’s collection of guitars and music (on vinyl back then). I was old enough to be walking, but my mother had my brother in a back pack carrier. While she was standing there talking to her friend and the person working at the store, my brother proceeded to take as many guitar picks as he could and stuff them in the backpack. When my mom got home and took him out of the carrier, he had close to 100 guitar picks. He was too young to understand when she took them back and explained, but I was fascinated. It is still a story told often in our family.
— Lisa
23. August 11, 2009
10:00 am
Link
two views on stealing - my husband came from strange parents - his father drank and was very abusive to my husband, their youngest child. Dad was also notoriously cheap and not overly kind, although he used to go to church all the time. Well, my husband’s mother would have her son steal the coins from her husband’s pockets after he passed out, then send my husband down to buy them ice cream. My husband admitted he stole money from his dad, but after growing up kept stealing ’small’ - coins, stuff from the office and would hide money from me. A very wierd dimension in an otherwise good person.
When my son was 6 he was quite twisted up about something and didn’t tell me. He did confide in his father that for the whole school year he’d been stealing classmates’ pencils and had a whole box full and he didn’t know what to do about it and was frightened the teacher would discover his crime. So my husband (the coin stealer above) told him that every day, he should covertly return one pencil to each child until they were where they belonged. My son did and was enormously relieved when it was over. Of course, my husband didn’t tell me about it until it had already happened. Anyway, I noticed my son took money from me occassionally and i confronted him, usually because i didn’t have that much money to spare. But I decided that I wasn’t going to hide money and left it around, especially coins, and told him if he needed any money, it was okay to take some. and after that he never took money anymore. But, it did turn out that during this pencil incident, my son was being molested by an older female child in a babysitting situation and it took a lot of years for him to overcome that horror. This was a major issue that my husband could never deal with and to this day has never discussed with our son. Luckily, my son has grown into a fine young man and I haven’t noticed any wierd stealing habits. My other son I never had any problems with. But I wouldn’t discount such things or be so cavalier as the doctor in this story. I don’t think it’s normal or routine. I wouldn’t freak on the kid, but I would consider it a heads up that you’d better watch over your child a little closer. I never suspected anything like molestation but I look back and there were several signs, pencil stealing just one of them.
— Trudy
24. August 11, 2009
10:00 am
Link
My son stole a grapefruit, some jello and the carton of half and half from the fridge when he was 4. He put it under his bed, which was quite easy to see when you walked in his room. We never did figure out why he did it, but we all laughed when it was discovered. He has not stolen anything since, and is now a fine and upstanding citizen of 27 years. Who knows why he stole from the fridge? Maybe he was thinking he would like a midnight snack?
— Dianne
25. August 11, 2009
10:03 am
When our culture worships objects (ie. cars & barbies) you can expect children and people who have grown up immature to blur the boundary between having and wanting. It is a byproduct of the parenting of children who have been taught to believe that it’s easier to apologize than it is to ask permission. This matrix can be stretched limitlessly to fit over the stealing of financial banks and their pyramid credit operations. Credit has made us into financial imbeciles and as this article expresses… some of us into shoplifters and discredited thieves..
— John Jacobson
1 2 3 4 Next
NY Times - page 2 Chinese Incinerators Pollute Air
Trash incinerators have two advantages that have prompted Japan and much of Europe to embrace them: they occupy much less real estate than landfills, and the heat from burning trash can be used to generate electricity. The Baoan incinerator generates enough power to light 40,000 households.
Timothy O'Rourke for The New York Times
Zhong Rigang, the chief engineer at the Baoan incinerator, saw little enthusiasm among the public for recycling.
Timothy O’Rourke for The New York Times
The Longgang incinerators in Shenzhen were the focus of a recent all-day sit-in by hundreds of local residents.
A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
And landfills have their own environmental hazards. Decay in landfills also releases large quantities of methane, a powerful global warming gas, said Robert McIlvaine, president of McIlvaine Company, an energy consulting firm that calculates the relative costs of addressing disparate environmental hazards. Methane from landfills is a far bigger problem in China than toxic pollutants from incinerators, particularly modern incinerators like those in Baoan, he said.
China’s national regulations still allow incinerators to emit 10 times as much dioxin as incinerators in the European Union; American standards are similar to those in Europe. Tightening of China’s national standards has been stuck for three years in a bureaucratic war between the environment ministry and the main economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said a Beijing official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.
The agencies agree that tighter standards on dioxin emissions are needed. They disagree on whether the environment ministry should have the power to stop incinerator projects that do not meet tighter standards, the official said, adding that the planning agency wants to retain the power to decide which projects go ahead.
Yan Jianhua, the director of the solid waste treatment expert group in Zhejiang province, a center of incinerator equipment manufacturing in China, defended the industry’s record on dioxin, saying that households that burn their trash outdoors emit far more dioxin.
“Open burning is a bigger problem according to our research,” Professor Yan said, adding that what China really needs is better trash collection so that garbage can be disposed of more reliably.
Critics and admirers of incinerators alike call for more recycling and reduced use of packaging as ways to reduce the daily volume of municipal garbage. Even when not recycled, sorted trash is easier for incinerators to burn cleanly, because the temperature in the furnace can be adjusted more precisely to minimize the formation of dioxin.
Yet the Chinese public has shown little enthusiasm for recycling. As Mr. Zhong, the engineer at the Baoan incinerator, put it, “No one really cares.”
Timothy O'Rourke for The New York Times
Zhong Rigang, the chief engineer at the Baoan incinerator, saw little enthusiasm among the public for recycling.
Timothy O’Rourke for The New York Times
The Longgang incinerators in Shenzhen were the focus of a recent all-day sit-in by hundreds of local residents.
A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
And landfills have their own environmental hazards. Decay in landfills also releases large quantities of methane, a powerful global warming gas, said Robert McIlvaine, president of McIlvaine Company, an energy consulting firm that calculates the relative costs of addressing disparate environmental hazards. Methane from landfills is a far bigger problem in China than toxic pollutants from incinerators, particularly modern incinerators like those in Baoan, he said.
China’s national regulations still allow incinerators to emit 10 times as much dioxin as incinerators in the European Union; American standards are similar to those in Europe. Tightening of China’s national standards has been stuck for three years in a bureaucratic war between the environment ministry and the main economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said a Beijing official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.
The agencies agree that tighter standards on dioxin emissions are needed. They disagree on whether the environment ministry should have the power to stop incinerator projects that do not meet tighter standards, the official said, adding that the planning agency wants to retain the power to decide which projects go ahead.
Yan Jianhua, the director of the solid waste treatment expert group in Zhejiang province, a center of incinerator equipment manufacturing in China, defended the industry’s record on dioxin, saying that households that burn their trash outdoors emit far more dioxin.
“Open burning is a bigger problem according to our research,” Professor Yan said, adding that what China really needs is better trash collection so that garbage can be disposed of more reliably.
Critics and admirers of incinerators alike call for more recycling and reduced use of packaging as ways to reduce the daily volume of municipal garbage. Even when not recycled, sorted trash is easier for incinerators to burn cleanly, because the temperature in the furnace can be adjusted more precisely to minimize the formation of dioxin.
Yet the Chinese public has shown little enthusiasm for recycling. As Mr. Zhong, the engineer at the Baoan incinerator, put it, “No one really cares.”
NY Times - page 1 Chinese Incinerators Pollute Air
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: August 11, 2009
SHENZHEN, China — In this sprawling metropolis in southeastern China stand two hulking brown buildings erected by a private company, the Longgang trash incinerators. They can be smelled a mile away and pour out so much dark smoke and hazardous chemicals that hundreds of local residents recently staged an all-day sit-in, demanding that the incinerators be cleaner and that a planned third incinerator not be built nearby.
Timothy O'Rourke for The New York Times
A truck delivering trash to the Baoan incinerator in Shenzhen, China. The incinerator is relatively clean, but is also costly.
A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
After surpassing the United States as the world’s largest producer of household garbage, China has embarked on a vast program to build incinerators as landfills run out of space. But these incinerators have become a growing source of toxic emissions, from dioxin to mercury, that can damage the body’s nervous system.
And these pollutants, particularly long-lasting substances like dioxin and mercury, are dangerous not only in China, a growing body of atmospheric research based on satellite observations suggests. They float on air currents across the Pacific to American shores.
Chinese incinerators can be better. At the other end of Shenzhen from Longgang, no smoke is visible from the towering smokestack of the Baoan incinerator, built by a company owned by the municipal government. Government tests show that it emits virtually no dioxin and other pollutants.
But the Baoan incinerator cost 10 times as much as the Longgang incinerators, per ton of trash-burning capacity.
The difference between the Baoan and Longgang incinerators lies at the center of a growing controversy in China. Incinerators are being built to wildly different standards across the country and even across cities like Shenzhen. For years Chinese government regulators have discussed the need to impose tighter limits on emissions. But they have done nothing because of a bureaucratic turf war, a Chinese government official and Chinese incineration experts said.
The Chinese government is struggling to cope with the rapidly rising mountains of trash generated as the world’s most populated country has raced from poverty to rampant consumerism. Beijing officials warned in June that all of the city’s landfills would run out of space within five years.
The governments of several cities with especially affluent, well-educated citizens, including Beijing and Shanghai, are setting pollution standards as strict as Europe’s. Despite those standards, protests against planned incinerators broke out this spring in Beijing and Shanghai as well as Shenzhen.
Increasingly outspoken residents in big cities are deeply distrustful that incinerators will be built and operated to international standards. “It’s hard to say whether this standard will be reached — maybe the incinerator is designed to reach this benchmark, but how do we know it will be properly operated?” said Zhao Yong, a computer server engineer who has become a neighborhood activist in Beijing against plans for an incinerator there.
Yet far dirtier incinerators continue to be built in inland cities where residents have shown little awareness of pollution.
Studies at the University of Washington and the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., have estimated that a sixth of the mercury now falling on North American lakes comes from Asia, particularly China, mainly from coal-fired plants and smelters but also from incinerators. Pollution from incinerators also tends to be high in toxic metals like cadmium.
Incinerators play the most important role in emissions of dioxin. Little research has been done on dioxin crossing the Pacific. But analyses of similar chemicals have shown that they can travel very long distances.
A 2005 report from the World Bank warned that if China built incinerators rapidly and did not limit their emissions, worldwide atmospheric levels of dioxin could double. China has since slowed its construction of incinerators and limited their emissions somewhat, but the World Bank has yet to do a follow-up report.
Airborne dioxin is not the only problem from incinerators. The ash left over after combustion is laced with dioxin and other pollutants. Zhong Rigang, the chief engineer at the Baoan incinerator here, said that his operation sent its ash to a special landfill designed to cope with toxic waste. But an academic paper last year by Nie Yongfeng, a Tsinghua University professor and government adviser who sees a need for more incinerators, said that most municipal landfills for toxic waste lacked room for the ash, so the ash was dumped.
Published: August 11, 2009
SHENZHEN, China — In this sprawling metropolis in southeastern China stand two hulking brown buildings erected by a private company, the Longgang trash incinerators. They can be smelled a mile away and pour out so much dark smoke and hazardous chemicals that hundreds of local residents recently staged an all-day sit-in, demanding that the incinerators be cleaner and that a planned third incinerator not be built nearby.
Timothy O'Rourke for The New York Times
A truck delivering trash to the Baoan incinerator in Shenzhen, China. The incinerator is relatively clean, but is also costly.
A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
After surpassing the United States as the world’s largest producer of household garbage, China has embarked on a vast program to build incinerators as landfills run out of space. But these incinerators have become a growing source of toxic emissions, from dioxin to mercury, that can damage the body’s nervous system.
And these pollutants, particularly long-lasting substances like dioxin and mercury, are dangerous not only in China, a growing body of atmospheric research based on satellite observations suggests. They float on air currents across the Pacific to American shores.
Chinese incinerators can be better. At the other end of Shenzhen from Longgang, no smoke is visible from the towering smokestack of the Baoan incinerator, built by a company owned by the municipal government. Government tests show that it emits virtually no dioxin and other pollutants.
But the Baoan incinerator cost 10 times as much as the Longgang incinerators, per ton of trash-burning capacity.
The difference between the Baoan and Longgang incinerators lies at the center of a growing controversy in China. Incinerators are being built to wildly different standards across the country and even across cities like Shenzhen. For years Chinese government regulators have discussed the need to impose tighter limits on emissions. But they have done nothing because of a bureaucratic turf war, a Chinese government official and Chinese incineration experts said.
The Chinese government is struggling to cope with the rapidly rising mountains of trash generated as the world’s most populated country has raced from poverty to rampant consumerism. Beijing officials warned in June that all of the city’s landfills would run out of space within five years.
The governments of several cities with especially affluent, well-educated citizens, including Beijing and Shanghai, are setting pollution standards as strict as Europe’s. Despite those standards, protests against planned incinerators broke out this spring in Beijing and Shanghai as well as Shenzhen.
Increasingly outspoken residents in big cities are deeply distrustful that incinerators will be built and operated to international standards. “It’s hard to say whether this standard will be reached — maybe the incinerator is designed to reach this benchmark, but how do we know it will be properly operated?” said Zhao Yong, a computer server engineer who has become a neighborhood activist in Beijing against plans for an incinerator there.
Yet far dirtier incinerators continue to be built in inland cities where residents have shown little awareness of pollution.
Studies at the University of Washington and the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., have estimated that a sixth of the mercury now falling on North American lakes comes from Asia, particularly China, mainly from coal-fired plants and smelters but also from incinerators. Pollution from incinerators also tends to be high in toxic metals like cadmium.
Incinerators play the most important role in emissions of dioxin. Little research has been done on dioxin crossing the Pacific. But analyses of similar chemicals have shown that they can travel very long distances.
A 2005 report from the World Bank warned that if China built incinerators rapidly and did not limit their emissions, worldwide atmospheric levels of dioxin could double. China has since slowed its construction of incinerators and limited their emissions somewhat, but the World Bank has yet to do a follow-up report.
Airborne dioxin is not the only problem from incinerators. The ash left over after combustion is laced with dioxin and other pollutants. Zhong Rigang, the chief engineer at the Baoan incinerator here, said that his operation sent its ash to a special landfill designed to cope with toxic waste. But an academic paper last year by Nie Yongfeng, a Tsinghua University professor and government adviser who sees a need for more incinerators, said that most municipal landfills for toxic waste lacked room for the ash, so the ash was dumped.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Survey Finds High Fees Common in Medical Care
Survey Finds High Fees Common in Medical Care
Published: August 11, 2009
A patient in Illinois was charged $12,712 for cataract surgery. Medicare pays $675 for the same procedure. In California, a patient was charged $20,120 for a knee operation that Medicare pays $584 for. And a New Jersey patient was charged $72,000 for a spinal fusion procedure that Medicare covers for $1,629.
Maxine Hicks for The New York Times
Ryan Davis and his mother, Maria, at their Miller Place home. The family was billed $6,000 for three stitches he received under his lower lip at the local hospital's emergency room.
The charges came out of a survey sponsored by America’s Health Insurance Plans in which insurers were asked for some of the highest bills submitted to them in 2008.
The group, which represents 1,300 health insurance companies, said it had no data on the frequency of such high fees, saying that to its knowledge no one had studied that. But it said it did the survey in part to defend against efforts by the Obama administration to portray certain industry practices as a major part of the nation’s health care problems.
The health insurers, saying they felt unfairly vilified, gave the report to The New York Times before posting it online on Tuesday, explaining that they wanted to show that doctors’ fees are part of the health care problem.
The group said it had used Medicare payments for comparison because Medicare was so familiar and payments are, on average, about 80 percent of what private insurers pay.
“It’s the wild, wild West when it comes to prices of anything in the U.S. health care system, whether for a doctor visit or for hospital charges,” said Jonathan S. Skinner, a health economist at Dartmouth.
The situation is so irrational, said Uwe E. Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton, that it simply cannot go on. “We will not emerge out of this decade with this lunacy,” Dr. Reinhardt said, adding, “You worry about credit card charges, you scream for consumer protection — why not scream for it here?”
But Dr. Robert M. Wah, a spokesman for the American Medical Association, said there was another side to the story: insurers’ low payments to doctors who enter into contracts with them and the doctors’ difficulties, in many cases, in getting paid at all. That is why, he said, doctors may simply abandon insurance plans. Then patients end up with extra fees because they have to go outside their networks.
Karen M. Ignagni, president and chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, had a different view, saying: “As we think about the health care debate, what’s been talked about is, What are the cost-sharing levels? What are the premium levels? How much do health plans pay? No politician has asked how much is being charged.”
Some of the health care legislation being considered by Congress would require insurers to increase their disclosure to patients of possible out-of-network costs. And President Obama has proposed changing how Medicare sets its payments to doctors and hospitals. But there are no specific proposals to control prices for out-of-network medical services.
In the survey, patients were insured but saw doctors who were out of their networks of care providers. Those doctors have no obligation to accept the out-of-network fee from insurers as payment in full. Patients may then be accountable for the balance.
“That is what generally happens,” said Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for the health insurers’ group. “The consumer is responsible.”
The survey looked at 10 companies that insure patients in the 30 most populous states; the companies provided some of the highest bills from 2008. Researchers excluded two types of charges that were likely to be erroneous: those that were greater than 10,000 percent of Medicare’s fees for a procedure, or more than 2,000 percent of Medicare’s fees and also more than 50 percent higher than the next-highest bill for the same procedure.
State laws protecting patients from getting stuck with medical bills in excess of their normal deductibles or co-payments vary widely, said Betsy M. Pelovitz, the group’s vice president for state policy. And, she said, the laws often offer little or no protection to patients who seek care outside their insurance networks.
In New York, patients with managed-care insurers cannot be asked to pay more than the applicable co-payment, deductible or co-insurance for an ambulance regardless of whether the provider is in or out of their network. In New Jersey, hospital emergency rooms treating Medicaid managed-care patients must accept Medicaid payments as payment in full and cannot bill patients extra. In Connecticut, a state law says it is “unfair trade practice” for medical providers to ask patients to pay more than a deductible or co-payment for services covered by their insurance.
But in general, patients hit with high bills from out-of-network doctors and hospitals may have little recourse, said Leslie Moran, senior vice president of the New York Health Plan Association. “When patients dig in their heels and say, ‘No, I’m not going to pay it,’ it sometimes goes to collection,” she said.
While there is no way of knowing how often doctors submit exorbitant bills, insurers tell America’s Health Insurance Plans that they see such bills “all the time, every day,” Ms. Pisano said.
The New York Health Plan Association provided more examples. In testimony at a state hearing in October, it told of a Long Island surgeon who charged $23,500 for an emergency appendectomy. The patient’s insurer paid its out-of-network fee of $4,629. The surgeon demanded the balance or said he would force the patient to pay. The insurance company paid the bill.
Published: August 11, 2009
A patient in Illinois was charged $12,712 for cataract surgery. Medicare pays $675 for the same procedure. In California, a patient was charged $20,120 for a knee operation that Medicare pays $584 for. And a New Jersey patient was charged $72,000 for a spinal fusion procedure that Medicare covers for $1,629.
Maxine Hicks for The New York Times
Ryan Davis and his mother, Maria, at their Miller Place home. The family was billed $6,000 for three stitches he received under his lower lip at the local hospital's emergency room.
The charges came out of a survey sponsored by America’s Health Insurance Plans in which insurers were asked for some of the highest bills submitted to them in 2008.
The group, which represents 1,300 health insurance companies, said it had no data on the frequency of such high fees, saying that to its knowledge no one had studied that. But it said it did the survey in part to defend against efforts by the Obama administration to portray certain industry practices as a major part of the nation’s health care problems.
The health insurers, saying they felt unfairly vilified, gave the report to The New York Times before posting it online on Tuesday, explaining that they wanted to show that doctors’ fees are part of the health care problem.
The group said it had used Medicare payments for comparison because Medicare was so familiar and payments are, on average, about 80 percent of what private insurers pay.
“It’s the wild, wild West when it comes to prices of anything in the U.S. health care system, whether for a doctor visit or for hospital charges,” said Jonathan S. Skinner, a health economist at Dartmouth.
The situation is so irrational, said Uwe E. Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton, that it simply cannot go on. “We will not emerge out of this decade with this lunacy,” Dr. Reinhardt said, adding, “You worry about credit card charges, you scream for consumer protection — why not scream for it here?”
But Dr. Robert M. Wah, a spokesman for the American Medical Association, said there was another side to the story: insurers’ low payments to doctors who enter into contracts with them and the doctors’ difficulties, in many cases, in getting paid at all. That is why, he said, doctors may simply abandon insurance plans. Then patients end up with extra fees because they have to go outside their networks.
Karen M. Ignagni, president and chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, had a different view, saying: “As we think about the health care debate, what’s been talked about is, What are the cost-sharing levels? What are the premium levels? How much do health plans pay? No politician has asked how much is being charged.”
Some of the health care legislation being considered by Congress would require insurers to increase their disclosure to patients of possible out-of-network costs. And President Obama has proposed changing how Medicare sets its payments to doctors and hospitals. But there are no specific proposals to control prices for out-of-network medical services.
In the survey, patients were insured but saw doctors who were out of their networks of care providers. Those doctors have no obligation to accept the out-of-network fee from insurers as payment in full. Patients may then be accountable for the balance.
“That is what generally happens,” said Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for the health insurers’ group. “The consumer is responsible.”
The survey looked at 10 companies that insure patients in the 30 most populous states; the companies provided some of the highest bills from 2008. Researchers excluded two types of charges that were likely to be erroneous: those that were greater than 10,000 percent of Medicare’s fees for a procedure, or more than 2,000 percent of Medicare’s fees and also more than 50 percent higher than the next-highest bill for the same procedure.
State laws protecting patients from getting stuck with medical bills in excess of their normal deductibles or co-payments vary widely, said Betsy M. Pelovitz, the group’s vice president for state policy. And, she said, the laws often offer little or no protection to patients who seek care outside their insurance networks.
In New York, patients with managed-care insurers cannot be asked to pay more than the applicable co-payment, deductible or co-insurance for an ambulance regardless of whether the provider is in or out of their network. In New Jersey, hospital emergency rooms treating Medicaid managed-care patients must accept Medicaid payments as payment in full and cannot bill patients extra. In Connecticut, a state law says it is “unfair trade practice” for medical providers to ask patients to pay more than a deductible or co-payment for services covered by their insurance.
But in general, patients hit with high bills from out-of-network doctors and hospitals may have little recourse, said Leslie Moran, senior vice president of the New York Health Plan Association. “When patients dig in their heels and say, ‘No, I’m not going to pay it,’ it sometimes goes to collection,” she said.
While there is no way of knowing how often doctors submit exorbitant bills, insurers tell America’s Health Insurance Plans that they see such bills “all the time, every day,” Ms. Pisano said.
The New York Health Plan Association provided more examples. In testimony at a state hearing in October, it told of a Long Island surgeon who charged $23,500 for an emergency appendectomy. The patient’s insurer paid its out-of-network fee of $4,629. The surgeon demanded the balance or said he would force the patient to pay. The insurance company paid the bill.
$100 million legacy commitment to habitat For Humanity
Ron Terwilliger, chair of Habitat for Humanity International's board of directors, recently made a $100 million legacy commitment to the organization—the largest donation from an individual in Habitat's history. This single donation will help some 60,000 families.
I support Habitat For Humanity with a small monthly donation and believe in their work.
I support Habitat For Humanity with a small monthly donation and believe in their work.
Twisting in the Wind - Miami Herald
Posted on Monday, 06.30.08 Twisting in the Wind
Similar stories:
Florida's plan for renewables was a lot of wasted energy
For a year, while the green movement was at its height, Florida environmentalists, new solar companies, utility lobbyists and state regulators spent thousands of hours trying to determine how much of the state's power supply should come from renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
They did it because the Legislature in 2008 ordered them to do it. After sifting through thousands of pages of documents and sitting in lengthy workshops, the Public Service Commission sent its recommendations to the 2009 Legislature. A renewable-energy bill passed the Senate but died in the House. The result: A year of work wasted.
Among the major victims: The ballyhooed Babcock Ranch project, which is trying to become the first solar-powered city in the world, and thousands of construction workers who would have been hired to build new power plants.
•Buffett's MidAmerican may buy FPL wind power assets in Iowa
Buffett's MidAmerican may buy FPL wind power assets in Iowa
MidAmerican Energy Co., the Iowa utility controlled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, may buy wind-power assets from FPL Group rather than starting from scratch with its own windmill farms.
Such a deal would help MidAmerican jump-start a plan, filed with state regulators, to add 1,001 megawatts of wind power capacity in Iowa, Dean Crist, the company's vice president for regulatory affairs, said Monday in an interview. FPL, the largest U.S. producer of wind and solar power, offered to sell Iowa assets to keep MidAmerican from building competing farms.
TAX CREDITS
PSC lacks key data on energy
Florida's top utility regulators grappled Tuesday with the question of how much solar, wind and biofuels the state should use to produce future electric power and how much Florida electric customers should pay for the climate-friendly technology.
But the five members of the Public Service Commission concluded they don't have the information or the direction from the Legislature to answer those questions by the Feb. 1 deadline.
So, rather than give the Legislature one proposal, they're considering proposing options for how Florida can meet the goals of reducing its reliance on fossil fuels while encouraging the development of alternative energy markets at reasonable costs to consumers.
FPL Group profits jump 77 percent
While Florida Power & Light seeks a billion-dollar increase in its basic rates, its parent company, FPL Group, reported a 77 percent increase in quarterly earnings Tuesday, driven partly by market hedges on energy contracts.
The utility reported a small decline in profit, caused by more empty homes due to foreclosure and lower customer usage as people tightened their belts during the recession. But that decline was more than compensated for by a good showing of the company's unregulated energy division.
Altogether, the energy giant earned a profit of $370 million, or 91 cents a share, compared with $209 million, or 52 cents a share, for the same period last year. Removing unusual one-time items, FPL Group executives said, earnings were $401 million for the quarter, up from $375 million last year.
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com
In the push to stop global warming, many experts are hearing a mighty rushing wind.
Clean and abundant wind power in vast stretches of America is not only far cheaper than solar, but as oil prices soar, it's proving to be less expensive than natural gas, a prime source of the nation's power.
At present, wind provides only 1 percent of U.S. electricity, but a federal report predicts the wind could be providing 20 percent of American power by 2030.
"Wind is ready to go, " says Christine Real de Azua of the American Wind Energy Association.
But perhaps not in Florida. Though pleasant breezes sweep in from the ocean, several experts say the quality and location of those winds make it difficult, if not impossible, to generate much wind power here at a reasonable cost.
Florida Power & Light, whose parent is the largest supplier of wind power in the nation, insisted for years it wouldn't build a wind farm in Florida because the state's breezes weren't strong enough. That changed last year when, under pressure from Gov. Charlie Crist and the public to move toward green energy, the utility announced plans for a small wind project near the Atlantic coast in St. Lucie County.
That effort has been mired in zoning disputes with neighbors who do not want their coastal skyline marred by windmills as tall as 40-story buildings. What's more, the strength of St. Lucie winds is less than half that of major wind farms in the American West.
"The power it's going to produce is so tiny, " complains Julie Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. "It's political. Governor Crist wants to be seen as this green Republican, and FPL wants to make him happy. . . . The wind hasn't changed. The technology hasn't changed."
Ryan Wiser, a renewable-energy expert at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, says a project with St. Lucie-strength winds would not be attempted in the West. "Why would you pick a place like the Southeast?"
Still, as oil and gas prices soar and Americans become more concerned about global warming, wind is now often viewed as the great savior. Vast stretches of the West -- particularly the Plains States and Texas -- now have fields of huge wind turbines that stretch for miles.
"It took us three generations to get the bugs out, " says Bob Thresher, director of the National Wind Technology Center in Colorado. The turbines kept getting bigger, the parts turning with less friction. Costs to produce a kilowatt hour of power dropped from 40 or 50 cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980s to today's 6 to 9 cents/kwh, not counting the tax subsidies.
CHEAPER THAN SOLAR
Wiser at Lawrence Berkeley says wind energy now costs roughly a third to half the cost of solar, factoring in the tax credits for each.
The California Energy Commission calculated last year that wind in top locations could produce power for 6.7 cents/kwh, compared with 9.6 cents/kwh for a natural gas plant. These wind prices, which include all construction and maintenance costs, seem more attractive in light of today's energy market. In the past year, natural gas prices have soared by 32 percent, according to FPL, meaning wind power in good locations might be about half the price of natural gas.
The best place for wind is North Dakota, according to the American Wind Energy Association. No. 2 is Texas, followed by Kansas, South Dakota and Montana. (Florida is not in the top 20.)
LOCATION, TIMING
Virtually all the best wind places are remote. "Where the wind is best is far from the urban centers that need the power, " says John Reilly, an energy economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That means more expense for adding transmission lines.
Wind's other problem is timing. While there are exceptions, wind is often at its best at night and during the fall, winter and spring, says Wiser. Utilities' greatest need is during the afternoons and summers, when air conditioners are humming. That means solar's afternoon peaks are "more advantageous to electric utilities."
Even so, many areas have come to embrace wind. It's cheap, and financially stressed farmers enjoy the $3,000 or $4,000 a year they typically get for renting land to wind producers. A turbine generally takes up one acre out of 50 -- turbines can't be too close or they block each other's wind -- and that means there's still plenty of land left for farming.
NORTHEAST CRUSADER
"We rarely hear about [protesters in] North Dakota, " says Lisa Linowes of Industrial Wind Action Group. From her home in Lyman, N.H., Linowes has become a crusader against wind farms ever since a company proposed putting huge turbines on a ridge near her home. She's become a cheerleader for many groups opposed to wind in their backyards, most of whom are in the East and Midwest.
The reality is that wind -- as clean and as green an energy source as Mother Nature can dish up -- has run into vehement opposition in some places. Some environmentalists complain the turbines kill birds. More often the critics are people who think wind is fine -- as long as the tall turbines are somewhere else.
Off Cape Cod in Massachusetts and off Long Island, wind merchants have been trying -- and failing -- for years to build turbines in the water offshore. In both cases, the plans were opposed by the wealthy owners of shoreline mansions.
FPL's sister company, FPL Energy, knows all about these fights. For years, it tried to get approval for the Long Island project before it finally gave up.
FPL Energy is "one of the most efficient wind operators in the country, " says Jay Apt, executive director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. "They're very good at it."
FPL Energy has 55 wind farms in 16 states including the nation's largest, the 735-megawatt Horse Hollow field in Texas. Last week, it announced a new $2 billion wind farm to be spread over 250 square miles in North Dakota.
The company has mounds of data about the costs of producing wind power in different places, but it refuses to reveal any of it. When The Miami Herald asked FPL about costs, it replied crisply: "Wind is proportionally less expensive where the resource is more abundant."
Wind was not FPL's first choice for diversifying its power sources in Florida. Last year, the utility tried hard to get approval to build a new coal plant. Gov. Crist didn't like the idea. On June 5, 2007, regulators flatly rejected the 1,960-megawatt coal plant.
BOWING TO PRESSURE
Two days later, the utility announced it understood which way the political winds were blowing and said it planned to construct the first wind farm in Florida. "This is a great first step in seeking more renewable generation resources in Florida, " said FPL President Armando Olivera.
"I am very pleased, " Crist responded.
"I'm thrilled, " said a representative of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Buried in the press release was a statement reiterating FPL's longtime position: "While wind in Florida is not consistently strong and reliable enough to produce a large amount of electricity, FPL will explore ways to best use this resource."
FPL'S CONCERNS
Several months later, in a little-noticed filing with the Public Service Commission, the utility was unusually blunt about how poorly it viewed Florida's winds when the PSC staff asked why FPL wasn't doing more with wind, when wind power was so much cheaper than solar. That seems particularly true in Florida because experts say solar here produces considerably less energy than in the American Southwest, where solar is thriving.
FPL responded that the noted cost difference between wind and solar in Florida "may not necessarily be the case." The utility said it could be expensive to buy wind turbines designed to withstand hurricanes. It noted that even offshore, wind often does not have the strength for a viable wind project "and is reduced on the coast and further reduced inland."
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
What's more, the utility had a study showing "wind resource limited to winter seasons (October through March) whereas FPL load peak is in the summer."
FPL answered Miami Herald questions by e-mail: "Wind power is a vital part of any serious effort to address global climate change. . . . The St. Lucie site has wind speeds high enough to generate ample electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions."
FPL and experts agree that to generate wind power in Florida, the turbines have to be on the coast, and that's what the utility proposed at St. Lucie.
At first, some of the nine turbines in the $60 million, 20-megawatt project were planned for FPL-owned oceanfront land on Hutchinson Island, where it has nuclear reactors. Others would be on nearby oceanfront public park land. The plan drew howls of protest from environmentalists and other local residents.
In February, even though the project still lacked zoning approval, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced it would help fund the wind project by giving $2.5 million to FPL, which had a profit of $836 million last year.
As opposition continued over use of public land, FPL scaled back the project in March to six turbines, all on FPL's own property. Environmental and neighborhood groups remain adamantly opposed. "This is like building a solar farm in a rain forest, " said Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. "And there are 36 endangered species at that site. . . . We see this as ruining precious resources in Florida for absolutely no benefit."
NO PROGRESS
Three months have gone by. The county commission has yet to approve the project. "We hope the St. Lucie wind project gets a fair hearing, " FPL said in an e-mail.
The utility has kept up the pressure. It conducted a survey showing that four out of five St. Lucie residents favor the project. Critics said the phrasing of the questions misled people.
The utility notes that this is a small project. "The roughly $45 million total cost of the project works out to about 33 cents a year for the average FPL customer, or less than the price of a postage stamp."
"It's political, " insists Zahniser. "Do you know how many light bulbs you can swap out with new energy-efficient light bulbs for $45 million? This is a false green scam that diverts valuable time and resources away from true solutions."
In April, FPL released a study conducted by a sister company, WindLogics, that said FPL's St. Lucie project had a "capacity factor" to power turbines at about 20 percent of their rated power. Apt at Carnegie Melon contrasts that with North Dakota, where turbines work at almost 50 percent capacity.
Based on those numbers, Apt calculates North Dakota wind power has an unsubsidized cost of 6.5 cents/kwh, compared to about 15 cents/kwh in St. Lucie.
Thresher of the National Wind Technology Center describes the state's challenges this way: "Florida's flat and low. . . . And it's at a latitude that rarely gets strong winds." He thinks the St. Lucie location might be "marginally cost effective . . . but Florida is not a good regime for wind. It's a little better offshore."
Offshore power is widespread in Europe, but it needs good winds to justify the extra expense of building and anchoring turbines in the water, which raises the cost by "50 percent or more, " said Thresher. In Europe, that expense means builders are developing turbines with blades 200 feet long -- "That's a beast, and they're working on ones that are a lot bigger."
FPL dodged several questions about the feasibility, cost and strength of offshore turbines. "We are not proposing any offshore wind projects in Florida at the moment, " the company said.
At the moment, many wind projects around the country are on hold because the wind energy tax credit of 2 cents/kwh is set to expire at the end of the year. FPL and other wind users believe its essential and needs to be renewed, and most members of Congress are thought to favor the credit, but it has yet to pass.
Even if it does, it won't be as good as the tax credit solar gets -- 30 percent of the construction. Thresher at the National Wind Technology Center says there was a time when wind projects received a similar 30 percent tax credit. "A lot of junk got built that didn't work."
COST A CHALLENGE
Thresher says the challenge for wind is going to be improving the cost. Since 2002, wind costs have been creeping up. One reason: Demand for turbines is so high that there's a shortage, driving up prices. What's more, many parts are built in Europe, where the Euro exchange rate drives up dollar costs.
Eventually, more turbine parts will be built in the United States, says Thresher, but the great price reductions that wind has shown in the past will not be easy to repeat. Thresher thinks the best that can be hoped for is 10 percent to 15 percent drops in the West, where wind is plentiful.
"I think it's doable, " says Thresher. "But it's not going to be easy. The easy stuff has been done."
But Thresher and many others know what will really elevate wind projects is action by Congress, expected to come after the November elections, when power plants belching greenhouse gases will be forced to pay stiff penalties.
Under that scenario, a study by Black & Veatch consultants shows that the cost of wind power will remain steady while the cost of coal and natural gas could climb steadily until they are almost twice as expensive.
CHEAP, STRONG POWER
Wind power has become much cheaper over the past 25 years, dropping from about 40 or 50 cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980s to 6-9 cents/kwh today for Western wind projects.
* Costs have plummeted as the size of the turbines grow.
* Turbines proposed for St. Lucie County would reach 400 feet high -- considerably taller than the 300-foot Statue of Liberty.
* Wind produces 1 percent of the nation's power today. By 2030, wind might be producing 20 percent of the power.
* North Dakota is the state with the best wind potential. Florida is not in the top 20 states.
PROS AND CONS Wind's advantage: It costs only one-third to one-half what solar power costs.
Wind's disadvantage: It's often strongest at night and in the winter, when utilities need it the least. Solar is strongest in the afternoon, when utilities have their biggest need.
ALTERNATIVE FUELS -- THE STORY SO FAR Earlier this month, The Miami Herald began a series examining power alternatives that would help cut back on the greenhouse gases scientists are convinced are causing global warming.
The first installment focused on solar power, which is doing well in the American Southwest but is still considerably more expensive than the typical fossil fuel sources, such as coal and natural gas.
Several experts said that Florida, despite being the Sunshine State, was not a good place for economic solar energy, but Florida Power & Light, aided by new legislation that will allow it to recover all its costs, is going ahead with three solar plants.
FPL refused to reveal to The Miami Herald its estimates for the costs of producing solar energy in Florida, but last week at Gov. Charlie Crist's summit on climate change, Lord Adair Turner, a British expert on global warming, said he had been given a cost estimate by FPL President Armando Olivera, and it was so low "the figure shocked me."
Lord Turner told The Miami Herald he had promised Olivera not to reveal the exact number, and FPL ignored repeated requests by The Miami Herald for an interview with Olivera.
Future installments in the series will look at other power alternatives, including the Gulf Stream and nuclear.
Similar stories:
Florida's plan for renewables was a lot of wasted energy
For a year, while the green movement was at its height, Florida environmentalists, new solar companies, utility lobbyists and state regulators spent thousands of hours trying to determine how much of the state's power supply should come from renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
They did it because the Legislature in 2008 ordered them to do it. After sifting through thousands of pages of documents and sitting in lengthy workshops, the Public Service Commission sent its recommendations to the 2009 Legislature. A renewable-energy bill passed the Senate but died in the House. The result: A year of work wasted.
Among the major victims: The ballyhooed Babcock Ranch project, which is trying to become the first solar-powered city in the world, and thousands of construction workers who would have been hired to build new power plants.
•Buffett's MidAmerican may buy FPL wind power assets in Iowa
Buffett's MidAmerican may buy FPL wind power assets in Iowa
MidAmerican Energy Co., the Iowa utility controlled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, may buy wind-power assets from FPL Group rather than starting from scratch with its own windmill farms.
Such a deal would help MidAmerican jump-start a plan, filed with state regulators, to add 1,001 megawatts of wind power capacity in Iowa, Dean Crist, the company's vice president for regulatory affairs, said Monday in an interview. FPL, the largest U.S. producer of wind and solar power, offered to sell Iowa assets to keep MidAmerican from building competing farms.
TAX CREDITS
PSC lacks key data on energy
Florida's top utility regulators grappled Tuesday with the question of how much solar, wind and biofuels the state should use to produce future electric power and how much Florida electric customers should pay for the climate-friendly technology.
But the five members of the Public Service Commission concluded they don't have the information or the direction from the Legislature to answer those questions by the Feb. 1 deadline.
So, rather than give the Legislature one proposal, they're considering proposing options for how Florida can meet the goals of reducing its reliance on fossil fuels while encouraging the development of alternative energy markets at reasonable costs to consumers.
FPL Group profits jump 77 percent
While Florida Power & Light seeks a billion-dollar increase in its basic rates, its parent company, FPL Group, reported a 77 percent increase in quarterly earnings Tuesday, driven partly by market hedges on energy contracts.
The utility reported a small decline in profit, caused by more empty homes due to foreclosure and lower customer usage as people tightened their belts during the recession. But that decline was more than compensated for by a good showing of the company's unregulated energy division.
Altogether, the energy giant earned a profit of $370 million, or 91 cents a share, compared with $209 million, or 52 cents a share, for the same period last year. Removing unusual one-time items, FPL Group executives said, earnings were $401 million for the quarter, up from $375 million last year.
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com
In the push to stop global warming, many experts are hearing a mighty rushing wind.
Clean and abundant wind power in vast stretches of America is not only far cheaper than solar, but as oil prices soar, it's proving to be less expensive than natural gas, a prime source of the nation's power.
At present, wind provides only 1 percent of U.S. electricity, but a federal report predicts the wind could be providing 20 percent of American power by 2030.
"Wind is ready to go, " says Christine Real de Azua of the American Wind Energy Association.
But perhaps not in Florida. Though pleasant breezes sweep in from the ocean, several experts say the quality and location of those winds make it difficult, if not impossible, to generate much wind power here at a reasonable cost.
Florida Power & Light, whose parent is the largest supplier of wind power in the nation, insisted for years it wouldn't build a wind farm in Florida because the state's breezes weren't strong enough. That changed last year when, under pressure from Gov. Charlie Crist and the public to move toward green energy, the utility announced plans for a small wind project near the Atlantic coast in St. Lucie County.
That effort has been mired in zoning disputes with neighbors who do not want their coastal skyline marred by windmills as tall as 40-story buildings. What's more, the strength of St. Lucie winds is less than half that of major wind farms in the American West.
"The power it's going to produce is so tiny, " complains Julie Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. "It's political. Governor Crist wants to be seen as this green Republican, and FPL wants to make him happy. . . . The wind hasn't changed. The technology hasn't changed."
Ryan Wiser, a renewable-energy expert at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, says a project with St. Lucie-strength winds would not be attempted in the West. "Why would you pick a place like the Southeast?"
Still, as oil and gas prices soar and Americans become more concerned about global warming, wind is now often viewed as the great savior. Vast stretches of the West -- particularly the Plains States and Texas -- now have fields of huge wind turbines that stretch for miles.
"It took us three generations to get the bugs out, " says Bob Thresher, director of the National Wind Technology Center in Colorado. The turbines kept getting bigger, the parts turning with less friction. Costs to produce a kilowatt hour of power dropped from 40 or 50 cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980s to today's 6 to 9 cents/kwh, not counting the tax subsidies.
CHEAPER THAN SOLAR
Wiser at Lawrence Berkeley says wind energy now costs roughly a third to half the cost of solar, factoring in the tax credits for each.
The California Energy Commission calculated last year that wind in top locations could produce power for 6.7 cents/kwh, compared with 9.6 cents/kwh for a natural gas plant. These wind prices, which include all construction and maintenance costs, seem more attractive in light of today's energy market. In the past year, natural gas prices have soared by 32 percent, according to FPL, meaning wind power in good locations might be about half the price of natural gas.
The best place for wind is North Dakota, according to the American Wind Energy Association. No. 2 is Texas, followed by Kansas, South Dakota and Montana. (Florida is not in the top 20.)
LOCATION, TIMING
Virtually all the best wind places are remote. "Where the wind is best is far from the urban centers that need the power, " says John Reilly, an energy economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That means more expense for adding transmission lines.
Wind's other problem is timing. While there are exceptions, wind is often at its best at night and during the fall, winter and spring, says Wiser. Utilities' greatest need is during the afternoons and summers, when air conditioners are humming. That means solar's afternoon peaks are "more advantageous to electric utilities."
Even so, many areas have come to embrace wind. It's cheap, and financially stressed farmers enjoy the $3,000 or $4,000 a year they typically get for renting land to wind producers. A turbine generally takes up one acre out of 50 -- turbines can't be too close or they block each other's wind -- and that means there's still plenty of land left for farming.
NORTHEAST CRUSADER
"We rarely hear about [protesters in] North Dakota, " says Lisa Linowes of Industrial Wind Action Group. From her home in Lyman, N.H., Linowes has become a crusader against wind farms ever since a company proposed putting huge turbines on a ridge near her home. She's become a cheerleader for many groups opposed to wind in their backyards, most of whom are in the East and Midwest.
The reality is that wind -- as clean and as green an energy source as Mother Nature can dish up -- has run into vehement opposition in some places. Some environmentalists complain the turbines kill birds. More often the critics are people who think wind is fine -- as long as the tall turbines are somewhere else.
Off Cape Cod in Massachusetts and off Long Island, wind merchants have been trying -- and failing -- for years to build turbines in the water offshore. In both cases, the plans were opposed by the wealthy owners of shoreline mansions.
FPL's sister company, FPL Energy, knows all about these fights. For years, it tried to get approval for the Long Island project before it finally gave up.
FPL Energy is "one of the most efficient wind operators in the country, " says Jay Apt, executive director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. "They're very good at it."
FPL Energy has 55 wind farms in 16 states including the nation's largest, the 735-megawatt Horse Hollow field in Texas. Last week, it announced a new $2 billion wind farm to be spread over 250 square miles in North Dakota.
The company has mounds of data about the costs of producing wind power in different places, but it refuses to reveal any of it. When The Miami Herald asked FPL about costs, it replied crisply: "Wind is proportionally less expensive where the resource is more abundant."
Wind was not FPL's first choice for diversifying its power sources in Florida. Last year, the utility tried hard to get approval to build a new coal plant. Gov. Crist didn't like the idea. On June 5, 2007, regulators flatly rejected the 1,960-megawatt coal plant.
BOWING TO PRESSURE
Two days later, the utility announced it understood which way the political winds were blowing and said it planned to construct the first wind farm in Florida. "This is a great first step in seeking more renewable generation resources in Florida, " said FPL President Armando Olivera.
"I am very pleased, " Crist responded.
"I'm thrilled, " said a representative of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Buried in the press release was a statement reiterating FPL's longtime position: "While wind in Florida is not consistently strong and reliable enough to produce a large amount of electricity, FPL will explore ways to best use this resource."
FPL'S CONCERNS
Several months later, in a little-noticed filing with the Public Service Commission, the utility was unusually blunt about how poorly it viewed Florida's winds when the PSC staff asked why FPL wasn't doing more with wind, when wind power was so much cheaper than solar. That seems particularly true in Florida because experts say solar here produces considerably less energy than in the American Southwest, where solar is thriving.
FPL responded that the noted cost difference between wind and solar in Florida "may not necessarily be the case." The utility said it could be expensive to buy wind turbines designed to withstand hurricanes. It noted that even offshore, wind often does not have the strength for a viable wind project "and is reduced on the coast and further reduced inland."
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
What's more, the utility had a study showing "wind resource limited to winter seasons (October through March) whereas FPL load peak is in the summer."
FPL answered Miami Herald questions by e-mail: "Wind power is a vital part of any serious effort to address global climate change. . . . The St. Lucie site has wind speeds high enough to generate ample electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions."
FPL and experts agree that to generate wind power in Florida, the turbines have to be on the coast, and that's what the utility proposed at St. Lucie.
At first, some of the nine turbines in the $60 million, 20-megawatt project were planned for FPL-owned oceanfront land on Hutchinson Island, where it has nuclear reactors. Others would be on nearby oceanfront public park land. The plan drew howls of protest from environmentalists and other local residents.
In February, even though the project still lacked zoning approval, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced it would help fund the wind project by giving $2.5 million to FPL, which had a profit of $836 million last year.
As opposition continued over use of public land, FPL scaled back the project in March to six turbines, all on FPL's own property. Environmental and neighborhood groups remain adamantly opposed. "This is like building a solar farm in a rain forest, " said Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. "And there are 36 endangered species at that site. . . . We see this as ruining precious resources in Florida for absolutely no benefit."
NO PROGRESS
Three months have gone by. The county commission has yet to approve the project. "We hope the St. Lucie wind project gets a fair hearing, " FPL said in an e-mail.
The utility has kept up the pressure. It conducted a survey showing that four out of five St. Lucie residents favor the project. Critics said the phrasing of the questions misled people.
The utility notes that this is a small project. "The roughly $45 million total cost of the project works out to about 33 cents a year for the average FPL customer, or less than the price of a postage stamp."
"It's political, " insists Zahniser. "Do you know how many light bulbs you can swap out with new energy-efficient light bulbs for $45 million? This is a false green scam that diverts valuable time and resources away from true solutions."
In April, FPL released a study conducted by a sister company, WindLogics, that said FPL's St. Lucie project had a "capacity factor" to power turbines at about 20 percent of their rated power. Apt at Carnegie Melon contrasts that with North Dakota, where turbines work at almost 50 percent capacity.
Based on those numbers, Apt calculates North Dakota wind power has an unsubsidized cost of 6.5 cents/kwh, compared to about 15 cents/kwh in St. Lucie.
Thresher of the National Wind Technology Center describes the state's challenges this way: "Florida's flat and low. . . . And it's at a latitude that rarely gets strong winds." He thinks the St. Lucie location might be "marginally cost effective . . . but Florida is not a good regime for wind. It's a little better offshore."
Offshore power is widespread in Europe, but it needs good winds to justify the extra expense of building and anchoring turbines in the water, which raises the cost by "50 percent or more, " said Thresher. In Europe, that expense means builders are developing turbines with blades 200 feet long -- "That's a beast, and they're working on ones that are a lot bigger."
FPL dodged several questions about the feasibility, cost and strength of offshore turbines. "We are not proposing any offshore wind projects in Florida at the moment, " the company said.
At the moment, many wind projects around the country are on hold because the wind energy tax credit of 2 cents/kwh is set to expire at the end of the year. FPL and other wind users believe its essential and needs to be renewed, and most members of Congress are thought to favor the credit, but it has yet to pass.
Even if it does, it won't be as good as the tax credit solar gets -- 30 percent of the construction. Thresher at the National Wind Technology Center says there was a time when wind projects received a similar 30 percent tax credit. "A lot of junk got built that didn't work."
COST A CHALLENGE
Thresher says the challenge for wind is going to be improving the cost. Since 2002, wind costs have been creeping up. One reason: Demand for turbines is so high that there's a shortage, driving up prices. What's more, many parts are built in Europe, where the Euro exchange rate drives up dollar costs.
Eventually, more turbine parts will be built in the United States, says Thresher, but the great price reductions that wind has shown in the past will not be easy to repeat. Thresher thinks the best that can be hoped for is 10 percent to 15 percent drops in the West, where wind is plentiful.
"I think it's doable, " says Thresher. "But it's not going to be easy. The easy stuff has been done."
But Thresher and many others know what will really elevate wind projects is action by Congress, expected to come after the November elections, when power plants belching greenhouse gases will be forced to pay stiff penalties.
Under that scenario, a study by Black & Veatch consultants shows that the cost of wind power will remain steady while the cost of coal and natural gas could climb steadily until they are almost twice as expensive.
CHEAP, STRONG POWER
Wind power has become much cheaper over the past 25 years, dropping from about 40 or 50 cents per kilowatt-hour in the 1980s to 6-9 cents/kwh today for Western wind projects.
* Costs have plummeted as the size of the turbines grow.
* Turbines proposed for St. Lucie County would reach 400 feet high -- considerably taller than the 300-foot Statue of Liberty.
* Wind produces 1 percent of the nation's power today. By 2030, wind might be producing 20 percent of the power.
* North Dakota is the state with the best wind potential. Florida is not in the top 20 states.
PROS AND CONS Wind's advantage: It costs only one-third to one-half what solar power costs.
Wind's disadvantage: It's often strongest at night and in the winter, when utilities need it the least. Solar is strongest in the afternoon, when utilities have their biggest need.
ALTERNATIVE FUELS -- THE STORY SO FAR Earlier this month, The Miami Herald began a series examining power alternatives that would help cut back on the greenhouse gases scientists are convinced are causing global warming.
The first installment focused on solar power, which is doing well in the American Southwest but is still considerably more expensive than the typical fossil fuel sources, such as coal and natural gas.
Several experts said that Florida, despite being the Sunshine State, was not a good place for economic solar energy, but Florida Power & Light, aided by new legislation that will allow it to recover all its costs, is going ahead with three solar plants.
FPL refused to reveal to The Miami Herald its estimates for the costs of producing solar energy in Florida, but last week at Gov. Charlie Crist's summit on climate change, Lord Adair Turner, a British expert on global warming, said he had been given a cost estimate by FPL President Armando Olivera, and it was so low "the figure shocked me."
Lord Turner told The Miami Herald he had promised Olivera not to reveal the exact number, and FPL ignored repeated requests by The Miami Herald for an interview with Olivera.
Future installments in the series will look at other power alternatives, including the Gulf Stream and nuclear.
Florida Cabinet OK's first new nuclear plant in 33 years
Florida Cabinet OK's first new nuclear plant in 33 years
Similar stories:
•Crist, Cabinet to decide on new nuclear plant
Crist, Cabinet to decide on new nuclear plant
Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet have approved Progress Energy's bid to build a nuclear power plant in Levy County.
However, that doesn't mean the St. Petersburg-based company's request will ultimately go through.
Progress Energy still requires approval from environmental regulators and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can begin construction on the project, about 10 miles north of Crystal River and eight miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
•Twisting in the Wind
Twisting in the Wind
In the push to stop global warming, many experts are hearing a mighty rushing wind.
Clean and abundant wind power in vast stretches of America is not only far cheaper than solar, but as oil prices soar, it's proving to be less expensive than natural gas, a prime source of the nation's power.
At present, wind provides only 1 percent of U.S. electricity, but a federal report predicts the wind could be providing 20 percent of American power by 2030.
Florida's plan for renewables was a lot of wasted energy
For a year, while the green movement was at its height, Florida environmentalists, new solar companies, utility lobbyists and state regulators spent thousands of hours trying to determine how much of the state's power supply should come from renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
They did it because the Legislature in 2008 ordered them to do it. After sifting through thousands of pages of documents and sitting in lengthy workshops, the Public Service Commission sent its recommendations to the 2009 Legislature. A renewable-energy bill passed the Senate but died in the House. The result: A year of work wasted.
Among the major victims: The ballyhooed Babcock Ranch project, which is trying to become the first solar-powered city in the world, and thousands of construction workers who would have been hired to build new power plants.
FPL reactor proposal advances
State regulators Tuesday approved Florida Power & Light's request to build two new nuclear reactors and opened the door for the utility to start charging customers for the multibillion-dollar investment as early as next year -- even though the reactors won't be finished for a decade.
In a major victory for FPL, the Public Service Commission shrugged off the concerns of dozens of environmental groups and unanimously agreed there was a need for the new reactors at Turkey Point in South Miami-Dade.
The utility's nuclear plans still face more state and federal approvals, but on Tuesday they received the green light from their primary regulators.
•With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning
After more than two million pounds of nuclear waste has piled up in South Dade over 35 years, Florida Power & Light is quietly seeking a zoning change to allow six acres of its Turkey Point site to be used for new above-ground storage casks.
Environmentalists have known for a long time FPL planned to use casks but they knew little, if anything, about the need for a zoning change, which generally allows for public discussion that could lead to modifications of the utility's plans.
''It's news to me,'' said Lloyd Miller of the South Florida National Parks Trust. ''Haven't heard a thing,'' said Mark Oncavage, who follows South Florida energy issues for the Sierra Club. ``I definitely think we should have a say in this.''
BY SHANNON COLAVECCHIO
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Cabinet on Tuesday approved Progress Energy's controversial proposal to build a nuclear plant in Levy County, the first such plant approved in Florida in 33 years. The vote by Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink comes as Progress seeks to raise its base rates by 30 percent to pay for the nuclear plant, which would not be up and running until at least 2018.
``I want to commend Progress for this initiative,'' McCollum said. ``It's a very, very important project. I am impressed with the passion of the opponents here today, but I want to assure them that I have spent a long time studying this issue. . . , We are going to have a tremendous demand for energy in the coming years. We're going to have to increase our capacity for electricity and power, and nuclear is a part of that.''
Crist, who has been pushing for a stronger renewable and clean energy plan for Florida, lauded the clean energy the plant will produce. He also is enthusiastic about jobs to be created with the plant's construction and operation -- as many as 5,000 short- and long-term, by Progress' estimate.
``We need to diversify our energy resources,'' Crist said. ``I encourage solar and wind and wave and nuclear development. The more diversified we are, the more opportunity we have to never suffer when one is less available than the other.''
Crist noted Florida has become No. 2 in the country for solar energy production.
Progress officials hailed the plant as a major step toward that diversified energy future, and they insist the plant will result, over time, in cost savings for customers.
``This will save customers approximately $1 billion a year by lowering fuel costs,'' said Jeff Lyash, executive vice president for Progress. ``This is an important part of Florida's energy future.''
But critics, several of whom showed up at the Capitol to protest the vote and complain about ``corporate greed,'' question the safety of the plant and its impact on wetlandssurrounding the 5,000-acre site north of the town of Inglis.
``I'm concerned about the time it is going to take to build this plant. I am concerned about the danger and about the legacy we are leaving to our children,'' said state Rep. Michelle Rehwinkle-Vasilinda. ``We are leaving a legacy of waste. It is not truly clean. There is waste, and it has to be permanently disposed. We have not figured out how to do that, and I am concerned.''
Progress had hoped to start producing power from the plant in 2016 but on May 1, Progress Energy announced that construction had been delayed 20 months because the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not allow it to begin building anything before all site and safety reviews are complete.
The plant won't come cheap. Progress Energy, which has about 129,500 customers in Pasco County and more than 10,000 in Hernando, wants to raise base rates by more than 30 percent, which would generate about $500 million for construction.
Although the plant won't start producing power until March 2018 at the earliest, customers are already paying for its construction. In January, customers saw a monthly increase of $12.11 per 1,000 kilowatt hours to pay for nuclear projects, sparking such an uproar that the utility then lowered its rates, reducing the monthly nuclear charge to $4.31 per 1,000 kilowatt hours.
Critics have complained about the site the company picked. In many places, the water table on the site is above ground for half the year or longer, according to documents the company filed with the NRC. Most of the site lies in the 100-year floodplain, meaning after heavy rain, it is likely to remain inundated for some time.
``Any hurricane event would inundate the vicinity of the plant with storm surge,'' the Withlacoochee Regional Planning Council noted in a report. ``On-site, the plant and associated facilities may be especially vulnerable to flood hazard.''
The utility's plans call for wiping out about 765 acres of wetlands, according to a public notice posted in May by the agency that issues federal wetland permits, the Army Corps of Engineers. Mike Sole, head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, called the 765 acres ``the worst case scenario'' and said his department ``will work diligently to minimize this impact.''
Even with the Cabinet vote, there are more hurdles for Progress, Sole stressed. The federal government has much oversight of the proposed project, in particular over nuclear safety matters. In July, as public hearings were held around the state to discuss the proposal, federal regulators with the National Regulatory Commission ruled that environmental groups could challenge Progress Energy's plans to build a nuclear plant in Levy County.
One issue: The utility has yet to figure out where it will send the new plant's radioactive waste, and thus may have to store it on site longer than expected.
The board also found that the utility may have underestimated the impact of building the plant in a floodplain. That will require filling in and paving over hundreds of acres of wetlands, which may hurt both the underground aquifer and the Withlacoochee River, not to mention the wildlife species that depend on them, the board found.
And the licensing board said the utility may not have adequately addressed the impact of ``salt drift'' into the remaining wetlands on the site. The plant will pump 120 million gallons of saltwater a day from the Cross Florida Barge Canal, evaporate a third of it for cooling, and pump the warm, salty remainder into waters near the Big Bend Aquatic Seagrasses Preserve. The question the plant's critics raised is what happens to the vapor from the cooling towers.
Shannon Colavecchio can be reached at scolavecchio@sptimes.com
Similar stories:
•Crist, Cabinet to decide on new nuclear plant
Crist, Cabinet to decide on new nuclear plant
Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet have approved Progress Energy's bid to build a nuclear power plant in Levy County.
However, that doesn't mean the St. Petersburg-based company's request will ultimately go through.
Progress Energy still requires approval from environmental regulators and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can begin construction on the project, about 10 miles north of Crystal River and eight miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
•Twisting in the Wind
Twisting in the Wind
In the push to stop global warming, many experts are hearing a mighty rushing wind.
Clean and abundant wind power in vast stretches of America is not only far cheaper than solar, but as oil prices soar, it's proving to be less expensive than natural gas, a prime source of the nation's power.
At present, wind provides only 1 percent of U.S. electricity, but a federal report predicts the wind could be providing 20 percent of American power by 2030.
Florida's plan for renewables was a lot of wasted energy
For a year, while the green movement was at its height, Florida environmentalists, new solar companies, utility lobbyists and state regulators spent thousands of hours trying to determine how much of the state's power supply should come from renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
They did it because the Legislature in 2008 ordered them to do it. After sifting through thousands of pages of documents and sitting in lengthy workshops, the Public Service Commission sent its recommendations to the 2009 Legislature. A renewable-energy bill passed the Senate but died in the House. The result: A year of work wasted.
Among the major victims: The ballyhooed Babcock Ranch project, which is trying to become the first solar-powered city in the world, and thousands of construction workers who would have been hired to build new power plants.
FPL reactor proposal advances
State regulators Tuesday approved Florida Power & Light's request to build two new nuclear reactors and opened the door for the utility to start charging customers for the multibillion-dollar investment as early as next year -- even though the reactors won't be finished for a decade.
In a major victory for FPL, the Public Service Commission shrugged off the concerns of dozens of environmental groups and unanimously agreed there was a need for the new reactors at Turkey Point in South Miami-Dade.
The utility's nuclear plans still face more state and federal approvals, but on Tuesday they received the green light from their primary regulators.
•With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning
After more than two million pounds of nuclear waste has piled up in South Dade over 35 years, Florida Power & Light is quietly seeking a zoning change to allow six acres of its Turkey Point site to be used for new above-ground storage casks.
Environmentalists have known for a long time FPL planned to use casks but they knew little, if anything, about the need for a zoning change, which generally allows for public discussion that could lead to modifications of the utility's plans.
''It's news to me,'' said Lloyd Miller of the South Florida National Parks Trust. ''Haven't heard a thing,'' said Mark Oncavage, who follows South Florida energy issues for the Sierra Club. ``I definitely think we should have a say in this.''
BY SHANNON COLAVECCHIO
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Cabinet on Tuesday approved Progress Energy's controversial proposal to build a nuclear plant in Levy County, the first such plant approved in Florida in 33 years. The vote by Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink comes as Progress seeks to raise its base rates by 30 percent to pay for the nuclear plant, which would not be up and running until at least 2018.
``I want to commend Progress for this initiative,'' McCollum said. ``It's a very, very important project. I am impressed with the passion of the opponents here today, but I want to assure them that I have spent a long time studying this issue. . . , We are going to have a tremendous demand for energy in the coming years. We're going to have to increase our capacity for electricity and power, and nuclear is a part of that.''
Crist, who has been pushing for a stronger renewable and clean energy plan for Florida, lauded the clean energy the plant will produce. He also is enthusiastic about jobs to be created with the plant's construction and operation -- as many as 5,000 short- and long-term, by Progress' estimate.
``We need to diversify our energy resources,'' Crist said. ``I encourage solar and wind and wave and nuclear development. The more diversified we are, the more opportunity we have to never suffer when one is less available than the other.''
Crist noted Florida has become No. 2 in the country for solar energy production.
Progress officials hailed the plant as a major step toward that diversified energy future, and they insist the plant will result, over time, in cost savings for customers.
``This will save customers approximately $1 billion a year by lowering fuel costs,'' said Jeff Lyash, executive vice president for Progress. ``This is an important part of Florida's energy future.''
But critics, several of whom showed up at the Capitol to protest the vote and complain about ``corporate greed,'' question the safety of the plant and its impact on wetlandssurrounding the 5,000-acre site north of the town of Inglis.
``I'm concerned about the time it is going to take to build this plant. I am concerned about the danger and about the legacy we are leaving to our children,'' said state Rep. Michelle Rehwinkle-Vasilinda. ``We are leaving a legacy of waste. It is not truly clean. There is waste, and it has to be permanently disposed. We have not figured out how to do that, and I am concerned.''
Progress had hoped to start producing power from the plant in 2016 but on May 1, Progress Energy announced that construction had been delayed 20 months because the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not allow it to begin building anything before all site and safety reviews are complete.
The plant won't come cheap. Progress Energy, which has about 129,500 customers in Pasco County and more than 10,000 in Hernando, wants to raise base rates by more than 30 percent, which would generate about $500 million for construction.
Although the plant won't start producing power until March 2018 at the earliest, customers are already paying for its construction. In January, customers saw a monthly increase of $12.11 per 1,000 kilowatt hours to pay for nuclear projects, sparking such an uproar that the utility then lowered its rates, reducing the monthly nuclear charge to $4.31 per 1,000 kilowatt hours.
Critics have complained about the site the company picked. In many places, the water table on the site is above ground for half the year or longer, according to documents the company filed with the NRC. Most of the site lies in the 100-year floodplain, meaning after heavy rain, it is likely to remain inundated for some time.
``Any hurricane event would inundate the vicinity of the plant with storm surge,'' the Withlacoochee Regional Planning Council noted in a report. ``On-site, the plant and associated facilities may be especially vulnerable to flood hazard.''
The utility's plans call for wiping out about 765 acres of wetlands, according to a public notice posted in May by the agency that issues federal wetland permits, the Army Corps of Engineers. Mike Sole, head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, called the 765 acres ``the worst case scenario'' and said his department ``will work diligently to minimize this impact.''
Even with the Cabinet vote, there are more hurdles for Progress, Sole stressed. The federal government has much oversight of the proposed project, in particular over nuclear safety matters. In July, as public hearings were held around the state to discuss the proposal, federal regulators with the National Regulatory Commission ruled that environmental groups could challenge Progress Energy's plans to build a nuclear plant in Levy County.
One issue: The utility has yet to figure out where it will send the new plant's radioactive waste, and thus may have to store it on site longer than expected.
The board also found that the utility may have underestimated the impact of building the plant in a floodplain. That will require filling in and paving over hundreds of acres of wetlands, which may hurt both the underground aquifer and the Withlacoochee River, not to mention the wildlife species that depend on them, the board found.
And the licensing board said the utility may not have adequately addressed the impact of ``salt drift'' into the remaining wetlands on the site. The plant will pump 120 million gallons of saltwater a day from the Cross Florida Barge Canal, evaporate a third of it for cooling, and pump the warm, salty remainder into waters near the Big Bend Aquatic Seagrasses Preserve. The question the plant's critics raised is what happens to the vapor from the cooling towers.
Shannon Colavecchio can be reached at scolavecchio@sptimes.com
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