It happens every spring. Early in the season, before the trees have grown leaves and the flowers in bloom, there is always a hot dry day. Temperatures push 90 in the New York Metro region, perhaps a week or two after a cool, damp day where the temperatures don’t get out of the 40’s. For us this year, it was yesterday Wednesday April 7. The map below shows temperatures at 4pm yesterday:
Newark and Hartford have exceeded 90 and unofficial reports from Orange County suggested temperatures of 94! But why and how? Well it has to do with trees, or in this case a lack there of.
Trees do two things that tend to reduce surface temperatures, first they reflect radiation and shade the surface and secondly they are a driver in evapo-transpiration. Let me explain.
Trees, when they have leaves and are photosynthesizing, draw moisture out of the soil and release it to the atmosphere when their stomata are open and they are pulling in CO2 (go-go introduction to biology!). In effect they act to moisten atmosphere when the sun is up. In much of the solar radiation (sunlight) that would go into heating the surface instead heats the water in the atmosphere. This is the same reason that the deserts in northern Africa are hotter than the rainforests at the equator, even though the rainforests receive more sunlight. Overall trees keep temperatures down, and increase the humidity.
So if we had had Tuesday’s weather, sometime in May when the trees were fully deployed – temperatures would have been much milder, perhaps with highs in the lower 80’s - even the sun being higher and stronger in the sky!
Another interesting effect to note on the above temperature map is the influence of the cold ocean on air temperatures. With water temperatures still below 50 in many places, when the wind blows off the ocean it acts to cool costal locations. That is why Long Island showed temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s while Newark burned up in the 90’s.
Interesting weather day in the New York Metro Region.
Wow! Zero comments on the last three posts. Okay, this will be the last post on wind power for the near future. We’ll see if we can get some other responses from more interesting topics.
It has taken the nation a long time to get to the point we are today dealing with alternative energies. Although available for a number of years, only now has “alternative energy” become a topic that both political parties are rallying towards. Imagine how much more the push will be towards alternative energies in ten years, when the price of oil has doubled, and American’s home energy bills are soaring. Imagine every state taking advantage of wind and solar potential, constructing turbines and panels along farms and sky scrapers alike. Now imagine, despite all this production, rolling brownouts and blackouts in far removed areas, because we can’t get energy from where it is produced to where it is consumed. This is our likely future if the federal government doesn’t take swift action to address the rapidly ageing electrical grid, according to this article in the New York Times.
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.
Even today, progressive instillation of wind energy in Western and Central New York is being slowed by an antiquated electric grid. (And by the way, another point demonstrating how major this business is to the region, $320 million, yikes!).
I attended a seminar on the use of metaphors in explaining science to the public by Julia Mead last night, and this is an example of one used in the article, that I think is pretty solid (even if it is only a simile):
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
In short, the current system of electric grids is managed on the state level, and are often constructed with little to no interstate transmission of energy in mind. In the future, if we are to take advantage of the great solar potential in the desert Southwest or the great wind potential in the Great Plains, we will need a modern transmission system. In fact at present, our transmission system is limiting our ability to utilize this potential.
The grid’s limitations are putting a damper on such projects already. Gabriel Alonso, chief development officer of Horizon Wind Energy, the company that operates Maple Ridge, said that in parts of Wyoming, a turbine could make 50 percent more electricity than the identical model built in New York or Texas.
“The windiest sites have not been built, because there is no way to move that electricity from there to the load centers,” he said.
I’ll keep today’s post short and sweet, and conclude that an additional concern in the development of alternative energies is that we need a modern electricity transmission system or power grid developed before wide scale utilization of alternative energies is practical. An additional conclusion to be drawn from this point is that generation of energy from alternative sources in New York City is not only a trendy thing to do, but it’s a practical or almost perhaps necessary. Locally produced energy reduces the demand on the grid, and reduces the amount of energy that is wasted during its transmission.
Okay, today’s post will be much shorter than yesterday’s…that was too much text for any mere mortal to enjoy.
Big Turbines in the Big Apple? Yesterday we discussed why large, industry standard 1.5 mega Watt turbines would not work in New York City. Today we’ll talk about a proposal to have large, industry standard 1.5 mega Watt turbines in New York City. As we discussed yesterday wind turbines need a lot of space. They are massive structures. They create noise not suitable for residential locals, and they can throw ice chunks great distances. Where in New York City is there space enough for giant wind turbines? Answer according to the New York Times: the United States largest landfill; Fresh Kills in Staten Island.
Having spent decades persuading the city to close the giant Fresh Kills landfill, Staten Island officials are now arguing that the vast site would be the perfect home for the energy-creating windmills that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has proposed as a way to make New York City more sustainable.
Wow turning what the Staten Island Borough President refers to as “one of the country’s worst ecological nightmares” into New York City’s first wind farm would be quite an environmental coup. Unlike the failed Long Island offshore windfarm, this endeavor may be economically viable (much of the cost with the Long Island had to do with construction and maintenance of an offshore site, a land based construction would be much more economical.) Lost in the Times article is that the project is just part of a major rehabilitation process for the landfill, including the creation of large areas of parkland and nature preserves.
A question arises, will the public have access to parts of the park where the wind turbines are located? Short term exposure to the noise generated by the turbines is not a serious concern, so long as care is taken during icy periods to avoid ice throw, hopefully the public will have full access to the region.
Will Small Turbines Work? A second article in the Times discusses the utility of smaller turbines, the type that Mayor Bloomberg proposes to deploy across the city on rooftops, bridges and other structures. Do these small turbines produce enough energy for their expense?
These tiny turbines generate so little electricity that some energy experts are not sure the economics will ever make sense. By contrast, the turbines being installed at wind farms are getting ever larger and more powerful, lowering the unit cost of electricity to the point that they are becoming competitive with electricity generated from natural gas. The spread of the big turbines and a general fascination with all things green are helping to spur interest in rooftop microturbines, creating a movement somewhere on the border between a hobby and an environmental fashion statement.
The article seems to insinuate that at present the cost of instillation is not made up by the meager energy produced. Instead instillation is being driven by a desire to be green or be trendy. The article attempts to differentiate between smaller stand alone wind turbines and roof based, small turbines, noting that the smaller yet independent wind turbines do indeed produce enough energy to pay for themselves, whereas the roof based ones do not.
One assumes that technology will at some point overcome the technological and manufacturing challenges and produce inexpensive rooftop turbines. But the article notes that there are some major concerns with the urban wind environment in general.
But many experts caution that rooftops, while abundant, are usually poor places to harness the breeze. Not only are cities less windy than the countryside, but the air is choppier because of trees and the variation in heights in buildings. Turbulence can wear down a turbine and make it operate less efficiently. This is particularly problematic for houses with pitched roofs.
New York is a winder environment than most cities (windier in fact than the so called “Windy City” of Chicago), but the presence of sky scrapers does introduce a frictional drag decreasing the wind speed. The building induced turbulence is not a problem that technology will solve any time soon.
So the city faces major technological challenges to its desire to harness wind power upon rooftops. Only time and technology will show if this ambitious project is feasible.
(Aside: Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed me about Science Debate 2008. I am planning on writing a few posts about how this years crop of politicians have performed on issues relating to the environment in October. Until then, you can stop e-mailing me about this :-).)
Avid reader, master strategist and all around great guy Chris John noted this concern about implementing wind power in an urban environment:
If an art exhibit (Olaf Eliasson's [sp] waterfalls) under the Brooklyn Bridge almost killed two kayakers, I dread to think of the mess we're going to have to clean up from wind turbines.
So lets take a few minutes to address wind power, and to think about how well suited it would be for a major urban region like New York City.
A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to win the Evan R. Liblit Scholarship. I was honored to be chosen as the Evan R. Liblit Scholar, since Mr. Liblit was an environmental hero, championing the cause of recycling and responsible waste management on Long Island during the 1980’s and 1990’s. (People are so passionate about Evan Liblit, that they are even willing to row the length of the Yukon River to raise awareness and money). As part of the Scholarship I was to attend the New York State Solid Waste and Recycling Conference in Lake George. Admittedly, I wasn’t particularly excited about this – who wanted to spend a week learning about garbage? But my talk was well received, which was great and I got to see a presentation session on Wind Power in New York State, the content of which has stuck with me ever since.
As it turns out, wind power is becoming a big business in many parts of New York State, especially those regions that abut the Great Lakes. The regions downwind of the Great Lakes are (as we discussed before) in a region with great wind power potential, and also are suffering from a still stagnant economy that began its decline in the late 1980’s. As such many municipalities are investigating whether allowing utility companies to construct wind turbines on farmland and other open terrain would be beneficial to the communities. I can’t recall this with much certainty, but I do recall someone citing at the conference the example of a small town that had reduced its school and property taxes to zero by contracting with a major utility.
To me, one of the most surprising aspects of the wind power craze in Central and Western New York State, was the degree to which lawyers needed to be involved in the process. Here I will try to speak as simply as possible to avoid displaying my legal ignorance (much like Sarah Palin should avoid speaking in public about polar bears, global warming and ANWAR – ZING!). Small rural municipalities were very much so dependant upon two firms (one in Albany one in Buffalo) to draft complicated lease agreements with utilities as well as to craft appropriate zoning regulation that protected the health and welfare of residents along with allowing for economically reasonable utilization of wind energy. This process is much more involved than you think, due to the impacts of ice throw and noise pollution generated by wind turbines (actually it is so complicated that there is a legal blog dedicated to issues regarding wind power).
Ice Throw Ice throw occurs when wind turbine blades become coated in ice, generally from freezing rain or from freezing fog. As winds pick up after the storm, the blades begin to rotate and in the process the ice that has accumulated on the blade can be thrown over large distances. The figure to the right, taken from this non-peered reviewed source, shows the distance ice can be hurled. Along the ordinate (x-axis) is shown the width of the turbine blades in meters. The y-axis shows the distance that ice chunks have been thrown. The color of the dots show the mass of the hurled ice chunks. Smaller chunks of ice have been shown to be thrown lengths in excess of three football fields. Larger chunks of ice, coming in at about 1kg or 2.2 lbs have been shown to be thrown 25m! Well take those results with a grain of salt, since they don’t come from a peer reviewed source, but none the less it is evident that wind turbines cannot be sited in densely populated regions, or even in regions with large amounts of infrastructure. It doesn’t need to be said, but obviously chunks of ice flying off of 50 story buildings in Manhattan would probably be frowned upon by local residents.
It should be noted that by my recollection, none of the speakers at the conference considered ice throw to be a major issue. They noted that technology was improving, reducing the capacity of ice to be thrown and that the amount of ice accumulation was relatively small in general and limited to short periods of the year. They also pointed out the lack of observed injuries related to ice throw, suggesting that either this is not a serious issue or that people have done a good job citing turbines.
Noise Pollution A second major concern that requires the attention of zoners, is that of noise generation. Turbines when operational generate a low frequency humming noise. Although not altogether an unpleasant sound, the volume (which gets higher as the turbines speed up) accumulated over time can injure local residents long term hearing.
Here is a video of a large industrial wind farm, documenting the noise that the giant turbines make:
The amount of noise will vary based on the design of each turbine, the wind speed and local topography. Each community needs to assess how much noise each turbine in their town is expected to put out, and make zoning regulations that make sense for local resident’s health. In the case of New York City, it is unclear whether or not a wind turbine would produce noise in excess of the current noise levels. Massive wind turbines, like those shown on the above video are also not possible in an urban environment. One imagines that a smaller turbine built for rooftop use would have a much smaller noise impact.
Aesthetic impacts The visual presence of wind turbines is thought to have a potential negative aesthetic impact. This is true in many pristine environments, but in other environments some folks actually enjoy the way the wind turbines look. I wish I had a reference to back this up, but I heard once that in Europe property values of locations with wind turbines.
In the case of the Long Island Windpark, concerns over property value were paramount. Additionally folks were very worried about the impact of wind turbines on the view from regional beaches and tourism.
Bird deaths To be frank, I think that this issue is overstated. The number of birds killed by feral cats at Stony Brook University outnumbers the total number of birds killed by wind turbines in all of New York State I would guess. This issue seems to be something of an “ecco-myth” and probably stems back to antiquated technology. Some new wind turbines come equipped with “whistles” that emit sound on a wavelength that birds can hear (humans however cannot hear the sound) and find annoying.
Birds have a large number of threats to their well being to be sure, high tension wires, high rise buildings, automobiles, domesticated invasive species – I’m not so sure that wind turbines are of the order of impacts as the previously listed problems.
Yikes this post is getting long, probably past the point that anyone is still reading. So let me conclude with a wildcard. Everything we have been discussing so far has pertained to the traditional wind turbine. Colossal, gigantic, tall, massive – these are all adjectives that could be used to describe the turbines. These are not the sorts of turbines that would be practical in New York City.
Rohit Aggarwala, the director of the city’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, said that turbines on buildings would likely be much smaller than offshore ones. Several companies are experimenting with models that look like eggbeaters, which the Bloomberg administration says could be integrated into the spires atop the city’s tall buildings. “”You can make them so small that people think they are part of the design,” Mr. Aggarwala said. “If rooftop wind can make it anywhere, this is a great city,” he said. “We have a lot of tall buildings.”
Such new turbines would have to be designed to not produce any icethrow, and regardless of the size of the particles or how far they are thrown, ice chunks falling from sky scrapers would not be acceptable. Noise concerns must be taken into account, but I’m not entirely confident that wind turbines would be appreciably louder than air conditioner units currently housed on many rooftops, nor would they be louder than the ambient city noise levels. Bird kill in New York City may be a serious problem as many birds congregate on city rooftops. Furthermore, birds in New York City are notoriously stupid and their termination may be a blessing in disguise…just kidding.
Well, blogcentral managed to survive the deluge last Friday relatively unscathed. Today drips of brown water continue to inundate the kitchen area of the lab. I am trying very hard to convince myself that the fetid water is simply laden with rust, but I must admit that my overactive imagination is causing me much concern.
New York State Invasive Species Anyway, we were chatting about invasive species last Friday, specifically the red lionfish. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the impacts of invasive species until you’ve seen it firsthand in your local environment. So I thought it’d be neat to take a peek at some other invasive species that are impacting the New York Region. The Department of Environmental Conservation lists a number of invasive species that are a major threat to agriculture and the environment in New York State. Today we will focus on three, Zebra Muscles, Chinese Mitten Crabs and Gypsy Moths.
Zebra Muscle
Perhaps the most famous invasive species in New York State, the Zebra Muscle has major impacts on the local ecology as it is able to out-compete native benthic organisms. It also impacts human activities directly by being quite adept at clogging intake pipes for industry, including power plants.
The map shown here courtesy of the USGS shows that Zebra Muscles are present in every major New York State water body from Lake Champlain, to the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, the Erie Canal and the Hudson River.
The DEC states that it is the most recent invasive species to strike the state. It has been spotted primarily in the lower Hudson River, and has slowly been moving northward (reaching as far north as Dutchess County). Chinese Mitten Crabs compete with the endemic Blue Crab, whom may be adversely affected by this invasive species.
The Mitten Crab has long been a problem along the West Coast, more recently it has moved into the Chesapeake and appears to have moved north into New York waters only in past years. The species has been unable to thrive in the St. Lawrence waterway, despite being introduced, but may have more luck in the warmer waters of the Hudson Estuary.
Yuck. You’ve no doubt seen their rather unattractive nests in trees in your own back yard. The success of this invasive species varies greatly from year to year. Sometimes their presence is not noticeable, other times they decimate the canopy in localized regions.
In addition to the seemingly omni-present Gypsy Moth, New York State has also been stricken with two other species of moths, the Forest Tent Caterpillar and Eastern Tent Caterpillar, both of which have caused major damage to native trees in past years.
Other Transport Mechanisms We had also talked a bit about methods of introduction of invasive species. One I didn’t mention, but that is getting a lot of attention in New York State is the transport of firewood. Wood is home to many species of burrowing insects. When transported from region to region, we may accidentally be transporting non-native species and introducing them to new habitats, where they may negatively affect local tree populations. Many tree species aren’t able to adapt quickly enough to fight off infestation with recently introduced insects. Many formerly common tree species in New York such as the American Chestnut and the White Birch have in recent years been decimated by invasive species.
In New York State a major concern is transport of insects in firewood into the Catskill and Adirondack State Parks. Many campers bring with them firewood from home, and in the process may be rapidly spreading these invasive bugs.
Here is the Department of Environmental Conservation’s poster asking people to take care with their firewood:
Owen Doherty is a Ph.D. student at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at Stony Brook University, having previously received his masters at Stony Brook and his bachelors of science in Atmospheric Science from Cornell University. Owen is doing his research on the transport of small particles (primarily dust) in the atmosphere over long distances.
Finding non-biased information about the environment, specifically on environmental issues affecting the New York metropolitan region can be a challenge. Many groups issuing statements on key issues do so with a political goal in mind, highlighting facts and figures that support only their point of view, and in the process the real science behind the issues can be lost and never explained to the public. At the Metro Environmental Blog, we seek to explain the issues with as little spin as possible, focusing on the science, explaining the issues in as simple a manner as possible.
Here we will discuss environmental issues on a national and global scale, focusing on issues affecting the New York metropolitan region as much as possible. Interesting research results, scientific peer-reviewed journal articles, and media stories will be analyzed and their results presented here.
This endeavor is supported by the Schubel Fellowship but the opinions expressed on this blog are not necessarily the views of the Friends of SoMAS, the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science or Stony Brook University.
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