May 7, 2007

Partly cloudy days here along the north coast can range from what the description implies, to days like today, where the only clouds are high and sparse. The sky is essentially blue and the sun blazes with full intensity. But there are clouds visible so it is chalked up as another cloudy day in Cleveland.

The day is warm and the leaves in the understory are 70% out. The canopy is only about 25% leading to an interesting brightness in the understory.

While my yard is full of birds, going though the wood the activity diminishes. I hear both Hermit and Wood Thrush. Interesting to be able to compare their songs in the field. Hermit Thrush is a rare nester in the area so it is good to be intimately familiar with this song.

From the lookout visibility is around 25 miles. The lake is a deep blue and the forest on the lake plain is increasingly green. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks sing in the trees below. The first Gray Tree Frog I have heard this year adds its’ odd trill.

I notice a yellow brown line in the air along the lake shore. The wind must be out of the east. The coal fired Eastlake power plant, is pumping out sulfur dioxide, mercury, and fine particulates, not to mention carbon dioxide. It is ugly and obvious.

For some reason we Americans are literally paranoid about things that have little chance of hurting us, but ignore things that will do us harm on a daily basis.

Liquid metallic Mercury, has very low dermal and oral toxicity. Yet we want evacuate school and call in the haz mat crews if someone breaks a mercury thermometer. However, the mercury vapor coming out of coal fired power plant is highly toxic. Those compounds are readily absorbed in the lungs.

Nuclear power is another example. Three Mile Island should have been cited as an example of the safety of nuclear power as implemented in the world outside the former Soviet Union. In the case of TMI, the worst possible catastrophe happened. A melt down of the core (partial meltdown, because it turns out total meltdown is difficult to achieve) Yet despite this worst possible scenario, no one died. No one was seriously injured. Think if we were to hold the airline industry to the same standard. What about the spent fuel? The best thing to do would be to recycle it. If we don’t want to do that, you can put it in my back yard. I don’t want all of it. To me the problem is keeping it concentrated. Disperse it, and many problems become minor, or manageable, or go away. I’ll take one fuel pellet every 10 years or so. Imbed it in a concrete brick and ill bury it in a marked location, right in my back yard. Am I worried about the radiation? No. I get more just being in the plume of a coal fired plant for an hour or so. This is because of the Radon gas in the coal. The Radon exposes me to more radiation than I would get from a few fuel pellets buried in my back yard for a decade.