power in a typical year.
http://www.glencanyon.org/newsletter/nl2.5.htmRight now, I suspect that this (almost trivial) amount of electricity will replaced by burning Wyoming Coal.
According to this link, from the anti-nuclear (actually anti-energy) group, the Union of Concerned "Scientists," the following statistics apply to coal (and I've left out some of the juicier parts that can be found at the link):
"A 500 megawatt coal plant produces 3.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power a city of about 140,000 people. It burns 1,430,000 tons of coal, uses 2.2 billion gallons of water and 146,000 tons of limestone.
It also puts out, each year:
10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide (SOx) is the main cause of acid rain, which damages forests, lakes and buildings.
10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) is a major cause of smog, and also a cause of acid rain.
3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas, and is the leading cause of global warming. There are no regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.
500 tons of small particles. Small particulates are a health hazard, causing lung damage. Particulates smaller than 10 microns are not regulated, but may be soon..."
Even the Union of Concerned "Scientists" knows coal is bad for you. This link has (surprising for the Union of Concerned "Scientists") a statement about the risk of coal mining. It states (I'll paraphrase) that in the 1970's a typical 500 MW coal plant was responsible for the death of one miner every two years and the disabling of 38 others. Apparently, the risk has been happily (or unhappily) reduced by managing to fire lots of the miners and replace them with machines.
There is no statement, of course, about the number of people who die from the air pollution associated with a coal plant.
Although the amount of electricity produced by the dam is, in fact, relatively trivial, on the grand scale of power generation, because I believe that the most profound immediate environmental risk that the planet faces is the greenhouse effect, I cannot completely celebrate as much as I would like to, the recovery of the magnificent Glen Canyon.
I will do what I do with annoying constancy, and make the nuclear comparison however, since I am reality based:
The typical output of the Glen Canyon dam is about 1/2 of the electrical output a typical nuclear power plant produces.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/us/diablo.htm(The stated maximum capacity of the dam is apparently about 1,300 Megawatts when the water is flowing, but that's not what the dam actually produces)
A 1000 MWe nuclear power plant "burns" 2.2 kg of fissionable material per day. If one assumes that all of this 2.2 kg is Uranium (density 19.050 grams/ml) this amounts to 115 ml of Uranium per day, about the amount contained in half a coffee cup. Since the dam produces only half of the power a nuclear power plant produces, the equivalent amount of Uranium that would need to be burned each day to recover the entire Glen Canyon is found in one quarter of a coffee cup.
I expect, as usual, I will hear all sorts of useless specious paranoid crap from the usual suspects about my comparison, but it will only piss me off more, because it is disgusting, really disgusting, when one examines the criteria by which choices about energy are made in this abysmally ignorant country.
I will state for the record however, that rather than burning coal or fissioning Uranium or destroying ecosystems and sinking sacred places, the people of the West could easily recover this (again, trivial) amount of electricity by buying fluorescent lights. This is the ideal solution.
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