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Tom Freel's Mis-information Campaign

by Tryan Hartill

From Coastwatch:

Another sign of Oregon’s growing pains came to light today when the Associated Press reported that the little town of Sisters is running short of electricity. They may have to stop building in their central town area which, like other communities in central Oregon,
is rushing to meet the needs of those who decide to move here from other parts of the country. The alternative is facing rolling blackouts next winter.

Tom seems to leave out what the problem really is, there is only one power line that feeds Sisters, there is plenty of power available in the winter since the dams run at 100% capacity. The Co-op just needs to build a new line and plans to have it done before next winter.

Continued:

On the coast we deal with a different kind of power problem. It’s called PP&L. Pacific Power has done little to invest in infrastructure upgrades here and we have paid for that through frequent outages. While the company responds quickly when the lights go out, you would think they would save in the long run by putting everything underground and dumping the old power poles entirely. That costs money, of course. There might be areas where relocating underground would be geologically iffy, but for the most part protecting the lines from wind and downed trees would go a long way toward improving our situation.

I am not really sure what “frequent outages” means, but outages are normal when it blows 50+ and rains 30-something days straight.

Continued:

On another front, the Astoria City Council draft goals for 2006-07 include devoting effort to alternative energy development. The Mayor tells me that it might be possible to use the city owned dam at the watershed to produce power. That energy could be used locally with excess power being sold back to PP&L. Bold undertaking.

Another bold undertaking will be to find a way to slow the water down as it comes off Wicki-up, which needs to be done.
Someone thinking outside the box would put a turbine in, instead of “spring stoppers”. But Tom, like many of the Pro-Fossil Fuel pundits, look at life in tunnel vision.

More complex than the Mayor seems to believe and would have the effect of putting Astoria in the power business.

If we must talk about complex, why not discuss taking oil out of the ground, extracting the gas, pipe it to a coastline, freeze it, put it on a ship, float 20+ days to another country, pipe it into a storage tank, warm it up using more gas, pipe it to a co-gen plant, light it on fire to heat a turbine and deliver 30% of the energy you started with, to customers via electricity at near 10 cents Kwh.
With tax-payer funded subsidies all along the way.
That’s complex.

Continued:

Who is going to run this little enterprise? Who will maintain it? Who will be responsible for day-to-day operations?

I ask, what is there to run?
What is there to maintain and what are the day-to-day operations? I’m dying to know.

Wind power? sure. It’s windy here. The same questions apply though.

Same questions apply.

Continued:

Those of you who say we need to invest in wind, solar and whatever, need to stop for just a moment and consider what impact a field of solar panels will have, or those who are worried about LNG tanks should consider what a wind farm here would really look like.

Already been considered, I picture it everyday, it’s a site I want to see, and like other area of the U.S., they would be tourist attractions. How many LNG terminals are visited by on-lookers?

Conclusion:

If we start getting in the power business we may find ourselves in the same situation Sisters finds itself in today. Ultimately it would be cheaper and less hassle to hire a law firm to push PP&L for the improvements we really need.

Funny that the Sisters Co-op and PPL have the same problem, not investing enough in infrastructure. The one difference here is we will spend thousands of dollars to take PPL to court for our “non-problem”, with a good chance of losing. The only thing Sisters must do to fix theirs is vote to throw the bums out.

Mar 29, 11:45 pm | Tryan Hartill
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6 comments on this article (post your own)

1 On Mar 30, 08:38 am, Patrick McGee wrote:

I was expecting, any second, to hear some justification for the use of you know what? to solve the problem considering that we are just a few days past that most current LNG “Dog and Pony Show” at the Liberty.

Who the hell invites these people here with such naivette on the subject?

Is it Compere?

Hauke?

Who?

It certainly smells of Astoria-Warrenton CofC doesn’t it?

2 On Mar 31, 12:44 am, Tryan Hartill wrote:

In all fairness to the local Governments, I don’t think they have a say one way or the other. The Feds are running the show here. The Dog and Pony Show is the Feds having complete control of the “placement of LNG facilities” and acting like there is process. But they have no choice either, the big energy companies are telling them what to do.

The “market” will pick and choose where they want to place these things and it appears that they are having second thoughts about trying to compete with an Alaskan pipeline and our cheap power sources. Our water power is in the 4 cent KWH range, and wind and coal are hovering around the 5 cent mark. With long term contracts for LNG becoming non-existent and spot prices the norm, competing with renewable power is going to be a tough task even with subsidies. Some disagree with renewable energy, unfortunately this 17% of the population, just happen to run the country and produce the loudest voices out of our T.V. and stereo speakers.
They are in it for the money and the power, and the greater good is not in their vocab.
Such large numbers of the population want local energy production and I don’t see why candidates are not bringing up the subject. One district 3 candidate and one Repub Gov. could have my vote, but they have no chance unless they at least discuss our energy future.
The odd thing is the Commish candidate appears to be anti-LNG, but still seems undecided on renewable energy, this position would seem to mean that he/she wants to power down in a big way. That doesn’t seem to be the case either.
Mystery.

3 On Jul 2, 01:50 pm, TOM FREEL wrote:

You read far too much into this Tryan

4 On Jul 2, 03:09 pm, THartill wrote:

Just “Stirring the pot” as a local radio personality says.

5 On Jul 2, 05:25 pm, Geri wrote:

Good article Tryan. Liked it even better the second read. :)

Hope your NCO gets a lot of hits this week. It will mean good news for all of us if it does.

6 On Jul 3, 10:19 am, Pierce wrote:

I will agree with Tom on the idea of burying the electric lines. Last Friday we had a rather odd but powerful swirling windstorm sweep through our area. Treetops, limbs, whole uprooted trees were crashing all over the Idaho panhandle. Over 70 utility poles were snapped. 15-20,000 homes with no power for several days. As of today, 5 days later we still don’t have power along with 2,500 others. I suspect these types of wind storms are on the increase. They bury lines in Europe. It would save $$$$ in the long run not to mention the reduced road hazards and improved aesthetics.

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