Carbondale Bytelife

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

EEAC Meeting

The C'dale Energy and Environmental Commission meets tomorrow at 6 p.m at the Civic Center. Among other things on the agenda: Koppers status, Eco-Dawgs, recycling of domestic food waste,noise pollution and renewable energy.

Labels: city government, Energy, environment

# posted by Castle Perilous Games @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Greens Fee?

According to this article in the DE, the Student Environmental Center, along with SIUC's Plant and Service Operations, is pushing for an additional $10 student fee to fund renewable energy research and projects on campus. The fee would raise approximately $300,000 per year. The implication is the funding would be directed by the proposed Sustainability Council. I was struck by this comment:

Megan Pulliam, a senior from Chatham studying Spanish, said the fee would only be implemented if it has student support. There will be a campus-wide student vote in April on the proposed fee.

"I'm confident that students will show concern for the environment," said Pulliam, who is also the campus's representative on the Board of Trustees.

So if you don't vote for the fee, you're not concerned for the environment. Seems to me I've recently seen a similar "If you don't agree with me, you're not concerned for the environment/deserving of a position of leadership" comment.

Labels: Energy, siu

# posted by Castle Perilous Games @ 8:07 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Jerry Costello on FutureGen

Here's an email from Rep. Costello regarding the cancellation of the FutureGen project:

I wanted to drop you a note to update you on legislative issues that may be of interest.

Last week, in a stunning reversal, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman formally announced that the Bush administration was abandoning the FutureGen clean coal power plant project, almost five years to the day that President Bush announced his signature energy proposal. As proposed, FutureGen was to be a public/private partnership to build a 275-megawatt prototype power plant with emissions equal to those of natural gas, focusing on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies that store carbon dioxide underground. The project is widely viewed as extremely important for the future of coal, our nation’s energy independence and good environmental stewardship.

In December, after a lengthy selection process, the FutureGen Alliance of Energy Companies, the private consortium selected to work with the Department of Energy (DOE), named Mattoon, Illinois, as the site for the project, based largely on the geologic makeup of the area. Two of the four finalist sites were located in the President’s home state, Texas. The DOE has already spent at least $13 million on the project, but instead plans to “restructure” its CCS research.

This decision is incredibly disappointing, and represents politics at its worst. It is hard to believe that this decision would have been made if the final site was in Texas. To start over now is a tremendous waste of time and money. The DOE’s restructured plan will delay this critical research by at least three years.

The Illinois Congressional delegation has spent the last five years working with state and local officials, the Alliance, and the DOE to develop this project, and we will continue to look for ways to press forward, because this is a matter of great importance to Illinois and the nation. The House Science Committee, of which I am a senior member, will hold hearings to analyze the specifics of this decision. Despite this setback, developing the best possible clean coal technologies will remain one of my highest priorities.

You are invited to sign up for future electronic newsletters. Please feel free to forward this message to friends and neighbors you think might be interested in this issue.

Sincerely,

Jerry F. Costello
12^th District of Illinois

Labels: Energy

# posted by Castle Perilous Games @ 8:49 PM 0 Comments

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Bad News for Southern Illinois

That was fast. Announced as a go on December 18th, it looks like the plug is getting pulled on the FutureGen project. Ostensibly the reason is cost of the project but Senator Durbin and Congressmen Tim Johnson and John Shimkus say the Department Of Energy never mentioned costs until Mattoon was chosen as the site for the project over Texas. Estimated costs of the project have increased from around $800 million when it was announced in 2003 to about $1.3 billion today. The plant is/was expected to create about 3,000 construction jobs, 150 permanent jobs and bring about $100 into the local economy.

Update: Apparently Texas is still in the running for a piece of the deconstructed FutureGen project if the DOE goes ahead with its plans

Labels: Energy, southern Illinois

# posted by Castle Perilous Games @ 10:24 AM 0 Comments

Saturday, March 3, 2007

How Much is Ameren Costing You?

How much did your latest electric bill from AmerenCIPS increase compared to 12 months ago? Take the survey today?

Labels: Ameren, Economics, Energy, Survey

# posted by Bob @ 3:10 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Wadda Ya Mean, Ya Sez Ya Can’t Sell Me $1.00 of Gasoline!

Ever tried to buy only ONE dollar of gasoline? You can’t do it. You can buy 99.9 cents worth, but never an even dollars worth, or $2.00, or $3.00, etc.

Why is that? Several reasons. Foremost, we are quite befuddled by fractional math. Sure, 4 divided by 2 = 2, but exactly how many gallons of gasoline can you buy for $10 at $2.04 and 9/10ths a gallon?

The addition of 9/10 cent to the price of a gallon of gasoline makes impossible the purchase of one gallon of gasoline at the advertised price. And it makes our mathematically challenged brains crash into a state of befuddlement.

Imagine if all groceries, postage stamps and tuition were sold like that? So why do we do it with gasoline?

Well, some research says that a difference of two-tenths of a cent (about 30¢ for an average fill-up) may be enough to sway consumers' buying decisions. “Because of this, service stations quickly react to the price posted on the street corner by their competition and adjust their price accordingly. If not, they risk the possibility of losing their customers.”

Don’t lose a lot of sleep over this issue. What you ought to be worried about is why paying for a gallon of gas will likely always result in getting more or less than you should.
For example, gasoline volume changes approximately 0.058% for every 1ºF change in temperature. “The energy content of a gallon of gasoline purchased by a motorist in Nome, Alaska in January could, theoretically, be as much as 8-10% greater that that of a gallon of gasoline purchased by a motorist in Marion, IL (center of the universe, I’m told) in July.” So 10 gallons in Alaska might be 11 gallons in Illinois. But, they contain the same amount os useful energy. You pay for 11, but really only get the value of 10.

Robbery you say? Read more about it.