Eat more cookies

Here’s a letter from Richard Allison recently printed in the Sante Fe New Mexican:

July 13, 2008 in The Santa Fe New Mexican

I stayed close to home for the Fourth of July weekend. My wife and I spent a
very enjoyable weekend camping near Mills Canyon in Harding County. We did
it to save gasoline, as many others did. My thoughts, like those of many
others, centered on how we are going to get out of this high priced
crude-oil mess we have gotten ourselves into. I still want to travel and
visit family.

Most of my friends are sold on alternative energy supply as the key to
reducing our dependence on oil. These folks are no dummies, as they include
other engineers like me, teachers and researchers at the labs. Consistently,
they all say solar and wind power are the tickets to energy independence.
This seems to be the party line, as our governor and other leading
politicians in New Mexico are against any other form of power generation,
such as nuclear or coal. But what these excellent politicians are failing to
tell us is the whole truth.

I polled at least 10 friends last week, and only one had the right answer as
to the cost of wind generation, which is the power- generation alternative
of choice in New Mexico.

None of our politicians want to talk about the cost of wind- power
generation. Wind-power generation is one of the most expensive forms of
electric-power generation.

I am in favor of varied sources of power generation, but only after everyone
realizes what it is going to cost. The fact is that wind power is between 20
percent and 30 percent more costly than conventional power production. PNM
is right in the middle at a 25 percent premium. If you don’t believe me,
just look at the much- touted PNM Sky Blue program on its Web site.

The additional cost for signing up for this program is $.0169 per kilowatt
hour, or $1.69 per hundred kilowatt hours. This is 25 percent more than
their base rate. I am really not up to paying 25 percent more on my electric
bill because my ‘97 Honda still needs to be fed gasoline to get to work. My
energy dollar only goes so far.

The politicians are not telling us that wind power can never be used to base
load a power generation system. What happens when the wind does not blow,
which frequently happens for days at a time even in our windy New Mexico?
The base load generation must pick up the slack and this happens a lot.

So, unless we are willing, which I am not, to turn off the lights when the
wind does not blow, the base load generation must keep expanding. This is
where the cost gets exorbitant. For every dollar invested in a megawatt of
wind power generation, PNM must also have in reserve or under construction a
megawatt of base load capacity. In other words, PNM must spend the money to
build two power stations rather than one: the wind farm and coal/nuclear
base load plant. Both the wind power farms and base load generation must be
maintained, which again doubles the maintenance cost. PNM is also entitled
to a return on its investment, as it is a publicly held company that must
return a profit to the investors. If it were not for the tax incentives both
the state and federal governments give to wind generation, power companies
including PNM simply could not afford to build wind farms.

In the PNM system, the cheapest electrical generation is from the Palo Verde
Nuclear Plant in Arizona at a cost of $.0129 per kilowatt hour with more
than 90 percent availability, followed by the coal- fired plants in New
Mexico.

Based on the cost of generation, common sense leads us to more nuclear
plants as a way of keeping electrical costs low and a means of providing a
benefit of no emissions for those who are members of the climate
change/carbon reduction faith. If electric car technology comes on line in
the next 10 years, this could be our best choice for fueling our cars.

So the next time some of your friends or politicians start touting the
benefits of wind-power generation, ask them why they are in favor of such an
expensive power source. I am ready for more diverse power generation,
including nuclear and next-generation, clean-coal technology.

Richard Allison is a registered professional engineer currently working for
the New Mexico Department of Transportation. He lives in Santa Fe.

rumbling thunder.

windless, gentle, falling rain.

catbird sings through it.

Found and interesting article here on the influence of climate change on populations of rare birds.

I’ve been thinking too narrowly about this issue. Here in the States, we primarily worry about the timing of migrations as a result of a rapidly warming planet. Will long distance migrants (whose flights are largely triggered by changes in apparent daylength) begin to miss out on locally abundant foods that had previously served as important sources of fuel for migration? Next on my list of concerns might be seabirds whose main source of food relies on upwellings of nutrients in the oceans. Will changing ocean temperatures alter those upwellings, either shutting them down or shifting them away from key nesting areas? Will rising sea levels leave beach-nesting birds with no place to nest?

But the potential impacts of climate change extend even further than these examples. According to the 2008 IUCN Bird Red List, populations of birds the world over are suffering due to ramifications of rapid climate change from global warming. As is so often the case, interacting influences muddy the waters of clear causes, while they exacerbate the detrimental effects.

A great example is the `Akeke`e, a Hawaiian honeycreeper.

Jim Denny photo.

These birds occur only on Kaua`i where they nest in high elevation wet forests. Apparently, recent weather patterns in the Hawaiian Islands have made these forests so wet that many nests are being flooded in the pounding rains. The birds are also susceptible to exotic, invasive mosquitoes that spread avian malaria - previously unknown on the islands. In response to pressure from the mosquitoes, the birds moved higher and higher up the mountains where the chilly air was a barrier to the little bloodsuckers. But recent temperature increases have modified those high elevation temperatures, and the mosquitoes are colonizing the higher elevations as well.

So the problem isn’t so much the warming temperatures, it’s the fact that we’ve introduced the dang mosquitoes. Same with the seabirds. Losing beach nesting areas wouldn’t be such a huge deal if we hadn’t already robbed the birds of 90% of their former habitat by building condos on the beaches. While we’re arguing over how best to combat global warming, it seems to me that we should redouble our efforts to protect and restore habitats.

We get plenty of rain on our plain sometimes too.

We’re in a bit of a stormy pattern here in Oklahoma, but the big threat today looks to be flooding.  I guess it’s more than a threat at this point.  Check out the radar image for right now:

On Saturday, I birded Lake Carl Blackwell in Payne County, spending most of my time in one small area rather than covering the whole park. I still managed 51 species with several seasonal firsts: scissortails, Franklin’s Gull, fish crow, orange-crowned warbler, and, the pinnacle of avian evolution, Louisiana Waterthrush. The waterthrushes were two pairs, probably in the nest-building phase. The phoebe nest looked complete.

Last week’s storm outbreak toppled many trees west of Stillwater, including the big old cottonwood snag where I’ve seen the back end of barred owls sticking out of a nest hole not quite big enough for a whole family. The tree came down across a fence and is obstructing a horse riding trail. There was a pair of wood ducks hanging around, so I fear they may have lost a clutch of eggs.

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crickets are singing

“stridulating,” if you like

seems early to me  

Not that I’ve seen one yet, but the migration map at hummingbirds.net shows a pretty impressive front of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds moving northward across the eastern U.S. (and shortly, Canada). It’s time to fill those feeders!

Ruby-throated Hummingbird photo by Bob Mulvihill
Powdermill Avian Research Center

March 1st and 77 degrees. Today we found our first blooming crocus and daffodil (and I finished actually planting the daffodil bulbs I bought last October), and we had our first male grackle in the backyard. 

As I sit here enjoying 77 degrees on an early February day, I’m struck by just how changeable it can be around here.  On Friday, this was really brought home as we started the morning with snow on the ground and 7 (seven!) degrees, and ended the day snowless and 55.   Today our warmth isn’t just from south winds - that sun is warm!  But, the experts tell us to expect snow again tomorrow.  Oh well, that’s just Oklahoma.

Last Thursday, I filled up my feeders in advance of some serious winter weather.  It only added up to about three inches of snow here in Stillwater, but it was coming down pretty hard for a while.   As predicted, the birds came out of the woodwork, demanding that I feed them.  At one point, I estimated about 250 birds in for the feast: 100 goldfinches, 50 juncos, 50 house sparrows, 20 purple finches, 20 pine siskins, and various and sundry mourning doves, blue jays, etc.  It was rather exciting . . . 

feasting finches and sparrows: 

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