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Thursday, April 21, 2005

Environment - Stories today

"Cinergy officials hope haze problem solved" is the headline to this story today in the Evansville Courier& Press. Some quotes:

The acidic blue haze that sent residents of Mount Carmel, Ill., inside to escape burning eyes and coughing fits last summer should not be a problem this year, hope officials at the Gibson County, Ind., power plant that caused it.

When Cinergy begins operating the pollution controls at its Gibson Station power plant near Princeton, Ind., again this May, company officials believe they will have a way of keeping the problem from happening again. * * *

Faulkner said the solution to the problem required "an incredible amount of work in a short period of time."

The project required more than 22 miles of power and control cables and more than five miles of piping. It involved the construction of a system to inject environmentally neutral materials such as sodium bisulfate (soda ash) to the gas stream leaving the plant's smokestack.

"Ethanol benefits questioned: Homegrown fuel might worsen Louisville's air pollution" is the headline to this lengthy story today in the Louisville Courier Journal. Some quotes:
Ethanol, a fuel that's backed by state and federal governments and viewed as a boon to corn farmers in the Midwest and South, may make it harder to breathe in Louisville this summer.

While governors in more than 25 states, including Kentucky and Indiana, tout it as a way to make gasoline burn cleaner, there's new evidence ethanol can worsen some types of pollution linked to damaging health effects -- namely ozone and fine particles.

And that could make it harder for cities like Louisville, where it already is being used, to meet air standards.

"There is growing evidence that when used in the summer with reformulated gasoline, ethanol actually creates more smog and fine-particle soot," said Frank O'Donnell, a longtime clean air advocate in Washington, D.C. "Ethanol has been oversold as a clean fuel."

"The sordid tale of a desperate penguin" is the title to a really interesting story today in the Chicago Tribune that I would retitle "Story of a spunky penguin raising baby (fledgling?) on her own."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 21, 2005 08:28 AM
Posted to Environment