It Can Be Done

Powering our towns/cities by alternative means, that is.

At least one small town in Missouri has accomplished that task with wind power.

ENS Link

One American Town Is Entirely Powered by Wind

COLUMBIA, Missouri, July 16, 2008 (ENS) - Four wind turbines supply all the electricity needed by the 1,395 residents of Rock Port. The town in the far northwest corner of Missouri announced Tuesday that it has become the first town in the United States to operate solely on wind power.

Rock Port depends for power on the Loess Hills Wind Farm with its four Suzlon 1.25-megawatt wind turbines developed by the Wind Capital Group of St. Louis. John Deere Wind Energy in Kansas City handled the financing.

The benefits will come to the town in several forms.

Baker said the wind turbines also attract many visitors, adding tourism revenue to the list of benefits.

And for ratepayers, the wind turbines are easy on their wallets. "Anybody who is currently using Rock Port utilities can expect no increase in rates for the next 15 to 20 years."

And where there is a surplus generated, it will be purchased by the local utility company.

The wind farm is sized to provide enough electricity over the course of a typical year to match electricity consumption in the town. The Missouri Public Utility Alliance in Columbia will purchase excess electricity from Loess Hills when the output from the wind power plant exceeds what Rock Port residents use.

Giving credence to Al Gore's 10 year goal.

EPA: Lavatory-Sized Libraries

Congress has ordered the reopening of EPA libraries, previously closed in what can only be seen as a gift to the corporate overlords. Complying with the letter of the law but not the spirit, the EPA will reopen 4 of the closed libraries but on a smaller scale. In fact, the Chicago library will be only marginally larger than a men's lavatory.

The re-opened library will be in a vacant reception area on the 16th floor of a federal building;
The re-opened library will occupy less than one-tenth the area of the closed library and will be only slightly larger than the typical men’s restroom in that same building; and
No provision is made to restore the unique Great Lakes ecological collection or to recover any of the other holdings from the former library.

The Dallas library doesn't fare much better. Hours of operation are considerably less than the aforementioned men's lavatory.

Similarly, the regional library in Dallas serving a five-state area will be reduced to “2 staff workstations and 1 patron workstation, each with a PC, desk, and chair”. It will be open six hours a day for four days a week. The fate of its former collection also remains unknown.

Not satisfied with a greatly diminished system, a political appointee has been installed to oversee the restoration.

Adding to the disruption caused by its 20-month library closure campaign, EPA has installed one political appointee, Molly O’Neill, the Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information, as library czar, in charge of all library operations, including those serving laboratories and specialized programs.

PEER:

“A library requires more space than a lavatory,” stated PEER Associate Director Carol Goldberg. “These plans appear to violate the Congressional order that the agency ‘restore the network of EPA libraries recently closed…’ What part of ‘restore’ doesn’t EPA understand?”

Indeed.